The Justice, November 3, 2015

ARTS Page 19

SPORTS Team hosts UAA meet 16

“THE BROOD”

FORUM China's two-child policy falls short 11 The Independent Student Newspaper

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of

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

Justice

Volume LXVIII, Number 8

www.thejustice.org

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Student Union

RALLYING FOR CHANGE

Amendments proposed to alter A-Board ■ Student Union President

Nyah Macklin ’16 discussed proposed changes to the A-Board constitution.

By Abby Patkin JUSTICE Editor

In a press conference held on Friday, Student Union President Nyah Macklin ’16 apologized for the “sloppy” work done by the Allocations Board this past semester and announced several proposed changes to the funding process, including a constitutional amendment, that will be enacted in the coming months.

Macklin noted that the A-Board rules were unclear for many students, which caused a number of

misunderstandings in club funding requests. “The rules that guideline A-Board are not clear. That’s a problem — I think that’s a universal understanding. Clubs are coming up with these fantastic ideas but have no idea of whether the Allocations Board will fund them, or has the funds to fund them, or whatever … the policy is that guarantees that club gets funding or not,” she told the attendees.

She noted that the Student Union will be sending the governing document for the A-Board to the student body, which has information on what can and cannot receive funding from the University and how clubs may go about making requests. Specifically, Macklin noted, every part

See A-BOARD, 7 ☛

Board of trustees

Board of Trustees to decide in January on future of the Castle ■ After discussing the Castle

at great length this week, the Trustees will announce their decision after their January meeting.

By Matthew Schattner JUSTICE Editorial assistant

The future of Usen Castle — a topic of deliberation at the University’s Board of Trustees meeting on Oct. 26 and 27 — has been heavily debated, but not yet decided. The building's age, iconicity and safety concerns have all been administrative focuses, resulting in the formation of the Castle Advisory Group to evaluate strategies for the future, but little information has been revealed so far regarding any findings or plans.

Grady Ward ’16, Senior Representative to the Board of Trustees,

confirmed in an interview with the Justice that the future of the castle was a topic of serious discussion at the Trustees’ meeting on campus last week.

Ward also expanded on the role and membership the Castle Advisory Group, confirming that “the physical facilities committee is deferring to the castle committee” on the issue.

He explained that the Castle Advisory Group is comprised of students, trustees and alumni, but no faculty.

Ward stated that the group is chaired

by Vice President for Campus Operations Jim Gray, and the majority of decisions regarding the operations of the Castle Advisory Group came from both Gray and Andrew Flagel, the senior vice president for students and enrollment.

Additionally, Ward noted that the group is comprised of members of

See CASTLE, 7 ☛

MIHIR KHANNA/the Justice

CALL TO ACTION: The protestors stood outside the Faculty Club, where the Trustees ate lunch, and continued to rally for divestment.

Coalition calls for fossil fuel divestment at outdoor rally ■ Brandeis Climate Justice

fought for divestment from fossil fuels in a series of events held during the Trustees' bi-annual meeting.

By max moran JUSTICE editor

Brandeis Climate Justice, a coalition of students and faculty which advocates for the university to divest from fossil fuel corporations, staged several protest events on Monday and Tuesday to earn the attention of the Board of Trustees during their annual fall meeting this week.

On Monday night, protestors stood outside the entrance to the Faculty Club and gave Trustees copies of a letter to the Board explaining their reasons for urging divestment, according to an email to the Justice from BCJ member Dan Klein '18. Students and faculty marched to the Shapiro Campus Center from Rabb Steps on Tuesday morning and later stood and chanted outside the Faculty Lounge when the Trustees moved there for lunch.

An adapted version of the letter ran in the Justice last week, stating “Brandeis’s energy investments

today are literally shaping the climatic future of the University’s students and stakeholders. Fossil fuels are not 'investments' if they are eroding the ecological foundations of our future.” Brandeis Climate Justice also hung a banner from the Martin A. Fischer School of Physics building on Oct. 26, which read “Trustees: Climate Justice Cannot Wait. Divest Deis,” according to the Facebook page for Brandeis Climate Justice.

Senior Student Representative to the Board of Trustees Grady Ward ’16 told the Justice in an interview, “I don’t think they [the Trustees] really understood what it [the protest] was. Or, at least, most of them didn’t. I saw a lot of posts afterwards about how the Trustees were laughing at students — that is not the case.” According to Ward, the Trustees most educated about the divestment issue are those on the investment and students and enrollment committees, and these trustees consider themselves wellinformed of students’ concerns. “I don’t know exactly what their [the trustees] opinions are, but I can say that it’s not as if they’re trying to dismiss student concerns on this,” Ward said, adding: “I do think that they feel that student concerns have

been heard.”

Ward specifically cited the report from the University’s Exploratory Committee on Fossil Fuel Divestment in April as a tool for showing campus interest in the issue. The report was the result of two years of research into the socioeconomic impacts of Brandeis divesting — both on the school and on the companies it invests in — and was written by Professors, Ph.D. students and undergraduates from the International Business School, Heller School, and departments of History, Anthropology, Environmental Studies and Sociology, among others.

In the interview, Ward said he felt campus activists had “really done a good job presenting their case much stronger than they did last year … I think last year it focused a lot on the idea of solvency, saying ‘this will stop global warming,’ which, I think, …. it doesn’t. That just doesn’t hold up. But I think the argument of ‘we shouldn’t be profiting from things that are immoral or essentially exploitative,’ that’s a much stronger argument.”

A University referendum in 2013 found that 79 percent of participating students supported Brandeis divesting its endowment from the

See RALLY, 7 ☛

"Spotlight" at Brandeis

Earning a crown

Germany's role

 Former columnist for the Boston Globe, Prof. Eileen McNamara (JOUR) speaks about the story behind the upcoming film.

The men's soccer team won its first outright University Athletic Association conference championship after defeating the University of Rochester.

 The German ambassador to the United States spoke about the role Germany plays in modern European issues.

FEATURES 9

For tips or info email editor@thejustice.org

Waltham, Mass.

Let your voice be heard!

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

INDEX

SPORTS 16

ARTS SPORTS

17 13

EDITORIAL FEATURES

10 9

OPINION POLICE LOG

10 2

News 3

COPYRIGHT 2015 FREE AT BRANDEIS.

2

TUESDAY, November 3, 2015

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THE JUSTICE

NEWS SENATE LOG

Senators discuss A-Board changes On Sunday, the Senate convened for its weekly meeting to discuss the proposed students’ rights committee and the upcoming vote on a new constitutional amendment regarding the Allocations Board.

After voting to recognize the Brandeis Billiards Club, Student Union Chief of Staff Justin Carlisle ’13 discussed the press conference held by Student Union President Nyah Macklin ’16 on Friday to address student concerns over the Allocations Board process. Additionally, he briefly noted that the Senate Judicial Committee is currently doing a constitutional review to clarify ambiguous language in the constitution.

Student Union Vice President Dennis Hermida-Gonzalez ’17 then discussed ongoing efforts to get all club members to undergo bystander training for sexual assault scenarios. He mentioned that he has been working with Sexual Assault Services and Prevention Specialist Sheila McMahon, and that his hope would be for training to be completed by the end of the fall semester. He also discussed his efforts to come up with a sensitivity training plan with Assistant Dean and Director for the Intercultural Center Monique Pillow Gnanaratnam.

The Senate then moved into committee chair reports, which included Racial Minority Senator Bethlehem Seifu Belaineh ’16 and Senator at Large Lucy Wen’s ’18 efforts to bring students’ preferred pronouns into the classrooms and administrative documents. Senator at Large Lorenzo Finamore ’18 also addressed the possibility of rewriting the guide for club accreditation and the revoking of recognition and charter for clubs that have not submitted the proper documents on hazing, of which Finamore said there will likely be 30. The Senate also discussed the annual Thanksgiving Turkey Shuttle, for which tickets are currently being sold.

Next, the Senate voted to limit discussion on motions to two speeches per senator per motion, for a total of 15 minutes of discussion per motion for the entire Senate.

Village Quad Senator Abhishek Kulkarni ’18 then spoke about his proposed bylaw, which would create a Senate committee for students’ rights. The Senate debated whether the committee was necessary, given that avenues such as the Student Conduct Board currently exist for similar purposes. The Senate voted not to approve the proposal, with one vote in favor and the rest opposed.

Executive Senator David Herbstritt ’17 then gave a presentation on the A-Board task force, which discussed issues with the funding process for clubs and the makeup of the Board itself. According to Herbstritt, the solution that the task force came up with would increase the A-Board from five members to nine, and three of those members would have three semester terms and would take office in a series of staggered elections, so as to ensure that there would always be at least one person with knowledge of the allocations process on the Board. Additionally, the A-Board chair would have a one semester term, but with no term limits, and two A-Board clerks would help ensure that funding decisions will come out faster. The amendment, he noted, would deal with Articles Five and Nine of the constitution and would require a two-thirds majority vote of all voting students to pass.

Next, Herbstritt discussed proposed changes to the A-Board bylaws, requiring that all members be present to discuss important business, as well as allowing the Board to break into smaller groups for discussion.

Wen then presented her Senate Monetary Request for internal funding for the preferred pronouns and name survey, which she said would put students’ preferred names and pronouns on their identification cards and on Latte and Sage. She said the survey will likely go out sometime before Thanksgiving break.

POLICE LOG Medical Emergency

Oct. 25—A party called University Police from Masell Quad reporting that they were not feeling well and requested BEMCo staff. BEMCo treated the party on the scene with a signed refusal for further care.

Oct. 26—Police received a report of a custodian in the Shapiro Admissions Center with a laceration. BEMCo treated the party on the scene with a signed refusal for further care.

Oct. 26—Mailman House staff requested ambulance transport for a patient. University Police assisted the transport, which occurred without incident.

Oct. 27—A party in the OlinSang American Civilization Center reported feeling ill. BEMCo staff treated the party on the scene, and Cataldo Ambulance transported the party to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for further care.

Oct. 27—An injured staffer came to Stoneman Building and requested BEMCo aid for a

cut. The staffer was treated on the scene and transported by police to Urgent Care for further aid.

Oct. 28—An off-campus party suffering from a bloody nose requested BEMCo assistance.

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

Oct. 29—A party in the Castle requested BEMCo for sinus problems and trouble breathing. The party was treated by BEMCo and was then transferred to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for further care by University Police.

Oct. 29—A party in the Usdan Student Center complained of knee troubles due to knee replacement surgery. University Police transported the party to Urgent Care for further aid.

Oct. 30—Police received a report of a party in Rosenthal Quad with a high fever. BEMCo treated the party on the scene with a signed refusal for further care.

Oct. 31—Police received a report of an intoxicated party in Ziv Quad and requested Cataldo Ambulance. Police then transported the party to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for further care.

Oct. 31—A party in Rosenthal Quad reported suffering from a fever and a cough. University Police then transported the party to Urgent Care for further treatment.

Oct. 26—Police received a report of two missing Mac computers from Kutz Hall. University Police compiled a report on the incident and advised the Library and Technology Services Security Department.

Disturbance

Oct. 27—A party in the Charles River Apartments reported that their neighbor was talking loudly and creating a disturbance. The neighboring party was advised to quiet

DAISY CHEN/the Justice

Students paint faces at the “Nightmare on South Street” Halloween celebration in the Shapiro Campus Center. The event featured performances, games, photo opportunities and a Haunted House.

n A News article misstated Jeremy Cohen’s ’17 class year as being 2016 (Oct. 20, page 17).

ANNOUNCEMENTS

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

Black Is Week: Black Is Educated

Justice

the

www.thejustice.org

The Justice is the independent student newspaper of Brandeis University. The Justice is published every Tuesday of the academic year with the exception of examination and vacation periods.

Editor News Forum Features Sports Arts Ads Photos Managing Copy Layout

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The Justice Brandeis University Mailstop 214 P.O. Box 549110 Waltham, MA 02454-9110 Phone: (781) 736-3750

—compiled by Avi Gold.

DCL shifts policy regarding off campus students’ swipe access and clarifies CA possession of master keys

CORRECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS

n An event description for the “Pirates of the Caribbean”-themed Halloween party incorrectly included a title for the Carnival on the Great Lawn.(Oct. 20, page 17).

Oct. 26—Police received a report of a vandalized plastic hallway covering and compiled a report on the incident.

Oct. 29—University Police received a report of a male party in Ridgewood Quad pressed up against a window and exposing their genitals. University Police and Department of Community Living staff responded and found the situation to be an art project that was taking place.

Police took no further action.

BRIEF

—Abby Patkin

n A News article about the Schuster Institute’s investigation into the George Perrot rape case inccorectly stated that the Perrot case was the Schuster Institute’s most recent case; that Perrot’s trial and conviction occurred in 1985; that the 1992 retrial was an appeal; that hair analysis was a form of DNA testing; that Angel Echavarria was exonerated on May 18 2015; that a “likely false confession” was a document forged by a prosecutor rather than on the night of Perrot’s arrest and that a 2009 National Academy of Sciences report dealt with practices used only by the FBI. (Oct. 27, page 1).

Other

Larceny

THRILLER NIGHT

down and was found to have been laughing at a television show.

Oct. 31—The manager of the Stein reported a possible fight about to break out stemming from a verbal disagreement between two parties at the Stein.

The parties were given verbal warnings by Police and advised to return to their respective dorm rooms.

Brandeis Black Students Organization is hosting a study session as part of its “Black Is” week. Bring your homework and textbooks and study together.

Today from 7 to 10 p.m. in the Intercultural Center Lounge.

Simon Rawidowicz Memorial Lecture

The 52nd Annual Simon Rawidowicz Memorial Lecture, titled “To Reshape the World: Interpretation, Renewal, and Feminist Approaches to Jewish Law” will be delivered by David Ellenson, Acting Director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies and Visiting Professor of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University & Chancellor Emeritus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. The event is free and open to the public. Reception to follow.

Today from 7:30 to 9 p.m. in the Rapaporte Treasure Hall.

Sind wir ein Volk? Are We One People?

Those who were born after German unification are often not aware that unification was not the only possible consequence of the fall of the Berlin wall. This panel hopes to shed light on the debate that ensued after the wall had fallen (and in some cases started even before).

Questions guiding the discussion will be: What were the alternatives to unification?

What were obstacles to unification? Who was for/against unification? Why? Tuesday from 12 to 2 p.m. in the Faculty Club Lounge.

Town Hall Meeting

Interim President Lynch will take a few minutes to make some observations about the progress of the school year and update students on several upcoming initiatives.

Wednesday from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. in the Shapiro Admissions Center Presentation Room.

The Department of Community Living announced a shift in its policy regarding off-campus students’ access to dormitories and clarified its policy of giving Community Advisors master keys in an email sent to the student body on Friday afternoon.

Dr. Tim Touchette, the director of DCL, explained that off-campus students will now be granted card swipe access to dorms between 7 a.m. and 1 a.m., the University’s operating hours.

Commuter students had previously been denied access to dorms because “residents who pay to live on campus have started to raise concerns that students who do not live in the halls spend a lot of time in the buildings … [and] these spaces are supposed to be reserved exclusively for residential students as referenced by the [Rights and Responsibilities] policy,” Touchette wrote in an email to the Justice.

The email explained that the reprogramming of ID cards had already begun as of Friday afternoon and should have been fully completed by the end of the day.

Touchette also included an explanation of the policy that grants master keys to CAs, noting that even with backlash to the policy, “there has been no allegation of any misuse and that a variety of systems are in place to track the use of master keys.”

Touchette mentioned that there has been “widespread support” for the policy since it “offers faster response to students locked out of their rooms, and frees our campus police to focus on issues of campus security.”

However, Touchette noted, DCL is currently working with CA leadership to revise the policy so as not to have a system in place that causes unnecessary stress for the student body regarding which individuals have access to their rooms.

—Avi Gold

Commemorating Rabin’s Life and Legacy

Brandeis University’s Israel Studies faculty will share their reflections on the life and legacy of Yitzhak Rabin, followed by a conversation with the audience. The panel will be chaired by Rabbi David Ellenson, director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies and will feature Profs. Gannit Ankori (FA), Uri Bialer (NEJS) and Yehudah Mirsky (NEJS).

Wednesday from 5 to 6:30 p.m. in the Mandel Center for the Humanities Atrium.

Conflicts in South East Asia

The South East Asia Club and the Brandeis chapter of United Against Inequities in Disease will be having a film screening, CAN, a documentary about mental illness in the Asian community. After the screening of the documentary, there will be a discussion about the film.

Thursday from 7 to 10 p.m. in the Intercultural Center Lounge.

THE JUSTICE

Administration

time to discuss the results of the student financial aid survey conducted last month.

By Max Moran JUSTICE editor

The Board of Trustees considered honorary degree recipients as well as renovations to the Castle and new fundraising initiatives at their annual Fall meeting last Monday and Tuesday, according to Senior Representative to the Board of Trustees Grady Ward ’16.

The Board was not able to discuss a 30-page report on how students perceive their experiences with financial aid and tuition costs, which was compiled by Ward and Junior Representative to the Board of Trustees Emily Conrad ’17, due to time constraints. In an interview with the Justice, Ward said that his report was third from the bottom on the list of topics for the board to address at the meeting. Of the honorary degree candidates, he said, “there were some names on the list that some people objected to, and it really came down to the fact that we don’t have a clear doctrine or a clear set of policies that we follow when we’re awarding honorary degrees.

And so someone was saying ‘Is X a trait that we value? Is X a trait that we value retrospectively?’”

