the
Justice www.thejustice.org
The Independent Student Newspaper Volume LXXII, Number 1
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B r a n d e is U n i v e r sit y S i n c e 1 9 4 9
Tuesday, September 3, 2019
CONVOCATION 2019
Waltham, Mass.
COMMUNITY
Liebowitz responds to #StillConcernedStudents ■ University President
Ron Liebowitz detailed a series of policy changes in response to demands of #StillConcernedStudents. By JEN GELLER AND CHAIEL SCHAFFEL JUSTICE EDITOR AND STAFF WRITER
NOAH ZEITLIN/the Justice
WELCOME TO BRANDEIS: New students and their families listened to University administrators speak at convocation, where they told the attendees about the University's history and gave advice about taking advantage of the college experience.
University welcomes new students with Convocation ■ President Ron Liebowitz
and other leaders addressed the Class of 2023 and transfer students. By GILDA GEIST JUSTICE EDITOR
University President Ron Liebowitz, the Orientation Core Committee and other notable Brandeis administrators welcomed new students and their families to the University at a Convocation ceremony on Chapels Field on Sunday, Aug. 25. Liebowitz began with a brief retelling of the University’s founding, which took place in 1949 during a time when several universities were placing quotas on Jewish people in their admissions processes. Liebowitz explained that the University was founded on principles of “openness to self-criticism,” social justice, free expression, pursuit of truth and tikkun olam, which is Hebrew for “repairing the world.” He continued, “our namesake, Justice Louis Brandeis, was a fierce advocate for the underdog and of free speech.” In light of these principles, he emphasized that Brandeis was meant to create a community of safety for marginalized people. Liebowitz gave the new students three pieces of advice as they embark on their Brandeis journeys: Don’t try to do too much, be true to yourself and remember it is not yet necessary to have a plan or have
NOAH ZEITLIN/the Justice
everything figured out. “Please look out for one another,” he added. “Lend a hand to roommates and classmates when you see they need some support." New Vice Provost of Student Affairs Raymond Ou addressed the community, connecting with students through the fact that he, too, was new to campus. Ou, coming from Tufts as senior associate dean of student affairs, talked about his day spent driving around campus during Orientation trying to find where he was supposed to park, often getting lost along the way. “What? Every building is named Shapiro?” he asked. Finally, he said, a student noticed that he looked lost and asked if he needed help. He said she showed him where he needed to go, which reminded him that it is all right to ask for help and to be unsure in a new place. “Students, we’re all in this together,” he said. Provost Lisa Lynch empathized with the parents of new students, revealing that she cried on movein day when sending her student off to college despite working at the school her child would be attending. She advised parents to let go and allow their children some freedom, but to still be there for them in tough times. Lynch also made sure to emphasize to students that they all belonged there, even if they might feel like they were struggling once classes started. “Our admissions office does not make mistakes,” she said. Ou had a story for the parents as
well. Although he had never seen a child off to college, he described instead how hard it was the first time he left his dog at the kennel while he went out of town, but how proud he was when he picked him up at the end and he was happy and healthy. The next time Ou had to leave his dog at the kennel, he recalled, the transition was much easier. Dean of Arts and Sciences Dorothy Hodgson spoke next, explaining that as a top research university with a strong commitment to its undergraduates, the new students had research opportunities available to them during their time at Brandeis. Her advice to students was to explore, take intellectual risks and join clubs. Her advice to parents was to let their children explore their passions. Executive Director of Hillel and the University’s Senior Jewish Chaplain Rabbi Seth Winberg talked about the concept of truth of belief, which involves being able to count on something or someone. He referenced the Brandeis seal, which focuses heavily on the concept of truth. The outside of the seal has the University’s motto, “Truth, even unto its innermost parts,” and the inside has the Hebrew word “emet,” or “truth.” Winberg advised students to be themselves and be there for each other. —Editor’s Note: Justice Editor Andrew Baxter ’21 is a member of the Orientation core committee. He did not contribute to or edit this article.
University President Ron Liebowitz sent an email to the Brandeis community on Aug. 29 addressing the concerns and actions of the #StillConcernedStudents at the end of the spring 2019 semester. Last spring, #StillConcernedStudents protested policy practices on campus in a widely-publicized rally on May 1. The students marched from the Rabb steps to the Department of Community Living, the Department of Public Safety office, the Bernstein-Marcus Administration Center and the Shapiro Campus Center. Along the way, the students announced a list of demands they had for the University. The movement draws membership and messages from the rallies of the Concerned Students 2015 movement that led the 2015 Ford Hall sit-in. Liebowitz stressed in his email
the importance of ensuring that all members of the Brandeis community are welcome. He mentioned the progress made last year that began with the conclusion of the independent investigation into campus climate following the termination of men’s basketball coach Brian Meehan. According to the email, senior administration officials underwent additional diversity, equity and inclusion training from Rev. Dr. Jamie Washington, a specialist in diversity training for administrators. The group that received the training included Chief Diversity Officer and Vice President for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Mark Brimhall-Vargas; Senior Vice President for Institutional Advancement Zamira Korff; General Counsel Steven Locke; Provost Lisa Lynch; Chief of Staff William O’Reilly; Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration Stewart Uretsky and Interim Senior Vice President for Communications and External Relations William Walker. The entire team met with Washington four times, and each member met with Washington twice individually. Liebowitz wrote that this train-
See #STILLCONCERNED, 7 ☛
PUBLIC SAFETY
Photos of Brandeis students, staff found on white nationalist forum ■ Nearly a dozen community
members are affected by the anti-Semitic posts, but no threat has been determined, Public Safety says. By JOCELYN GOULD AND CHAIEL SCHAFFEL JUSTICE EDITOR AND STAFF WRITER
The photographs and names of nearly a dozen current and former Brandeis students, faculty and staff were disseminated on a white supremacist forum, according to a statement Public Safety sent to the Brandeis Community via email on Aug. 19. Director of Public Safety Ed Callahan wrote that the posts posed “no direct threat to these individuals or to Brandeis.” In an email to the Justice last Thursday, Callahan said that the “photos appear to have been copied from articles and other public-facing web pages connected to the individuals’ scholarship or work.” Callahan had been in contact with multiple law enforcement agencies, including lo-
cal law enforcement and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and determined that the posts were no threat to the Brandeis community. The photos were posted to the white nationalist and anti-Semitic message board “Vanguard News Network” in a thread, which Callahan provided to the Justice, that mocked the appearance of thousands of Jews of varying ages and backgrounds. In the thread, participants called Jews “Greasy,” “Corrupt,” “Filthy,” “Ratlike” and “Pure Evil.” One user commented, “Europeans are the children of God, while [Jews] are the children of Satan!” Another called the international Hillel organization “a group of Jewish supremacist thugs.” A Justice investigation of the 21 pages of photographs and names in the thread found photos of nearly a dozen current and former staff members, faculty, students and recent alumni, as of the publication of this article. The thread also featured photos of students from other universities, including several pages devoted solely to students of Yeshiva University, a Modern Orthodox Jewish university. The investigation into the
See WHITE NATIONALISM, 7 ☛
Inside Orientation
Museum in the desert
University responds to Nelson-Bailey lawsuit
The Justice heard from first-years and OLs about their Orientation experiences.
By EMILY BLUMENTHAL
By ELIANA PADWA AND VICTOR
Against all odds, a multi-national community was formed under a shared destiny.
FELDMAN
By VICENTE CAYUELA
FEATURES 8-9
Photo Courtesy of VICENTE CAYUELA
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NEWS 3
What if I just don't want to read the news? By HARRISON PAEK
FORUM 12
Kicking off men's soccer season
ARTS 19
By BRIAN INKER
COPYRIGHT 2019 FREE AT BRANDEIS.
SPORTS 16
2
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2019
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NEWS
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THE JUSTICE
NEWS POLICE LOG MEDICAL EMERGENCY June 3—University Police responded to a call from behind the Gosman Sports and Convocation Center tennis court area to assist a female with an injured ankle from rollerblading. Cataldo Ambulance and the Waltham Fire Department responded to the scene, and the party was transported to Newton-Wellesley Hospital via Cataldo Ambulance. The Area Coordinator on Call was notified. June 4—A staff member from the Foster building walked into Public Safety reporting that they had injured their hand moving a roller rack. University Police transported the patient to Newton-Wellesley Hospital. June 16—University Police received a call from the Waltham Police Department regarding a female party having a medical situation somewhere in Skyline Residence Hall without a known location. The Waltham Police told the University Police that they would call back with the party’s name and location, but the University Police found the party on the third floor. Cataldo Ambulance arrived and transported the party to Newton-Wellesley for further care. The Area Coordinator on Call was notified. June 30—A caller in the Skyline Residence Hall stated her heart was racing and that she needed assistance. Cataldo Ambulance was notified and University Police arrived on the scene. Waltham Fire Rescue also responded to the scene. The party was transported to NewtonWellesley Hospital via Cataldo Ambulance. The Area Coordinator on Call was notified. July 5—A camp attendee in the Gosman Sports and Convocation Center banged their head on a fire extinguisher in the gym. University Police met with the parent and the attendee. University Police escorted the parent and attendee to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for further care. July 6—Waltham Police called University Police for a medical event on the athletic fields. A minor had fainted. The Waltham Fire Department and Cataldo Ambulance responded to the scene. The party was transported to NewtonWellesley Hospital via Cataldo Ambulance with their parent in the ambulance for further care. July 16—A student walked into the Stoneman Building and reported difficulty breathing. The party was transported to Newton-Wellesley Hospital via Cataldo Ambulance for further care. July 20—A student fainted in Ridgewood C. The party was transported to Newton-Wellesley Hospital via Cataldo Ambulance. July 30—University Police responded to Village Lounge to investigate a report of an elderly man who had fallen and struck his head. Upon arrival at the location, it was revealed that the party had tripped over his violin case, causing him to hit his head. Cataldo Ambulance and the Waltham Fire Department responded to the scene, and the party was transported to NewtonWellesley Hospital via Cataldo Ambulance for further care. A report was compiled on the incident. August 12—A University groundskeeper had a technical mishap while riding a lawn mower onto South Street. Injuries were sustained, and the Waltham Fire Department and Cataldo Am-
bulance responded to the scene. The party was transported to Newton-Wellesley Hospital via Cataldo Ambulance for further care. August 17—There was a report of a male party having difficulty breathing in the Gosman Sports and Convocation Center. University Police and Cataldo Ambulance were dispatched along with the Waltham Fire Department. The party was transported to Newton-Wellesley Hospital via Cataldo Ambulance for further care. August 20—University Police responded to a call from the Brandeis Athletic field to assist a middle-aged woman suffering from a leg injury. The party was transported to Newton-Wellesley Hospital via Cataldo Ambulance for further care. August 22—A party came into the University Police dispatch area and reported getting stung on the finger by a bee. BEMCo staff treated the party with a signed refusal for further care. August 23—There was a report of a Brandeis employee with back pain in Spingold Theater. The party was treated by BEMCo staff with a signed refusal for further care. August 25—A party in Cable Hall cut their finger and fainted. They were conscious and alert when BEMCo responded to the scene, and the party refused ambulance transport to NewtonWellesley Hospital. August 26—University Police and BEMCo responded to a report of a party with a possible head injury at the Usdan Student Center. The party was treated by BEMCo with a signed refusal for further care. August 26—BEMCo staff reported to an event in the Shapiro Campus Center for a party who had accidentally struck himself in the head with his wristwatch. The party was treated with a signed refusal for further care. August 26—University Police and BEMCo responded to assist a party who was having an allergic reaction in front of Ridgewood B. The party was transported to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for further care. August 27—A caller stated that a metal bed frame had fallen on their right foot in Village A, and that they believed that it was broken. BEMCo staff treated the patient with a signed refusal for further care. August 29—A report was made by a party who was feeling faint in the Humanities Quad. University Police and BEMCo responded to the scene. The party was treated by BEMco staff and transported to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for further care. August 30—There was a report of a party with an injured finger in Rosenthal South. The party was treated by BEMCo staff and transported to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for further care. August 31—A caller stated that an individual was passed out in the pond area of Massell Quad. University Police and BEMCo responded to the scene. Cataldo Ambulance was requested for a highly intoxicated individual. The party was transported to Newton-Wellesley Hospital via Cataldo Ambulance for further care. The Area Coordinator on Call was notified. August 31—A party in Ziv 127 was stung by a bee. BEMCo treated the party with a signed re-
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fusal for further care. August 31—A party requested BEMCo for abdominal pain. BEMCo staff treated the party with a signed refusal for further care. August 31—A party in Village A requested BEMCo for a finger laceration. BEMCo staff treated the patient with a signed refusal for further care. August 31—There was a report of a party in the Gosman Sports and Convocation Center being struck in the face with a tennis ball. BEMCo staff treated the party, and University Police transported the party to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for further care. August 31—A nurse on call in Health Services stated that a party in Cable Hall called her reporting that she was not feeling well. BEMCo staff treated the party and University Police transported the party to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for further care. September 1—There was a report of an intoxicated party on the steps of Pomerantz Hall. University Police and BEMCo responded. The party was treated by BEMCo. The party was transported to Newton-Wellesley Hospital via Cataldo Ambulance for further care. The Area Coordinator on Call was notified, and a Community Standards Report was filed by University Police. Sept 1—A party in Skyline Residence Hall was reported as having smoked too much marijuana. University Police and BEMCo responded. BEMCo staff treated the party and the party was transported to Newton-Wellesley Hospital via Cataldo Ambulance for further care. The Area Coordinator on Call was notified, and a Community Standards Report was filed by University Police. Sept 1—There was a report of an intoxicated party in the Foster Mods. University Police and BEMCo staff responded. The party was transported to Newton-Wellesley Hospital via Cataldo Ambulance for further care. The Area Coordinator on Call was notified, and a Community Standards Report was filed by University Police. DISTURBANCE May 18—A caller stated that there was a party in the Upper Mods. University Police checked the area with the Area Coordinator on Call. University Police advised a small gathering to quiet down, and they were cooperative. July 1—A small group by Ridgewood C was keeping other residents awake. University Police spoke to the parties and the group dispersed for the evening. August 3—University Police received a call about a group outside of Ridgewood C causing a disturbance with loud music. Ten to twelve people were outside talking with loud music playing. The group dispersed without incident. No further action was taken by police. August 15—A caller complained of loud music in the Theater Lot coming from a vehicle. University Police checked the area, and all was quiet upon their arrival. DRUGS August 29—A Hoot Market employee reported a bag of marijuana found on the store floor. University Police confiscated the contraband and
filed a report. HARASSMENT May 21—A staff member at the Heller School reported harassment via phone call. A report was composed, and Internet and Technology Services was notified to block the number from making future calls to the staff member. June 17—A staff member in the Heller School reported harassment via phone call. University Police compiled a report on the incident, and Internet and Technology Services blocked the phone number. July 1—A University staff member at 60 Turner Street received a strange letter in the mail. University Police compiled a report on the incident. July 1—A student worker in the Gosman Sports and Convocation Center reported an older male who made her feel uncomfortable during a recent conversation. A report was compiled by University Police. July 8—A staff member was sent an email with harassing comments. University Police compiled a report on the incident. July 20—A student in the Stoneman Building reported that he was tricked into providing his Social Security number in a phone scam. July 29—Summer residents came into the police station from the Foster Mods to report a number of harassing telephone calls. A report was compiled on the incident. August 5—University Police compiled a report on a voicemail message that was received by a confused elderly female in Goldfarb Library. Internet and Technology Services was contacted to block the number from future calls. VANDALISM May 29—A Department of Community Living staff member reported a broken window in the Skyline Residence Hall. University Police compiled a report on the incident. Aug 21—Chalk was used on a sculpture on the rear path of the Chapels area. University Police compiled a report on the incident. Facilities was notified to remove the chalk graffiti from the sculpture. THEFT Aug 27—A staff member reported that various pieces of information technology equipment had been stolen from various areas on campus since the spring semester. University Police compiled a report on the incident. MISCELLANEOUS May 21—A previously terminated staff member returned to campus. University Police spoke to the party and escorted them off University property to the train station without incident. Aug 16—A faculty member reported that a website had posted derogatory statements and photographs (non-threatening) of Brandeis community members on their website, the Vanguard News Network. University Police compiled a report on the incident. —Compiled by Jen Geller
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The Department of Orientation welcomed new students to Brandeis at its annual event This Is Our House last Monday. Dean of Students Jamele Adams hosted the event, getting new students excited about the coming school year and everything the Brandeis community has to offer.
