united airlines Decision to bar girls from flight because of leggings is wrong
march munchies Surprise shakeout of top
WOMEN’S LACROSSE Rutgers powers past
seeds shapes up Final Four
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Niagara in 18-8 win
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Ranking of Rutgers Law School jumps 30 spots Christian Zapata contributing writer
The Rutgers Law School rose to be the 62nd best graduate program in the country as a result of a recent merger between two programs. In the U.S. News and Worldwide Report, Rutgers Law School jumped 30 spots this past Tuesday. The decision made in late 2015 to merge the Rutgers—Camden and Newark graduate programs into one cohesive school resulted in one of the largest leaps ever on the U.S. News school list, according to NJ Advance Media. The original decision to merge both programs came into discussion years back when the former deans of the Camden and Newark Law Schools felt they could achieve more if they functioned under one name, said Alec Walen, professor of Law at Rutgers—Camden. In an attempt to maintain Rutgers—Camden, which at the time was having trouble staying afloat,
members of the board were tasked with sustaining the program financially in the years between the merger, organizing the merger itself and preventing Rutgers—Camden from becoming Rowan Law School, Walen said. While the merger was well into effect prior to any issues, troubles came about for two reasons, Walen said. There was the threat of being bought out by Rowan University and the general overall economic downturn. “Truth is, Rutgers was ranked near the bottom in both the New York and Philadelphia law markets before the merger took effect. Now, due to the quality of the faculty and resources, it’s ranked squarely in the middle. We’re only two schools down below and could end up being in the top of the second tier which would be very nice,” he said. If the University decides it wants to invest and bring the program up See ranking on Page 5
The record-breaking jump in the U.S. News and Worldwide Report’s ranking of Rutgers Law School can be attributed to the succesful merger between the graduate programs at Rutgers—Newark and Rutgers—Camden in 2015. WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
U. becomes 1st to appoint full-time Muslim chaplain Camilo Montoya-Galvez staff writer
In hiring Kaiser Aslam as a full-time Muslim chaplain for the community, Rutgers became the first public university to offer this type of spiritual guidance to Muslim students. Aslam’s position provides a combination of advising and counseling, and his services are open to all students. RUTGERS.EDU
Immediately after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Kaiser Aslam said he was mortified about the social implications of praying in public at an airport. Now, he is worried about the legal ramifications of simply boarding a flight. As Rutgers’ first full-time Muslim chaplain, Aslam is tasked with providing spiritual guidance to thousands of Muslim students on campus. Although he acknowledged that it is a “scary time” for many Muslim-Americans nation-wide, Aslam said his new position requires him to distinguish between irrational and rational fears for the sake of the students he now serves. “If there is going to be a place in which Muslim students can feel at home without being vilified, without feeling pressured to defend their Muslim identity, it would be on campus,” Aslam said. Karen Smith, a University spokesperson, said there are an estimated 5,000 Muslim students on the three Rutgers campuses, including about 3,000 undergraduate and graduate students at Rutgers— New Brunswick. “It’s almost like this weird paradoxical thing because it is so late in the game,” Aslam said. “But then on the flip side, we are the first ones in the countr y to have a
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full-time Muslim chaplain at a public university.” He said his primary responsibilities include counseling students, advising student Muslim organizations, offering guidance to University faculty and staff on Muslim topics, partnering with the Rutgers and New Brunswick police departments to discuss incidents of anti-Muslim bias and acting as the University’s chief Muslim liaison with outside groups. Aslam noted that over the last decade, the University’s Muslim community has found itself embroiled in a number of situations where having an established chaplaincy would have been beneficial. These include rifts between Sunni and Shiite Muslims students, a 2012 Associated Press report that found that the New York City Police Department (NYPD) had conducted anti-terrorism surveillance on various Muslim student groups at Rutgers and other college campuses in the Northeast, tensions with the Jewish campus organization Rutgers Hillel and protests against the University’s decision to invite former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to serve as the commencement speaker in 2014. Right after his arrival at Rutgers in August of 2016, Aslam said he reached out to Muslim alumni who were in school when the monitoring by the See chaplain on Page 5