The Board made no major decisions about honorary degree nominations at this meeting, according to Ward, because of disagreement within the Board about both the nominees being considered and the purpose of the Trustees’s votes. According to Ward, “some Trustees kind of viewed it as a rubber stamp, like ‘I think that this person deserves to get an honorary degree.’ And other trustees kind of viewed it as ‘we could let the president decide to give this person an honorary degree in some circumstance.’ Those are two totally different worlds.”

According to the University’s website, the degree nomination process involves several steps wherein different groups consider nominated candidates. Any community member can submit a nominee to the Honorary Degrees Committee. The committee, in turn, sends a group of recommended nominations to the Board of Trustees, who send their picks to the president for a final decision. According to Ward, the board will consider what role they want their votes to have in the period before the January Board of Trustees meeting. “If the mandate of the vote were to be ‘I think this person deserves an honorary degree,’ versus the mandate of the vote being ‘I would tolerate someone like this getting an honorary degree,’ those are very different voices,” Ward said.

“There was enough disagreement in the room that they were like, ‘Okay, we need to talk about this further.’”

In 2014, the University rescinded an honorary degree nomination to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an advocate for women’s rights in the Middle East, due to past statements of hers that were perceived by students, faculty and alumni as Islamophobic. Rescinding the degree led to a wide public relations scandal.

In an interview with the Justice, Ward said that not being able to present his report was “definitely frustrating. There was a lot of stuff on the agenda for this meeting, and as I’ve kind of seen a couple of cycles of this now, it seems like the fall meeting is almost always way overloaded with stuff because everyone’s been working on their own stuff over the summer.”

Ward gathered data for and wrote the report alongside Conrad. The report was mainly based on the results of a survey distributed to students on Sept. 22, which asked about their personal financial aid statuses, whether and how those statuses have changed over time, how financial aid and tuition have impacted students’ choices at Brandeis and future planning and the psychological impact of the Uni-

versity’s tuition policies. Student Union members and Financial Aid Office administrators offered feedback and revisions to early drafts of the survey.

A public version of the report was distributed to students on Oct. 29, in an email from Student Union Secretary Shuying Liu ’16. In total, 772 students responded to the survey, with 769 responses being deemed valid, constituting about 21 percent of the student body. The report’s authors noted that respondents were most likely the students who suffer the greatest financial strain but said that while readers should bear this in mind, the survey pool still constitutes a considerable number of students. The report, which included both statistical data and individual student reflections, identified student frustration at the trend of “frontloading” financial aid, wherein the University gradually decreases the amount of scholarship and aid students receive over the course of their years at Brandeis. According to the report, administrators claim that this is not an intentional practice, but it is a common student perception. 55.7 percent of respondents said that their financial aid package had changed throughout their time at Brandeis, while only 8.5 percent said it had remained the same. One student wrote, “When I started here, I was receiving a reasonable amount of aid given my financial situation. At this point, I am receiving no scholarships from Brandeis, only loans. Because of this, I have to graduate early as I can’t afford a full senior year. … If I had known that my financial aid package would change, I would have chosen a different university.”

The report also identifies frustration toward student work-study programs factoring heavily into financial aid decisions, meaning that financial aid packages often decrease by an amount proportional to a student’s earnings from their work-study. One student wrote that their financial aid package had decreased after they earned “an outside scholarship,” became a Community Advisor and found a well-paying job outside of the University. Among the survey’s respondents, 62.8 percent work throughout the school year, with a majority of 38.9 percent working between six and 10 hours a week. Among respondents to the survey, 70.8 percent anticipate graduating with student debt and 33.8 percent say that their financial burden impacted their choices of what to study at Brandeis. Many students expressed frustration at being unable to pursue unpaid internships in their areas of study, due to needing money for tuition. “I feel I am giving up on my dreams that I cultivated here at college because of the cost of college,” one student wrote, with another saying, “Many social justice jobs are a luxury for the affluent.”

The only difference between the public report and the version given to the Board of Trustees is that interviews with individual students about their financial situations were redacted, in order to protect the privacy of the interviewees from readers who may be able to infer their identities from the transcripts, according to the public report.

The report specifically advises that the Board increase the campus minimum wage for students to $11 per hour from the current $9 per hour; to allow students to fulfill work study at unpaid internships; to educate students on financial literacy; to give out 400 World of Work scholarships annually, which provide students with $2,500 over the summer to pursue unpaid internships, advocacy and research; to pledge not to “front-load” financial aid and to only increase tuition when financial aid can also be increased. According to Ward, while the Board at large did not consider the report at this meeting, the Students and Enrollment committee discussed it for half an hour at their meeting. “It was pretty clear they’d read it, which is great for a thirty page document,” he said.

TUESDAY, November 3, 2015

3

URGING COOPERATION

Honorary degrees addressed in fall Trustee meeting ■ The Trustees did not have

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JOYCE YU/the Justice

FIRST RESPONDERS: Dr. Peter Wittig addressed Germany’s sense of responsibility in aiding the incoming Syrian refugees.

German ambassador discusses his nation’s role in modern Europe

■ Dr. Peter Wittig talked

about how Germany has responded to the many issues facing Europe today.

By Rachel Moore JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

In an era when the “solidarity” of Europe has been challenged, a unified continent is all the more important, according to German Ambassador to the United States Dr. Peter Wittig in a lecture delivered in Mandel Atrium on Thursday.

The lecture, titled “Germany’s Role in Europe Today,” was intended to coincide with the 25th anniversary of German unification and addressed Germany’s response to the Syrian refugee crisis, as well as Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine.

Prof. Sabine von Mering (GRALL) began by welcoming Wittig to the University. Wittig then opened his lecture by acknowledging German Reunification 25 years ago. He said that U.S. leadership was “clairvoyant when they anticipated that … this peaceful revolution unfolding in East Germany and the rest of Eastern Europe was unstoppable,” he said. “With strategic vision they embraced it and steered it in the right direction. … [It] was a moment for pure diplomatic craftsmanship. … Unified Germany got its second chance.”

Wittig then addressed Germany’s role in Europe, regarding its recent influx of refugees, who he said are mostly from Syria. “It’s hard to exaggerate the magnitude of this crisis … Germany is expecting one million [this year],” he said. “Put that in [respect] to the U.S. — that would be about four million people.” Germany, according to Witting, is “now reeling” due to a lack of an orderly, safe and legal process for addressing the rush of refugees.

Wittig also admitted that “the

segment of society that is either xenophobic or hostile to immigrants needs to be taken seriously. … We have zero tolerance for those that either denounce or attack immigrants, refugees physically or verbally.” He went on to say that in order “to slow down the stream” of migrants, there needs to be a “European Solution,” which would involve preparing the border countries of Europe, including Italy, Turkey and Greece, to receive and process more people, speed up the asylum process and stop illegal trafficking. Ultimate goals for the region, according to Wittig, include “fairer distribution of refugees in Europe … help [for] refugees who would rather stay in the Middle East [though not in their native country] … [and] getting to the root causes of refugee streams.”

These root causes, he continued, are mostly concentrated on the ongoing civil war in Syria, which has caused the mass migration. Wittig added that a “political solution” involving NATO countries and, ideally, “ceasefire” are needed in the region. “Syria needs representative government,” he noted, adding that the United States, Russia, Turkey and Saudi Arabia all need to be involved in finding that solution.

“There is no sustainable place for [Syrian President Bashar al-Assad] in the future. … Our hope is that with the leaders sitting together, there can at least be a political solution,” Wittig said.

Later, in a question-and-answer session, an audience member asked about how Germany would maintain security for the next 20 years with the influx of so many refugees. Wittig responded that “if [the refugees] stay, they need to be part of our culture. … It’s a huge challenge. Germany has become a country of immigrants without really realizing it. … The challenge is to have a modern European Islam that

is different from the more fundamental Islam.”

Wittig then discussed the implications of Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine in 2014 and Germany’s response. He claimed that Germany had three responses to Russia’s actions: sanctions, military preparedness and continued communication and dialogue. According to a BBC News article, the sanctions involve Russia’s state banks, dualuse military equipment and some oil industry technology. In terms of military preparedness, Wittig said that “we should make clear that we are standing by.” He added that article five of NATO’s North Atlantic Treaty, which promises that an armed attack against a NATO ally — which includes the U.S., Germany and the Ukraine, among others — will be regarded as an attack against all of the allied countries, and as a group the allies will decide what action to take against the offending country. He also stated that keeping dialogue channels open with Russia is equally as important. “We don’t agree much with Russia these days,” he noted. “[But] Russia’s our neighbor. … We have to live with our neighbor. We don’t want to bring Russia down on its knees.”

In his closing statements, Wittig praised American political leadership, pointing to the United States’s recent nuclear deal with Iran as “the only peaceful way to keep Iran from a nuclear bomb,” adding that Germany “applauds” the United States. Speaking on the working relationship between the U.S. and Germany, Wittig concluded by stating that “we [Germany] need cooperation with America more than ever. … With America, we can stand a test of the times with a strong transatlantic alliance.”

The lecture was sponsored by the Center for German and European Studies.

4

TUESDAY, November 3, 2015

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THE JUSTICE

Campus Speaker

Sarkeesian criticizes gaming tropes ■ The media critic discussed

the anti-feminist themes that can be found in the presentation of most games.

By Max Moran JUSTICE Editor

On Monday, the University welcomed media critic Anita Sarkeesian for a lecture on sexist and anti-feminist tropes in video games. The lecture had initially been planned for February, but it had to be rescheduled due to major snowfall that caused travel problems.

Sarkeesian is the host and co-writer of “Feminist Frequency,” an online video series deconstructing sexist tropes in media, particularly video games. Since her work discussing games began, she has been the subject of online harassment, including rape and death threats, hacking and identity theft. Sarkeesian was one of the major targets of the “Gamergate” movement, which is a reaction against media trends toward diversifying gaming culture and criticizing the “gamer” identity. Previous Sarkeesian talks in other venues have received bombing and mass shooting threats, which may have been why audience members passed through a metal detector before entering the Wasserman Cinematheque to hear the lecture.

Chairman of the Computer Science department Prof. Jordan Pollack (COSI) introduced Sarkeesian, stating his pleasure at the lecture’s cosponsors, and pointing out that “it’s not often that computer science works together with the various women’s studies groups on campus.” Pollack said he was inspired to invite Sarkeesian to speak at the University after a colleague suggested that more women

and people of color might be inspired to pursue computer science if the University’s department taught game programming and design, and Sarkeesian’s story stood out to Pollack.

“I believe a modern university must study and teach video games as a multidisciplinary media,” Pollack said.

Sarkeesian then took the stage, beginning with what she said was a simple assertion: “video games matter.”

She said that while it is not “a simple one-to-one correlation,” the media that people consume influences them, which is why criticism, especially feminist criticism, is important. Sarkeesian said she started Feminist Frequency because she was frustrated at the inaccessibility of feminist thought she discovered in college and wanted to use pop culture as a way to engage a wider audience with feminism. Her first series of Feminist Frequency videos dissected tropes in pop culture at large, and after they found moderate success, she decided to release a second series. Noticing that almost all of the tropes she was interested in were prevalent in video games, Sarkeesian decided that this series of videos would specifically discuss tropes in gaming.

Next, Sarkeesian briefly discussed the online harassment she’s received for her work, though she stressed that she didn’t want to talk about harassment for the majority of the lecture.

She characterized her harassers as a “cyber mob,” — a group which collectively shames and discredits its target with the underlying goal of reinforcing their own dominance within a given culture, in this case, gaming.

Sarkeesian asserted that Gamergate is an extension of this same mob mentality and that it works to maintain the status quo of games being made primarily for men. She then compared the exclusion of women in gaming to

the common stigma within gaming that certain games are not played by “true gamers.”

“The idea that you can love something and be critical of it at the same time is so important to what I do,” Sarkeesian told the audience as she transitioned into the heart of the lecture with a slide reading “8 Ways To Improve Games For Women.” She listed eight tropes in gaming plots and presentation that portray women negatively and offered solutions and examples of games which have avoided the tropes.

The first trope was the “Smurfette Principle,” wherein a story has only one female character for a full ensemble of men. Sarkeesian specifically pointed out 2013’s “The Wonderful 101,” which features seven playable male characters who are color-coded, but only one female character, whose color is pink. Sarkeesian noted that the female character’s abilities reinforce that “‘girl’ is her personality,” pointing out that she fights with a dominatrix-esque whip and is introduced in a trailer for the game through a shots that needlessly include her underwear.

Sarkeesian introduced the second trope — “Lingerie Is Not Armor,” — by showing a trailer for the 2000 game “Perfect Dark,” which depicted its female spy protagonist taking a shower, putting on makeup, and deciding on an outfit. Sarkeesian argued that game designers often think only about titillating a straight male audience when designing outfits for female characters, and jokingly suggested a solution to the problem by changing the slide to several pictures of sports bras.

“They’re designed to prevent jiggle physics,” she added.

Her third trope was called “One Size Does Not Fit All,” which she introduced by pointing out that almost all female characters in the game “League

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of Legends” are young, large-breasted, slender women. Sarkeesian stated that since sexualized women are almost the only women depicted in the medium, it reinforces that these characters’ worth is to excite the audience. She elaborated that those who point out sexualized men in games to counter her arguments are creating a false equivalency. Showing an image of the main characters from the upcoming game “Overwatch,” Sarkeesian pointed out that the male characters have a range of body types, while all but one of the female characters are sexualized.

The fourth trope, humorously titled “Strategic Butt Coverings,” began with a series of clips of female player characters walking in games, all of which featured camera angles that prominently display the characters’ behinds. To contrast this, Sarkeesian showed clips of male player characters — when the player could focus the camera on a male characters’ behind, heavy clothing or capes obscured the characters’ cheeks, which contrasted sharply with the female characters.

According to Sarkeesian, this emphasis on characters’ rear ends tells players that the woman’s sexual body parts are what they should focus on, rather than the character themselves, as for the men. She pointed to 2015’s “Life is Strange” as a game which avoided this problem, simply by having its female protagonist wear jeans and a knapsack.

Fifth, Sarkeesian noted that women in games are overwhelmingly white, and that when women of color are depicted, it is usually through a lens of sexualized racism that caricatures these characters as “savage” or “untamable.” She pointed to “Never Alone,” a game made by an Alaskan indigenous community about their own culture, as a notable exception to

this trope.

Sarkeesian then pointed out the sexualization of female characters’ walking animations, comparing a clip of Catwoman in “Batman: Arkham City” to a model on a runway. Her seventh trope was titled “Fighting and Fucking are Different,” which she introduced by playing audio of a female character moaning sexually. When she revealed that this audio was of a “League of Legends” character in combat, the audience laughed. Sarkeesian extended the trope to point out that female fighting dialogue is often sexual as well and that this trope both conflates violence with sex and communicates that female sexuality is dangerous, rather than positive or fun. She indicated “Assassin’s Creed: Unity” as a recent game that avoided this trope.

Finally, Sarkeesian asked the audience: “Where Are All the Female Combatants?” She pointed out that games rarely feature women as standard enemies and said that game designers she’s interviewed often say that this is done to avoid depicting violence against women. Sarkeesian said that there are ways to show female enemies without it being problematic, saying that violence against women is an issue when the violence is committed specifically because the target is a woman.

A brief question-and-answer segment followed the lecture, which was this year’s Martin Weiner lecture in Computer Science, and was co-sponsored by the Computer Science department, the Office of the Provost, the Office of the Dean of Arts and Sciences, the Chief Information Officer, the English department, the Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies program, the Sociology and Social Justice Police Program and the Women’s Studies Research Center.

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Harvard Medical School spoke about the disease process of Alzheimer’s.

By NIKKI NIKOVA JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

TOMMY GAO/the Justice

DECONSTRUCTING UTOPIA: Michael Waltzer ’56 addressed a crowd of about 100 in the Rapaporte Treasure Hall on Monday.

Walzer explores Buber’s ‘‘Paths in Utopia’’ in talk Martin Buber with state leaders Leon Bloom and David Ben Gurion.

By Avi Gold JUSTICE EDITOR

Michael Walzer ’56 discussed the nature of community and provided a criticism of Martin Buber’s book “Paths in Utopia” in a lecture delivered on Monday afternoon in the Rapaporte Treasure Hall. Buber’s “Paths in Utopia” examines the Kibbutz movement and analyzes authoritarian socialism.

Interim President Lisa Lynch began the event, which was titled “States and Communities: Martin Buber’s Paths in Utopia Revisited,” by introducing Walzer, recounting how she read his 1977 book “Just and Unjust Wars” as a student while she studied both economics and politics. “His works have influenced generations of students and faculty and policymakers alike,” Lynch said. She also highlighted the Michael Walzer ’56 Award for Teaching, an award given to a tenure-track faculty who combine “superlative scholarship with inspired teaching” and is “one of the highlights of the faculty meeting at the end of the year,” according to Lynch.

Following introductions from Jules Bernstein ’57, Walzer’s longtime friend and founder of the Louis D. Brandeis Legacy Fund for Social Justice, and Prof. Bernard Yack (POL), Walzer began his critique of Paths in Utopia.

In his critique, Walzer explained that Buber’s 1947 book is “a sharp attack on state socialism presented

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Lecture addresses Alzheimer’s at SEAD ‘Alz Talk’

■ Dr. Jonathan Jackson of

by Marx and Lenin and a strong defense of communitarian socialism.

More simply, … it is an attack on the state and a defense of the community.” He pointed out that the book ends with the famous line, “the choice for humanity lies between the two poles of socialism, one of which is represented by Moscow and the other, Jerusalem.” Walzer also posited that the two options proposed by Buber are no longer embodied by Moscow and Jerusalem and have now grown into more complex ideas that “are not particularly embodied by particular geographic locations.”