THE JUSTICE
NEWS
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TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2019
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University responds to Nelson-Bailey lawsuit
GETTING INVOLVED
■ The University denied
Robin Nelson-Bailey’s allegations of racial and gender discrimination. By EMILY BLUMENTHAL JUSTICE EDITOR
NATALIA WIATER/the Justice
Students explored the hundreds of campus organizations and clubs at the Involvement Fair on Sunday.
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BRIEF Office of Communications takes over class Facebook pages The Office of Communications took over administrative control of the MyDeis Facebook pages and passed on the pages’ moderator powers to the class senators. The Admissions Office had previously monitored the MyDeis pages until the Friday before Orientation, when they opened the groups to other class years and ceded control of the pages to moderators. In the past, anyone part of the group could become a moderator or administrator as long as a current moderator or administrator approved. This has caused issues in the past, such as when then-Class of 2022 Senator Alex Chang took over sole administratorship of the MyDeis Class of 2020 page through non-University profiles. In an Aug. 30 interview with the Justice, Assistant Director of Social Media Strategy Allie Morse clarified that the Office of Communications was planning to implement a monitoring system in early fall 2018, about a month or two before Chang’s actions took place. Morse compared the groups as they previously operated to “islands of lost boys,” saying they mostly operated as club listings and event announcements. Because the pages started out as official extensions of the University, Morse said this initiative was meant to keep them that way by placing them under the control of the Office of Communications, but said the office was not trying to hinder how the groups used to work. Under the direction of Morse, the page is now only open to Brandeis students; alumni, parents and businesses are not
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allowed in the groups. The Admissions Office still controlled the pages until the Friday before Orientation, and during that time only students in that class year are allowed in the group, with the exception of some people who work with the incoming class, such as Roosevelt Fellows. In order to join the groups, users must answer three questions, Morse said. They must verify their Brandeis email address, their class year and their full name. Users must also abide by the rules of the group posted by the University on each page as well as in the Brandeis Rights and Responsibilities and they may face disciplinary action for any violations. Users should treat others with kindness and respect, avoid spamming the pages with more than one event post and refrain from corporate promotion posts, per the rules. In addition, the guidelines specify that if the Office of Communications thinks that a user is impersonating someone else, acting in an official capacity when not authorized to do so or blocking moderators and administrators, those actions can result in removal from the group. Once the new members of the Union are sworn into office, the Office of Communications will start a transition to student moderators, who will be the respective class senators. These students will undergo training on what to do in certain situations and how to screen for membership. They, too, will be bound by the Brandeis Rights and Responsibilities. —Natalia Wiater
Counsel for the University and defendants University President Ron Liebowitz, Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration Stew Uretsky and Interim Vice President for Human Resources Larry Lewellen denied the majority of the allegations from a discrimination lawsuit filed by Robin Nelson-Bailey, the University’s assistant vice president for special projects. Nelson-Bailey is suing the University, Liebowitz, Uretsky and Lewellen for recurring racial and gender discrimination and retaliation throughout her tenure as vice president of Human Resources. The defendants are represented by Gregory Manousos of Morgan, Brown & Joy LLP. Matthew Fogelman of Fogelman & Fogelman LLC is counsel to Nelson-Bailey. The discrimination allegedly occurred in large part during Nelson-Bailey’s investigation of former men’s basketball coach Brian Meehan, who was fired in April 2018 following allegations of racism and nepotism. The defense’s denial was issued in response to the lawsuit’s charges of discrimination under Massachusetts General Law Chapter 151B, Section 4 (4A) and (5). This prohibits workplace coercion and discrimination against employees who file complaints or oppose practices prohibited under Chapter 151B. The defense denied NelsonBailey’s eligibility for punitive damages and relief, calling her claims “speculative in nature.” Nelson-Bailey is seeking a minimum of $2 million in damages for emotional distress and lost wages and benefits. Nelson-Bailey alleged that she was hindered in her investigation of Meehan by the defendants and by Linda Shinomoto, the former director of employee and labor relations and Title IX coordinator, a claim the defense repeatedly denied. The lawsuit is based on the claim that the discriminatory conduct of the defendants during and after the investigation led to Nelson-Bailey’s demotion and distress. Nelson-Bailey was demoted from vice president of Human Resources to her current role
after an independent investigation into the University’s handling of the Meehan allegations. She was the only Black woman in a high-level administrative position at the time and the only employee punished for their role in the Meehan investigation, according to the complaint. With these facts taken together, Nelson-Bailey alleges in the suit, the University committed discrimination by demoting her. In its answer to these claims, the defense admitted that Nelson-Bailey was the only human resources employee demoted in the fallout of the independent investigation, but did not find that the action constituted discrimination. Nelson-Bailey is also ineligible for relief, the defense said, because the damages she suffered were “caused by her own acts, omissions and course of conduct, or by a person or persons for whose conduct the Defendants are not legally responsible.” The identities of the referred persons are unclear. Throughout the investigative process, the defendants claim to have made “good faith efforts to enforce an anti-discrimination/anti-harassment policy,” and did not act “intentionally, maliciously, willfully or neglectfully” toward Nelson-Bailey. Under Chapter 151B, punitive damages can be awarded in employment discrimination cases even if the employer did not act with the knowledge or intention to violate anti-discrimination law, per the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision in Haddad vs. Walmart Stores, Inc. While the answer is clear in its overall denial of the allegations, the court filing document contains many inconsistencies. Individual paragraphs in the defendants’ document often refer to different allegations than are in the corresponding parts of the complaint. It also frequently alludes to allegations that are unclear in nature or are not listed in the complaint. The answer document also contains 30 extra paragraphs than are in the complaint. It is unclear what allegations the defense is referring to in these paragraphs. Additionally, the inconsistent paragraph numbering in the answer occasionally leads the reader to believe that the defense admits to incriminating claims. Upon comparison of the answer and the complaint, the defense seems to admit that Uretsky
“constantly second-guessed Ms. Nelson-Bailey’s decisions, often consulting with other, subordinate personnel to substantiate Ms. NelsonBailey’s actions,” according to the complaint, and that her white, male colleagues did not receive the same treatment. This admission would go against the defense’s denial of the allegations of discrimination posed by NelsonBailey. The Justice reached out to Manousos for comment on the issue, but did not receive a response. Moreover, the defense and the complaint shared a common thread — an admission of Nelson-Bailey’s often-fraught relationship with Lewellen, who became her supervisor and successor after her demotion. During one particularly contentious meeting, Nelson-Bailey alleges that Lewellen “uttered, ‘Oh, Jesus Christ,’ at or toward her” when she asked him about training for her new position, an exchange Lewellen admitted took place. However, he denied other actions Nelson-Bailey alleged in the suit, such as withholding a proper job description from Nelson-Bailey and questioning her ability to handle her workload. The defense also denied the complaint’s assertion that no male administrators were reprimanded in the aftermath of the independent investigation. The complaint specifically cites Andrew Flagel, the former senior vice president for students and enrollment. Flagel left the University to pursue a research fellowship in October 2017, six months before the Meehan reports surfaced. The defense did not clarify how Flagel’s exit constituted a reprimand connected to the Meehan situation, or if his exit was related to the investigation. Another argument presented by the defense rejected Nelson-Bailey’s suit under the after-acquired evidence doctrine. This doctrine is a defense used in wrongful termination lawsuits wherein the employer discovers incriminating facts about the employee that would have resulted in termination, even discounting the allegations of discrimination. The answer does not specify any evidence that could be used under the doctrine, but may refer to Nelson-Bailey’s alleged handling of the Meehan investigation. The prosecution does not have a response to the defense’s answer, Fogelman told the Justice in an Aug. 29 email.
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NEWS
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TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2019
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GIVING BACK AT VOLUNTEERFEST
BRIEF
University renovates Starr Plaza over the summer to increase accessibility The renovation of Starr Plaza to improve campus accessibility is complete, the Office of Finance and Administration announced in an email on Thursday. Workers raised the previously circular Starr Plaza to increase access to the Irving Presidential Enclave and Bernstein-Marcus Administrative Center. The renovations removed the stairs leading up to the buildings and added seating areas and plants. A May 23 email called the initiative, which took place over two months, “an important visible
step the university is taking to improve campus accessibility.” In addition, the area around Fellows Garden and the Hassenfeld Conference Center has been repaired after a steam line break in August 2018 transformed the area into a construction site. The upgrade included the removal of one of the pathways in the Garden and substituting greenery, along with replacing the steps leading up to the Louis Brandeis statue with new ones. —Natalia Wiater
SARAH KATZ/the Justice
Students and faculty gathered for “Volunteerfest: A Day of Service for Brandeis and the Waltham Community,” hosted by the Departments of Community Service and Orientation.
STAFF AND ADMINISTRATION
University announces new staff and administrative hires for upcoming year ■ New hires include a
director of athletics, vice provost of student affairs and more. By JOCELYN GOULD JUSTICE EDITOR
University officials announced that five new staff members and administrators will be joining the Brandeis community. Some have already begun their work at Brandeis, while others will arrive later into the fall semester.
Director of Athletics Lauren S. Haynie
Lauren S. Haynie will become the University’s new director of athletics, Provost Lisa Lynch announced in an Aug. 23 email to the Brandeis community. Haynie, currently the senior associate director of athletics and physical education, recreation and athletics for Wellesley College, will begin her new role at Brandeis on Sept. 23. Haynie will oversee the entire athletics program, a role which includes “enhance[ing] the studentathlete experience, help[ing] guide and mentor the coaches of our 19 varsity teams, and work[ing] as Brandeis Athletics’ primary representative in interactions with leaders across campus,” per Lynch’s email. Haynie comes to Brandeis with “nearly two decades of experience in college athletics, including management, mentorship, and sports medicine,” Lynch wrote. She has held positions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Catholic University of America, Lane College and Assumption College. In an email to the Justice, Haynie explained that she was drawn to Brandeis because of its “institutional values,” including its “academic rigor” and “commitment to providing a welcoming environment for faculty, staff and students of all backgrounds.” Her top priority once she arrives on campus “will always be the ways in which athletics can strengthen the student experience” by giving students the opportunity to learn “values of resilience, teamwork and dedication,” she wrote. Another priority is to make Gosman a place where everyone is “welcome to engage in physical activity, whether it be through classes, intramurals, club sports or fitness options,” she said in the email. Throughout her career, Haynie has demonstrated a “strong record of championing diversity and inclusion,” Lynch wrote in her email. Haynie wants to ensure that
Brandeis is “attracting, recruiting and retaining students and staff that reflect the diversity of our world,” she wrote. She said she wants to ensure that the Athletics Department is partnering with other campus groups to promote inclusion, and in her email, she urged the Brandeis community to “not be afraid to engage each other across difference.” “The diversity of our community is a strength, and we should also recognize that to truly enhance inclusion, we must be willing to explore and understand these differences,” she explained. Haynie is a member of Women Leaders in College Sports, the Minority Opportunities Athletic Association and the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics, per Lynch’s email. At MIT, Haynie participated in the university’s Rainbow Compass Mentoring Program — a program that supports LBGTQ+ students — according to an Aug. 23 Brandeis Judges article. For the last year, Jeffrey Ward has served as the interim director of athletics at Brandeis. He took over the position after former Director of Athletics Lynne Dempsey was demoted following the independent investigation spurred by former men’s basketball coach Brian Meehan’s firing. The investigation found that the Athletics and Human Resources departments had failed to protect players from Meehan’s racist discrimination and abuse.
