ESTABLISHED 1826 — OLDEST COLLEGE NEWSPAPER WEST OF THE ALLEGHENIES
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2018
Volume 146 No. 16
city
matters
A public safety forum with Oxford’s public health service leaders
Miami University — Oxford, Ohio
Wednesday February 21, 2018 7PM in Wilks Theatre
CRISTESCU SENTENCED TO FIVE YEARS IN PRISON CRIME
CÉILÍ DOYLE EMILY WILLIAMS
THE MIAMI STUDENT
Former Miami student Nicolas Cristescu was sentenced to five years in prison for a felony charge of gross sexual imposition Monday in the Butler County Court of Common Pleas. Cristescu, 20, was originally indicted for rape, sexual battery and 11 counts of voyeurism after allegedly drugging, raping and filming an unconscious woman in his Heritage Commons residence in the hours between Oct. 11 and Oct. 12. As part of a plea bargain, Cristescu pleaded guilty to the amended charge of gross sexual imposition in December. The charges for voyeurism and sexual battery were dismissed. The five-year sentence that Judge Michael Oster ordered is the maximum sentence for gross sexual imposition, a third degree felony. Oster also ruled that Cristescu be registered as a Tier I sexual offender, requiring Cristescu to register every 12 months for a period of 15 years. As part of the plea bargain, Oster said, he was directed to view and watch the photos and videos of the victim. After seeing the footage, he said, he knew he was watching someone being raped. “This perpetrator knew exactly what he was doing,” Oster said. During Cristescu’s allocution — CONTINUED ON PAGE 8
First-year Jessica Enhelder helps sophomore Maya Fenter try on a hijab for World Hijab Day. SEBASTIAN NEUFUSS THE MIAMI STUDENT
OESCR director Vaughn running for state rep POLITICS
ANDREW TILBE
THE MIAMI STUDENT
Until 2016, Susan Vaughn, Miami’s director of the Office of Ethics and Student Conflict Resolution (OESCR), had no aspirations to run for public office. Now, she’s seeking election to the Ohio House of Representatives in November 2018, as representative of Ohio’s 51st district. Vaughn, who has worked at Miami Uni-
versity for 33 years, is running as a Democrat. At 67 years old, this is her first time running for public office. One main objective of Vaughn’s campaign is reducing the role of large companies throughout the district and pushing resources toward small business development. “I think there’s been real attention to big corporations, and the people who support those corporations are the ones who benefit from it,” Vaughn said. “And we gotta get back to bringing life to our smaller towns.”
Student movement fights racism, sexual assault ACTIVISM
LAURA FITZGERALD THE MIAMI STUDENT
From walking students home from the bars to organizing rallies, The Collective brings together Miami students and Oxford community organizations to combat sexual assault and white supremacy. “It is like a movement or an initiative that is made up of a bunch of different people, activists who are interested in doing what they can to make this campus a better place by attacking major issues on campus that affect a wide variety of students,” said senior Taylor Edwards, an organizer in The Collective. Senior Jc Statt, another organizer, said it doesn’t seek recognition from the university as a student organization because it exists to serve and bring together other organizations already working on issues in the community. The Collective also doesn’t want the university to hold any power over it, especially when the initiative is trying to challenge university policies and culture. With about ten organizers, the movement started gaining momentum last semester with a rally against white supremacy on Aug. 30 and a rally against sexual assault on Oct. 25. But, Statt said, the movement is built off the previous work of students and activists who participate in their respective organizations. “Those folks who involve themselves and who identify as collective organizers have been around,” Statt said. “They were
NEWS P.3
BUILDING BETTER BONES Researchers pursue a less painful, risky way to repair bone trauma.
Vaughn believes that shifting focus toward sustainable jobs for the lower and middle classes will bring prosperity throughout the county. “I think it’s, to some extent, rigged, so that the people who are the supporters of the big business are the ones who are going to benefit from it,” she said. “And towns like this don’t prosper in circumstances like that.” Although Vaughn is a registered Democrat and is receiving money and campaign CONTINUED ON PAGE 9
Lack of diversity leads director to look outside Miami for casting DIVERSITY
MADELINE MITCHELL THE MIAMI STUDENT
THE COLLECTIVE ORGANIZED RALLIES AGAINST SEXUAL ASSAULT (ABOVE) AND WHITE SUPREMACY (BELOW). JUGAL JAIN, RYAN TERHUNE, BO BRUECK THE MIAMI STUDENT
here in the spring, and some weren’t. Some are freshman; they came in and just dove right in, and that’s amazing. But, it’s obviously all built upon groundwork laid by previous years of students.” Junior Hannah Abigail Clarke, president of Spectrum, spoke at both rallies held by The Collective. Through the rallies, Clarke formed a relationship with Black Women Empowered, an organization that Spectrum has never worked with before, and began planning an event. Clarke said she hopes to continue that re-
CULTURE P.4
EDITORIAL P. 12
HUMANS OF OXFORD: BEAKER BROS
WHAT RECRUITMENT RULES REFLECT
“One day you’ll realize science is just failure to disprove something.”
The ways that Greek men and women recruit show gender disparities.
lationship for years to come. Each weekend, The Collective has a group of students wait at the Phi Delt gates on weekend nights that offer to walk students home. The group recently partnered with Students for Survivors from the University of Cincinnati (UC) on a social media campaign that highlighted sexual assault stories and statistics. This semester, the group plans to supCONTINUED ON PAGE 2
Recent recasting in the Department of Theatre has stirred discussion of an elephant in the room: Miami’s lack of racial diversity. The department’s upcoming production of “We Are Proud to Present…” held auditions last fall and posted a cast list before students were released for winter break. But the last-minute withdrawal of two cast members left director Torie Wiggins scrambling to find replacements in the last three days before their first rehearsal last Tuesday. What made the situation particularly dire? The two roles which needed to be recast had to be black males, as specified in the script. “I wasn’t upset with [the actors who dropped],” Wiggins said. “It was just like, I’m not necessarily in a demographic where I have my pick, so my only freakout was, ‘Now where do I find black men?’” Senior theatre major Anthony Thompson, who was originally cast as Actor 4, decided after a second round of interviews a few weeks ago to take an internship with Paramount Pictures in Los Angeles for the spring semester while CONTINUED ON PAGE 4
SPORTS P.14
HOCKEY UNABLE TO SWEEP WMU After beating the WMU Broncos Friday, the Hawks fell 3-2.
ENTERTAINMENT page 6