The majority of Walzer’s lecture contrasted Buber with Leon Bloom, three-time Prime Minister of France, and David Ben Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel.

Under Bloom, the French Republic proved to be a strong state that existed “for much too short a time in the 1930s,” Walzer said. Walzer remarked that Bloom’s state was under pressure from socialism at the time, a different type of pressure than was outlined in Buber’s “Paths in Utopia,” since the general population wanted the power of the state to be used for specific reasons, not generally limited. “At the same time, vigorous political action by citizens creates a kind of community, not perhaps Buberian in character, but close enough,” Walzer said.

Walzer explained that Buber’s doctrine of community was not utopian and called for a minimalist state since the state had “surplus power” for legitimate tasks, including lawmaking and defense. Instead, Walzer explained, Buber made the Kibbutz, a collective living arrangement during British Mandatory Palestine, his primary example of

TUESDAY, November 3, 2015

CAMPUS SPEAKER

EXAMINING COMMUNITY

■ The lecture contrasted

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communities within communities.

Walzer argued that states could not be considered communities, since they extend beyond the borders of communities, and citizenship extends across communal boundaries.

Walzer recounted a story from his hometown in Johnstown, Penn., where the Bethlehem Steel Company had refused to hire Black and Jewish workers in the 1930s and a strike by steel workers took place.

Walzer noted that the story forced a government intervention that ended with worker unionization, though he noted that the ordeal has little relevance today, since the steel mill has since closed.

“That moment of political creation, … those years where men and women came alive as articulate agents of their own destiny, … that is, it seems to me, the kind of supreme human value. And it doesn’t matter that it is momentary as long as we realize that it can be recurring,” Walzer noted. He said the key to success in Johnstown came from the fact that the people had a state, and noted, “Everybody needs a state. A state that can protect them and the others with them.”

“I’d like to think right now, in the world that we live in, [Buber] would agree before anything else everyone needs … a state of their own; Tibetans, and Kurds, and Palestians, and yes, the Jews too,” Walzer said.

Walzer concluded the talk with a question-and-answer session with audience members. The talk was hosted by the Mandel Center for the Humanities and presented by the Louis D. Brandeis Legacy Fund for Social Justice.

—Morgan Brill contributed reporting.

Brandeis’s Students to End Alzheimer’s Disease (SEAD) discussed the basics of Alzheimer’s disease in a lecture on Thursday. The event, titled the “Alz Talk,” featured Dr. Jonathan Jackson — Research Fellow in Neurology at Harvard Medical School — who spoke about the disease and presented recent developments in the field.

Jackson began his talk by explaining how normal, healthy, human memory works. He dispelled the notion that memory is like a “video camera,” which captures information and then replays it as requested. Instead, he suggested that a better metaphor for memory is a Lego block. According to Jackson, “if you think of memory as a reconstructive Lego-like process, then as you rebuild memories [each time] they are likely to change slightly.” Additionally, he used this metaphor to point out that “memories are inherently fallible because they are malleable.”

He then explained that this reconstructive memory process primarily occurs in a central part of the brain called the medial temporal lobe. As adults get older, their brain volume gradually declines, but this decline is not uniform throughout brain regions, he noted. In fact, Jackson said, “the region of the brain that is most sensitive to age-related decline is the [medial temporal lobe] … and this is why as individuals get older … they have memory problems.” However, he emphasized that this decline is an entirely normal part of the aging process and posed the question: “If this is normal, how [do] we differentiate it from Alzheimer’s disease?”

Jackson defined the disease process of Alzheimer’s as having two major parts: a peptide called Amyloid and a protein called Tau. Jackson began by describing Amyloid, arguing that is like plastic wrap. He said that in the brain, the Amyloid peptide is supposed to be “cleaved” in a certain way; however, in Alzheimer’s patients, the cleaving process goes wrong, leaving people with “this sticky gunk that sticks only to itself, and it’s useless to you” — much like poorly torn off plastic wrap. Then, Jackson explained, these “messed-up pieces of Amyloid” congregate and form Amyloid plaques which “short-circuit” brain cells.

He added that up until just a few years ago, researchers believed that Amyloid was solely responsible for Alzheimer’s. However, he noted, it is now known that Tau is also necessary for the disease to develop. Jack-

son defined Tau as “a protein in the brain that is really involved in maintaining the cell structures, and when Alzheimer’s strikes, this Tau protein essentially becomes poison … and essentially weakens the brain cell from the inside.” Jackson summed up the disease by saying, “You’ve got this one-two punch for each brain cell, so Tau is weakening the brain cell from the inside while Amyloid is attacking from the outside.”

Just like normal aging, Alzheimer’s disease does not affect the brain uniformly, but it first attacks the brain cells in the medial temporal lobe and, as Jackson asserted, “this is why Alzheimer’s disease affects memory — because it attacks [that] part of the brain.” However, due to brain scans that can detect Amyloid buildup in the brain, normal aging and Alzheimer’s are easily distinguishable, he said.

In fact, Jackson revealed that brain scans conducted twenty-five years before the diagnosis of Alzheimers are “able to see this disease process in action.” Jackson told the audience that he believes these scans are allowing researchers to focus on the “actual disease process” instead of just the symptom of memory loss.

Finally, Jackson addressed several recent developments in Alzheimer’s treatments. The first study he discussed involves scanning ultrasound technology, a technique which came “out of left-field” for the Alzheimer’s community as it is a non-pharmacological approach. Jackson described this approach as using common ultrasounds to “open” the blood-brain barrier. This would allow for lysosomes, specialized parts of cells, to enter the brain. These lysosomes then break down the Amyloid build-up and clear it out, leading to significant memory restoration and improvement. Despite the seemingly optimistic findings, Jackson cautioned that using ultrasounds to treat Alzheimer’s has only “been tested on ten rats” and that there still needs to be “lots more research” on this technique before it can be used on humans.

Jackson also spoke of how following MIND — Mediterranean-Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay — diets could lower the risk of Alzheimer’s disease. He stated that not only did following such a diet greatly reduce the chance of an individual developing Alzheimer’s, but just “moderately adhering” to the diet reduced the risk of Alzheimer’s as well. Jackson described these findings as “the feelgood story of 2015.”

A brief question-and-answer session followed Jackson’s talk. Several audience members asked Jackson to elaborate on the different scientific findings he mentioned in his lecture.

Jackson ended the event by expressing his hope that “no one in [this] generation will have to worry about getting Alzheimer’s.”

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RECITATION: The group of gathered community members formed a circle and read a letter arguing for divestment to the Trustees.

RALLY: University divestment much-needed, says group fossil fuel industry, according to an April 28 op-ed published in the Justice by Brandeis Climate Justice members Michael Abrams ’17, Iona Feldman ’17 and Philip Wight, Ph.D. candidate.

Klein wrote to the Justice in his email that he felt "the vast majority of [Trustees] ... have already come to the decision that divestment will not benefit the university." Though he added that some Trustees may be willing to engage with students on the issue, he condemned the bureaucracy seperating students from Trustees.

At noon on Tuesday’s rally, the roughly 20 protesters formed a circle in the SCC Atrium, where they recited their letter to the Trustees.

As they read, Trustees came down the stairs in the SCC to go to the Faculty Lounge, walking around the circle and taking little notice of the activists.

Prof. Sabine von Mering (GECS, GER) spoke at the rally about the importance of action against fossil fuel companies to fight global warming. She began her speech by

praising Interim President Lisa Lynch for “her serious commitment to address campus sustainability during her tenure,” at which point Lynch — who was passing through the building to go to the Alumni Lounge — briefly entered the circle and waved to the activists. When asked if she would support a University-wide divestment initiative in an August interview with the Justice, Lynch stated “I hope that over the course of the fall semester we will organize some sort of forums discussing divestment … We need to really look at the pros and cons of divestment, to help inform our Board of Trustees if they want to consider action on that front.”

Under Lynch, the University has hired full-time Sustainability Manager Mary Fischer.

Mering continued her speech at the rally to note that “fossil fuel divestment is not primarily an economic tool. It is primarily a political tool.”

Mering told the Justice in an interview after the rally that she views the divestment movement as a way to spread awareness of the seriousness of climate change, specifi-

cally noting that recent projections estimate that even if U.N. member nations follow through on all their current commitments against climate change, the earth will still gain 4 degrees celsius worldwide.

“I think there are still way too many people who don’t know how bad the situation is,” Mering said.

“And this is here to wake them up.

If Brandeis chose to divest, it would be a humongously positive statement and would make us the leader that we claim to be.”

Ward said the he hoped discussion on divestment would be “public, well-informed and transparent, and [I hope it] happens in a way that students feel that even if they don’t get the outcome they deserve, they get an answer as to why. … Kicking the can down the road on this issue really only increases the vitriol and frustration of people who don’t necessarily need to be that frustrated with each other.”

More than 220 Universities and colleges worldwide have committed to divesting from fossil fuels through the 350.org movement since it started in 2012, according to a May 19 Guardian article.

CASTLE: Advisory group explores possibility of renovating Castle CONTINUED FROM 1 the Student Union Senate Campus Operations Working Group committee and the administrators who are most involved with facilities. He added that former Usen Castle Community Advisors, including himself, were selected for membership in the group on the basis that they “knew the building better than anyone else.”

Director of Community Living Timothy Touchette wrote in an email to the Justice that he is also a member of the Castle Advisory Group, but he confirmed that DCL does not run or coordinate the group.

Gray first publicly announced the Castle Advisory Group in an Aug. 31 email to the Brandeis community, in which he reported that the process for evaluating options for the future of the building began over the summer. According to the email, the group was formed to assess the future of the Castle and ultimately report to the Board of Trustees for a final decision, for which the Board will have to solidify a plan by their next meeting

in January, according to Ward.

“The Board of Trustees has asked us to explore the feasibility of retaining and renovating some of the Castle’s most iconic and visible parts.

We have put together a team of experts (structural engineer, architect and project manager) to work with us on this analysis, and have created a Castle Advisory Group, composed of staff, faculty, students and board members. We will keep the Brandeis community informed as this process unfolds,” the email stated regarding the group’s purpose.

Heightened safety concerns have necessitated this increased administrative discussion about the building’s future, especially as its 1928 construction date marks it as the oldest building on campus. The safety concerns surrounding the Castle were acknowledged in an email from Jim Gray to the Brandeis community on Dec. 3, 2014. “Please be aware that the study of the exterior, and the changes in weather, can pose a serious danger of falling debris, especially with a facility like the Castle. For your pro-

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A-BOARD: New amendment will increase size of board

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tection, the perimeter of the building will be roped off with hazard tape,” the email read. “Likewise, the roof of the Castle also remains off limits — please do not place yourself at risk while the work is being done.”

The Dec. 3 email also reported the beginnings of a process of renovation and renewal, stating, “We will be conducting an engineering survey of the building’s interior and exterior structures this month.”

In spite of these safety concerns, the Department of Public Safety has not been directly involved with the Castle Advisory Group and discussion efforts concerning the future of the building. Public Safety Director Ed Callahan stated in an email to the Justice that he is “not familiar” with the group and its work.

In a recent email to the Justice, Gray asserted the continued conversation over Usen Castle’s future, stating, “The Board is actively considering the options regarding the Castle, and the advisory group's work will start in earnest after the Board articulates the direction it wants to take.”

of the request must be itemized and fully explained.

Macklin also discussed problems with the Student Union Management System, the online budgeting program. According to Macklin, many club treasurers do not know how to properly use SUMS, which can cause issues down the line with submitting proper requests and receiving funds. However, she noted, this problem is “not something that I can say is totally the club’s fault.

We’ve conducted treasury trainings and A-Board information sessions, which have a number of PowerPoints with this information on it, but they are to no avail. … So what we need to do is rethink the training.”

According to Macklin, the Student Union has considered more interactive SUMS training sessions, possibly including utilizing a computer lab to practice with the system. However, she stated that these changes, if decided upon, would not be made until next semester.

Macklin described the A-Board’s current mode of scheduling at the press conference as a “pre-calibrated ad-hoc fashion” which she called “problematic.” She went on to say that there are no set dates for regular marathon sessions when club treasurers can come to A-Board with an itemized budget and explain why those things should be funded.

Additionally, she noted, there is not clear information available to the public on A-Board deadlines, which can mean that clubs are not aware of when they will receive the funding that they have been granted.“There’s too much flexibility with the schedule right now,” Macklin said. “So what we’re going to be doing is working with the budget analysts to see, number one: Why has it been done this way in the past?

And number two: Is there a way we can make improvements on that?”

Macklin promised that there will be enforced oversight of A-Board meetings in the coming semester.

Executive Senator David Herbstritt ’17 wrote in an email to the Justice that both current policy and proposed policy require a Student Activities representative to be present at meetings. “The failure to follow that regulation was largely a failure of communication and will be resolved before any further Marathons,” he added. Macklin elaborated after her speech that these issues stemmed largely from the fact that much of the conversations between A-Board members was done over Facebook, meaning that administrators could not be kept in the loop.

She apologized to clubs that have felt “personally attacked” by the comments made on their funding requests and for the fact that the ABoard has looked “unprofessional” throughout the process.

In an interview with the Justice, A-Board chair Alex Mitchell ’17 noted that while transparency in the A-Board’s decisions is definitely a priority for the coming months, the biggest concern is that “it doesn't matter how transparent or how perfect the A-Board is, there is not enough money [available for clubs].

And that is the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about, and you can blame the A-Board, you can blame the Union, you can blame whoever you want, but … it's not anyone's fault. There just is no money, and I think that we're assuming that by having all of these new amendments and transparency and et cetera that we will fix that problem, but it won’t.”

According to an Oct. 27 Justice article, the A-Board received $314,185.50 in requests, but was only

able to fulfill $190,974.31, or roughly 60.78 percent of those requests.

Herbstritt wrote in his email that the A-Board’s inability to fulfill all funding requests resulted in some difficult decisions on the A-Board’s behalf. “Things were far from perfect, but the job of being on Allocations Board is thankless and, in my opinion, more difficult than any other in the Union. We apologize for how decisions came about and how people perceive them, but I cannot in good conscience blame Allocations Board for all of the difficulties we have had this year,” he added.

Macklin also addressed three recent resignations from A-board in her speech. Specifically, Macklin described the resigners as dedicated individuals who needed time to focus on schoolwork and “self-care.”

Mitchell noted that he has felt some pressure to “push” certain individuals out of A-Board. “I think that part of, with the new constitution[al amendment], I think that there's kind of a desire to have a clean slate,” he said. “But I don't think they are being forced out or hounded out or anything like that.”

The constitutional amendment to which Mitchell referred, which was sent out to the student body via email on Monday, proposes to increase the size of the A-Board to 11 voting members, nine of whom would be voted on by the student body. According to Macklin, this addition of more members will allow the A-Board to represent more “facets of the student body,” so that the Student Union can ensure that students feel they have access to the ABoard. Herbstritt wrote that voting on this amendment will be like any other constitutional amendment and will last from midnight to midnight on Friday, Nov. 6. He added that the special elections to fill the three empty A-Board seats might also happen as early as Friday.

Additionally, Macklin claimed in the press conference that she had not witnessed any evidence of bias in the A-Board decisions, despite Mitchell’s previous statement in the Oct. 27 Justice article that on "certain rare exceptions" if club leaders had friends on the A-Board, they were more likely to receive event funding. She went on to add that “if people think that that [bias] is happening, that’s a problem.”

Herbstritt added in his email “while these allegations [of bias] are troubling, we are hoping to build a better, more robust system that will mitigate the amount of sway any one individual can have.”

Mitchell told the Justice that he believes the proposed amendment’s new system would not improve democratization of the A-Board and, in fact, might hinder it. This is especially due to the fact that it reinstates the presidential veto, which allows the president to veto any specific allocation decision made by the A-Board. “It's very vague the way it's worded, but the way it can be interpreted is the president has the right to veto any decision, positive or negative,” he noted, adding that the president would only need 40 percent of the A-Board to agree with the veto for it to succeed. “I don’t think that the president and four members of the A-Board out of the 11 would be an effective system for writing a budget,” he added. “I think that the A-Board should sort of have the majority opinion there.”

According to Macklin, the content of the speech she made at press conference and relative supplementary documents will be sent out to student body via email in the coming week.

—Max Moran and Hannah Wulkan contributed reporting.

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features

TUESDAY, November 3 , 2015 ● THE JUSTICE

just

VERBATIM | CHARLES DICKENS Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.

ON THIS DAY…

FUN FACT

In 1796, John Adams is elected president of the United States of America.

The first Thanksgiving celebration in the U.S. lasted three days.

Storytelling as social art Inspired by the JBS storytelling program, Adriana Gleaton ’17 organizes campus storytelling event

By Amber Miles JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

Stories — we all have them.

Whether inspired by life or by a creative muse, everyone has a story to share, and Adriana Gleaton ’17 seeks to facilitate the exchange of these stories through the Faculty and Student Fall Storytelling Event. Organized by Gleaton in her capacity as director of programming for the Student Union, the event will take place on Wednesday, Nov. 4, in the International Alumni Lounge from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m.

In an interview with the Justice, Gleaton explained that, at this event, students and faculty alike are invited to “tell a story that they’re comfortable with, [a story] that’ll engage the audience, [a story] that will allow them to be themselves on stage.”

Last summer, Gleaton participated in the “Storytelling as a Social Practice” Justice Brandeis Semester, a summer program to

help storytellers hone their craft.

The JBS taught students about a variety of literary forms, encouraged them to develop their public speaking skills through storytelling and examined the social impact of narratives. “I’ve always been interested in storytelling and how powerful it is,” Gleaton explained. “But when I was told about the ‘Storytelling as Social Practice’ JBS, I was ecstatic.”