Vice Provost of Student Affairs Raymond Lu-Ming Ou
Raymond Lu-Ming Ou became the University’s first vice provost of student affairs at the beginning of this academic year. Ou will oversee departments including the Dean of Students Office; the Hiatt Career Center; the Department of Community Living; the Center for Spiritual Life; Hillel; Family Engagement and Communications; the Counseling Center; the Health Center and the Prevention, Advocacy and Resource Center, according to an Aug. 13 email from Lynch announcing Ou’s hiring. His work will “bring about stronger connections between Brandeis’ curricular and co-curricular activities,” Lynch explained. Ou’s work will connect to Liebowitz’s Framework for Our Future and, more specifically, to the work of the student learning/living experience task force. He serves on the president’s leadership team. Before joining campus, Ou was the senior associate dean of student affairs at Tufts University. He has also worked at Johns Hopkins University, Yale University and Simmons University, per Lynch’s email, and he comes to Brandeis with
experience overseeing “residence life programs, diversity programs, culturally-inclusive counseling and health programs, student accessibility services, career services, academic advising and more.” This semester, Ou will conduct a “holistic review of mental health needs and support deficits on our campus, in consultation with key stakeholders,” Lynch said. This review will be undertaken in response to both the task force’s work gathering feedback from the community and Ou’s experience with counseling. Lynch also cited the review in an Aug. 29 email she sent the Brandeis community as one of the steps the University was taking to address issues raised by the #StillConcernedStudents group. “I am excited to meet and work with our students, and to lead the student affairs team as we work to create the best possible experience for every student enrolled in our undergraduate and graduate programs,” Ou said in an Aug. 13 Brandeis NOW article. Ou did not respond to the Justice’s request for comment.
ence to help improve the marketing and communications efforts overall, partner with units across campus, help move the Framework for Our Future forward and develop a plan for the university’s external relations,” he wrote. “But before I can do any of that, I need to understand Brandeis, [its] history, culture and the work that is already happening.” Kim comes to Brandeis after serving as the vice president for communications at the College of the Holy Cross, where he “managed strategic marketing, issues management, and government and community relations,” Liebowitz wrote in his email. He has also held leadership positions in communications and marketing fields at both the University of Michigan College of Engineering and West Virginia University. Kim is taking over the role from Bill Walker, who became the interim senior vice president of communications in January after Ira Jackson, the former executive vice president for communications and external relations, left the University in December 2018.
Senior Vice President for Communications, Marketing and External Relations Dan Kim
Vice President of Campus Operations Lois A. Stanley
Dan Kim joined Brandeis as the new senior vice president of communications, marketing and external relations on Sunday. In this role, Kim will “lead the central communications, marketing, and external relations team and the continued development of an integrated university-wide marketing communications strategy as our new branding platform is implemented,” University President Ron Liebowitz wrote in an Aug. 6 email that announced Kim’s hiring. Kim also serves on the president’s leadership team and will work with the group to develop the Framework for Our Future and to communicate its progress to the community. “I think the university is at a very special moment in its history, with the dynamic leadership of President Liebowitz and the Framework for Our Future,” Kim wrote in an email to the Justice, adding that he is “honored to be joining the leadership team.” Getting to be a part of this work was one reason Kim was interested in the position. Kim also pointed to the University’s “tremendous academic and research profile” and its “commitment to its founding values, especially to equity and inclusion” as reasons he joined the Brandeis community. As he begins his time at Brandeis, Kim highlighted the need to “learn as much as [he] can” about the University. “I want to use my experi-
Stepping into a position that affects a diverse array of aspects of campus life, Lois A. Stanley will become the vice president of campus operations on Oct. 15. “[Stanley’s] portfolio at Brandeis will include Facilities Services, Public Safety, Capital Programs, Events Management, Dining Services, Environmental Health and Safety, Sustainability, Emergency Management and University Services,” Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration Stew Uretsky wrote in an Aug. 27 email to the community announcing Stanley’s hiring. Currently, Stanley is Tufts’ director of campus and capital renewal planning, where her work has included the university’s deferred maintenance program and helping to develop cross-school capital projects that affect departments across the campus. She has previously worked at Harvard University, where she was responsible for a range of capital projects. “Campus Operations is first and foremost a service organization in support of the academic community,” Stanley wrote in an email to the Justice. As she begins her time at Brandeis, she will reach out to “key stakeholders in the academic community” to learn about their priorities. “[Stanley] will help us enhance the safety, functionality, environmental sustainability and accessibility of our campus for students, employees and visitors,” Uretsky
wrote in his email. In her email to the Justice, Stanley expressed her desire to work with Mary Fischer, the manager for sustainability programs, “to understand the steps that have already been taken and how the university can build on those to do even more” to promote sustainability From her similar work at Tufts, Stanley said she is “familiar with the challenges of creating accessible space across campus.” “I am eager to get a better understanding of the Brandeis campus and work with the university community toward solutions that will improve accessibility,” she wrote. Stanley will replace Interim Vice President for Campus Operations Richard Reynolds, who joined the University in April after Jim Gray left the position for another at Smith College.
Vice President of Development Hannah Peters
Hannah Peters will join the University as the vice president of development on Wednesday, according to an Aug. 27 Brandeis NOW article. In this role, she will “oversee fundraising activities in the institutional advancement division” and “implement strategies to ensure achievement of fundraising goals,” the article explained. Before coming to Brandeis, Peters worked at Harvard University for 20 years, most recently as the associate dean for development and external relations at the Harvard Divinity School. She also held positions at Harvard Business School, Harvard Graduate School of Design, Stanford University School of Engineering and Tufts Medical College, and she has worked with the Asia Society and the Executive Council on Foreign Diplomats, per the same article. In an email to the Justice, Peters explained that she decided to join the Brandeis community because the University “is at an interesting and important moment in its history” and because its “founding ideals of excellence, access and social justice have never been more urgently needed in higher ed and the world.” She also noted Brandeis’ “remarkable” staff, saying, “everyone I met during the interview process is exceptionally talented, committed, interesting and fun.” Looking to the development work she will do at the University, Peters reflected that development “is the ultimate team sport.” Success, she said, requires “every part of the University coming together to tell the School’s story and articulate its goals.” She highlighted the importance of students and faculty in this venture, because they “will inspire philanthropy.”
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#STILLCONCERNED: University releases new policies to support students of color CONTINUED FROM 1 ing was just the beginning of an extensive training process that began with the President’s Management Council, which includes the previously mentioned members of his senior team, as well as “deans, other division and unit heads, and leaders of units within their purview.” Liebowitz’s email was followed shortly after by a message from Provost Lisa Lynch and Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration Stewart Uretsky, which detailed these policy changes.
Lynch and Uretsky’s changes to policy, press conference responses from administration
In a joint interview on Thursday with the Justice and The Brandeis Hoot, Lynch, Uretsky and Liebowitz detailed a meeting in early May with five students of the #StillConcernedStudents group, Prof. Chad Williams (AAAS) and employees from Academic Services and the Brandeis Counseling Center. During the conference, Liebowitz admitted that the administration acted “in error” when they removed a sign hung on Squire Bridge by the #StillConcernedStudents, and acknowledged that his letter to the community after the protests “upset members of the community on both sides.” The various initiatives the University is taking fall into eight categories and include a variety of aspects of campus that were of concern to the demonstrators in the spring. They include mental health; Ombuds office staffing; reporting of complaints and public release of data; the Student Conduct Board; policy on banners; Brandeis policy on classified research; increasing transportation equitability; accessibility and the Department of Community Living’s and Public Safety’s accountability for the safety and overall well-being of students. The most concrete and imminent policy changes centered around the use of protest banners, the presence of Brandeis police officers at events hosted by student of color organizations and an expansion of free shuttle routes on holidays and to new locations.
New policy on protest materials
According to Lynch and Uretsky’s email, student protestors will now be required to submit their protest materials to the Dean of Students office. There is no current plan to have an independent body review the signs for approval, Lynch and Liebowitz said in the interview. Liebowitz signaled that the senior administrative staff was open to changing the office that approves or denies protest signs, saying that it “doesn’t have to be the Dean of Students Office, in any of our view.” Lynch said that the new policy was to “not squash free speech… but to [protest] in a way that is safe, that we’re not having people hanging from dangerous places, putting up banners.” “I think there are limits to everything. Even free speech has limits. Even the most extreme or the most laissez-faire approach to free speech has limitations, and I think that’s what we’re trying to strike the balance between … but there are limits, and you can cross those limits, and that’s when the University has to speak up,” said Liebowitz.
Response to claim of excessive policing and new Graduate Student Policy
One of the demands of the
#StillConcernedStudents in last semester’s protests was to “end the excessive policing of student of color organizations on campus.” In the interview, Uretsky said there is “no evidence of that,” and he elaborated that a Fall 2018 third party campus climate investigation yielded no evidence of excessive policing of student of color organizations on campus. The email from Lynch, however, details a new pilot policy in response to the claim of excessive policing. Specially trained graduate student “event monitors” will take the place of uniformed police officers at certain events held in Cholmondeley's Coffee House. The monitors will “help ensure that events are being held within defined occupancy levels” and “notify Public Safety if situations that could impact life and/or property arise,” per the email. The Departments of Public Safety and Student Affairs will jointly interview the candidates. The graduate students are supposed to “provide a positive interaction presence for students hosting social events at Chum’s,” according to Lynch’s email. “We’re responding to the language that was used by [#StillConcernedStudents],” Uretsky said during the interview.
New shuttle routes and times
The University announced new transportation routes in response to the #StillConcernedStudents demands to “expand transportation routes from campus to Market Basket Plaza and back, to reduce transportation costs and food insecurity for low income students” and to “open transportation routes for students who do not have the financial ability to travel home during recess.” A 12-passenger shuttle will run from campus to Market Basket Plaza between noon and 4 p.m. on weekdays, according to Lynch’s email. Additionally, a contract will be taken out with Joseph’s Transportation to provide shuttle service between the University and Waltham on holidays and recesses. That shuttle will run from noon to midnight. Both of the new routes will be considered one-year pilot programs, to be reevaluated based on how many people take rides. Assistant Vice President for Communications and External Relations Max Pearlstein said in an email to the Justice on Monday that the route run on holidays would cost $1,200 a day, and the other route to Market Basket Plaza would not cost the University money because of savings in other areas. Uretsky said the money for the new routes will be taken from the administration’s transportation funding and will not be deducted from any other earmarked portions of the budget.
Student response
The three administrators at the press conference said that the members of #StillConcernedStudents from the May meeting had not been consulted before the administration released the new policy changes. “We feel good that what we put forward addressed what they were requesting,” Uretsky and Liebowitz said. Uretsky commented that some of the policy changes, such as the new transportation routes, were designed as pilot programs in order to receive a response from the students. “We said, ‘Look, we took our responsibility to do the work that we could do over the summer, and we’ll go forward from there,’” said Lynch.
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At the annual convocation event for new students and their families, University President Ronald Liebowitz encouraged the students to be themselves and to look out for each other.
WHITE NATIONALISM: Brandeis responds to anti-Semitic posts CONTINUED FROM 1 posts is ongoing and Public Safety is monitoring the forum. University President Ron Liebowitz also responded to the forum in a statement to the Justice on Tuesday. “The content of the online forum targeting the Jewish members of our community is appalling and offensive. Targeting individuals on the basis of their religion, their ethnicity, their race, or other features of their identities is simply wrong," he said. The President's office echoed the Department of Public Safety, saying the University would "continue to monitor this situation ... [and] do all we can to support our community members.”
Deciding how to respond
The University became aware of the thread through a graduate student who had been alerted by someone outside of the University that their photo was published on the forum, Prof. Jonathan Sarna (NEJS) told the Justice. Sarna, the director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies and the Joseph H. and Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History, is also pictured on the forum. After finding photos of Brandeis community members, including Sarna, on the site, the graduate student alerted Sarna and Prof. Leonard Saxe (HRNS). Saxe then notified Public Safety and the administration, Sarna said. Public Safety alerted the Brandeis community about the situation on Aug. 19. Although he believes that only a “small number of people” were involved in the forum and that the forum does not pose an “imminent danger” to anyone, Sarna stressed that alerting the community was necessary. Before the internet, he said, the common philosophy was to ignore fringe groups, denying them the attention they craved because their numbers were small. “Today, a small number of people … can really create a great deal of trouble and can spread hatred in ways that were simply not possible before the Web,” Sarna said, highlighting the “availability of weapons of mass destruction” to such individuals. “I think it was self-evident to [Public Safety] and the administration that this was not something that could be ignored, and that there was responsibility to make the information known, without wanting in any way to alarm the community,” Sarna explained. University officials did not comment specifically on whether they would take steps to prevent a similar
use of community member photos in the future.
A lack of notification
The Justice found photos of at least 11 members of the Brandeis community on the discussion thread. In an Aug. 22 email to the Justice, Callahan confirmed that Public Safety had notified those Brandeis community members whose photos were posted on the forum. However, on Aug. 23, the Justice learned that three of the staff members whose photos the Justice found on the website had not been notified by Public Safety. The three employees did not know that they were featured in the forum until the Justice contacted them. When asked about this situation, Callahan responded that Public Safety is “in the process of following up with Community members when we review additional information.”
A thread ‘like another time and country’
The discussion thread containing Brandeis community member photos began in May 2018. A user shared a segment of an August 2012 article in The Jewish Chronicle in which a Jewish journalist expressed her horror at being told by a plastic surgeon that he could make her nose “more beautiful, less Jewish.” From there, other forum members started posting photos of other Jewish people — overwhelmingly women — and writing anti-Semitic and racist remarks. Shayna Weiss, the associate director of the Schusterman Center and one of the people whose photos were included in the thread, explained in an interview with the Justice that this thread was “trying to rely on this idea of ‘racial science.’” Weiss explained “racial science” as “the sort of racist, eugenicist ideas coming out of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, that the different races have different physical features that you can measure.” She added that this belief was used in Nazi and other racist ideologies. This understanding of race has been “totally debunked,” she explained. “The current thinking on race is that it is a social construct. We know that there’s far greater genetic variation within a race than between them,” she said. Upon learning his photo was posted on the forum, Sarna took time to study the website as a whole, describing what he found throughout other discussion threads as “really quite horrific.” “They fantasize about exterminating the Jews,” Sarna said of other
discussion threads he found. He said some of the comments he read “sounded like another time and another country.” From his studying the website, Sarna found it to be filled with antiSemitic discussion threads. Topics range from “bizarre” conspiracy theories — “Jews assassinated JFK” — to “medieval” ones — “Jews ritually murder non-Jewish children,” Sarna explained. Still, Sarna stressed that the forum’s membership is probably small and that people whose photos were posted online are not in danger. He also urged people not to visit the site in order to deny white supremacists the online traffic they want.
A modern resurgence of old anti-Semitism
Both Sarna and Weiss situated the discussion thread within a modern resurgence of historical anti-Semitic beliefs. Sarna described recent anti-Semitic events — such as the white supremacist march in Charlottesville, VA and the mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA — as a “very rude awakening” for Brandeis students who believed anti-Semitism was a thing of the past. When Sarna was asked about President Donald Trump’s impact on this resurgence, he highlighted two key factors in Trump’s rhetoric that connect to white supremacist ideology: a willingness to “encourage hatred and certainly to countenance extremists” and a willingness to “treat Jews as a group, as if all Jews are alike.” Both of these ideas, “the hatred and the group identity,” that Sarna finds in Trump’s approach to the presidency, “you can certainly find in white supremacist materials and in that of other extremists,” he said. Weiss highlighted the cyclical nature of such racist beliefs. “When societies become more unstable, anti-Semitism, xenophobia in general [and] rhetoric against immigrants, those are the first things that bubble up,” she said. “So with this instability we see in America, we see a resurgence of these ideas, but they’re not new ones.” —Editor’s Note: Natalia Wiater contributed reporting. —Editor’s Note: Chaiel Schaffel works for the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies. He did not write or edit any part of the article related to Schusterman Center employees. —Editor's Note: This article was originally published online on Thursday.
