The Spectator The Stuyvesant High School Newspaper
Volume CII No. 1
September 9, 2011
One Decade Later: Remembering 9/11
stuyspectator.com
Hurricane Irene Hits NY
Feature on Page 3.
Former Stuyvesant Librarian Vindicated of Sexual Harassment Charges By EUGENIA SANCHEZ Three years after Christopher Asch was suspended from his position as Stuyvesant’s school librarian because of sexual harassment charges, New York State Supreme Court Judge Manuel Mendez officially vindicated Asch of all charges and declared him the victim of anti-homosexual discrimination. Asch, who is openly gay, was fired from his job in June 2009 in response to a sexual harassment report filed by four male students. According to the official report, made available online by the New York City Department of Education, “Asch would approach and massage [the students’] backs and shoulders… and run his fingers down the small of their backs as he whispered in their ears to be quiet while in the library.” Though actual sexual harassment charges were later dropped, an arbitrator declared his actions questionable, suspended him, without pay, from city schools for six months, and ordered counseling sessions. Three years later, on Tuesday, June 28, 2011, Asch’s Article 7511 Petition for vindication was tried in Manhattan’s Supreme Court. “Touching students and whispering to them are acceptable practices to maintain order in the
Sports
library,” Mendez ruled. Asch, who had worked in New York City schools since 1989, entered Stuyvesant as a tenured employee in 2002, when he became one of three librarians at the school. He was the faculty adviser of several clubs at Stuyvesant, including the Republican Club, Parodyze, the Quiz Bowl Team, and the Cricket Team. “I was a library monitor my freshman year and worked with Mr. Asch. He was a nice guy, but he had what some people considered unusual ways of talking to people. He would tap them in the shoulder and quietly tell them to be silent. However, I don’t think he did anything extreme or out of the ordinary, which is why I kind of looked at the accusations with skepticism,” Stuyvesant alumnus Gavin Huang (’09) said. Asch had held his position as librarian for seven years, until he was sent to a Washington Heights “rubber room” in February 2008, shortly after charges were first pressed. Rubber rooms are classrooms in which teachers who are suspected of inappropiate behavior are forced to stay during school hours. These rooms are continued on page 2
Article on page 28.
More Than A Game How America’s favorite national pastime united the country in the aftermath of 9/11.
At noon on Saturday, August 27, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) suspended its system for the first time in advance for a storm. Hurricane Irene’s peak was expected at 2 a.m. Sunday morning, but the Category One (one being the weakest and five being the strongest levels of Hurricane Katrina) hurricane waned to a tropical storm. Though not nearly as devastating as what was feared, the severe rainfall flooded many parts of the city and caused eight fatalities in New York, according to CNN News. Just an hour before the city’s subways and buses grinded to a halt, sophomore Judy Lee was packing with her family for a night at her friend’s house. Lee lives in southern Staten Island— one of the Zone A-designated areas that also included lowlying Battery Park, Coney Island, and parts of the Bronx—and was thus mandated to evacuate. Residents of the Rockaways were also instructed to evacuate, even though the Rockaways was classified as Zone B. Lee heard about the evacuation on the news. “People in my area were supposed to go to Tottenville High School,” she said.
“My family just went to a friend’s house, also in Staten Island. It wasn’t really a big deal. We didn’t lose electricity, and nothing flooded.” Sophomore Julia Eng from Rego Park, Queens, made minor preparations for the weekend despite living outside of the danger zones. “We bought groceries,” Eng said. “My advice would be to get flashlights, stock up on food, and if you’re in a zone where you have to evacuate, just get out.” Sophomore Eddie Zilberbrand’s family followed this mantra. “We bought water, batteries, flashlights, and brought all the patio furniture back,” he said. Zilberbrand lives in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, in Zone B. His house experienced minor flooding, but no loss of electricity. However, across the street, a tree downed a power line and fell on top of a car. For some students out of state, the effects of the hurricane were more severe. Sophomore Marie Frolich, who resides in Dyker Heights, a Zone C location, was in Virginia when Hurricane Irene hit the United States. Heavy rain flooded the streets outside of her hotel, and power was out for continued on page 11
Senior Michael Scheer to be Published in Math Journal
By Risham Dhillon and Nabanita Hossain
Senior Michael Scheer recently developed an original proof of Feuerbach’s Theorem, which is explained in his soon-to-bepublished paper titled “A Simple Vector Proof of Feuerbuch’s Theorem.” The paper will be published in an upcoming issue of the mathematics journal Forum Geometricorum. Forum Geometricorum is a free, annual math journal which was first published in 2001 by the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Florida Atlantic University. Feuerbach’s Theorem, first proved in 1822 by Karl Feuerbach, states that a nine-point circle is tangent to the incircles and excircles of a scalene or isosceles triangle. An incircle is a circle inscribed in a polygon whereas an excircle is a circle that is tangent to a side of the triangle as well as the lines containing the segments that make up the other two sides of the triangle. A nine-point circle is a circle that passes through the midpoints of the sides of a triangle, the foot of each altitude, and the midpoints of the line segments extending from the triangle’s vertices to its orthocenter, the point where all three altitudes meet. “Every triangle has four circles that are tangent to all three sides of the triangle [the incircle and the three excircles]. Feuerbach’s theorem tells us that there is a circle that is tangent to all four of these circles, and, furthermore, this
Courtesy of Michael Scheer
Courtesy of Ethan Moses
Joann Lee / The Spectator
By JENNY FUNG and Karen Zheng
The World Trade Center, as seen behind the Tribeca Bridge, in 2001 and 2011.
“The Pulse of the Student Body”
An illustration of Feurbach’s Theorem with points of tangency.
circle contains nine important points on the triangle. This really is a crazy coincidence,” Scheer said in an e-mail interview. Scheer first stumbled upon Feuerbach’s theorem during his freshman year Geometry class. “I had [former mathematics teacher Joseph] Stern for Geometry second term, and in his class we covered the nine-point circle. And after we finished discussing the proof of its existence, he gave us a choice: move on with the curriculum and learn about coordinate geometry, or prove Feuerbach’s Theorem,” Scheer said in an e-mail interview. Article on page 23.
Though the class originally chose to learn the proof of the theorem, which Stern had said might take two weeks to explain, they reverted back to the curriculum in two days. Scheer’s curiosity, however, was not satisfied. “I was still really interested in [the theorem] and wanted to know why it was true,” he said. On his own time, Scheer read through different proofs that had been proposed by mathematicians in the past. However, most of them were very complicated continued on page 2
Arts & Entertainment The Amazing Food Truck Race
Grab a quick bite at one of New York’s unique on-the-go eateries.