Gleaton went on to explain that though she has told stories before, she had “never learned about the art of storytelling” and never before considered herself a storyteller — but that all changed with the Justice Brandeis Semester. “I think that’s where I got involved [with storytelling],” Gleaton said.

As part of the Justice Brandeis Semester, Gleaton partook in storytelling events designed “to show what [they] learned in the classroom and practice storytelling,” she explained. Along with other students in the JBS program, Gleaton followed oral tradition

PHOTO COURTESY OF JUSTICE BRANDEIS SEMESTER PROGRAM

SHARING STORIES: Gleaton (center) stands next to Queen White ’16 (right) and Khadijah Lynch ’16 (left) while creating stories using the landscape during the Justice Brandeis semester program.

and performed stories live in Boston and the surrounding areas at events that would eventually influence her decisions in creating the Faculty and Student Fall Storytelling Event.

Drawing from her experience as well as from JBS Professors David Sherman (ENG) and Megan Finch (ENG), Gleaton used the storytelling events in which she participated over the summer as a model to create her own event.

Tasked with creating “events that would increase the transparency between faculty and students,” Gleaton drew from her passion for and knowledge of storytelling to create an event which she hopes will “bring the faculty and students together in one place where it’s not students just asking faculty a bunch of questions, where it’s not a really tense environment,” she said.

“I want it really relaxed,” Gleaton added, explaining that the event allows storytellers significant freedom in what and how

they share.

“Storytelling can take many different forms,” Gleaton explained. “It could be a personal narrative; it could be a fictional story that you spend hours on; it could be a story that you make up off the top of your head; it could be stand-up comedy.”

While Gleaton believes that personal narratives are ideal for this kind of event because of their tendency “to increase how comfortable people are with each other,” she says that “any form of storytelling is fine” and encourages storytellers to share any and all stories that mean something to them. “If they want it to be a personal story or if they want it to be a funny story or if it’s just something off the top of their head — it doesn’t matter,” Gleaton said.

MORGAN BRILL/the Justice

STUDENT STORYTELLER: Adriana Gleaton ’17 is a writer of sci-fi and gothic fiction and took part in the JBS Storytelling as Social Practice program this summer.

Regarding the mode of sharing, Gleaton said, “you can tell it from your seat, you can tell it in front of everyone — it’s up to you, whatever you feel comfortable with.”

Really, the only limit of the event is the theme — childhood — and even that leaves storytellers plenty of room to be creative.

In her decision for a topic, Gleaton aimed “to choose a theme that people can hopefully find something comforting about,” while working to make the topic neither too restrictive nor too open.

Illustrating that all storytellers can work with the theme, Gleaton — herself a writer of sci-fi and gothic fiction — plans to share a story of her own at the event, but rather than disclose the story in an interview with the Justice, Gleaton said, “you’ll have to come and find out.” Encouraging all members of the Brandeis community to attend, Gleaton notes that “the event is free, and the lunch is free. Telling a story is also free.”

According to Gleaton, all that’s necessary is to “bring yourself, bring a story if you have one — if not, bring your listening ears.” To sign up for a spot to tell a story, all members of the Brandeis community can email Gleaton.

With this event, Gleaton aims to not only foster rapport between faculty and students but also to “introduce the community to storytelling — because storytelling is extremely powerful and important in social interactions.”

Although the Faculty and Student Fall Storytelling Event is a one-time event at this point, Gleaton hopes storytelling will be ongoing and is currently in the process of chartering the Brandeis Storytelling Brigade, a club which will create more events like this one. For the future, Gleaton said, “I would like to have a spring storytelling event, but I think we’ll see how this one goes.”

Above all, however, Gleaton hopes attendees will leave the event with new connections, new aspirations to incorporate storytelling in their daily lives and new ambitions to further unite the Brandeis community.

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TUESDAY, november 3, 2015

PHOTO COURTESY OF EILEEN MCNAMARA

REPORTER AND COLUMNIST: Prof. McNamara (JOUR) began her career in journalism as a secretary and worked her way to becoming a columnist.

Bringing the Spotlight to Brandeis Prof. Eileen McNamara (JOUR), former columnist for the Boston Globe, spoke about her career and the story behind the film “Spotlight”

By Daisy chen and Brianna majsiak JUSTICE STAFF WRITER and Justice editor

A major motion picture to be released this Friday has journalists and filmmakers hoping that it will restore the public’s interest in traditional avenues of reporting and investigative journalism. The 2015 film “Spotlight” portrays the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team’s investigation of the Massachusetts clergy sex abuse scandal, for which the Globe won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.

The clergy sex abuse scandal was a series of lawsuits and criminal sex abuse cases of minors by Catholic priests in Massachusetts. The Boston Globe’s coverage of the scandal from early 2002 brought international attention to the Boston Archdiocese and further drew attention to the uncovering of nationwide clergy sex abuse of minors.

In light of the upcoming film release, the Justice sat down with Prof. Eileen McNamara (JOUR), a former reporter and columnist at the Boston Globe for nearly 30 years.

In the film, actress Maureen Keiller depicts McNamara and her position as a columnist at the time of the Spotlight investigation.

McNamara attended the Boston premiere of “Spotlight” at Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline on Wednesday evening along with members of the Spotlight team and the film’s cast. “It’s a love story to

journalism,” McNamara said.

A native to Boston, McNamara was born in North Cambridge and had been determined to be a reporter since high school. McNamara served as editor of her high school paper, and it was then that she discovered her passion for journalism.

“The idea that you can ask impertinent questions and get away with it, the principal was really pretty exciting to me — because you weren’t your real self, you were your reporter-self. So it gave you a lot of leeway to be a little more impertinent than you might be allowed to be in your real life,” McNamara said.

McNamara earned her undergraduate degree from Barnard College in New York. As a college student, due to a partnership between Barnard College and Columbia University, McNamara wrote for the Columbia Daily Spectator, a daily newspaper at Columbia University.

After graduating from Barnard College, McNamara received a Master’s degree from the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University.

McNamara started her career as a secretary for the Boston Globe in the 1970s, which she described as “the role of women back in the early 70s.”

From there, she worked for United Press International in Boston and returned to the Globe several years later as a night police reporter A news writer for nearly 20 years, McNamara explained that she began how one normally does in journalism — covering homicides and fires.

Over time, McNamara gravitated toward writing about social issues.

IMAGE COURTESY OF ALICE KELIKIAN

COMING TO CAMPUS: The Spotlight film will be screened on campus next Monday, and a panel discussion moderated by McNamara, former Globe columnist, and with members of the Spotlight team will be held next Tuesday.

She wrote for the Globe Sunday Magazine and profiled imprisoned juvenile killers to bring attention to how juvenile justice is handled. She also wrote extensively about domestic violence to examine the way that women were mistreated once they go to court and how judges were not sympathetic to their situations.

In 1987, McNamara spent a year with a colleague traveling around the U.S. to write about abortion rights and state efforts to undermine Roe v Wade. In 1988, McNamara received a Nieman Fellowship from Harvard University “I think like most journalists, you look for stories among those people who don’t have a larger voice in society. And one of the things you can do as reporters is give voice to the voiceless,” McNamara said. “So, teenage killers are a pretty disenfranchised group; nobody’s going into the Department of Youth Services to try to unravel what happened in their lives to get them there. The same was true for a long time for women who were battered. What happened behind closed doors was considered personal — not a matter of public policy. It’s not anymore, in part because journalists spent the time to get inside of that issue. So I think that’s always our obligation, to go to the corners of the society where the spotlight is not focused.”

In 1995, McNamara began a 12year career as a columnist for the Globe. McNamara explained that she didn’t think becoming a columnist was in her career path. “I was a reporter for twenty years, and I loved it. And I wasn’t really ready to be a columnist before that. Lots of people, I think, become columnists before they really have things to say,” she explained. “You know, I had covered the city, I had covered the state house, I had covered the United States Congress by then. So I felt that I had enough experience that I might actually have something to say about public policy.”

In 1997, McNamara won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for a series of 10 columns on Massachusetts issues. In 2001, she authored a column about Father John Geoghan, a Roman Catholic priest accused of numerous accusations of sexual abuse while assigned to various parishes in Boston. Although it was not her first column about Father Geoghan, the column focused attention on the fact that the Archdiocese of Boston was aware of the abuse.

“The reason that I wrote about Father Geoghan in July of 2001 was that in a filing in his court case, the Archdiocese acknowledged that Cardinal Law had been warned about Geoghan’s actions with young boys, and Cardinal Law had been denying vociferously that he had any knowledge that Geoghan had an issue,” she said.

According to McNamara, the documents were not in the filing of Geoghan’s case — only letters from the Cardinal’s lawyers were there that indicated that he had been informed previously about Geoghan.

“None of us thought that was an isolated incident. How big was this iceburg that Geoghan was the tip of, and how would we ever know?

Because the personal records of the Archdiocese involving all of the priests, however many there might be, were all sealed, because the courts’ indifference to the Church

PHOTO COURTESY OF TALIA LEPSON

REPORTER MEETS ACTOR: Talia Lepson’16 took this photo of McNamara meeting Mark Ruffalo, the actor who plays Michael Rezendes, a member of the Spotlight team, at the “Spotlight” film’s premiere in Boston on Wednesday. had not a lot of public access to these records. So my column said nothing more than ‘we’ll never know, will we? Unless somebody challenges the seal and those records get opened,’” McNamara explained.

The issue of clergy sex abuse had been covered by the Boston Globe and other news organizations before the Spotlight team’s investigation began in early 2002. McNamara credits two of her colleagues at the Globe, Linda Matchan and Stephen Kurkjian, for their extensive coverage on Father James Porter from Fall River, Mass. in the early 90s.

Porter was a Roman Catholic priest who was convicted in 1993 on 41 counts of sexual assault against children in multiple parishes.

The Spotlight investigation saw the opportunity to investigate the potential complicity of the church following Father Geoghan’s case.

“Several other priests along the way had been covered but nobody put the dots together in the way that the Spotlight team did,” she said.

The newly appointed editor-inchief of the Globe; Martin (Marty) Baron, was pivotal to the success of the Spotlight investigation.

“Marty Baron came in with fresh eyes, and the Catholic Church was not a sacred cow to him — he did not grow up in Boston. He came here from the Miami Herald. And he read my column, his first week on the job, and said, ‘Well, I don’t understand.

Why don’t we challenge the seal, ‘we’ the Boston Globe?’ And we said, ‘Well, yeah, that’s a great idea, go do that.’ And he did. So sometimes all it takes is a fresh pair of eyes and the courage to know what’s in the public interest, and Marty Baron had that.”

McNamara said.

McNamara also commends Judge Constance M. Sweeney, the judge who decided the case in which the Boston Globe challenged the Church’s seal.

“To my mind, Constance Sweeney is the unsung hero of this story.

The Spotlight team is getting a lot of attention now, of course, because there’s a movie, but the two real heroes of this story are Marty Baron, who had the courage and the fore-

sight to challenge the seal on those records, and Constance Sweeney, who went against local tradition, and she did the right thing for the general public,” she said.

Martin Baron — now editor of the Washington Post☺— along with the entire Spotlight team, will be on campus next Tuesday for a panel discussion moderated by McNamara. The panel discussion will also feature Jon Albano, attorney for the Globe, and Josh Singer, screenwriter of the “Spotlight” film. The panel discussion will be held in the Wasserman Cinematheque screening room on Nov. 10 from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m.

McNamara began teaching at Brandeis as an adjunct professor in 1995 and began teaching full time 12 years later. In addition to teaching, McNamara continues to write for WBUR’s commentary page and is in the process of writing a biography on Eunice Kennedy Shriver. McNamara has not left journalism; she explained that she now practices it in a different form.

After seeing the “Spotlight” film last week, McNamara said that a particular scene really stood out to her, as well as to several of her colleagues from the Globe. “There’s a scene when all the trucks roll out of the garage at Morrissey Boulevard, one Boston Globe green truck after another, and I was sitting next to Dan Wasserman, who’s the cartoonist for the Globe, and several other people from the Globe who were there at the premiere, told me that they got misty — some of that’s nostalgia. Because everything’s moving online, someday there won’t be trucks rolling out, but it was an enormous commitment of time and money. The Globe spent more than a million dollars in legal fees to bring that story to light — that’s a huge commitment by a news organization. And I know how we felt in the audience — watching that movie — and it was proud,” McNamara said.

— Editor’s note: Brianna Majsiak ’16 is a student in Prof. McNamara’s JOUR 138B course, Contmeporary World in Print.

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10 TUESDAY, nOVEMBER 3, 2015 ● THE JUSTICE

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

EDITORIALS

Recognize student divestment attempts Early last week, students and faculty members representing the group “Brandeis Climate Justice” staged several public events to protest the University’s continued investment in Fossil Fuels.

Their efforts are part of a long-standing endeavor to encourage the Board of Trustees to make a decision to divest.

With an overwhelming majority of students who participated in a 2013 poll saying they support divestment from the fossil fuel industry and persistent displays of community support for multiple years, the lack of serious discussion from the Board of Trustees about the issue amounts to an apathy that does not match the student body’s clear interest, and the Board of Trustees should form a public opinion on the matter.

In the Brandeis University as a Responsible Investor General Guideline, which was published in April of 1973, the Board of Trustees outline one of the general arguments against divestment from any cause.

They write, “[A] university’s power to influence corporate action, while not negligible, is nevertheless quite limited. The amount of funds available to Brandeis University’s portfolio managers is too small to cause economic detriment to a corporation by deciding to refuse to buy its stock, or by deciding to sell its stock, if already owned.” Since 1973, our understanding of climate change has dramatically changed, and it behooves the Board of Trustees to at least acknowledge the changing landscape of both climate change and investment options. While the Board of Trustees rarely, if ever, releases the specifics of endowment investments, it should at least explain why the current investments cannot be changed.

In 1977, a student group, the Committee for Divestment from South Africa, formed to urge the University to divest from

Increase transparency

companies that operated in Apartheidera South Africa. By 1979, the University agreed to partially divest from some companies in the country.

Following several years of campus protest, culminating in a two-week liquid fast by the chaplains and a student takeover of offices in the Bernstein-Marcus Building, the University agreed in 1987 to divest $1.6 million of its $130 million endowment from all South African companies that were not news agencies or providing humanitarian services.

In 2006, the University made a decision to divest from doing business in Sudan on the account of ongoing “genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan,” according to the “Divestment/Disinvestment Proposal Concerning Companies Doing Business in Sudan.” However, the University had no funds invested in the region and publicly released a statement to not invest in the region. This decision was brought on by “a request by a student organization,” according to the proposal.

Now look to current student organizations. Brandeis Climate Justice sent a letter to the Board of Trustees as recently as last week and last year’s Exploratory Committee on Fossil Fuel Divestment proves that divestment from fossil fuels is an issue the campus values. The Board of Trustees should at least match the value and release an opinion. The parallels to divestment from South Africa and Darfur seem strong enough that the Board of Trustees at least owes the public opinion an on the matter.

The economic repercussions of fossil fuel divestment must, at some point, be weighed by the Trustees against the political implications of continued investment, and this Board hopes to see the Board of Trustees match the campus engagement inpossible divestment from fossil fuels.

Applaud Sarkeesian speaking event When feminist media critic Anita Sarkeesian was invited to Utah State University in 2014, her lecture was canceled due to security concerns. While listeners passed through metal detectors to get to her lecture on Monday at Wasserman Cinematheque, Sarkeesian spoke freely and passionately with the University community about her area of focus: sexism and feminism in media, particularly video games. The fact that the University invited this important speaker shows our commitment to academic discourse and should be celebrated.

This board commends the Computer Science department not only for inviting a preeminent speaker who has expertise in a growing field of study within mass culture, but for properly sponsoring and framing her talk across multiple disciplines which rarely intersect. As the department chair Prof. Jordan Pollack (COSI) said at the event, computer science and women’s studies do not often interact with one another, but speakers like Sarkeesian allow these fields to share discourse and find key commonalities. Hopefully, the University will continue to bring speakers to campus who have cross-disciplinary appeal and offer vital voices on predominant social issues.

As a school that prides itself on a commitment to social justice, it is especially important that the University invites speakers who are social justice leaders in their fields. Sarkeesian uses her Feminist Frequency videos to force video game consumers, including members of the Brandeis community, to re-evaluate conceptions, tropes and unspoken biases in how video games depict, treat and interact with wom-

Encourage campus dialogue en. Even at Brandeis, we still can unconsciously uphold harmful stereotypes and ideas, and it is important to have speakers who identify false narratives and narrowminded depictions of gender issues in media, particularly in young media forms like video games whose rules and conventions are still widely being defined and explored.

Video games are now a major part of popular culture and mass entertainment, yet they remain greatly underexplored in the academy. All too often, it is easy to ignore their societal impact, including how minority groups are affected by their video game portrayals — as Sarkeesian pointed out, far too few games depict heroes and heroines of color, yet data from the Kaiser Family Foundation finds that African American young men play games for 30 minutes longer than white young men daily, with Hispanic young men playing for 10 minutes more. The experiences one has playing a video game — and the emotional and intellectual takeaways from it — are as important, valid and deep as experiences one has with film, literature and other forms of mass media.

Games have great potential for enriching culture, but sadly also have great potential for diminishing it. Voices like Sarkeesian’s explore the latter effect, and they are voices which must be heard more in academic contexts as games grow in popularity as a medium. We hope the University will continue to engage with this particular dialogue and begin other culturally critical discussions.