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CONVOCATION: New students listened as University President Ron Liebowitz advised them to “debate in the pursuit of understanding.”
First Impressions By ELIANA PADWA JUSTICE EDITOR
At Sunday’s club fair, the Justice spoke with first-year students about the highs and lows of Orientation and their hopes for the school year. “This Is Our House,” a pep rally with Dean of Students Jamele Adams, was an almost universal favorite. Liv Moran ’23 described it as “really really fun and exciting. It was a really good time to meet everyone that was in a similar situation, just a fun time to let go.” Sidney Carim ’23 and Kyla Speizer ’23 also loved “This Is Our House,” telling the Justice that “Jamele just really hyped up the crowd.” Adian Vinograd ’23 and Stephan Zamurovic ’23 agreed that “This Is Our House” was fun, but also mentioned “Speak About It.” At “Speak About It,” a mandatory event, students watched skits about consent and healthy relationships and then participated in a talkback, per Brandeis’ Orientation app, Guidebook. Moran described the event as “really impactful,” and Zamurovic added, “When I was in high school we had [“Speak About It”] come to our campus and I thought that was really informative. They actually go through and present skits and stuff like that. It’s better than just listening to someone lecture you about what you’re supposed to and not supposed to do.” A week in, many of the first-years interviewed
revealed that Orientation had helped them make their first college friends. Alex Bazarsky ’23, who had participated in the sustainability preorientation, said, “I made a lot of friends, and it was very helpful when everyone else came to Orientation to already have a few familiar faces.” Carim and Speizer had participated in the same program and felt similarly, sharing that their group had “clicked really well” and were trying to “stay together and hang out.” Retaining those friendships doesn’t feel easy for everyone, though. Ziyi Wu ’23 had also made friends at Orientation but said they all have different class schedules, making it difficult to find time to build these friendships. Carim and Speizer discussed being “too busy to be homesick,” though Wu felt the busy schedule of Orientation had its downsides: “I hoped there would be a day before [classes start] where there’s no activities so we could prepare and read the textbook before class started. … Some professors posted assignments and articles for us to read right before, during Orientation we didn’t have enough time for that. So at least I stayed up real late reading the articles.” Bazarsky also felt that “they could have spaced out the presentations of everything that they have for [students] on campus a little bit better,” and Moran wished she had learned more about social life at Brandeis. However, many of the firstyears interviewed are excited to begin college.
ORIENTATION LEADERS: OLs, older students trained to guide first-years and introduce them to the ins-and-outs of Brandeis, are easily identified by their purple shirts.
PREORIENTATION: Many students arrived before the formal move-in day to take part in one of four preorientation programs.
CORE: Emma Wolters ’21 was one of three students who spent the summer designing this year’s Orientation.
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Design: Yael Hanadari-Levy/the Justice
THE JUSTICE | TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2019
T ORIENTED Good OL Time By VICTOR FELDMAN JUSTICE EDITOR
LIGHT THE NIGHT: On their first night of Brandeis, students lit candles in an annual welcome-week tradition at the Light of Reason.
ditor’s Note: Andrew Baxter ’21 was a member of the Orientation CORE Committee and did not contribute to this spread.
Orientation is centered around welcoming incoming students to Brandeis, but for many current students, being an Orientation Leader is just as thrilling as beginning college. The Justice reached out to some of these OLs to give our readers a view into what their job is like and how these students shape our community. Here are some of those responses: What’s the most challenging part of being an OL? Melanie Rush ’20: Unsurprisingly, the most challenging part about being an orientation leader is the pace. For two weeks we put our lives on hold, spending an extreme number of hours every day on either training, running events, and by the end of these two weeks, juggling classes as well. We sing and we dance and we put everything we’ve got into orientation, but that type of lifestyle isn’t sustainable beyond a twoweek period. What surprised you most about your interactions with the incoming class? Shale Carey ’20: Every time I meet first-years, I am reminded how enthusiastic and eager they can be. When people enter Brandeis, they are so ready to make friends and explore new things. It always makes me smile when a group member gets excited about an event or I see my group together after Orientation. They possess an openness that I hope Brandeis students can try to carry with them through all of college. What made you want to be an OL? Rebecca Orbach ’20: When I was a first-year, my orientation was awkward and nerve-wracking. I didn’t click with anyone in my orientation group and my OL did not make me feel very welcomed or supported. I knew I wanted to become an OL to hopefully give my grouplets a very different orientation experience than I had. I knew that it would be challenging, but I wanted to do my best to make my grouplets feel not only prepared to enter into their new lives at Brandeis but also supported and cared for both during and long after orientation. Should Brandeis pay OLs? Carey: OLs do work long hours, and I don’t think community members are remiss in asking for compensation. That said, there are a lot of factors affecting this is-
sue and I realize it might not be feasible in the near future. In an ideal world, it could be a goal, but for now, we may have to focus on congratulating and appreciating the student volunteers who are able and willing to keep Orientation going. Rush: Brandeis should definitely pay OLs! I believe the topic has been broached internally within the University in some sort of context before, however it is something we need to keep fighting for. First, because Orientation Leaders are spending hours and hours of their time conducting physical, mental, and emotional labor and they deserve to be compensated for that time. Second, some students may not have the financial ability to commit two weeks of their lives to a full-time job without any payment, which ultimately creates an unfair threshold of privilege that then shapes the pool of students who have the opportunity to become an OL in the first place. Were there times during the job when you got frustrated? Tell us about the struggles. Carey: There will always be times when grouplets are not ready to have the discussion the OL wants to have or show up to the event the OL needs them to attend. On the student leader side, it’s hard to ensure 80 people are in the right place at the right time, and it’s not uncommon to pick up a job you weren’t scheduled for or stay at an event much later than anticipated. These things are hard to avoid, and part of being an OL is stepping up and handling these moments with as much grace, understanding and verve as possible. Rush: Honestly, I don’t think there have been times I’ve been frustrated with this job. I’ve pushed myself to the limits of exhaustion, but that’s out of love, not frustration. What did you enjoy most from your own orientation as a first-year? Orbach: I really loved all of the social events. Those were the times that I was able to begin building friendships, many of which have lasted through my years at Brandeis. These events gave me the opportunity to branch out and meet new people from outside my orientation group. Although the more serious daytime events were important in giving me the skills and resources I needed to succeed at Brandeis, the nighttime social events were when I really began to feel at home.
What’s something you wish you had been told about Brandeis before you started classes? Orbach: I wish I had known that it’s okay to not overcommit yourself. It can be hard when it seems like everyone around you is taking five classes and [is] in six clubs and works a part-time job, but that doesn’t have to be you. It’s important to join the things you care most about being a part of and skipping those that don’t feel like [are] a good fit. College is about finding your passions and whether that’s one or two or six different things, that’s okay. Carey: I actually wish people had emphasized the importance of extracurriculars more. My OL didn’t dwell on them too much. It sounds so trite, but I think a lot of older students would agree that clubs are central to your Brandeis experience. Ask most upperclassmen and they can gush about a club that’s “full of their best friends” or “feels like a family.” I resonate with that more than anything and I really try to encourage first-years to try new things and find where their family lies. It might be somewhere unexpected, but your people are out there, and finding them is what will really make Brandeis feel like home. What do you hope your grouplets take from Orientation? Carey: Orientation is the time to settle in to Brandeis. I just want my grouplets to leave feeling comfortable. If they can find their classes, see a few familiar faces they met during Orientation, or feel more equipped because of an event they attended or a tip their OL gave, then we have successfully removed some of the doubt and fear from the first-year experience and made them feel safer post-Orientation. Rush: I hope my grouplets make friends! There’s obviously a lot of really important information I want to them to internalize as well (be it what they’ve learned about healthy relationships and consent, how BEMCo works, what resources like Prevention Advocacy and Research Center or the Brandeis Counseling Center can help with) but more importantly, I want them to feel at home here. And Brandeis starts to feel like home when your friends become your family. I want every new student to leave Orientation having met at least one person they are excited to reach out to and get to know further, so they can start building their own community here.
THIS IS OUR HOUSE: Students go wild for Dean Jamele Adams, who emcees this annual Orientation favorite.
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EDITORIALS
Cautious optimism on University promises Brandeis’ tradition of student protest continued last May when a group of #StillConcerned students — a callback to the Concerned Students 2015 group which led the Ford Hall sit-in — held a protest on the Rabb Steps, per a May 20 Justice article. These students argued that concerns relating to race on campus in 2015 had not been sufficiently addressed. Among other demands, they expressed a desire for collaboration between activists and offices such as Public Safety, the Department of Community Living, Escort Safety Services and the Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities, saying they “operate as policing forces that disproportionately impact the oncampus experiences” of marginalized students. On Aug. 29, University Provost Lisa M. Lynch informed the student body via email of the University’s ongoing response to the concerns raised. While the efforts are commendable, many do not go far enough in responding to the valid demands the #StillConcerned students raise. This board applauds the University’s improved transportation for students. In the email, Lynch said that DCL and Public Safety will work with students to provide, on a situation-by-situation basis, transportation for students seeking urgent and non-emergency medical care who do not feel comfortable riding in a police cruiser. The University will also provide transportation on campus and within Waltham during breaks — previously, students staying on campus during a recess did not have easy and free transportation options. The University is also beginning to run a shuttle to Market Basket Plaza, a grocery store in Waltham, to reduce food insecurity. Market Basket is known among students for being less expensive than other local stores. This editorial board is cautiously optimistic about many of the other responses the University outlined, and commends their ongoing attention to students’ expressed needs. However, many of the University’s responses seem ineffective or in need of significant modification, or do not actually guarantee reform. Moreover, many of the responses cited in Lynch’s email do not directly reflect or respond to protestors’ stated demands. While these new initiatives are steps in the right direction, we urge the University to continue listening to students and actively seeking their input in these matters, as well as maintaining transparency about its implementation and reform processes. Lynch’s email cited a few University projects that are ongoing, but do not directly address student concerns. She discussed the Ombuds Office and Student Conduct Board, but did not discuss how either one is a solution to the 2019 #StillConcerned students’ demands. Without these offices being linked back to student demands, students cannot ensure that they are being heard or discuss whether these groups serve as sufficient responses. This hinders communication between students and administration, as students are not able to understand which concerns are being addressed and which are being brushed off or ignored. This board would like the community to be emailed about clear policies, not
Transparency needed vague, long-term University aspirations. We encourage the University to actually explicitly address these concerns with policy changes or by actively working with student advocates on clear priorities. Lynch’s email was especially vague about the University’s response to demands for an investigation into DCL. Students asked explicitly for a “public and third-party report to investigate potential racial bias among code violation reports by DCL.” Especially given the recent investigation into former basketball coach Brian Meehan, which unearthed systemic racial discrimination issues within the Athletic and Human Resources departments, complaints about racial bias in University departments should be treated as high-priority and responded to seriously. Lynch offered a student panel about reforming the room inspection process, presumably as a response to requests to “informed consent” before standard inspections. While making the process easier for students is nice, a panel does not necessarily mean reform; an investigation, on the other hand, would be a genuine effort to meet students’ demands and unearth deeper problems. The University plans to conduct a “holistic review of mental health needs and support deficits on our campus,” per the Aug. 29 email. We appreciate this holistic review of mental health needs on campus, but we hope this review is meant to provoke effective change — not to pacify students without cause. We agree that a holistic review will be beneficial in the long run, as long as it is conducted through the lens of previously agreedupon conditions and formerly raised concerns. In the email, Lynch announced that any banners must be explicitly approved before being posted, and that protests must approved for timing and location. This board appreciates that this process enhances communication and lessens misunderstanding between students and the administration, but we caution the University to remain transparent about this process. Without an explicit process for approval or disapproval, this policy will provide the University with a means of repressing student speech and targeting groups it disagrees with. This board feels that the Rights and Responsibilities handbook should be the formal metric for determining what is appropriate to express on a poster. Moreover, the entire process of approval or disapproval should be transparent, with students in the room during decision making or given the opportunity to work with the University on making their poster more acceptable. Reasons for accepting or denying posters should be clearly stated, and there should also be an appeal process for students whose posters are denied. The policy should also clarify whether it is banners or banner designs which must be approved, so as not to waste hours of student effort. This is an opportunity for better communication between students and the University — but could also lead to further distance and mistrust. —Jen Geller covered this topic for News and did not contribute to this editorial.
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Following catastrophic damage to the Amazon rainforest caused by an ongoing series of fires, the Brazillian government rejected $20 million pledged by the international community at the G7 Summit, alleging imperialistic ulterior motives on the part of French President Emmanuel Macron. However, Bolsonaro’s administration later stated that they would accept the aid, on the condition that the French President Emmanuel Macron apologize for his comments regarding Bolsonaro’s behavior and what appeared to be a disrespectful potshot at Macron’s wife. Furthermore, numerous environmental scientists and indigenous people have alleged that the cattle industry is starting the fires to clear land with Bolsonaro’s support, raising questions as to whether the President even cares about the rainforest and the people and wildlife living within it. Faced with this cataclysmic destruction, how should we view Brazil’s delayed response and this political back-and-forth between world leaders? What do you think these actions mean for the rainforest, and how might they affect global conservation and environmental protection movements?
Prof. Brian Donahue (AMST) We should certainly be doing what we can to oppose Bolsonaro’s polices and protect the Amazon rainforest. The problem is that “we” in the global North lack credibility and leverage until we really tackle the issues of climate change, environmental degradation and injustice. We in America don’t have a leg to stand on, at the moment. If we are going to ask the Brazilians not to burn the forest, we need to be taking parallel actions ourselves. For one, we should be eating less meat-— particularly feedlot beef. Second, we should be making sure that what animal protein we do consume is produced more sustainably. Along similar lines, if we are going to halt the destruction of primary forests in the tropics (and the boreal), we need to harvest more timber from regrown New England forests-—say, to increase the supply of affordable housing-—while still protecting ecosystem values such as storing carbon, water quality, and biodiversity. So for me, there is a connection between opposing the destruction of the rainforest and producing more food and wood responsibly here at home. In the end, though, that won’t do much good unless we have policies that change the economic signals driving farming and logging around the world. Brian Donahue is associate professor of American Environmental Studies and an expert on the farm and forest industry in New England.
Prof. James Ji (ECON) From my understanding of the problem, the biggest challenge for the Amazons is that the decision-makers are not properly incentivized to protect the rainforest. The rainforest generates goods and services that are monetized in the markets: timber, profits from alternative land uses (ranching/farming), as well as valuable ecosystem services that the market does not incorporate: biodiversity, carbon sink, water preservation, etc. If these non-market ecosystem services are not taken into account when local residents, landowners or the government make decisions regarding the rainforest, then these decisions will be distorted against preservation. This is what economists refer to as “externalities”: economic consequences not fully bare by the decision-maker, which cause the private market to fail to reach the desired outcome. With rising demands for agricultural products from Brazil due to the US-China trade wars, there will be more pressures on the Amazon rainforests, as the incentive to convert it to alternative purposes just got a bit stronger. James Ji is a lecturer in the Department of Economics and the Environmental Studies Program at Brandeis.
Prof. Sabine von Mering (GER) The situation in Brazil is a reminder that it is no coincidence we are witnessing a right-wing backlash worldwide at the very moment that the climate crisis is intensifying: One is orchestrated and the other caused by the fossil fuel industry. What should we do about it? Brandeis should divest from fossil fuels. The farmers in Brazil are cutting down the rainforest in large part to grow soybeans for cattle feed. This summer, the UN put out an urgent call that we must all reduce our meat intake. If you are worried about the rainforest I highly recommend that you do two things: stop eating beef and get involved with the climate movement. There’s a great opportunity coming up: The Global Climate Strike on September 20! More details at https:// actionnetwork.org/events/boston-climate-strike-2. You could begin by joining Brandeis Climate Justice! I’d love to hear from anyone interested in doing more – email me at vonmering@ brandeis.edu. Sabine von Mering is a professor of German and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality studies and serves as the director of the Center for German and European Studies.
Eleanor Kelman ’20 I feel as though environmentalism is one of the truly nonpartisan issues, and even if it isn’t at the forefront of a political leader’s activism, it should be a very important topic. Bolsonaro had no reason to initially reject the international aid, other than for personal issues far less pressing than the disappearance of such an essential rainforest. His grievances with Macron have nothing to do with the fact that the Amazon rainforest is “the lungs of Earth” and needs to be protected for the safety and well-being of the world’s wildlife and human existence. Bolsonaro’s actions demonstrate that he is ambivalent to environmental protection at best and resistant to it at worst, and we can only hope that humanity sees his inaction as the antithesis of good politics and works harder to fight for environmental protection and conservation of the planet. Eleanor Kelman is majoring in Computer Science, Linguistics, and Hispanic studies. She is the events coordinator of the Students for Environmental Action club. Photos: Brandeis University/the Justice
THE JUSTICE ● FORUM ● TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2019
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Parlimentary gridlock around Brexit is a lose-lose scenario Judah
WEINERMAN CHATTERBOX
If you’ve brushed up against any news involving Britain for the past three years or so, you’ve probably encountered and been horribly confused by the never-ending whirlpool of information that is Brexit. Having just spent the previous semester working in Parliament, I can speak from experience that Brexit has made the British political class and hoi polloi thoroughly miserable, having sucked up every last bit of political oxygen and energy from an already exhausted nation. So how did they get here? After the 2016 Brexit referendum ended in a narrow victory for the Leave coalition, who do not want Britain to be a part of the European Union, the British House of Commons invoked Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union, setting a twoyear timetable in which the UK would negotiate its exit from the bloc and leave for good on March 29, 2019. Prime Minister Theresa May negotiated as hard of an exit as the EU would allow, putting together a withdrawal agreement that would completely sever the UK from the EU’s financial, commercial, immigration and agricultural regulations. Even so, she needed her withdrawal package to pass through the House of Commons, the main legislative body of the Westminster Parliament. How hard could that be? Three such “meaningful votes” were put up to Parliament and all three ended in embarrassing failures for May and her government. In Westminster-style unitary democracies, governments don’t lose votes unless they’ve completely lost control of their party. May managed to lose more in her 3-year tenure than every single Prime Minister of the past 40 years combined. In their 11 and 10 respective years as Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair lost four votes each: May lost five in March 2019 alone. The first meaningful vote was the largest ever margin of defeat suffered by a government in modern British history, a black eye that would have led to the immediate resignation of most other politicians. Clearly, something had to give and that something was May. On May 24, Theresa May resigned as Leader as the Conservative Party, opening up her chair position for a new Leader of the Conservatives and by proxy, the next Prime Minister. With the EU consenting to a brief and final extension of the leave date to October 31, the 160,000 members
of the Conservative Party voted on who would become Prime Minister for a nation of over 60 million. In the span of a few weeks, former Mayor of London Boris Johnson emerged with a resounding victory. Despite the initial buzz surrounding the new Johnson government, the parliamentary arithmetic towards passing a withdrawl had only gotten worse since May’s failed attempts at a negotiated withdrawal. Although he won with 66 percent of the party’s vote, Johnson is currently working with a voting majority of one, already a major barrier to getting any piece of legislation passed, as a single rebellious lawmaker on the government benches can kill any piece of legislation. However, this narrow majority is even more tenuous than it originally appears. After a poor showing in the 2017 general election where they lost their overall majority, the Conservatives struck a deal with the Democratic Unionist Party’s 10 MPs to stay in power. Although never a particularly easy partner, the DUP’s status as a hardline Northern Irish Unionist party creates a new set of headaches when it comes to a withdrawal agreement. Although opposition to May’s deal comes from many angles, the Irish backstop may very well be the thorniest of the bunch. In order to prevent immediate economic turmoil after Brexit, the EU insisted on the inclusion of the so-called “backstop” which would temporarily place Northern Ireland, a part of the United Kingdom, back onto the same rules as the Republic of Ireland, an EU member state. Currently, the UK’s EU membership makes the border a moot point, but after Brexit, the Irish border will become a much more pressing issue. Since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that largely ended the sectarian violence of the Troubles, the Irish border has become something of an afterthought, with goods and people flowing freely between the two sides. The backstop would ensure that this flow can continue uninterrupted after Brexit until a suitable replacement can be drafted and agreed upon. Fiercely committed to keeping Northern Ireland in the UK, the DUP continue to reject any agreement that would treat Northern Ireland any differently than England, Scotland, or Wales. However, the Irish government and the European Commission refuse to let go of the backstop, fearing an immediate economic downturn and a possible return to sectarian violence. As a result, all 10 DUP members voted against May’s bill all three times. Additionally, any deal including the backstop failed to win the overall support of the European Research Group, a loose coalition of pro-Brexit Conservative MPs whose ranks consistently rebelled against all three meaningful votes. Getting a formal withdrawal agreement that
AMANDA PYUN /the Justice
the ERG, the DUP and the EU all find acceptable appears to be a Sisyphean feat, an endless cycle of failure. Additional attempts to get pro-Brexit members of the opposition Labour Party on board proved even more fruitless. With May unable to crack the puzzle, the task has fallen to Boris Johnson, who seems to have solved this Gordian Knot by throwing it off a cliff. If the Oct. 31 deadline comes and goes without any formal agreement, the so-called “No Deal” exit from the EU takes place as the UK is automatically placed on World Trade Organization tariffs and customs checks, which would devastate the UK’s import and export markets and bring trade with the EU to a temporary standstill. On Aug. 28, Johnson asked for and received a five week prorogation of Parliament, essentially shutting down any Parliamentary business for the duration. By proroguing Parliament, Johnson has shrunk the miniscule eight weeks rebel MPs had to stop a No Deal Brexit to a mere three, giving his opponents almost no time to act. While Johnson appears fully prepared to go ahead with the No Deal approach, its effects will likely be disastrous on the UK’s economy and people. Within days, supermarkets will likely run out of fresh food, with their usual imports stranded in an endless line of customs checks. UK pharmacies will run out of essentials like insulin and aspirin by the end of the month. British businesses reliant on exports will be paralyzed, their supply chain gone in a pillar of ash. Worst of all, the crisis and financial uncertainty will likely lead to a credit crunch and financial flight that will
devastate the UK’s stock market and housing ecosystem. A No Deal Brexit could be the biggest setback to the British economy since World War II, casting millions into poverty and permanently destroying any hope of Britain returning to the world stage. So what should be done? Johnson seems absolutely dead-set on the one-two combo of a No Deal Brexit and immediate snap election, intent on riding on the short-term success of finally achieving Brexit before the long-term downturn from No Deal is laid at his government’s feet. The most ardent of Remainers and anti-Brexit campaigners can only hope for a successful vote of no confidence in Johnson, which would likely hand the reins to Leader of the Opposition Jeremy Corbyn for a brief caretaker ministry with the sole purpose of holding a new Brexit referendum, or scrapping Article 50 altogether. However, the inability of Conservative rebels and third parties to consider a left-wing firebrand like Corbyn as an acceptable Prime Minister will likely put any plans to directly oust Johnson on hold. Either a cross-party group of Conservative and Labour MPs need to get over the DUP and ERG and pass May’s original bill to spare the UK a No Deal outcome, or a new caretaker government needs to go back to the drawing board and consider a new path out, with even radical options like the revocation of Article 50 put back on the table. The EU has set out its red lines and despite Johnson’s protests, no further concessions will be won. The UK’s future should not be held hostage so that Johnson and his inner circle can advance their political careers.
Greenland purchase tantrum reveals Trump’s cynical worldview Trevor FILSETH
SANITY By now, you might think that you’ve heard all possible adjectives used to describe President Donald Trump’s foreign policy. Here’s a new one: amoral. Not immoral, amoral. It’s not that Trump goes out of his way to cause chaos and destruction, though given other events during his presidency, you could reasonably draw that conclusion. Even so, it’s hard to believe that he actively enjoys destroying the United States’ reputation. Rather, it seems more likely that he doesn’t understand why the United States needs a good reputation in the first place. For evidence of this, look no further than our latest diplomatic spat. President Trump recently became tickled by the idea of owning Greenland, and, against the advice of the remaining adults in the White House, asked Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen about buying it. When Frederiksen made it clear that Denmark was not interested in selling, Trump announced that he had canceled a planned state visit to Copenhagen. Then came the usual cycle; outrage and condemnation from Trump’s critics, vapid justifications from his defenders, and no movement from his poll numbers. The Greenland debacle may be nothing but an idiotic distraction from the real issues facing the United States right now, but it’s possible to learn
something interesting from it. When carefully examined, it provides us with two fascinating glimpses into Trump’s psyche. First, in his view, “Making America Great Again” seems to be connected to making the United States larger, as “great” presidents like Thomas Jefferson, James Polk and William McKinley have done in the past. For the record, our age of expansion ended a century ago; the United States has not acquired any new territory since purchasing the Virgin Islands in 1917 and assuming trusteeship over a handful of Pacific atolls after the Second World War. But reactionary thinking is gaining popularity these days, and the idea is already being praised by the president’s allies. For instance, Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) penned an op-ed in the New York Times last week to this effect, noting the many benefits that would come with ownership of the island. And Sen. Cotton has a point. There are serious benefits to us owning Greenland — improved national security, greater access to natural resources and weather data, to name a few. But Denmark isn’t interested in selling, and the people of Greenland seem far from enthusiastic about a change in ownership. Given this, why is Greenland still up for discussion? The second, more consequential aspect of Trump’s psyche that this fiasco makes clear is Trump’s cynical vision of the world, a world in which America’s allies are its adversaries and international politics is a zero-sum game. In his view, it is our right to exploit other countries, as they are undoubtedly scheming to do the same to us. This worldview is reminiscent of the Second World War, which, in an incredible coincidence was started by an
egomaniacal leader who wanted to make his country bigger at his neighbors’ expense.
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What he has done already is alarming enough; canceling a visit is usually a move reserved for a serious diplomatic crisis, not a presidential temper tantrum. Trump-to-Hitler comparisons are usually nonsensical, and I seriously doubt that the president will invade Greenland, but his recent behavior begs the question: what will he do next? What he has done already is alarming enough; canceling an international visit is usually a move reserved for a serious diplomatic crisis, not a presidential temper tantrum. How much further could Trump go if he decides not to take “no” for an answer? If he believes that Denmark will concede the island if he applies enough pressure, his next steps could be the imposition of economic sanctions or a reevaluation of our defense commitments used as leverage to force Denmark to reconsider his offer. As we know well by now, none of his advisors or backers in Congress have the courage to stop him.
The truth is that if we threw all other considerations out the window, we could strongarm Denmark into giving up Greenland. After all, the United States is a superpower, and Denmark is not. But to gain Greenland through coercion would come at the cost of the moral high ground if one of our rival superpowers tries to do the same thing. How are we supposed to prevent another Crimea when we’ve done the same to an entire prospective country? Most of us don’t spend a lot of time thinking about it these days, but the world is a dangerous place. It wasn’t until the 1990s that the risk of a massive, full-scale war between two nuclear-armed superpowers was finally laid to rest. If we want to avoid digging it up again, the best way to do so is to lead by example. To make sure that other nations scrupulously follow the international norms that keep the world at peace, we must first do so ourselves. In this way, if our adversaries deviate from those norms, we have the right — and the votes in the United Nations Security Council — to condemn them. If Trump got his way, such a condemnation would simply be an instance of the pot calling the kettle black. Besides, there are other benefits to doing the right thing. Right now in Hong Kong, millions of people are protesting, marching in pursuit of freedom from the influence of a totalitarian state. Some of them — a small minority, to be sure — have been waving the flag of the United States as a symbol of freedom. That’s powerful. It means something that the United States is, in a few places at least, viewed as a force for good in the world. Giving up moments like those, even for Greenland’s many assets, is not a deal that we should be willing to make.
The opinions expressed on this page are those of each article’s respective author and do not reflect the viewpoint of the Justice.