GRACE KWON/the Justice

Views the News on

On Monday, a 7.5 magnitude earthquake hit remote areas of northern Afghanistan and Pakistan, killing 364 and injuring over 2,000 more. With a mounting death toll, officials are attempting to understand the extent of the devastation and find out how to reach to the most affected and often least inaccessible regions. In 2012, Afghanistan and Pakistan were among the top recipients of U.S. foreign aid — receiving $14.02 billion — and the top recipients in Central Asia, according to TIME magazine.

How should humanitarian aid in Afghanistan and Pakistan be appropriated properly in response to disaster, and do you believe that foreign aid has been successfully used in the region?

Prof. Laurence Simon (HS) Weeks before the earthquake, Pakistan severely cut back the activities of International NGOs, such as Save the Children, and only a few have been permitted to return to the area hardest hit by the earthquake. The politics of Pakistan and Afghanistan will constrain the role of the U.S. and of our NGOs that normally respond to emergencies abroad. Unless the governments request logistical or medical assistance, the U.S. would be wise to think how we can channel long-term assistance for reconstruction and development in the disaster zones. The issue of whether past foreign aid has been successfully used in the region is important to consider but more to the point is whether any American aid organization can effectively work in the countries. It would be best to channel aid through non-political organizations that have the trust of local people.

Professor Laurence Simon (HS) is Professor of International Development and Director of the Center for Global Development and Sustainability.

Prof. Steven P. Cohen (IBS) Humanitarian assistance, unlike foreign aid, needs cooperation from local and international governments, nonprofits, and volunteer assistance to do the job. Foreign aid can build local disaster relief infrastructure; for example, many military vehicles can be used in search and rescue operations as well as trained personnel, who become local feet on the ground well before international assistance can arrive. The value of American aid in Pakistan and Afghanistan can be measured by the interests such aid aims to promote.

One concern is that money, material, and even people who’ve been trained

by U.S.-supported organizations may fall into the hands of Afghani or Pakistani groups working against U.S. interests. Often, foreign aid is basically bribery to buy the loyalty or neutrality of folks who might otherwise work against donor interests. Ideally, humanitarian assistance yields short-term benefits. In the case of both Afghanistan and Pakistan, the risks of getting what we have paid for rather than what we want are extremely high.

Professor Steven P. Cohen (IBS) is an adjunct professor in the International Business School.

Connor Wahrman ’17 There are many reasons to have misgivings over foreign aid. The U.S. has a long history of using aid programs to advance its own agenda, from making aid contingent on policy changes to selecting recipients based on strategic or personal interests to using aid organizations as fronts for covert operations. When, however, the strategic consideration of regional stability aligns with substantial humanitarian needs, as it does in Central Asia, there is all the more reason to provide aid. Although tracing the path of aid through Afghanistan and Pakistan is difficult, for lack of transportation and telecommunication infrastructure, the 2009 USAID Forward initiative has sought to improve the implementation and effectiveness of aid programs. Additionally, in 2010, President Obama shifted the program’s objectives toward development and food security. Especially with these reforms, the U.S. budget should ensure that USAID can best serve the victims of the earthquake and other humanitarian crises.

Connor Wahrman ’17 is the editor-in-chief of the Brandeis International Journal.

Henry Snow ’17 In terms of aid specifically for this crisis, what we give and who we give it to need to be considered. Aid can’t be given effectively without knowing what the affected actually need, and often the impact of wellmeaning aid projects is limited because of this. The people of Pakistan and Afghanistan know what they need, and therefore giving aid with information from locals and those who work with them is critical. As for aid policy in the region generally, we’ve insufficiently conditionalized and focused our aid, failing to consider empirical and logical evidence of what does and does not work, and not provided enough. Ongoing cuts to aid in the region, though somewhat politically easy due in part to popularity among those who identify as ‘taxpayers’ rather than citizens or human beings, are not only against our own interests in the region but against our moral obligations both as a state that’s intervened greatly and simply as people with the means to help others. America should be providing more and smarter aid.

Henry Snow ’17 is a member of Amnesty International.

THE JUSTICE

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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2015

Two-child policy does not address systematic flaws

By AMBER MILES JUSTICE CONTRIBUTING WRITER

In the late 1970s, China launched a feeble attempt to reduce its population growth and resource consumption at the expense of its citizens’ autonomy and safety. This attempt, the one-child policy, used the threat of fines to limit about a third of China’s citizens to one child, according to an Oct. 29 BBC article.The policy stood for more than three decades — but last Thursday, the Chinese government ended it in favor of a two-child policy.

At first glance, this seems “a positive step,” as White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest remarked, but in reality, it is just a cousin to the horrendous one-child policy that preceded it.

The one-child policy violated human rights, wounded China’s economy and had minimal positive environmental impact; the two-child policy still violates human rights, won’t improve the economy for decades and has even less of a positive environmental impact.

First, let’s take a look at the original policy.

The list of human rights abuses directly caused by China’s one-child policy encompasses forced abortions, forced sterilizations and problems for girls born under the oppressive thumb of the policy. According to a May 2012 CNN article, 13 million abortions were performed each year in China under the one-child policy, and while the exact number of coerced abortions is not known, numerous cases have reached the news: BBC News Hong Kong correspondent Juliana Liu, for example, shared the story of her own mother, who “had to endure two abortions.” About her mother, Liu writes, “Even today, she talks about ‘Number Two’ and ‘Number Three’ and what they might have been like.”

Tragically, innumerable women suffered similar injustices under the one-child policy, and many more suffered forced sterilization. In 2010 alone, “Chinese health officials planned to [forcibly] sterilize 10,000 people,” according to a Sept.

2011 report by the Advocates for Human Rights.

Beyond that, many girls not forcibly aborted undergo other problems ranging from infanticide and abandonment to the kidnapping of girls for wives. After several years of the onechild policy, an unexpected issue arose: a disproportionate sex ratio due to the abortion, murder or displacement of unwanted girls. In 2014, the gender ratio at birth was 115.88 boys to every 100 girls, according to a Jan. 2015 article in Radio Free Asia — and that’s not even factoring in the subsequent disproportion caused by sending unwanted girls out of the country. As a

result of this gender imbalance, Chinese men — as many as 24 million, according to an April 2013 NPR article — began to struggle to find wives.

As a result, some men resorted to kidnapping girls or women for marriage, and a human trafficking ring has developed, according to a Dec. 2011 article in the China Daily, which reported that China has witnessed “an increasing number of foreign women who have been cheated, kidnapped and smuggled into the country.”

These human rights violations posed enough justification for abolishing the one-child policy, but it was the policy’s negative impact on the economy which the Chinese government began to notice. Like Japan before it, China has begun to experience an aging population, and according to an Oct. 29 BBC article, “currently about 30 percent of China’s population is over the age of 50.” This poses an economic and social problem for the younger generations as they struggle to support their the ever-growing elderly population, and the situation will only worsen as the last generations born before the one-child policy age into dependency.

Ironically, China claims its one-child policy “lifted millions out of poverty because of the lighter demand on resources,” according to an Oct. 29 USA Today article, but the policy has also crippled the workforce, which will in turn cripple the economy and impoverish more people. Comparing China’s low birthrates to Japan’s in the past, Frida Ghitis of CNN remarked in an Oct. 29 article that such a demographic phenomenon “can be disastrous for the economy.” In this way, one of China’s chief goals of the one-child policy — to improve the economy by decreasing the scarcity of resources — failed.

Further, the other goal to help the environment by reducing population growth is null mainly due to the principle of population momentum: even once birth rates decrease, a population continues to grow for a number of years as its youngest (and largest) generation reaches reproductive age. Consequently, even under the one-child policy, China’s population continued to grow, according to World Bank, and although the growth was only half of one percent in 2014, any growth after decades of the policy shows the general ineffectiveness of a retroactive policy like the one-child policy.

As such, the proposed benefits of China’s onechild policy are null and do not even come close to outweighing the grotesque abuse of Chinese citizens and women in surrounding regions.

Now, how does the two-child policy improve the situation?

Trick question — it doesn’t.

ALI SANTANA/the Justice

According to William Nee of Amnesty International, “The move to change China’s onechild policy is not enough. Couples that have two children could still be subjected to coercive and intrusive forms of contraception and even forced abortions — which amount to torture.”

In the realm of human rights, China continues to commit the same violations, and according to Maya Wang of Human Rights Watch, “As long as the quotas and system of surveillance remains, women still do not enjoy reproductive rights.” Even if the Chinese government announced that couples could have as many as 10 children, the mere existence of such a policy would be a violation of citizens’ autonomy in principle. “The state has no business regulation how many children people have,” Nee remarked.

As for the environment, the reform will only have a negative effect as the population begins to grow more rapidly again. This increased population growth will lead to a more rapid depletion of resources and thus exacerbate the issue that inspired birth quotas in the first place, so while the one-child policy was ineffective in solving the problem of population growth, the two-child policy will reverse any success the one-child policy had in slowing population growth.

Even worse, the reform of the one-child policy proves that the Chinese government can recognize problems with its laws but chooses which problems to recognize, only acting when such

action would further its own agenda. In the case of the one-child policy, the country has done little in response to humanitarian concerns, but when its economy begins to suffer, the Chinese government takes notice and acts.

In fact, the official reasoning for this particular policy change, according to an Oct. 29 article by the Xinhua News Agency — China’s staterun news source — is “to promote a balanced growth of population.” Notice the focus is on “balanced growth” rather than increasing citizens’ freedom and autonomy.

In the long run, the two-child policy may help to even out the gender imbalance, but even if it does, the effects won’t be felt for decades. In the meantime, China’s system of birth quotas will still threaten its citizens’ rights, adult workers will still struggle to support an aging population and population growth will still deplete resources.

As the one-child policy came too late to prevent or reverse overpopulation, so too does the two-child policy come too late to save the workforce and reverse the gender imbalance.

Enacted retroactively by the Chinese government in a feeble, reactionary attempt to solve greater issues, both policies reveal that China’s meddling in citizens’ private lives only hurts individuals and society. The two-child policy, in particular, is too little to end human rights abuses and too late to solve the problems caused by its horrendous cousin.

Reconsider Congressional Republicans’ roles in government Mark

GIMELSTEIN give me liberty

For all the talk by pundits and politicians of how Washington, D.C. is “broken” and how “things can’t get done,” congressional Republicans and Democrats sure seem to be proving that notion wrong in the worst of ways. Because for all the talk and chatter we hear, Washington politicians always seem to come together to advance a cynical, mutually-beneficial agenda that expands government and perpetuates liberalism.

The latest example of “Washington working” is the budget bill, passed by the House and the Senate last week. It now goes to President Obama’s desk, where he will sign it into law, averting a serious debt limit fight between Republicans and Democrats. In the bill, Congressional Republicans, in exchange for raising the debt ceiling, gave away the entire store. They capitulated and surrendered on virtually everything to avoid another round of Obama and Democrats shrieking that, because Republicans who control majorities in both the House and Senate didn’t pass a bill they liked fully, Republicans were going to cause a government shutdown. Apparently, this lack of logic didn’t stop Republican leadership from fully embracing their own cowardice.

How bad was this deal? So bad that discretionary spending caps imposed under the 2011 Budget Control Act have been busted. Washington will now spend an extra $50 billion in 2016 and $30 billion in 2017. The only real victory Republican leadership could claim on spending since they’ve been in power has suddenly vanished without a trace. The New York Times proclaims The Justice welcomes letters to the editor responding to published material. Please submit letters through our Web site at www.thejustice.org. Anonymous submissions cannot be accepted.

Letters should not exceed 300 words, and may be edited for space, style, grammar, spelling, libel and clarity, and must relate to material published in the Justice. Letters from off-campus sources should include location. The Justice does not print letters to the editor and op-ed submissions that have been submitted to other publications. Op-ed submissions of general interest to the University community­ —that do not respond explicitly to articles printed in the Justice—are also welcome and should be limited to 800 words. All submissions are due Friday at 12 p.m.

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that Obama can now “break free of the spending shackles,” a scary thought given the president’s lust for record-setting, trillion-dollar deficits.

This deal is so bad that the main talking point leadership used to sell this awful deal to their constituents and to their voting base was that spending cuts will offset the breaking of the spending caps. It sounds good until you realize that these cuts will take effect … in 2025. Who in their right mind believes that anything in Washington will be enforced, without change, so far down the line?

In fact, we don’t need to speculate — this was the exact same argument used by now-Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) in his budget negotiations with Washington Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) to avoid a debt ceiling showdown in 2013.

When the BCA was originally passed, the terms of the law were that spending caps would be enforced in 2014 and 2015. Instead, in negotiations, Ryan and Murray agreed to jack up spending by $63 billion for those two years and pushed the expiration of the spending caps back from 2021 to 2023. Ryan was able to claim that their negotiations actually cut spending by $28 billion over 10 years because of his promises that the BCA would surely be enforced years down the line.

Now, Congress is kicking the can down the road again, with no remedy in sight to fix our enormous sovereign debt problem (over $18 trillion without looking at unfunded liabilities) and our addiction to spending. Instead of attempting to get any meaningful concessions from Democrats in exchange for raising the debt limit, a move done 28 times in the last 55 occurrences of the debt ceiling being raised, Republicans have come away empty handed, with constituents and a Republican voting base further demoralized.

Underlying this specific culture on the part of Republican leadership is that this is how Washington ― and bipartisanship ― currently works.

Rather than fighting for their principles, the Republican Party instead chooses political expediency. This means that Democrats effectively run the show, even with a minority in both houses of

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Congress.

No conservative is saying that the Republican Party should pick every fight. Moreover, no conservative believes that every fight is winnable. But this debt ceiling fight was a prime opportunity for Republicans to stand up and push for meaningful reforms. Now, it has become yet another prime example of Republican ineptitude and capitulation.

Texas Senator and presidential candidate Ted Cruz (R-TX) says that Democratic Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is “the de facto leader of the Senate.” Indeed, there is much truth in that statement.

A simple look at the other recent highlights from the Republican-controlled Senate and House back up what Cruz is saying. The list includes many abysmal failures.

There’s Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell who whipped votes in favor of Loretta Lynch for Attorney General, who would eventually be confirmed with Republican support even though, as predicted by many conservatives, her tenure has been marred by the continuation of politicizing the Department of Justice that Eric Holder started. For example, just recently, Lynch’s DOJ completely dropped their investigation of Lois Lerner and the IRS in a scandal targeting conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, an unjustifiable and blatantly political move.

Then there’s the situation that occurred late last year, where Republican House leadership approved a $1.1 trillion “Cromnibus” bill to fully fund the federal government until this past September while funding the Department of Homeland Security until this past March. The reason for this separation was purportedly to zero in on fighting President Obama’s unconstitutional executive order granting amnesty to five million illegal immigrants.

However, this move eliminated any check Republicans had with the power of the purse and delayed the inevitable. Republicans in March

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would eventually pass a bill to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security without any stipulation that defunded President Obama’s executive order.

The GOP deliberately funded that executive order in direct contradiction to the promises they made to the voters who elected them into office.

They also funded a trillion-dollar monstrosity, in direct violation of their vows to actually reform the budget and bring our fiscal house in order.

Alongside these failures leadership has also fully funded Obamacare, Planned Parenthood, and other liberal priorities in their entirety even in light of stories that justify a strong Republican response. Planned Parenthood senior officials, for instance, caught on tape admitting to selling baby parts for profit — a federal crime — along with potentially breaking other federal laws, warrant a genuine and strong response that at least gets to Obama’s desk in some form.

Instead, as Americans debated the question of whether these videos were “doctored,” even when facing the fact that over 17 hours of tape on Planned Parenthood were released to the public, we got the usual song and dance from Washington — all talk and no action.

All this necessitates two questions: What has the Senate under Republican leadership done that would’ve been different had Harry Reid still been Majority Leader? Where has Republican leadership shown any willingness to fight for anything? There are no good answers. Time after time, Republicans have acquiesced to Democratic demands. Time after time, Washington has “governed,” “legislated” and “worked.”

When someone says that the problem in politics is that “Washington isn’t working together,” one should react with caution and skepticism. In the most recent Gallup poll, 82 percent of Americans said they disapproved of Congress, while only 13 percent approved. Maybe instead of being fed up with a fictitiously-depicted do-nothing Congress, the American people, knowingly or unknowingly, are perhaps fed up with liberalism.

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TUESDAY, November 3, 2015

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THE JUSTICE

FORUM

Reevaluate international opinion of Snowden’s actions

By NICOLE MAZUOVA JUSTICE Contributing WRITER

Edward Snowden was all over the news when I graduated high school in 2013. It was still surprising, though, when our salutatorian stood up and made his speech about the Snowden case — one in which a former government contracted employee had leaked classified information from the National Security Agency. By that point, the U.S. had already filed espionage charges against Snowden, and he would soon make his fated trip to Moscow. The portrait our salutatorian painted was of a hero who had martyred himself for the truth. To us, high school graduates taking life’s next step — equally anxious to leave this town in the dust and never leave — Snowden’s plight struck a chord. We were young idealists searching for a cause worth sacrificing for, not suppressed by “the man,” but acting according to our personal moral code. Each person here has agency and impact, and all that is needed is the courage to take the plunge. In the crowd, one confused father turned to another and whispered, “Why is he valorizing a traitor?”

The scandal started when the Guardian published a classified court order directing Verizon to transfer all its telephone data to the National Security Agency on an “ongoing daily basis.” It was further disclosed that the NSA tapped into servers for companies such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo to survey online communication in a data mining program known as Prism. This news caused public outrage as, essentially, the U.S. government was spying on its people and infringing on fundamental privacy rights. Ex-C.I.A. and former NSA computer analyst Edward Snowden was identified as the whistleblower. Snowden fled to Hong Kong but facing extradition, boarded a plane again to end up in Moscow, where he was granted asylum.