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TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2019● FORUM ● THE JUSTICE
FORUM
Take a break from all the depressing news and try to enjoy life By HARRISON PAEK JUSTICE STAFF WRITER
The news can feel like a thick drink I’m forcing down before breakfast every morning. My classes start early, and morning hours beforehand may be better spent splayed out on a yoga mat or listening to classical music. It seems that some days, I forego mindfulness and mental health in favor of reading news that is the same but different every day; it is a Groundhog Day of X with a side of Y on the front page of Z week in and week out. Can’t I pass on this? Because I certainly cannot blame any one of the people I know that have completely cut off their subscription to the daily sludge of violence, hatred and fear on planet Earth 2019. Despite this, here is why I make an effort to read the news. The argument against news is strong enough to make me reconsider the benefits of staying informed. According to a January 2018 article in Time Magazine, around half of American adults report that the news is stressful and can lead to anxiety and sleep loss. An April 2013 article in The Guardian concurs with Time in saying that reading the news can lead to heightened cortisol levels and other stress related hormones. In this sense, reading the news can be physically harmful to some readers. Be that as it may, the solution might not be to stop reading the news entirely, as Rolf Dobelli argues in the aforementioned Guardian article. “We are not rational enough to be exposed to the press. Watching an airplane crash on television is going to change your attitude toward that risk, regardless of its real probability,” says Dobelli. The news is so often sensationalist to the point where it cultivates fear. Simply put, the event becomes more important than the person. In one sense, it makes me feel replaceable. In another, removal of the human element makes me feel powerless, because through the lens of the media, tragedy and injustice in the world is as inevitable as the rotation of the earth. The greatest help to me has been finding news organizations that report about the people who are making efforts to fix the problems we, as a collective, face. In my experience, news magazines like 60 Minutes and the PBS Newshour are so excellent because they purposely structure their programs around individuals and their work for a greater good. It is easy to forget about all the good work that people are doing because the scale of every problem is so monstrous. It is difficult to grow up in a time with such high octane news. It seems that my generation has been indoctrinated in a school of apathy towards the worst the world has to offer. Thus,
HANNAH KRESSEL/ the Justice
the news puts me in a comparative mindset when subjected to atrocities across the world. My brain rationalizes this as some sort of equation or logical problem, where X isn’t as bad as Y, thus X isn’t as important. In the same way, how can I ever make the most of what I do have and give to others if I’m always consumed with the due sadness of bigger problems that are always present in the world beyond me? I am guilty of the age old dilemma of “because the problems of the world are so much worse than mine, none of the issues in my life matter.” It is something I will never figure out. Going to a private university and having a family to go home to with readily available food and water are luxuries I enjoy, and are not taken for granted. However, there are always people with better and worse situations than myself, and the best I can do is to make the most of the opportunities presented to me. Read local news. Both garden variety
citizens and media outlets need to do a better job at recognizing the importance of news that isn’t trending. A healthy news diet is a mixture of local, national and international news. When I forget about news in the place I have planted my feet, more global news becomes even more abstract and less tangible. Therefore, I encourage the reader to pick up a copy of the Justice next week. In my case, a diet of warmblooded news has fended off the infection of sensationalism and reaction mongering we as Americans are so used to. On another front, the problem sometimes isn’t even the news itself. It may be the way that we as a country are consuming and absorbing the information. In this sense, Time cites Professor Chris Peters at Aalborg University in Copenhagen. He says, “We shouldn’t focus on the amount of news we consume each day, but rather on the ways in which we engage with news in relation to our everyday lives and
the people who fill them.” Reading the paper or listening to NPR in the morning is a task that leaves me feeling powerless some of the time. The same goes for discussing what I read and listen to. It is fairly common for me to realize how doomed the world is after a long conversation with a friend about global affairs, abut the famine in Yemen or about Washington DC. But as I grow, I realize that as a young person I am constantly focusing on the things I wish I could do, but cannot because of my age and my position. The fact remains that from within my dorm room I cannot reorganize the Chinese government, but right now, I can do a bit of my part and write an article. As it stands, I might be Shawshank Redemption’s Andy Dufresne, digging my way out of a prison cell with a hammer; but at least in 19 years or more it might amount to something meaningful.
Sensationalist ICE analogies are insensitive but defensible By LEON KRAIEM JUSTICE STAFF WRITER
I spent a number of days this summer at protests — often branded “actions” — led often, but not always, by Jewish people, in response to the human rights abuses currently being committed by ICE and Customs and Border Patrol against immigrants and asylum seekers in detention facilities along our nation’s southern border. All of these demonstrations involved analogies to the Holocuast — usually centered around the expression “Never Again.” There’s been much discussion in Jewish circles about this analogy ever since it was seized on by the activist collective #NeverAgainAction earlier this year. I think it’s worth sorting through it. The controversy began when Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) referred to the facilities in which migrants are being kept at “concentration camps,” and then demanded action “if,” in her words, “‘never again’ means anything.” Immediately, Yad VaShem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, condemned the comments. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum repeated its categorial rejection of comparisons between “the Holocaust and other events.” And the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York — which represents a broad ideological coalition, including many solidly left congregations — said it was “deeply disturbed.” As is always the case when Jewish community organizations condemn an offensive statement, an army of progressives decried the criticism as being in bad faith. And, as is also the pattern when the Jewish community asserts the right to control how its trauma is talked about, young Jews demanded that the “Jewish establishment” stand down as they stamp their approval on what some see as a problematic statement. Then the birth of “Never Again Action” followed, which explicitly uses the Holocaust’s memory to mobilize Jews against ICE. There are issues with this approach: as
the title of a popular Facebook group I’m in insists, “not everything bad is literally the Holocaust.” And if Yad VaShem and the Holocaust Memorial Museum have no say over this invocation, who does? What’s more, the ICE issue is clearly being used as a wedge issue within the Jewish community: the same groups that consistently antagonize mainstream institutions over Israel/Palestine are similarly antagonizing them on the issue of Holocaust rhetoric, and they’re mobilizing the same people, soliticing approval from political figures who seem to be chosen specifically because they are controversial within the Jewish community. But it’s hard to blame those making this analogy for trying whatever they can to draw attention. We’re looking at the same photos: immigrants stuffed in overcrowded cells, correctly called “cages,” wearing the same clothes in which they were apprehended. More importantly, we’ve seen the clip of a government lawyer, representing the American people, arguing in court that these children are not entitled to soap, toothpaste, blankets or beds. We know that six children have died in our custody in the last year, after a total of zero deaths in the last decade prior, and we know that three of those children died in part from the flu. Now, with flu season approaching, the Trump administration has announced it will not provide flu shots to the detained. One is tempted to dismiss this as tragic incompetence, but all the administration would have to do to alleviate this suffering is return to the policies of its predecessors. Detention is unnecessary when you have access to ankle bracelets. It is cheaper, financially and politically, to pass children on to capable relatives than it is to lock them up. Does anyone doubt that our government can afford a batch of flu shots for the particularly young, vulnerable and exposed? A reasonable assessment of the evidence
suggests that America is not failing to provide these children what they need: rather, the administration is succeeding, as a matter of policy, in depriving them of it. And this is where the activists’ analogy, though dangerous, may be useful: not to compare the suffering of the victims, but to acknowledge that our neighbors are perfectly capable of victimizing people intentionally. This summer, a white nationalist terrorist opened fire on Hispanics in El Paso, Texas. He referred to immigration as an “invasion,” recalling not only the sort of fermented racism that exists online, but also the mainstream discourse pushed on legacy media of which the president is a reliable viewer. There are enormous differences between what’s happening on our border and what happened in Europe. But Americans are no less capable of taking this step than they are the next step the next step or the one after that. Recall the administration’s travel ban in early 2017: activists and politicans proudly recall how, when President Trump signed an executive order banning all refugees as well as foreign nationals from several mostly Muslim-majority countries, citizens poured to the airports with signs and songs demanding that those being held be let go. It has since been reported that Steve Bannon, a propagandist above all else, specifically chose to push the executive order on a Friday, because he wanted us to do just that. We ought to consider that the photos pouring out of these detention centers function not only as an exposé for those of us who see human rights abuses as a bad thing, but also as red meat for those among us who think they’re a good thing. We should consider the fact that there is a radicalized segment of our government for whom migrant children dying in our custody is a good thing; that this is the force we have to contend with, not the masses of well-intentioned conservatives who, while
The opinions expressed on this page are those of each article’s respective author and do not reflect the viewpoint of the Justice.
complicit, and necessary, are nevertheless a distraction. In “Proud Boys and the White Ethnostate: How the Alt-Right is Warping the American Imagination,” Alexandra Minna Stern writes that the Trump administration’s immigration policy, while far from that of creating a white ethnostate, is exactly what an ethnostatist who is playing the long game wants to see. We cannot afford to ignore their end game when they are working diligently towards it and exploiting our naiveté. Now, none of this suggests that the protest tactics used by #NeverAgain are useful, nor does it mitigate the very real pain caused by reckless use of collective (and often intergenerational) trauma. But historical atrocities shouldn’t be removed from the discussion of current events: the question is not whether two things are the same but whether they exist in the same, in-case-of-emergency-break-glass category; whether the rules we generally apply to contentious but good faith politics do not apply here; and whether, moving forward, we remember this as just another regrettable decision by an incompetent administration, or, rather, a crime done in our name, whose victims are entitled to restitution, whose perpetrators are liable for prosecution, and which demands a soul-searching on the part of the nation that allowed it to happen. I don’t know what tactics are useful in this moment, and I’m deeply uncomfortable with the options I’ve been given: in Boston, #NeverAgain has a tendency to stage events at the Holocaust memorial, as though collective memory were the target, rather than just the stage, of the demonstration. Additionally, the whole thing feels awfully performative, a balm for one’s conscience, rather than actual change. But sometimes an alarm needs to be sounded; between a fraught analogy and a dangerous understatement, I understand why many choose the former, even if I’m skeptical that those are our only two options.
THE JUSTICE ● SPORTS ● TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2019
MSOCCER: Team kicks off season with a win and a loss CONTINUED FROM 16 class. We have two freshman starting and they contributed with a clean sheet and a goal in the first game. A couple others will definitely contribute from the bench, and there are a few recovering from injuries, but
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SIGNIFICANT SAVE
all are good players. I’m also excited because my brother, Josh [Gans ’23] is a freshman on the team this year, and in all our years we’ve never been on the same team. Unfortunately, he is out for the season with a knee injury, but it's still good to have him around.”
Meeting: Wednesdays at 8 p.m.
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YURAN SHI/Justice File Photo
FANCY FOOTWORK: Forward Julia Matson '19 attempts to shoot the ball past the Johnson and Wales goalkeeper on Sept. 8, 2018.
WSOCCER: Team looks to redeem themselves CONTINUED FROM 16 appearance as goalkeeper for the Judges. She allowed one goal to Emily Berzolla ’20, while making three stops. Three of the Judges’ ten shots on the goal were taken by Juliet Carreiro ’22. First year Eva Gilliken ’23 for the Engineers earned her first collegiate win and the shutout for the Engineers by making five saves. Overall, the Judges were outshot on goal 20–10. The
Judges had six saves to the Engineers’ five. Each team had three corner kicks. The Judges committed eight fouls to the Engineers’ twenty. In an interview with the Justice, Kerin Miller ’20 explained, “Our team has several goals that we hope to accomplish throughout the season. I think our main team goal, just like any other season, is to make it as far as possible in the NCAA tournament and ultimately compete for a
national championship.” Miller elaborated, “As a senior entering my final season of collegiate soccer, I hope to cherish each moment, practice, and game as they come. This is an especially positive, encouraging, and incredible group players who have the talent and passion to really go far.” Next up for the Judges is their home opener against the Bridgewater State Bears on Wednesday, Sept. 4 at 7p.m. at Gordon Field.
CROSS COUNTRY: Judges look forward to a long season ahead of them CONTINUED FROM 16 will then travel to compete in the Keene State Invitational, the Connecticut College Invitational and the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh Kollege Town Sports Invitational in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Finally,
in November, the Judges head out to the University Athletic Association Championship and NCAA regional and national championships. In an interview with the Justice, sophomore Jac Guerra ’22 explained that the teams goal is "Building depth,
considering that we have a small team. We really want to develop the runners who have been putting in a lot of consistent work the past couple of seasons and see their efforts pay off. We would like to return to Nationals in November and be able to repeat a strong
performance at Cross Regionals in Maine." Additionally, the class of 2023 has brought much tallent. Guerra explained, "Our freshmen are great! Bridget and Victoria both are coming off of great summers of training, and both performed well at our first meet. Bridget
really stepped up to the plate at Wellesley this past weekend, and Victoria has posted some incredible high school times on the track. Our transfer Kate, who is a sophomore coming off a year at Colby College in Maine, also has proven to be a valuable addition to the team.”
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Contact Eliana Padwa at features@thejustice.org for more information. Illustration by MORGAN MAYBACK/the JUSTICE; Photos by ANDREW BAXTER/the Justice, ADAM PANN/the Justice, CLEMENTS PARK/the Justice, MORGAN BRILL/the Justice; NADIA ALAWA, IRA BORNSTEIN, CREATIVE COMMONS.
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Interested in music, theater, film, comedy or museums? Contact Luke Liu at arts@thejustice.org! Illustration by MORGAN MAYBACK/the Justice; Photos by YVETTE SEI/the Justice, CHELSEA MADERA/the Justice, NATALIA WIATER/the Justice, ANDREW BAXTER/the Justice, HEATHER SCHILLER/the Justice, SARAH KATZ/the Justice.
THE JUSTICE
● SPORTS ●
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3 , 2019
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VOLLEYBALL
JUDGES BY THE NUMBERS MEN’S SOCCER UAA STANDINGS Case Rochester Emory Carnegie Case NYU Rochester JUDGES
UAA Conf. W L D 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
TEAM STATS Overall W L D 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 2 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 2 0
UPCOMING GAMES:
Schedule Summary Overall(Pct.) Pct. Conference(Pct.) 1.000 Streak 1.000 Home .500 Away .500 .500 Schedule Summary .250 Games .000 Shots .000 Goals scored Shots-per-game Shots on goal SOG percentage
Wednesday at Clark University Saturday vs Babson College Sept. 11 vs Worchester Polytechnic Institute
0–1 0–0 Lost 1 1–1 0–0 2 35 1 17.5 10 0.286
WOMEN’S SOCCER UAA STANDINGS UAA Conf. W L D Case 0 0 0 Chicago 0 0 0 Emory 0 0 0 NYU 0 0 0 WashU 0 0 0 Carnegie 0 0 0 Rochester 0 0 0 JUDGES 0 0 0
TEAM STATS Overall W L D 2 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 0
Pct. 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 .750 .500 .500 .000
Schedule Summary Overall(Pct.) Conference(Pct.) Streak Home Away
Schedule Summary Games Shots Goals scored Shots-per-game UPCOMING GAMES: Shots on goal Wednesday vs Bridgewater State University SOG percentage Saturday at Johnson and Wales University Sept. 10 vs Clark University
0–1 0–0 Lost 1 0–0 0–0 THU LE/Justice File Photo
1 10 0 10.0 5 0.500
VOLLEYBALL UAA STANDINGS UAA Conf. W L JUDGES 0 0 Emory 0 0 Carnegie 0 0 Chicago 0 0 WashU 0 0 Rochester 0 0 Case 0 0 NYU 0 0
TEAM STATS Overall W L Pct. 1 2 .333 3 0 1.000 3 0 1.000 3 1 .750 2 2 .500 2 2 .500 2 1 .667 3 0 1.000
UPCOMING MATCHES: Friday vs DeSales University Saturday vs Johnson and Wales Saturday at Connecticut College
Schedule Summary Overall(Pct.) Conference(Pct.) Streak Home Away Schedule Summary Matches Sets Kills Kills per set Errors Total Attacks
1–2 0–0 Lost 2 0–1 1–1
GET AIR: Stephanie Borr ’22 prepares to spike the ball against the University of Maine at Presque Isle on Sept. 7, 2018.