He is charged with theft of government property, unauthorized communication of national defense information and willful communication of classified intelligence information to an unauthorized person.

In interviews, Snowden has turned down the label of hero, claiming that he was acting out of self-interest because he did not want to live under or help sustain a world in which every virtual action is scrutinized by the government.

As Snowden explained “I grew up with the understanding that the world I lived in was one where people enjoyed a sort of freedom to communicate with each other in privacy, without it being monitored, without it being measured or analyzed or sort of judged by these shadowy figures or systems, any time they mention anything that travels across public lines.”

It is hard to overlook the fact that his actions did make Snowden famous overnight. If looking for a rush or a release from an anonymous existence, Snowden found it. In the event that there was the intent of payback, Snowden succeeded in the most public, drag-through-the-mud kind of way. His story will hit the screen in 2016 with Joseph Gordon-Levitt portraying the tragic hero.

Regardless of the possible sub-motivations and what he says, Edward Snowden has been championed as a privacy rights activist and hero. He has been granted multiple awards including the Stuggart Peace Prize, the Right Live-

BEN JARRETT/the Justice

lihood Award and the Sam Adams Award, commemorating his dedication to the truth, freedom and government transparency. The impact of the whistleblower has been huge, referred to as “the Snowden effect.” The leaks have had global impact. It was revealed that the NSA had also surveilled German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s mobile phone, causing tensions between the U.S. and its European allies. Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters reported to have been secretly collecting information as well and sharing it with the NSA. Such allegation compelled governments, including those of the U.S., Canada, Germany and the United Kingdom, to conduct extensive reviews of their intelligence agencies.

Legal strides were taken this summer when President Barack Obama signed the USA Freedom Act, a bill restricting NSA collection of American phone records. There is also pressure to address the question of online surveillance, so relevant to the technology age.

Though not exclusive to the younger generation, this issue appeals directly to those who grew up with cyber culture. Often cautioned that anything posted can be tracked, many still perceive virtual identities as providing anonymity or at least control over what and who one chooses to share information with. This illusion of privacy was shattered when Snowden came forward. Many were already suspicious of the government’s role in this realm, and what Snowden did was start the dialogue on a modern

controversial issue.

People often take one of two sides on Snowden: one is that the leaking of classified information jeopardized national security and was a selfish, unpatriotic move; the other is that this was an exposure of government abuse of power and defense of democratic values.

The ultimate judgement will likely determine Snowden’s fate. On Oct. 29 the European Union Parliament voted on a resolution calling to grant Snowden asylum and to “consequently prevent extradition or rendition by third parties, in recognition of his status as whistle-blower and international human rights defender.” Reflective of the continued fear of mass surveillance in Europe, this decision is a way of establishing it as a wrong.

This would put an end to Snowden’s exile in Russia, where his case has undoubtedly been politicized. As investigative journalist and Russian security services expert Andrei Soldatov noted, “Snowden’s clearly being exploited — after all, many repressive measures on the Internet in Russia were presented to Russians as a response to Snowden’s revelations.

For instance, the legislation to relocate the servers of global platforms to Russia by September of this year, to make them available for the Russian secret services, was presented as a measure to assure the security of Russian citizens’ personal data.” Snowden has spoken out against Russia’s crackdown, but his words will have no effect on this occasion. In an ironic twist,

Snowden jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire.

The U.S. is likely to take a hard line on Snowden and not entirely because of national security. Put simply, Snowden made the U.S. look bad. There is a desire for revenge and also to use Snowden to set a precedent. Agencies want to make it clear that betrayal will not be tolerated.

The New York Times, for one, wrote in favor of granting Snowden clemency or “at least a substantially reduced punishment.” It will be interesting to see what decision the U.S. government ultimately makes when Snowden returns to the country, of his own volition or not. Will the ultimate message be that there are times in which democracy needs to be sacrificed, not even for security concerns but to preserve American world image?

Edward Snowden has pushed the question of American democracy into dangerous territory.

If the U.S. wants to position itself as the land of the free, democratic standards have to be upheld. The reality of the situation is that to maintain its status, there will be inconsistencies.

However, basic human rights should always be protected, and as a democracy, there has to be a level of transparency in government. We will always fall short of the ideal, but that just means we have to strive for it and attempt to make up the difference. So which one is it — is Snowden a hero or a traitor? Certainly he is both. What matters now is which side the U.S. government will choose to emphasize.

Scrutinize global response to protracted Syrian Civil War

By DYLAN HOFFMAN

JUSTICE Contributing WRITER

The Syrian Civil War has been referred to as one of the most devastating humanitarian crises of the 21st century, with an Oct. 30 BBC article reporting that 250,000 people have died and 11 million Syrians, half of the country’s population, have been displaced. On Oct. 30, the key international players in the Syrian Civil War met in Vienna to attempt to find a diplomatic resolution to the conflict. After eight hours of talks, the five powers present — the United States, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey — had agreed on several points, including their support for a new constitution for Syria and United Nations sanctioned and protected elections. This may seem like an important first step toward a peace process, but there is little reason to be optimistic.

A quick glance at the people involved in the Vienna talks reveals some glaring omissions, most notably the main combatants in the civil war themselves: the Syrian government and the major opposition coalitions. While it seems that inviting President Bashar al-Assad to the peace talks would serve to legitimize his regime, he is also necessary to negotiate even a temporary solution or ceasefire that could turn into a more comprehensive process.

Past that, there is one major player preventing the progression of peace talks: the Islamic State.

And that is where the heart of the problem lies.

It is difficult to imagine a true solution to this conflict that does not involve the neutralization of the Islamic State as well as the inclusion of the main combatants in peace talks. An Oct. 30 New York Times article reported that the U.S. has ordered “several dozen” special operations troops into Syria to “advise local forces” in the fight

against the Islamic State while also increasing the amount of air support. This signals that the U.S. is aware that peace in Syria is a distant prospect and realizes that the Islamic State is one of the central impediments to that peace.

While this could be seen as progress, it also could be regarded as counter-productive to U.S. foreign policy goals in the region. The Islamic State is one of the stronger enemies of the Assad regime, which the U.S. has repeatedly stated must be deposed, both because of his horrible human rights violations and alliances with Russia and Iran. This is not to say that the U.S. should align themselves with the Islamic State. Rather, to underscore how, as Dominic Tierney argued in a Sept. 28 Atlantic article, the Assad regime has leveraged the rise of the Islamic State to make the U.S. their implicit allies, which is exactly what has happened. Assad has radicalized the opposition — both the Islamic State and other opposition groups like Al-Nusra — to his regime and only targeting moderate groups while allowing the Islamic State to operate relatively unmolested, Assad has effectively — and to a certain extent, correctly — portrayed his regime as the lesser of two evils. The U.S. views the Islamic State as the greater security risk and has not been able to find moderate rebel groups to back.

While the U.S. could funnel more support to their allies in the region — Saudi Arabia, Israel — it is unlikely that they will be able to topple Assad without native Syrian assistance. Because of this, the U.S. has gotten involved to combat the Islamic State while leveraging relatively little pressure on Assad himself. This underscores the fact that coming up with some sort of effective policy against the Islamic State would be the first step toward achieving a lasting peace in Syria and the

region as a whole.

The key to an effective operation against the Islamic State, as Noam Chomsky argued in a March 3 talk with Democracy Now, is to look past traditional disagreements and bring together a diverse coalition to fight the insurgency group, one that includes Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran, Kurdish forces and the Syrian rebel groups. This seems far-fetched, but it is not unheard of for countries and parties with significant differences to form a coalition against a group deemed to be a significant security threat. The U.S., U.K. and U.S.S.R. did something similar during World War II. It is not impossible to envision the five powers mentioned working to fight the Islamic State with support from various militias. In fact, the one thing that connects all of these parties is opposition to the Islamic State, which poses enough of a threat to all of the powers to give them incentive in the fight against it. It would require concessions on all sides. The U.S. would probably have to recognize Iranian and Russian influence in the region.

Recognizing Russian and Iranian power would not amount a massive change in the status quo, as both countries already exert a significant amount of influence in the region, and the U.S. stands to gain much from the neutralization of the Islamic State. The benefits to such a coalition would be significant. It would lead towards decisive action against the Islamic State, which, in turn, will make finding a resolution to the Syrian Civil War more likely. However, an Oct. 16 Al Jazeera article reported that Russia has been conducting airstrikes largely against anti-Assad rebel groups and not the Islamic State.

This means that, in forming a coalition, concessions have to be made. In what is increasingly becoming a U.S.-Russian proxy war, the main

diplomatic snag between the two great powers is whether Assad will remain in power, according to an Oct. 30 BBC article. Russia and Iran are both concerned about keeping Syria as an ally — whether that means Assad remains in power or not — as the country is of dramatic strategic importance to both. One of Russia’s only warm-water naval bases is located in Syria, and Iran views the country as key to counter-balancibg Saudi influence. This means that, as much as the U.S. may want to use the fall of the Assad regime to install a pro-U.S. leader, they may have to be willing to soothe Russian and Iranian concerns to get them to take decisive action against the Islamic State.

While it is extremely unlikely that there will be a resolution to the Syrian Civil War anytime soon, there are steps that the U.S. and other major powers can take to move the region closer to peace. Forming a more comprehensive coalition against the Islamic State will make it easier to place pressure on Assad to step down and allow for elections. This is, of course, the long-term goal and something that is not likely to occur until the other problems mentioned in this article are resolved. The elections would occur after a peace deal has been brokered and under the oversight of a U.N. committee, a proposal which the five major international participants have already agreed to in principle. Enlisting the help of Russia and Iran on this will be key, as they are the two countries doing the most to prop up Assad’s forces. And there is evidence to indicate that Russia at least might not support Assad indefinitely.

The BBC reported in an Oct. 30 article that Russia is not married to Assad; they are much more interested in protecting their interests. If the U.S. could convince them that was possible, it could be a huge step toward peace.

THE JUSTICE

CONTINUED FROM 16 es squad, the team claimed victory by controlling the game’s pace from start to finish, seizing opportunities for shots on goal and finally breaking through on a late, clutch score by forward Chris Bradley ’16.

The Judges outshot Lasell by a whopping 22-3 margin, including a 14-2 edge in the second half.

While shots were at first not falling, Brandeis maintained its aggressive offensive attack, eventually leading to a Bradley goal in the 73rd minute, a strike that was set up beautifully by forward Brandon Miskin ’18.

Despite the plethora of shot attempts from the Judges, the game ended in a 1-0 shutout.

MIHIR KHANNA/Justice File Photo

CROSS-FIELD BOOT: Defender Sam Volpe ’19 attempts a pass upfield against the University of Massachusetts Boston on Sep. 12.

WSOC: Judges struggle to score goals against UAA foes battled the Eagles of Emory University to a 0-0 draw.

Emory had the better first half as they led in shots 6-2. Both teams, however, put two shots on net. Early on, midfielder Alec Spivack ’15 and midfielder Allyson Parziale ’16 put shots on target, but Emory senior goalkeeper Liz Arnold saved both shots on goal.

The half was dictated by Emory.

While there were not many tough attempts, the Eagles constantly applied pressure on the Judges’ backline, which received crucial support from the midfield that was frequently tracking back deep into the defen-

sive third.

In the second half, the game belonged to the Judges. The Judges attacked throughout the half, outshooting Emory 7-4. Shots from Szafran were unsuccessful, as Arnold made a key diving stop in the 70th minute of the contest.

The game headed into overtime, but it was a rather uneventful affair for the two squads.

In the first period of overtime, the Judges put two shots on net, but neither required the defense to react nor the goalkeeper to make a save.

In the second period of overtime, Emory put one shot on net, but it was not a terribly threatening attempt on goal.

TUESDAY, november 3, 2015

13

MSOC: Team wins three huge games on week

CLEAR FOCUS

CONTINUED FROM 16

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The draw in the UAA match can largely be attributed to the continued stellar play of Grossman, who made four saves in her ninth shutout of the season.

The match was not a very physical one — there were 19 total fouls, with the Judges only being called for seven of them.

Looking ahead, the Judges have six days off to prepare for UAA competition, this time against the Bobcats of New York University.

The Judges battle the Bobcats at Gordon Field at 11 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 7 before awaiting a possible berth back to the NCAA Division III Tournament to close out the season on a high note.

In claiming the UAA championship outright, the squad has accomplished what no team before it could, as the team has only once before held a share of the UAA title, following the 2013 to 2014 season.

The Judges will welcome New York University on Saturday afternoon to close out the regular season before turning their attention to the postseason.

Saturday’s contest begins at 1:30 p.m. on Gordon Field as the team tries to win its fourth straight game of the season.

The team will then look to surpass its result from the 2014 to 2015 season when it was defeated by the State University of New York at Oneonta in the Elite Eight of the NCAA Division III Tournament.

CROSS COUNTRY: Bryson leads squad to fourth place finish CONTINUED FROM 16 ished in last place at the conference meet last season.

Men’s squad (7th place- 173 points) Mitchell Hutton ’18 led the way to a seventh-place finish for the men, traversing the eight-kilometer course in 24:40.44. Hutton missed out on All-UAA honors by less than two seconds, ending the race in 16th place. Liam Garvey ’18 took 31st of the 76 competitors, stopping the clock at the 25:57.57 mark, a 1.5-minute improvement on last year’s race.

Quinton Hoey ’17 grabbed 36th in 26:06.34, while Matt Doran ’17 stopped the timer at the 26:23.37 mark. Roger Lacroix ’18 rounded out the competition for the hosts, ending the race at the 26.23.90 mark.

The Judges took seventh place over the University of Rochester on the strength of Lacroix’s placement,

handing the squad a tiebreaker over the Yellowjackets.

Carnegie Mellon was the winner on the men's side as they finished with 53 points, 15 ahead of the second place team in WashU. Chicago finished in third place followed by NYU in fourth.

Emory earned a fifth place finish with a score of 122 while Case scored 151 to finish in sixth.

The only competitor that did not best the Judges was Rochester who tied them in seventh with a total score of 173.

Similarly to the women, the squad finished in last place at last year's meet, making the seventh place finish an improvement.

The Judges will next run at the National Collegiate Athletic Association New England Regional Championships in Waterford, Conn. on Nov. 14 in one last race to earn bids for the NCAA Division III Championships, scheduled to take place on Nov. 21st.

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jUDGES BY THE NUMBERS aMen’s Soccer UAA STANDINGS

Tuesday, november 3, 2015

15

VOLLEYBALL

TEAM STATS Goals

2015-2016 Statistics

JUDGES Case Carnegie WashU Chicago Emory Rochester NYU

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UAA Conf. Overall W L D W L D 4 1 0 14 2 1 3 2 0 12 3 1 2 1 2 10 2 3 2 2 1 10 3 3 2 2 1 10 4 2 2 3 1 8 6 2 1 1 3 6 3 5 0 5 0 5 11 0

Pct. .824 .750 .667 .625 . 625 .500 .429 .313

Jake Picard ’16 leads the team with three goals.

Player Goals Jake Picard 3 Josh Berg 3 Chris Bradley 3 Conor Lanahan 2

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

Player Assists Josh Ocel 9 Patrick Flahive 2 Joshua Handler 2 Stephen DePietto 1

UPCOMING GAMES: Nov. 7 vs. NYU

WOMen’s Soccer UAA STANDINGS

TEAM STATS

2015-2016 Statistics

Goals

Carnegie WashU Chicago JUDGES Rochester NYU Case Emory

UAA Conf.

W L D 5 1 0 5 1 0 4 2 0 2 2 2 2 3 1 2 3 1 0 3 3 0 5 1

Overall W L D 14 1 1 15 2 0 12 5 0 13 2 3 8 6 2 10 4 2 7 6 4 7 6 4

Pct. .927 .867 .733 .813 .571 .714 .467 .500

UPCOMING GAMES: Nov. 7 vs. NYU

S

Holly Szafran ’16 leads the team with six goals.

Player Goals Holly Szafran 6 Lea McDaniel 5 Cidney Moscovitch 4 Alec Spivack 4

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

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

volleyball er-Jacoby 138 UAA STANDINGS

TEAM STATS Kills

2014-2015 Statistics UAA Conf. Overall

W L W L Pct. Emory 7 0 30 2 .938 WashU 6 1 29 2 .936 Case 5 2 22 6 .786 Carnegie 4 3 25 6 .807 Chicago 3 4 19 10 .655 Rochester 2 5 15 15 .500 NYU 1 6 15 16 .482 JUDGES 0 7 5 24 .172

UPCOMING GAMES: Nov. 6-7 UAA Championships, hosted by the University of Rochester

Grace Krumpack ’19 leads the team with 155 kills.

Player Kills Grace Krumpack 155 Maddie Engeler 150 Shea Decker-Jacoby 125 Zara Platt 104

Digs Yvette Cho ’19 leads the team with 373 digs.

Player Digs Yvette Cho 428 Grace Krumpack 288 Shea Decker-Jacoby 170 Leah Perlman 149

cross cOuntry Results from the 2015 UAA Championships this past Saturday.

TOP FINISHERS (Men’s)

TOP FINISHERS (Women’s)

8-Kilometer Run RUNNER TIME Mitchell Hutton 25:41 Liam Garvey 25:58 Quinton Hoey 26:07 Matt Doran 26:24

6-Kilometer Run RUNNER TIME Emily Bryson 22:04 Maddie Dolins 22:29 Kelsie Whitaker 23:02 Kate Farrell 23:06

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

DAISY CHEN/the Justice

JUMPING FOR THE KILL: Middle hitter Summer Koop ’16 goes for the hit in a loss against Vassar College on Saturday afternoon.

Judges win one out of three over the weekend ■ Outside hitter Grace Krumpack ’19 finished with nine kills and 11 digs in a victory over Lasell College.

By elan kane JUSTICE staff writer

The volleyball squad went 1-2 this past week, losing to Babson College 0-3 and Vassar College 1-3 on Saturday at Brandeis, after defeating Lasell College 3-1 at Lasell on Wednesday. After sustaining a 10-match losing streak that lasted nearly a month, the Judges have now won two of their last six contests.

Judges 0, Babson 3 Brandeis lost in straight sets to the Beavers 25-17, 25-22, 25-20 as the Judges hit a combined .237 average in all three sets. After setter Yvette Cho ’19 notched consecutive service aces to cut the deficit to 12-11, Babson went on a 10-1 run en route to the set victory.

In the second set, the Judges recovered from an early 7-1 deficit but could not hang on to their lead late in the set. A kill from middle hitter Jessica Kaufman ’17 capped a 9-0 run for Brandeis. Though Babson tied the set at 17, the Judges later regained the lead at 18-17 on a kill from middle hit-

ter Summer Koop ’16. Babson finished the set, however, scoring eight of the final 12 points to win the set. Brandeis took an 8-0 lead in the third set, highlighted by two kills from outside hitter Jessie Moore ’18 and three service aces from outside hitter Shea DeckerJacoby ’19. Babson scored the last five points to clinch the set and match.

Judges 1, Vassar 3 Brandeis lost to the Brewers in four sets — 18-25, 19-25, 25-17 and 1825. In the first set, the Judges found themselves down 10-3. Brandeis used a 10-1 run to gain the lead, though, as a kill from middle hitter Zara Platt ’19 gave the Judges an 11-10 lead. Vassar finished the game scoring the next 12 points to win the set.

The Judges were down early in the second set as well, going down 11-4. The third set was a different story for Brandeis as Platt and Decker-Jacoby combined for seven kills. The Judges took a 9-8 lead on a service ace from setter Maggie Swenson ’16 and never relinquished it.

In the fourth set, the Brewers scored seven of the first 10 points to gain control of the set.

Down 23-16 later in the set, middle hitter Kirsten Frauens ’19 tallied a kill, but Vassar scored two of the last three points to take the match. Middle hitter Maddie Enge-

ler ’16 had four kills in the match, and Cho led the Judges with 20 digs.

Judges 3, Lasell 1 The Judges notched their fifth win of the season in four sets by scores of 18-25, 25-18, 25-14, 25-21.

Outside hitter Grace Krumpack ’19 tallied nine kills and 11 digs in the match, and Kaufman had seven kills.

The first set was a back-and-forth battle that featured 10 ties. Brandeis went up 18-17 on a kill from Engeler, but the Lasers scored eight points in a row to take the first set.

Set two was also a tight one.

Brandeis took a 16-12 lead after a Lasell service error. They won the set by controlling the remaining points.

Brandeis dominated the third set, thanks in large part to the play of Pearlman. Up 8-5, the Judges scored seven straight points behind Pearlman’s serves to go up 15-5. Krumpack tallied a kill on the final play to win the set.

In the fourth and final set, Brandeis took control at 11-11. They rallied off five straight points and took a 24-16 lead on a Lasell attack error. Though the Lasers scored five in a row, a kill from Platt clinched the match victory.

The Judges will resume play in their match against Emory University in Rochester, NY on Friday at noon as part of the University Athletic Association Championships.

pro sports brief New generation of players looks to upend aging veteran players as NBA regular season tips off The National Basketball Association season tipped off last week as a new era of players was ushered into the league. Players who have previously dominated the court, such as Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett and Dwayne Wade, are now handing over the reigns to younger, healthier and more versatile players. The new face of the NBA is quickly transitioning to the forefront of league performance and play.

After the spry Golden State Warriors took the championship, a trend emerged, leading teams to scout for energetic and youthful talent. The most aggressive utilizers of this game plan are the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Los Angeles Lakers. The Lakers in past seasons drafted point guard Deangelo

Russell and power forward Julius Randle in an effort to transition from the once dominant Kobe era in Los Angeles. Randle, who missed his rookie season due to injury, had a noteworthy debut, grabbing eleven rebounds and posting a solid fifteen points. Russell did not come out quite as strong, scoring only four points. However, it should be duly noted that the great Kobe averaged a mere 7.6 points per game in his first NBA season.

The Timberwolves, however, have been the true masters of the draft. They stole both number one overall picks in the past two drafts in small forward Andrew Wiggins and center Karl-Anthony Towns and nabbed shooting guard Zack Lavine in the ninth overall spot in 2014. Towns had

an equally impressive night to Randle, boasting a double-double comprised of fourteen points and twelve rebounds. Wiggins added a solid but below-average nine points to help give the Timberwolves their first win of the season. With Kevin Garnett back in his old Wolves jersey — signed over the summer — he becomes an instant mentor for the Timberwolves’ nascent core. The Wolves may be looking at a potential championship-caliber team in the near future.

However, other teams look to transition in the form of offseason signings and trades. The San-Antonio Spurs made a huge acquisition by signing center LaMarcus Aldridge to a fouryear deal in an effort to inject some youth into the aging Spurs.

The organization increased its efforts by dishing out a five-year, 95-million-dollar deal to 24-yearold small forward Kawhi Leonard, MVP of the 2013 NBA Finals, and a four-year deal with shooting guard Danny Green. Yet with these key deals in the offseason, the upper management understands its limits and looks to a future without center Tim Duncan and shooting guard Manu Ginobili, both of whom are due to retire in the coming years.

With all of these teams becoming younger, the NBA has been given a face lift.

In addition to the incoming youth, the NBA already has a few rising stars in potential MVP candidate center Anthony Davis, former MVP point guard Stephen Curry and the high scoring shooting guard Jimmy

Butler.

The challenge from here is upending the veteran staples in the NBA, such as Lebron James’s Cleveland Cavaliers, Chris Paul’s LA Clippers, and Kevin Durant’s Oklahoma City Thunder.

In response to the success of these young teams, the Cavs and Clippers have both solidified their veteran core, signing power forward Kevin Love to a five-year extension and center Deandre Jordan to a controversial four-year deal, respectively.

These teams are not looking to rebuild but rather to bolster their already high level of playing and give them the extra push they need to take home a ring.

—Jerry Miller

just

Sports

Page 16

TIPPING OFF The National Basketball Association began its regular season this past Tuesday, p. 15.

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Waltham, Mass.

WOMEN’S SOCCER

CONFERENCE CHAMPIONS

Women record two draws during conference trip ■ Forward Melissa Darling

’16 recorded the lone goal for the Judges in a 1-1 draw at the University of Rochester.

By MAX BYER JUSTICE staff writer

On Sunday, the No. 8 women’s soccer team drew 1-1 with the the Yellowjackets of the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York, while on Friday they also tied against Emory University.

The Judges now sit at 13-2-3 overall and 2-2-2 in University Athletic Association play.

Judges 1, Rochester 1 The squads came out firing in the first half as they traded dangerous scoring opportunities. Midfielder Holly Szafran ’16 nearly gave the Judges an early lead, but Rochester sophomore goalkeeper Madilynne Lee punched the ball to safety. In the 37th minute, the Judges opened up the scoring when forward Melissa Darling ’16 split two Rochester defenders before ripping a shot from 14 yards out into the net’s bottom right corner.

Darling’s second goal of the season and seventh in her career came after she received a through ball

from forward Haliana Burhans ’18.

The half ended with the Judges leading the shot count 5-3.

The Yellowjackets came out attacking in the second half.

11 minutes into the half, sophomore forward Laura Cowie-Haskell sent a corner to Katie Grasso, who headed it to freshman forward Christina Feller.

Goalkeeper Alexis Grossman ’18 saved Feller’s shot but lost control of the ball, and Rochester’s sophomore forward Paige Gloster slammed in the rebound, tying the game at one apiece.

Overtime came and went without many opportunities.

The Judges put the only shot on target and gained the only corner kick, but the chances did not amount to a serious strike on net.

The Judges had more opportunities throughout the game, leading in shots 12-9, and 6-3 in terms of shots on goal.

Rochester had four corner kicks compared to the two corner kicks for the Judges.

The game was a physical affair, with 30 total fouls, 12 of which were called on the Judges.

Judges 0, Emory 0 Earlier in the week, the Judges traveled to Atlanta, Georgia and

See WSOC, 13 ☛

CROSS cOUNTRY

YESHEN CHEN /the Justice

COMING UP CLUTCH: Forward Chris Bradley ’16 dribbles the ball upfield against Lasell College this past Wednesday night.

Judges capture first outright UAA crown ■ Defender Kyle Robinson

’17 scored the game-winning goal to clinch an NCAA tournament appearance.

By GABRIEL GOLDSTEIN JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

The wins keep piling up for the No. 12 men’s soccer team. The squad claimed victory in all three of its matches this past week, defeating cross-town rival Lasell College on Tuesday, blanking conference foe Emory University on Friday and beating the University of Rochester on Sunday to claim outright the University Athletic Association championship for the first time in school history. By clinching the conference title, the Judges have earned the first bid into the NCAA Division III Tournament of the 2015 season, a feat that should certainly not be overlooked.

No. 12 Judges 2, Rochester 1 On Sunday, the Judges faced off against the University of Roches-

ter, knowing full well that victory would bring the team the UAA title.

The Judges opened scoring in the 29th minute when forward Joshua Handler ’19 masterfully assisted on a six-yard strike by forward Josh Berg ’17.

The goal was Berg’s third of the year, and the assist was Handler’s second of the year.

Rochester rallied quickly, notching the game at one in the 36th minute when sophomore forward Samuel Cekala scored off of a rebound from a save by goalkeeper Ben Woodhouse ’18.

After a stretch of relative inaction, the squad dramatically struck home the game’s decisive goal in the 79th minute, when midfielder Josh Ocel ’17 found defender Kyle Robinson ’17 on a corner that led not only to the game-winning goal but to an NCAA Tournament berth as well.

The victory moves the Judges to 152-1 on the season.

No. 12 Judges 1, Emory 0 On Tuesday, the Judges took on Emory in Atlanta, Georgia. The matchup was one of relative calm,

with only a combined 16 shot attempts from both squads. Of those 16 shots, only six qualified as shots on goal.

That said, the Judges found a way to net a goal in the 58th minute, which turned out to be all they needed to claim victory.

After a deep free kick, Ocel crossed the ball to forward Patrick Flahive ’18, who proceeded to bury the second game-winning goal of his career. After Flahive’s strike, the Eagles were never able to get themselves back into the game, failing to land strikes past Woodhouse. The victory moved Brandeis to a record of 14-2-1 and dropped Emory to 8-5-2 on the season.

More importantly, the victory moved the Judges one win closer to clinching the UAA championship.

No. 12 Judges 1, Lasell 0 The Judges began the week by squaring-off against local rival Lasell College in the squad’s final nonconference match of the season. In a manner that has become typical for this year’s nationally-ranked Judg-

See MSOC, 13 ☛

Teams perform well at home UAA meet ■ Emily Bryson ’19 became

the fifth different individual to claim the UAA crown for the Judges.

By avi gold JUSTICE editor

Emily Bryson ’19 became the first member of the men and women’s cross country team to take the University Athletic Association Championship since the 2002 to 2003 season as the Judges hosted the UAA Championships over the weekend.

Brandeis finished in fourth place on the women’s side and seventh on the men’s side.

Women’s squad (4th place- 102 points) Bryson took the title by completing the six-kilometer course in Franklin Park, Boston in 22 minutes, 3.12 seconds. Her time was just a step faster than University of Chicago freshman Khia Kurtenbach, who stopped the timer at 22:03.44.

Maddie Dolins ’17 grabbed a top15 finish for the Judges, earning 12th place in the race with a finish of 22:29. Her 12th place finish earned Dolins the second All-UAA honor of her career.

Kelsey Whitaker ’16 and Kate Farrell ’18 both ended the race in the top 30 of the 80 competitors in the race, clocking in at 23:03 and 23:06, respectively. Whitaker and Farrell finished consecutively in

28th and 29th places, respectively.

Julia Bryson ’19 and Ashley Piccirillo-Horan ’17 turned in strong races for the Judges, crossing the finish line in 32nd and 33rd places, respectively. Both stopped the timer milliseconds apart at the 23:08 mark of the race.

Lydia McCaleb ’18 ended the race at the 23:19 mark, while Maggie Hensel ’16 covered the course in 23:48. Kyra Shreeve ’18 and Meghan Barry ’19 rounded out the competitors for the Judges, turning in times of 24:05 and 24:36, respectively.

Bryson became the fifth different individual to claim the individual UAA crown for the Judges and the first taken home by a Brandeis runner since Mariko Tansey Holbrook ’03 claimed the 2002 title.

The Judges took fourth place overall, up four places from the 2014 to 2015 season.

Washington University in St. Louis was the top team on the women's side, finishing with an overall score of 35.

In second place was the University of Rochester with a score of 83, while the University of Chicago claimed third place on the backs of 91 points.

Following the Judges who finished in fourth were Emory University, Case Western Reserve University, Carnegie Mellon University and New York University.

The result was a vast improvement for the Judges as they fin-

See CROSS COUNTRY, 13 ☛

Vol. LXVIII #8

November 3, 2015

just ARTS

The Love of the Nightingale ÂťP.

Waltham, MA.

18

Images: Yeshen Chen/the Justice, Creative Commons. Design: Michelle Banayan/the Justice.

18

THE JUSTICE | TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2015

THEATER FIGHTING SPIRIT: The show featured both a male and female chorus, typical of Greek tragedies, that relayed extra information.

ANCIENT MYTH: The show centers on Athenian princess Philomena (Keturah Walker ’18) and the violence she faces from Tereus (Andrew Hydye ’17).

YESHEN CHEN/the Justice

YESHEN CHEN/the Justice

“Nightingale” shows violence of Greek myth

By LINDA MALEH JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

Brandeis Ensemble Theater challenged patriarchal society and rape culture in their production of “The Love of the Nightingale” in the Shapiro Campus Center Theater this past weekend.

The play was written by Timberlake Wertenbaker in 1989 and is a retelling of an Ancient Greek myth about the rape of the Athenian princess Philomela (Keturah Walker ’18) by her brother-in-law Tereus (Andrew Hyde ’17), the king of Thrace.

The show was moving, heartfelt, and simply sad, in that it truly made you feel for the characters and question a society that allowed such things to happen.

In an interview with the Justice, the director, Ayelet Schrek ’17, said she chose this show because “there was a lot of theatre with overt political natures last semester and I wanted to make sure that continued this semester.”

Schrek went on to say how she

wanted to focus in this production on issues of sexual violence and race in society.

The play featured a simple set composed mostly of one large set of steps that dominated the stage.

This was where the chorus usually staged their performance.

The chorus in this play, as with any Ancient Greek play, was there to inform the audience about what was happening, especially in terms of background and events happening off-stage.

There was a male chorus and a female chorus, each to speak for the male and female characters on stage and represent their states. Although simplistic, this set served well as the various settings (a ship, stands in a theatre, the palace at Thrace, etc.) and as a space for the chorus. Schrek said she chose simple tech because “it’s a complex story and I didn’t want design elements to overpower it.” Keturah Walker ’18 as the lead, Philomela was believable in her innocence and passion about the world.

When it was clear Philomela was heading toward danger, it was difficult not to fear for her. The show was not about just her rape but also her relationship with her sister Procne (Salena Deane ’19), the wife of the man who raped her.

The love between the two sisters was a strong bond that proved to be unbreakable, and gave the audience something to root for.

However, perhaps the most heartbreaking character was neither of the sisters but Niobe (Laura Goemann ’19).

Niobe appeared as an older companion to Procne on her journey, and throughout the play her story is revealed as someone who was also raped and so councels Philomela on how to deal with her own experience.

Schrek made her point on how society treats sexual violence most apparent in Niobe’s advice to Philomela. Niobe spent much of the play telling Philomela that she has to make herself small and consent to the desires of the man who raped her and that it could’ve

been a lot worse.

In Niobe, we see how society has told her to be passive about the violence done to her, and Niobe perpetuates the cycle with what she tells Philomela. Philomela, however, does not listen to her, and continues to try to tell the world of what happened to her, even after Tereus rips her tongue out. The great triumph of the play is when Philomela manages to reunite with her sister.

Most of the Athenian characters were played by African American actors, and most of the Thracian characters were played by white actors.

Possibly, this was intentional to make a comment on the subjugation of the Athenians, as a parallel to today’s subjugation of African Americans.

The play emphasizes the subjugation of women in society.

Procne is forced to marry Tereus even though she doesn’t want to, and while the soldiers upon the ship know Philomela was raped, they do nothing about it. The play

spoke well on the subject of violence against women.

The acting in the show was not terribly exciting, and many of the characters appeared depthless, as the lines were given rather flatly.

This was most true with the chorus, many of whom gave their lines rather robotically.

While the chorus is composed of characters without names or specific personalities, in Ancient Greek plays, they are still often given some of the most passionate lines in the play, and this play was no different.

One actor in the chorus that defied this, however, was Kaelan Lynch ’17, who delivered his lines comedically, and full of personality. Jessie Shinberg ’17 is another actor who broke this mold. She created for her character a sassy persona, with a touch of mean girl.

Her few lines were breaths of relief in the play.

“The Love of the Nightingale” was beautiful, sad, and challenged the social constructs put together by a patriarchal society.