Judges succeed in their first match followed by two losses ■ Women’s volleyball team starts off season with one strong win and two hard losses. By JEN GELLER JUSTICE EDITOR
3 10 111 11.1 60 371
CROSS COUNTRY Results from the Wellesley College Inivitational on Aug. 30.
TOP FINISHERS (Men’s)
TOP FINISHERS (Women’s)
5-Kilometer Run RUNNER TIME Mark Murdy 16:42.6 Casey Brackett 16:56.9 Alec Rodgers 17:00.9
5-Kilometer Run RUNNER TIME Andrea Bolduc 18:59.2 Erin Magill 19:26.2 Danielle Bertaux 19:41.4
UPCOMING MEETS: Sept. 21 at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Invitational
The Brandeis women’s volleyball team began their season in matches on Friday against three non-University Athletic Association teams. This season brings the fresh talent of three rookies who have the potential to contribute to the success of the program, though they are currently off to a mixed start of one win and two losses. Heading into their next matchup against DeSales University on Friday, the team’s goal is to break their new two-game losing streak. Judges 0, Springfield 3 The Judges were incapable of pulling out a win against Springfield College in any of the sets. Although the Judges came into the match with a goodfaith effort, they were unable to conquer the Pride, who had an outstanding defense. In fact, according to the Brandeis
Athletics site, the Pride outhit the Judges .323 to .058. In addition, Springfield made 11 blocks, six more than the Judges’ five. On top of that, the Judges only came away with only 36 digs, while the Pride had 49. While the Judges lost each of their matches 25–20, 25–11 and 25–20, there were some individual achievements at play. Middle hitters Belle Scott ’21 and Kaisa Newburg ’22 each led the team with seven kills. Emma Bartlett ’20 and Marissa Borgert ’21 each led the team with eight digs, and Bartlett also contributed five blocks. Borgert contributed 18 assists and three service aces. In the end, Scott was named to the All-Tournament team, an impressive distinction. Judges 1, Keene State 2 The next day, the Judges also lost to Keene State University, but this time, they were able to win their first set. Unfortunately, they were unable to keep the momentum moving headed into the subsequent sets. In the first set, the Judges conquered 25–20, when after an 11-all tie, the Judges went on a 7–4 run and crushed the Owls. However, during the second set, the Owls
scored the first four points, and despite the Judges leading by one point 12–11, they were unable to maintain any sort of lead to win the set. In the third set, the Judges initially led as well with a score of 12–9, but here the Owls scored six points in a row, leading to Keene State establishing their lead. This set had a close finish, though, of 25–22. In the final set, the Owls had the longest run of the match when they scored a consistent nine points. Judges 3, Westfield State 0 Later the same day, the Judges were a force to be reckoned with in their first match of the season against Westfield State University in the Springfield College classic. The team was victorious in all three sets, with set scores of 25– 22, 25–22 and 25–17. Scott led Brandeis in these sets with a career-high of 11 kills, the first time she made it to the double digits in her career. In addition, Scott had two aces, one block and eight digs. Bartlett also was an important player of the team with nine kills, five aces, eight digs and five blocks. Borgert was essential in this win as well with 33 assists.
PRO SPORTS BRIEF
National Basketball Association teams by conference to watch out for this season Two summers ago, people talked about how the Golden State Warriors would destroy everyone else with their five all-stars lineup and ultimately win another National Basketball Association championship. However, the Warriors ended up saying goodbye to their three-peat and losing player Kevin Durant. With the fall of the king came one of the most chaotic summers in the past few years and now every team with any kind of asset wants to shuffle their cards and join the battleground. Here are some teams from each of the conferences that I will keep an eye on throughout the next NBA season. East: Milwaukee Bucks/ Philadelphia 76ers: The reason I put these two teams together is because both of them experienced the critical transformation from quantitative growth to qualitative evolution. The “Greek Freak” and “Trust the
Process” finally led their teams to becoming top tier competitors in the league. At the same time, they share a very similar team structure, with one insanely talented forward and a group of shooters. Both of them had some of the best team defense in the league. Now with the addition of Al Horford joining the 76ers, the two teams will have the top two rim protections in the league, in addition to two of the best rim attackers. Of course, this does not mean that either of them have nothing to worry about. Facing the Toronto Raptors showed that doing well during regular season does not promise an easy playoff. Bucks Giannis Antetokounmpo and 76ers Joel Embiid need to surpass themselves to ensure that the same story will not happen again. If they can achieve that, without injuries or accidents, these two teams will be dominating the eastern conference for the next season.
East: Brooklyn Nets: The Nets surprised just about everyone last season, thanks to the growth of D’Angelo Russell. However, the management decided not to stop there and pulled some surprising trades: Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant. However, the deal does look better on paper. Durant will not be able to play until 2020, and no one knows how long will it take for him to recover from his achilles injury. On the other hand, while no one questions Irving’s ability as a player, things did not go too well the last time he joined a team with a group of young players. With that being said, the lineup of the Nets is more than decent. LeVert, Harris and Irving are all great shooters with the ability to shoot threes. DeAndre Jordan might not be who he was a few years ago, but he is still an excellent defender with good rebound records. One difficulty of this lineup would be time assignment. Until Durant
comes back, putting all the shooters on the court will drag down the defense. West: Los Angeles Clippers/Los Angeles Lakers: There is no doubt that the Los Angeles Clippers had the most surprising trade of the summer. To be fair, they did pay a huge price to put together this lineup and had to send away two key members of the team. But adding Paul George and Kawhi Leonard to the roster, and already having a top sixth man and a top defensive player, makes the Clippers one of the most competitive teams in the league before the season even starts. On the other hand, the LebronDavis union is equally impressive. In his entire career, Davis has been the only star of his team, which makes him the center of all the defensive effort from the opponent. Now, with Lebron on his side, his full potential may very well be released
for the first time. His contract is also relatively cheaper, which is why the Lakers were able to sign Dwight Howard immediately after the unfortunate injury of Cousins. In the end, the Lakers’ upcoming season is likely to be much better than last year, but the depth of its bench could be a problem when facing more competitive teams. The Clippers would be a tough team to play against for any other team as long as the starting lineups stay healthy, which is a reasonable concern considering both of the stars have histories of serious injuries. Summary: These are the five teams that are likely to become major competitors in the next season. Many other teams were left out for different reasons. Look forward to more forecasts in the future. — Luke Liu
just Sports Page 16
NEW NBA SEASON FORECAST Keep an eye on these teams in the upcoming National Basketball Association season, p. 15. Waltham, Mass.
Tuesday, September 3, 2019
WOMEN’S SOCCER
FIERY FOCUS
Judges lose 0–4 against MIT ■ The Judges have started
off their season with a loss against the nationally ranked MIT Beavers. By MEGAN GELLER JUSTICE EDITOR
During the 2019 preseason, the Brandeis women's soccer team remained on their home campus. They participated in many local team bonding activities, such as Coach Denise Dallamora’s barbeques and movie nights. This year’s captains are seniors Katie Hayes, Amanda Fernbach, Sierra Dana and Kerin Miller. The first-years each “bring something new and special to this team. We are all excited to see what they can contribute to the team and to watch them grow over the next four years,” Kerin Miller explained. The women’s soccer team opened its 2019 season with
a 4–0 non-conference road loss at Steinbrenner Stadium in Cambridge to a strong Massachusetts Institute of Technology squad, ranked 20th in the nation among Division III women’s soccer teams. The four goals scored by the Engineers against the Judges ties their most ever. The Judges have won six of the last eight meetings against the Engineers. Three goals were scored by the Engineers in the first half of play, with Brandeis’ Victoria Richardson ’20 in the goal. The three goals for the Engineers were scored by Chessa Hoekstra ’20, Anna Weinstein ’22 and Claire O’Callaghan ’20. Richardson recorded three saves in the first half before being replaced in the second half by Rebecca Gold ’22. This was Gold’s second career See WSOCCER, 13
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CROSS COUNTRY
Wellesley Invitational brings success ■ The Brandeis cross country
teams started their season last Friday at the Wellesley Invitational. By ELLIE WHISENANT JUSTICE STAFF WRITER
With recent graduates such as Emily Bryson ’19 — a nine-time All-American and four-time national champion — as well as the rest of last year’s seniors moving on from Brandeis, this year’s team has big shoes to fill. However, this past Friday’s meet at the Wellesley Invitational saw the start of a promising 2019 season for both the Brandeis men’s and women’s cross country teams, proving that the team still possesses more than enough talent to have an amazing season. At their first meet of the season, the Brandeis Judges competed against schools such as Wentworth Institute of Technology, Regis College, Lasell College and Wellesley College. Men’s Team The men’s team claimed first place overall, with an amazing 23 points separating them from the runner up, Wentworth. The team ran an average 5K of 17:11.0 seconds and had members claim all top three spots. Coming in first place was Mark Murdy ’21. Murdy, who did not compete last year due to injuries,
started this season off strong. He ran a total time of 16:42.6 seconds with his average mile being 5:22.7 seconds. Casey Bracket, a first year from Wakefield, Massachusetts, followed just over 14 seconds after Murdy to take second place. Alec Rodgers, a senior, then went on to claim the bronze with a time of 17:00.9 seconds. Dan Curly ’21 and Jacob Judd ‘21 also placed sixth and tenth, respectively. Women’s Team The women’s team did not claim an overall victory. Wellesley took first place with the Judges just four points behind, running an average 5k of 19:46 seconds. Andrea Bolduc ’21 ran a 5k time of 18:59.2 seconds overall and an average mile of 6:06.6 seconds. This is Bolduc’s first ever first place win at the collegiate level. Sophomore Erin Magill took the bronze with senior Danielle Bertaux and first year Bridget Packard taking fifth and tenth, respectively. The Judges have a full season set up for them. In addition to Bracket, the men’s team also gained Siva Annadorai ’21. Victoria Morrongiello ’23 and Bridget Packard ’23 also joined the women’s team. The teams’ next meet is the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Invitational at the end of September. They See XC, 13 ☛
YDALIA COLON/Justice File Photo
KICKIN’ IT: Alex Walter ’20 gains control of the ball during a game against Case Western Reserve University on Sept. 29, 2018.
Men’s soccer season opener results in a win ■ Judges kick off their
season with a split of their first two games. By BRIAN INKER JUSTICE STAFF WRITER
As classes and a new academic year began, soccer, too, was in the air. The Brandeis men’s soccer team began their season with a split of their first two games — they won their first match on opening day against Roger Williams University, but suffered a loss that day against Washington and Lee University. The two games were hard fought and close throughout, with each game being decided by a single goal. In an interview with the Justice, junior Noah Gans explained, “The ultimate goal
is to make it back to the NCAA tournament and compete for a national championship, but the big goals don’t matter if you don’t take care of the smaller goals. Focusing on what it takes to win the next game is the mentality of the guys.” Judges 1, Hawks 0 The first game was held at Brandeis against the Roger WIlliams University Hawks on Aug. 30 with the lone goal being scored in the 29th minute by Brandeis’ first year Will DeNight. Brandeis’ goalkeeper Greg Irwin ’20 put on a show, making five saves and earning his seventh career shutout. During this game, the Judges outshot the Hawks 17–10, ultimately giving the Judges the win even with the Hawks’
slight 4–2 edge on corner kicks. Judges 0, Generals 1 The second game, held at Brandeis on Aug. 31, featured another defensive heavy affair, with Brandeis outshooting, Washington and Lee 18–5, but unable to score a goal. Irwin had another solid game, but Washington and Lee midfielder Jack Parham was able to squeeze a shot by him, which proved to be the decisive blow. While defensively the squad looks to be in midseason form, the offense needs to pick up in order for Brandeis to win these close games. The team looks to rebound on Wednesday at their first away game of the season against Clark University. When asked about the See MSOCCER, 13
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September 3, 2019
Vol. LXXII #1 Vol. LXX #2
September 12, 2017
& s t just Ar e r u t l u C
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Waltham, Mass.
Artwork: Ralph Coburn; Images: Natalia Wiater; Design: Sarah Katz and Noah Zeitlin
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TUESDAY, THE JUSTICE SEPTEMBER | ARTS3, | 2019 TUESDAY, I ARTS JANUARY & CULTURE 31, 2017 I THE JUSTICE
COMEDY SHOW
Hannah Gadsby continuous to break tradition By MENDEL WEINTRAUB JUSTICE STAFF WRITER
When her Netflix comedy special, “Nanette” premiered last summer, Hannah Gadsby could not have anticipated the universal acclaim it would receive from both critics and audiences alike. Nor did she think it would make a difference; after all, about halfway through “Nanette,” Gadsby proclaimed that she was quitting comedy after this special: “I put myself down in order to speak, in order to seek permission to speak. And I simply will not do that anymore — not to myself, or anybody who identifies with me.” From the beginning of her latest special “Douglas,” Hannah Gadsby returns in fine form. She addresses the success of “Nanette,” and what brought her back to the stage. Essentially, with the success of her last special, Gadsby is now being given the platform to perform on her own terms. This allows her to break tradition even more than she did on her previous
special, as the first fifteen minutes of “Douglas” see her summarizing everything she is going to be discussing in the next hour and a half. “There will be two fart jokes, then a Louis C.K. joke, which I think is quite good,” she reveals. Gadsby speaks in “Nanette” about comedy’s power to break tension; we wise-crack when in the face of difficult subjects, rather than directly confront them. In “Douglas,” Gadsby opens by immediately breaking tension, not for the sake of consoling her audience, but to reveal an alternative function of breaking tension: it can build anticipation. Once Gadsby summarizes her entire set, you are more compelled to hear what she has to say. And Hannah Gadsby has a whole lot to say. With “Douglas,” Gadsby goes beyond critiquing the male-dominated field that she is a part of. She expands on the boundary-pushing comedy of “Nanette” by putting that criticism to work. Now that voices like hers are being heard, Gadsby explores what that representation should
look like in an almost anthropological way. She invites the audience to see the world through her eyes, by performing a stand-up set that encourages her audience to respond in a way that mirrors her own perception of the world. “I have autism,” Gadsby reveals. And once Gadsby shares this part of herself, she takes the audience on a journey of seeing the world through different eyes. If you go into “Douglas” totally at peace with the world around you, you leave with a sudden feeling of blissful uneasiness, as the world is something completely anew once you’ve experienced Gadsby’s work. “Nanette” wooed people because it was subversive. Gadsby does not subscribe to the accepted conventions of stand up comedy, a field that has historically been dominated by straight white men. Instead, Gadsby broke from tradition to diagnose a problem with the artform she was advancing. If “Nanette” was Gadsby’s way of diagnosing a problem, then one may very well look at “Douglas” as the antidote.