PERFORMANCE

Azmeh’s residency features audio-visual “Home Within”

By JAIME GROPPER JUSTICE EDITOR

Kinan Azmeh, a Syrian composer and clarinetist, and Kevork Mourad, a Syrian-Armenian painter and visual artist, completed their weeklong residency this weekend.

The artists were on campus as part of the MusicUnitesUs Intercultural Residency series, directed by Prof.

Judith Eissenberg (MUS). As a culmination of the residency on Saturday evening in Slosberg Recital Hall, Kenan and Mourad performed “Home Within,” their new hourlong audio-visual project. The piece is an abstract telling of the themes and effects of Syria’s revolution and delves into recent events of the revolution. The Lydian String Quartet also performed a world premiere work by Azmeh and Khalil Younes, written specifically for the Brandeis visit.

Azmeh was previously at Brandeis as a clarinetist in a group called New Sounds from Arab Lands. “[Azmeh] spoke about his feelings about what was happening in his home country, Syria. He shared his piece “A Sad Morning, Every Morning” with us. It was the eloquence of his playing and his speaking that led me to ask him to come back,” said Eissenberg in an

email to the Justice.

The artists were on campus for the week, giving select classes and other audiences previews of their performance before their final Saturday performance. At these small previews, the artists answered questions from the audience about their work and discussed and reflected on the Syrian revolution.

At one such performance in Prof.

Sarah Lamb’s (ANTH) Intro to Anthropology class, it was evident how

skillfully their performance combined different artistic mediums.

Azmeh played the clarinet while Mourad created imagery using only a black inkbottle and his hand as tools. While Mourad drew freehand, his work was projected on a larger platform that magnified the work.

The real-time drawings were overlaid on a video with pre-made animation that interacted with Mourad’s illustrations, which lent to the performance being both sur-

PHOTO COURTESY OF JUDITH EISSENBERG

THEMES OF REVOLUTION: During a week-long residency at Brandeis, Azmeh played the clarinet while Mourad created illustrations in performances of “Home Within.”

real and mesmerizing. Adding a layer of intrigue was the fact that for many of the drawings, Mourad made deliberate choices about which parts of the image to draw first. And it was unclear what the final image would be while it was being produced. As Eissenberg said, “This all creates a feeling in the audience of being creators as well ... as we watched, wondering what would happen next, creating our own narrative to what was being revealed.

It was very compelling artwork; the best art requires the audience to be makers as well.”

Improvisation played an intricate role and added a level of emotion in the performance. Eissenberg commented in an email, “As Kinan would improvise musically, Kevork would paint, projected on the screen so we could watch, improvising as well. So there is a feeling of creation at the moment with what the do - as the artists respond to their own feelings, to each other, and to the energy of the audience.” Azmeh responded to a question on the level of improvisation in their work saying that he thinks it is a sign of success when an audience cannot determine whether a musical piece is improvised or pre-determined, and that there is a little bit of both in his playing.

Mourad responded similarly and explained that some details change based on recent events of the revolution. For example, one drawing depicted abstract figures pulling a boat containing a cluster of domed buildings presumably representing a Syrian city. Mourad noted that in past performances, the boat had been a cart, and that the change was due to recent happenings in the revolution.

The multiple drawings that Mourad created through the course of the piece effortlessly matched the tone of the music produced by Azmeh’s clarinet. Azmeh’s playing was incredibly soulful, and it transported the listener to the heart of Syrian culture and right to the edge of the events influenced by and surrounding the Syrian revolution.

The different mediums smoothly combined to produce a strong sense of emotion, especially sadness, as well as emitting a sense of hardship. The piece particularly evoked a strong sense of empathy for all of the people whose lives have been affected. Eissenberg commented, “It was about what is happening in Syria. But even then, there was a certain abstraction so that the story was really a larger story that relates to all humans who have faced violence, and the loss of their homes.”

19

TUESDAY, november 3, 2015 | THE JUSTICE

LECTURE

COMEDY IN ART: Mallory Ortberg, a comedian who is a co-founder of the website The Toast gave a talk in the Rose Art Museum relating ‘The Brood’ to the usage of the female form in art.

HEATHER SCHILLER/the Justice

Comedian blogger Ortberg discusses portrayal of women in Lisa Yuskavages’ ‘The Brood’

By Lizzie grossman justice contributing writer

On Friday night, a crowd gathered in the Lois Foster Gallery of the Rose Art Museum where the walls were adorned with several oil paintings depicting the female body.The audience was awaiting Mallory Ortberg, a writer and comedian who would review “The Brood,” an exhibition currently on display in the gallery that surveys the most defining creative moments from 25 years of painting by American artist Lisa Yuskavage.

The program began with an introduction from Betsy Nelson, collections assistant at the Rose.

Ortberg is a co-founder, editor and writer of the website The Toast, as well as the creator of the series “Women in Western Art History” and the author of

“Texts From Jane Eyre.”

After Nelson officially welcomed Ortberg to the stage, Ortberg began her humorous and entertaining presentation. According to Nelson, Ortberg has never done anything like this before.

She further explained that this was only her second time in Boston and her second time ever giving a talk. Ortberg had the audience laughing from the very beginning, introducing the presentation by saying “let’s talk about Lisa and eerie female oil paintings!”

She admitted that she was not an artist, and received a degree in English, though she took one art history class in college and failed it because she “thought the final started at 10 [AM] when it actually started at 9 [AM],” setting a humorous tone for the rest

of her talk. Using a slideshow, Ortberg went on to discuss paintings by several artists, exploring the concept of women in art and how “The Brood” connected to this theme. She focused heavily on the depiction of women’s facial expressions in paintings by male artists.

Ortberg believes that men misinterpret women’s facial expressions, and what men think is a woman’s “active listening” face is actually her “bored” face. She also highlighted the nudity of Yuskavage’s paintings and how it exemplifies a tradition of nude women in paintings.

Throughout her discussion, Ortberg captured the audience’s attention with her hilarious interpretations of these paintings, using terms such as “casually sultry Lisa Frank color wheel” and “typical art expert museum

talking guy.”

After Ortberg’s presentation, she answered several questions that revealed a glimpse into her background on her experience with art.

When asked how she became so interested in writing articles about art for her website, not having specialized in it, Ortberg responded that she has rarely let not being an expert in a topic keep her from talking about it.

Ortberg commented that she had the mentality of “just wanting to do it” and not being afraid of being harshly judged — The Toast as a website is about generating a general enjoyment of all topics. Ortberg further explained, “It’s a place where I feel like a lot of people who may be an expert in one or two fields but also really enjoy lots of others can kind of … throw out jokes or

impressions, or ideas that they have of certain things.”

Ortberg said that she was at first very nervous about reviewing the exhibit, considering how little she knew about art, but at the same time she was excited.

“I think any time you enter into a field that’s not quite yours, there’s a sense of both a genuine desire not to get something wrong or miss out on something that’s very, very obvious and also a sense of, ‘Gosh, do I have a right to speak about this?’” she told the audience.

Ortberg loved Yuskavage’s art, which she said helped her to become excited about giving the talk. “[I was] excited that you guys would want this, and it’s a lot of fun, because, as you know, I love making lame jokes about arts and learn some lucky arts,” she exclaimed.

Theater

“Letters” explores incarceration of women of color

By Max moran justice editor

Edna Sans had a 4.0 gpa in college, has served hundreds of hours of community service, is a dedicated worker and is passionate about her career field.

But in job interviews, there’s only one thing that the hemming and hawing human resource managers are interested in talking about. As required by law, Sans must disclose in her job applications that she spent time in prison.

All that interviewers really want to know is what would happen if once again, Sans finds that she really needs some extra money?

To understand the mass incarceration of women of color in a nuanced way, one needs to hear from women who have experienced it firsthand. Such an opportunity arose last Wednesday when College and Community Fellowship’s Theater for Social Change presented excerpts of “The Letters Behind My Name,” a theater project written and performed by women who have survived the prison system.

Through monologues and short scenes, the performers reflected on the seemingly impossible task of reentering society after the trauma of prison.

An early scene placed Sans side by side with another performer, Leslie Campbell as the two women

were called into meetings with their respective bosses. Though Sans expected to be fired but was offered a promotion, Campbell dreamed of a raise, but was offered a pink slip. As she spoke with her boss it was revealed that Campbell had been working as a teacher, and she’d told her class about her own history with drugs and prison.

Campbell’s students admired her and she considered herself an excellent teacher, so she had wanted to show her students that they could achieve whatever they hoped to, despite the setbacks life might present them with. For doing this, Campbell was told, she “wouldn’t have to worry about writing syllabi next semester.”

In an interview with the Justice after the performance, Campbell explained that every scene in “The Letters Behind My Name” comes from the actual experiences of the women performing the play. “Although we’re telling our stories and we’re reliving some of the experiences and trauma that we went through, it’s sort of healing,” she said. Vivian Nixon, another performer, told the Justice that it is important to let audiences hear the stories of real people.

“They may not understand the experiences we’ve gone through, but they can understand those scenes, because there’s parental relationships, relationships with

children — everybody understands that,” Nixon said. Nixon spoke at Brandeis in March as part of a panel on criminal justice, according to a March 17 Justice article.

According to Nixon, when “The Letters Behind My Name” has been performed for workers in the law enforcement and incarceration industries, “some really get it and some are like ‘law and order, if we don’t lock them up what are we going to do with them’ kind of thing. … [They] sometimes mistake the need for reform for us saying that they’re not important or that their jobs are not important, which is not what we’re saying at all.”

The play also featured plenty of humor. Scenes showing Sans in job interviews poked fun at uppity hiring managers and their pretended sympathy, even as the scene illustrated serious social problems.

According to Nixon, the humor in “The Letters Behind My Name” is included because “nobody wants to feel lectured to. And people want to be able to find the humor in situations and see themselves in situations like that.”

In a panel after the performance, the actors stated that the best thing allies can do for incarcerated women of color is to research why people in poor communities enter the prison system in the first place and how these communities are policed and prosecuted.

PHOTO COURTESY OF SHANNON HUNT

LIFE AFTER INCARCERATION: Edna Sans performed in “The Letters Behind My Name,” a theater project based on the performers’ experiences of incarceration.

Nixon said that the issue must be placed in the broader context of the African-American experience and noted that the public rarely thinks of those leaving the prison system as having survived a traumatic experience. Sans stated that “it’s critical that we focus on higher education. Because once you know, you can never go back to not knowing.”

Statistics from the Sentencing Project and Critical Resistance

show that Black women are incarcerated at four times the rate of white women. More than half of the women in state prisons have suffered abuse — 47 percent report physical abuse, and 39 percent report sexual abuse, with some reporting both.

Since 1980, the number of people in women’s prisons has risen at a rate of 4.8 percent annually, twice as fast as those in men’s prisons.

20

TUESDAY, november 3, 2015 | THE JUSTIce

PHOTOS CORNER

Brandeis TALKS

INTERVIEW

What was your favorite Halloween costume you saw this weekend?

Ayelet Schrek ’16

Schrek discusses ‘Nightingale’ MIHIR KHANNA/the Justice

Idelle Vaynberg ’17

This week, justArts spoke with Ayelet Schrek ’17, who was the director for UTC’s “The Love of the Nightingale.”

The show was a telling of a Greek myth that focuses on sexual and physical abuse.

“My friend Scott MacDonald dressed up as a Mac Computer because his last name is MacDonald.”

DAISY CHEN/the Justice

SCARY SINGING: Daisy Chen ’19 took this photo on Friday Oct. 30, the night before Halloween, of singers at The Nightmare on South Street — held in the atrium of the Shapiro Campus Center.

justArts: Can you give an overview of the show?

Featuring creative photos from our staff

Ayelet Schrek: It’s a play that’s a retelling of a Greek myth. Violence — sexual, gendered, racialized violence — and also lots of themes of voice and movement, being able to move through space or not being able to move through space, having a voice or not having your voice being taken away. You have a Greek chorus that functions to bring the play into our world, so it’s the myth being told as the myth, but you have the frame connecting it, so it has that sort of meta-layer in some ways, so that we can’t just allow it to be a myth in the past. It forces us to think about the issues in terms of where we are, here and now.

This feature showcases our photographers’ work capturing small moments around campus Scott MacDonald ’17 “The most interesting thing that I saw was a Dell Computer, done by my friend Idelle Vaynberg.”

Maggie Ziegel ’18 “My favorite Halloween costume I saw this weekend was one of my favorite couples who were dressed up as “The Lion King.”

Mitchell Beers ’17 “There was like a group of eight guys that lived together that dressed up as a cop from “Reno 911!””

—Compiled and photographed by Emily Wishingrad and Michelle Banayan /the Justice.

STAFF’S Top Ten

Conspiracy Theories By catherine rosch justice EDITOR

Even though I don’t believe in little green men or that the Kennedy assassination was masterminded by Lyndon B. Johnson, I still enjoy reading about a good conspiracy theory or mystery.

Here are ten of my favorites that boggle logic and freak me out in the best way possible.

1.Olof Palme’s assassination 2. The Taman Shud case 3. The disappearance of Frederick Valentich 4. Phantom timeline theory 5. The Dyatlov Pass incident 6. The Sodder Children 7. The Lost Cosmonauts 8. The disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa 9. UVB 76 10. The Zodiac Killer

CROSSWORD ACROSS 1 – Type of card that’s worth a fortune?

6 – U.S. Territory in Cuba (abbr.)

10 – Crones 14 – Voucher for one’s whereabouts 15 – “_______ Time with Bill Maher” 16 – Help commit a crime 17 – With 62-Across, overused trope in romantic comedies 19 – Refuse to believe evidence 20 – Women’s magazine that hosts annual awards 22 – Caches of weapons 27 – Tree-dwelling marsupial 31 – Comply with a law 32 – Smoothie maker 34 – Speaks in ASL 35 – Rakish man 37 – Tallest creature in Middle Earth 38 – Film critic who coined the term in 10-Across 42 – Altar vow 44 – October birthstone 45 – There is a primary one in 28Down 48 – Download illegally 51 – Highway features 52 – Turn one’s nose up 53 – Most proper 56 – Sudan neighbor 59 – Chicken ______ 62 – See 10-Across 68 – Perimeter 69 – Terminer’s partner 70 – A heartfelt farewell 71 – Stifles speech 72 – Camera feature 73 – Semiconductor with a positive and a negative end DOWN 1 – Highlander’s hat 2 – In the style of 3 - _____-Tin-Tin 4 – Geisha’s sash 5 – Uncontrollable action 6 – George Foreman product 7 – Johnson opponent 8 – Grievously injure 9 – Imitation butter 10 – CERN Concern 11 – Honest prez 12 – Rank above Col. 13 – Pig’s abode 18 – Org. headquartered in Ponte Vedra Beach, FL 21 – Luau instrument 22 – Sounds of shrieking 23 – Baseball stat 24 – How one might address 43-Down 25 – First name of “Simpsons” character who died recently 26 – Where the first flight launched from?

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JA: What was the directing process like?

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28 – Thymine counterpart 29 – Actor Cariou 30 – “The _____ of War” 32 – Actor Ives 33 – Grassy glen 35 – Paying close attention 36 – “Fun _____ bun”, phrase often uttered by Bender 39 – What a waitress in a diner might call you 40 – Salve 41 – Islamic worship leader 42 – Michael Palin lead-in to Monty Python’s Flying Circus 43 – Mob leader 46 – Console with “Castlevania” (abbr.)

47 – Was founded (abbr.)

49 – Actor who took the red pill 50 – Screw up 53 – Groom oneself 54 – Shows, as an ugly head 55 – “____ Legend” 57 – Someone on a pedestal 58 – Good, in an old-timey way 59 – Where college kids take a stand?

60 – Director Lupino 61 – 26-Down item 63 – Comedian Elmaleh 64 – Dictator Amin 65 – Carnival locale, for short 66 – Illumination source containing 73-Across 67 – Seek litigation 64 – Dictator Amin 65 – Carnival locale, for short 66 – Illumination source con-

30

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CROSSWORD COURTESY OF EVAN MAHNKEN

AS: Just being in rehearsal with these amazing people. It was a really big, long process. … It’s definitely been intense; we were one of the first UTC play to go up. It wasn’t that gradual build — right away we were in it and moving along rapidly. ...We had a lot of discussion, we talked a lot about this play, talked about it very much in the context of theater. It wasn’t just like, ‘Let’s sit around and analyze this’; it was like, ‘Let’s live this in our bodies and think about what this means.’

JA: How did directing this show compare to your other experience in Brandeis theater?

AS: I was in a show my first semester, and I actually directed my second semester here with Freeplay … what was different about this process was that it was just a lot bigger than anything I’d ever done in terms of cast, and just so many different theatrical elements that we had to do — singing, dancing, puppets and dolls. Every single moment, due to the nature of the play, had to be incredibly intentional, so just the scale of it was intense but also incredibly rewarding to just have it actually exist.

JA: Is there one thing you want people to take away from the show?

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

Solution to last issue’s sudoku

Sudoku Copyright 2014 Tribune News Service, Inc.

AS: Specifically, no, to the one thing. … Something I think this play is exploring is complexity. As such, if I were to limit you and say this is what I want you to take away, I would be doing an incredible disservice; in my ideal world, it creates an impact in some way. The audience member has an experience, comes into the theater and experiences something that sits in them and perhaps grows somehow.

The experience of seeing the play in some way continues to exist within the person. I believe that theater is lived in the now, it stretches backward, but theater build and builds and builds and stretches forward. The moment we have access to is the moment of the now in experience. I hope that moment is important enough that it does draw people in and has that continuation.

—Jaime Gropper