Photo Courtesy of CREATIVE COMMONS
A DIFFERENT KIND OF COMEDY: Once again, Hannah Gadsby chose to pursue comedy in an unique way.
“Douglas” is currently being performed in New York City at the Daryl Roth Theater, and will be dropping on Netflix, as a special, sometime in 2020.
THEATER
Summer, stars, swordfights, Shakespeare By SHOSHI FINKEL JUSTICE STAFF WRITER
There are a lot of outdoor activities that get students excited about an upcoming summer break — swimming, going to the beach, hiking and summery sports like volleyball and tennis. I’m definitely an odd one out when it comes to my favorite summer activity: watching Shakespeare under the stars. It doesn’t feel like summer has arrived yet if I haven’t found a local theatre troupe putting on one of the Bard’s plays in a park, field or open-air theater. Since I was taking classes here at Brandeis during the summer, I knew I had to make a trip out to Boston to see the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company’s performance on the Boston Common. This summer, the play chosen by the CSC was Cymbeline, one of William Shakepeare’s lessknown comedies. This fantastical dramedy follows the story of Imogen, a fictional medieval English princess and defiant daughter of King Cymbelline, who wishes to marry her true love, the low-born Posthumus. However, many players in Cymbeline’s court have ideas of their own for Imogen, and things get dicey when poison, disguise and false accusations are used by those who wish to keep couples and families apart. By the end,
Design: Sara Fulton/the Justice
an entire Roman army — and even the gods themselves — come to England to set things right. The thought that crossed my mind while watching it was “Okay, there’s a reason this isn’t one of the works of Shakespeare we read in school.” It doesn’t have as memorable or loveable characters like Puck, Malvolio or Rosencrantz and Gildenstern. It doesn’t have any thesis-worthy soliloquies or monologues. However, Cymbeline has the Shakespearean integrity of any of his other plays, full of romance, cross-dressing, mistaken identity and daring swordfights. Underneath all the adventures are the universal themes of seeking one’s own destiny, being true to oneself and putting our trust in those we love. It was certainly a blast to watch on a blanket in the grass with many Bostonians as the sun set over the Boston Common. The Commonwealth Shakespeare Company deserves credit for its creativity and attention to detail in this production. Putting on a play with such a large cast of characters, many of whom could seem interchangeable, they chose costume designs with a wide variety of textures, colors and even historical styles to help the audience differentiate between all the princes, soldiers, adventurers and villains. The multi-level set became palaces, wilderness
SHOSHI FINKEL/the Justice
SUMMER FUN: The outdoor show is open to all kinds of audiences, just like what it was like hundreds of years ago.
and battleground through inventiveness of lighting and props. The actors were top-notch professionals, especially considering this was a free show, and their fight choreography was especially enjoyable to watch. I loved Nora Eschenheimer’s performance as the quintessential Shakespearean heroine, Imogen, who infused the character’s noble quest for love with modern notions of women’s liberation
and autonomy. Eschenheimer is a graduate of the University of Rhode Island and has also appeared in Shakespeare productions in California and Hawaii. Many young people find Shakespeare difficult to relate to or understand. However, when you see it as it was intended to be seen — in the open air, with people in the audience from all walks of life — you can get swept up in the drama, adventure and
laughter and forget that you’re in the middle of an American metropolis. You could be in Elizabethan London, and somehow you’re able to follow the Middle English dialogue and jokes. So, if you’re on the East Coast next summer and are itching for some Shakespeare, maybe skip the hours-long lines of Manhattan’s Shakespeare in the Park and head up to Boston for the same level of professional theater.
THE JUSTICE I ARTS & CULTURE I TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2019
19
MUSEUM
Deserts, blood and ghost towns: Chile’s loneliest open-air museum
Photos by VICENTE CAYUELA/the Justice
By VICENTE CAYUELA JUSTICE STAFF WRITER
The buzz of the A-16 highway keeps the travelers awake amidst the deadly silence of the Tarapaca desert. Just over 33 miles east of Iquique, Chile, the ruins of the Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works succumb to the heat and oblivion of a brutal past. Glowing in the distance, the nearly 150-year-old inactive workshops welcome the visitors to the largest saltpeter deposit in the world. The ghost town’s facilities, formerly known as La Pampa, have been restored into an open-air museum that preserves and honors the lives of its long-gone inhabitants: the Pampinos. During the industrial boom of the 20th century, thousands of workers from Chile, Peru and Bolivia migrated to the hostile Pampa in search of economic prosperity. Saltpeter was mined to produce sodium nitrate, a natural fertilizer responsible for boosting Chile’s economy. For over a century, these workers and their families fought for social justice in one of the world’s most inhospitable environments. In the remote desert, they led general strikes against extremely poor working conditions. For decades, the Pampinos endured abuse and exploitations from the multinational saltpeter industry. After months of demonstrations that spread fiercely across the region, the exhausted inhabitants of La Pampa marched hundreds of miles to the port city of Iquique, where negotiations were being held. Confined in the city’s school, la Escuela Santa Maria de Iquique, the workers were brutally repressed by the government. The series of protests
resulted in the mass-shooting of over three thousand workers and their families by the indiscriminate fire of the Chilean army. The Massacre of the Santa Maria de Iquique School remains one of the darkest chapters in the history of the Andean country. Stepping carefully through the ruins, the visitors watch out for the rusty infrastructure shaken by a sudden burst of wind. Through the empty streets, various signs warn of the imminent danger ahead: unstable ceilings and walls about to fall at any moment. On top of the inevitable decay, the town has been further damaged by a recent wave of earthquakes. In spite of the conservation efforts, the modest houses made of white caliche are covered in cracks and rust, a humbling reminder of the destructive power of time and nature. Once inside, the tiny houses resemble an improvised gallery. Hundreds of artifacts present the life of their past owners like pieces of an incomplete puzzle. Some rooms store their belongings: scribbled notes and dining tables with cutlery on them. The doors left carelessly open make us wonder: did everyone disappear in the blink of an eye? In the childrens’ rooms, wooden dolls and tin guns give us a short glimpse of the simple life that went by in spite of the surrounding tragedy. Nevertheless, not everything was back-breaking work in the heat of the desert. The Pampino people had a rich culture and lifestyle, making the most out of the scarce resources provided by the environment. Though the saltpeter economy started to decline worldwide during the Great Depression, the inhabitants of La Pampa pushed through the hardships of the mining lifestyle until the bankrupt facilities were abandoned in the 1960s. Smiling for the camera, some
THE DRIEST DESERT IN THE WORLD: A visitor avoids the heat in front of the Humberstone Theater.
visitors take pictures in front of the buildings that have been recently restored to their former glory: a ballroom, a church, a hotel, a school and a theater. Each one brings back the adventures of the men and women that once danced, laughed and loved here. Human statues made of clay trick visitors into thinking they are not alone as they walk through the labyrinthic Pulperia, the only convenience store in the community. Here, the miners were obligated to exchange the tokens they received as salary for goods, food and other necessities. The market was reopened to visitors in 2016 after 300 million Chilean pesos were dedicated to the preservation of its invaluable cultural legacy. The donations were made by the National Ministry of Economy, Investment and Tourism and the Regional Government of Tarapaca, among other institutions. Throughout the years, the Saltpeter Museum Corporation has turned a long-forgotten town into a heart-wrenching journey back in time. Recognized as a World Heritage Site in 2005 by UNESCO, the Humberstone-Santa Laura complex preserves the last memories of the rise and fall of Chile’s saltpeter economy. More profoundly, it exposes the crimes committed against its people — which is a much more important mission. Vestiges of cruelty loom around every corner, yet the exceptional loneliness of the landscape is far from terrifying. Humberstone is a vivid reminder of humans’ capacity to adapt and their will to fight against the inevitable twists and turns of adversity. Sitting on top of a hill by the mine’s southernmost border, visitors look in awe at one of the most breathtaking views of the forgotten city: an infinite horizon where nothing survives except the salty breath of a burning desert.
BREATHTAKING VIEWS: From the top of a hill, visitors get to see the immensity of the desert.
HUMAN STATUES: Inside the town’s Pulperia, dozens of statues mimic the daily life at the saltpeter village.
A TOWN IN RUINS: Rust and solitude corrodes Humberstone’s facilities.
Design: Yael Hanadari-Levy/the Justice
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THE JUSTICE I ARTS & CULTURE I TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2019
INTERVIEW
JUSTARTS SPOTLIGHT ON THE ROSE
By Luke Liu JUSTICE EDITOR
Welcome back! Starting this past summer, the Rose Art Museum will be open yearround, including the summer break and other major holidays. To help you plan your next visit, here are some of the upcoming events hosted by the museum. More detailed information can be found on the Rose Art Museum’s website.
MARIE A. LONGO Photo Courtesy of THE ROSE ART MUSEUM
This week, justArts&Culture spoke with Marie A. Longo, who was appointed as the director of development and external relations for the Rose Art Museum at the
INTO FORM: SELECTIONS FROM THE ROSE COLLECTION, 1957—2018
end of the summer. NOAH ZEITLIN/the Justice
June 20 to Jan 5 From paintings to sculptures to videos, 43 pieces created after 1957 were picked from the collections of the Rose Art Museum and will be exhibited throughout the fall semester. The collection of modern art showcases the efforts of artists early in their careers to break boundaries between different art forms and experiment with different media.
Marie A. Longo: My role is senior director of development and external relations. And in that role it’s my job to work with our director to expand the footprint of the museum and to increase visibility and awareness and engagement and outreach and donor support. JAC: What do you see as the relationship between the college and the museum?
“GORDON MATTACLARK: ANARCHITECT” Sep 21 to Jan 5 Known for her projects created in New York City, Chicago and many other urban environments, Matta-Clark’s photographs, paintings and film projects focus on housing rights, the public and private spaces. By creating works related to urban development and issues that come with it, Gordon Matta-Clark aspires to spark conversations about the relationship between capitalism and urbanization. “INDEX: THE MEETING” Sep 20 to March 8
VICENTE CAYUELA/the Justice
SUDOKU
ML: An immediate goal is that we want to get our Instagram followers up to the 10,000 threshold. We’re just a few hundred shy of that, so if folks here on campus haven’t followed us on Instagram, please do so. And I think that we are really going to think about how we utilize our position here within Waltham and MetroWest Boston, as well as on campus to expand the network, to open the doors to convey to folks that this is a place that belongs to everybody, and is open to everybody, and it’s free, and it is a wonderful place to come in to relax, to refresh, to get away from the day-to-day.
ANDREW BAXTER/the Justice
JAC: You previously worked at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, a large institution with an incredible amount of collections. In your opinion, what is the merit of a smaller institution like the Rose? How do they compare?
Top 10 Things to Eat In Sherman That Aren’t Food By Gabriel Frank
SUDOKU Courtesy of OPENSKY SUDOKU GENERATOR
JUSTICE EDITOR
“Yes, I’ll have a simple serving of metal chair and tree bark.” 1. Paper plates and cups 2. Plastic utensils 3. Plastic cups 4. Tables 5. Chairs 6. Ice cubes 7. Cereal dispensers 8. Trees 9. Your homework 10. Your Brandeis ID
ML: The Rose Art Museum stands alone as a university art museum because it has a very focused collection on modern and contemporary art, and it’s an institution that has a reputation that is known nationally and internationally. So it’s not an encyclopedic collection like say Harvard Art Museum. And because of that nature it really draws the attention of the art world outside of the University. Nonetheless, being situated here on campus and being a part of Brandeis is critical to the life of the institution. And it’s important that we are mounting shows and exhibitions that really align with the institution’s values and interests — so things like social justice and diversity and freedom of expression and lifting up voices that haven’t been heard before. Those are important principles in how we do our work, and I think they align nicely with the University. JAC: You mentioned in an email sent out by the Rose that you will be “raising visibility [and] enhancing brand awareness.” How would you like to accomplish that?
Looking for ways to redefine how we practice problemsolving communication, “The Meeting” launches the first iteration of INDEX, a place for people to rethink ways to establish a connection with content. In this new initiative at the museum, INDEX artists will create interactive platforms based on the environment to provoke conversations that are more open and effective when it comes to conflict mediation.
STAFF’S Top Ten
JustArts&Culture: Tell us a bit about your role in the museum.
Solution Courtesy of EVAN MAHNKEN
ML: I think for a museum like [the] Rose, its small size makes it accessible. And so for someone who perhaps is new to contemporary art or new to the visual art community at large, it’s a great way to be introduced to it. There is no judgement. Everybody is welcome and equal. And our hope is that you come here and you see something that makes you stop and pause, maybe rethink your own perspective on the world or some political occurrence that’s happening. So I think the accessibility makes it distinctive from a larger encyclopedia museum. Not to mention that it’s free. You know in the art world, sometimes you have to be at an eschalon to afford to go and see things. JAC: Is there anything you want to add? ML: Come by and visit! Follow us on Instagram. The institution will be celebrating its 60th anniversary in the year 2021. So that’s two years away, which seems far away, but in planning terms it’s really not that far off at all. I’m interested in working with our staff and the Brandeis community and our Board of Advisors to determine ways that we can mark that milestone in a fun and celebratory way. — Luke Liu