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RUTGERS UNIVERSITY—NEW BRUNSWICK
TUESDAY, APRIL 12, 2016
ONLINE AT DAILYTARGUM.COM
Sonia Sotomayor talks need for diversity on Supreme Court DAN COREY AND AVALON ZOPPO STAFF WRITERS
Associate Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor answered questions and discussed her life and new book at an event hosted by the Eagleton Institute of Politics. The judge mentioned how it is helpful for the court to be able to draw on different experiences. DIMITRI RODRIGUEZ / PHOTO EDITOR
In 2009, a 13-year-old girl was called into her vice principal’s office and strip-searched for being suspected of bringing aspirin to her middle school. The Supreme Court case, called Safford v. Redding, exemplifies the importance of diversity in the court, Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor told the packed Rutgers Athletics Center Monday afternoon. “Justice (Ruth Bader) Ginsburg was reported to have said that she feared that some of her male colleagues did not understand how it felt to be a 13-year-old girl, and how important the sense of body privacy and (sensitivity) at that time,” Sotomayor said. Amid a captivated audience, Sotomayor shared the wisdom she gained from her years in the field of law and her experience as the Supreme Court’s first Hispanic and third female justice. Her comments arrived only a week after she called for more diversity in the nation’s highest court.
As one of nine Supreme Court Justices, Sotomayor said she is among those making decisions that affect every person in the country. “To be able to represent all of these people, it’s helpful when the justices have present among themselves as much and as varied of experiences as the country does,” she said. “(It) is a personal ability to explain an argument that your colleagues haven’t had that your voice can let them see in a different way.” As a child growing up in the South Bronx, Sotomayor said she did not know the Supreme Court existed. Celina Baez, Sotomayor’s mother, hoped her daughter would pursue journalism — to write and travel the world. “You cannot dream about what you don’t know,” she said. “(When nominated,) that sense of being blessed was very real.” But Sotomayor, who served on the Southern District of New York Court from 1992-1998, said being appointed to the Supreme Court by SEE DIVERSITY ON PAGE 5
Extension adds professor ratings to WebReg system
Student killed, alumnus injured in double shooting
MADHURI BHUPATHIRAJU CORRESPONDENT
NOA HALFF ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR
A Rutgers—Newark student was fatally shot at his off-campus apartment on Central Avenue in Newark Sunday night, said Carolyn Murray, Essex County Prosecutor and Anthony Ambrose, Newark Public Safety Director in a press release. The victim was identified as Shani Patel, 21, of Toms River, according to the release. The second victim, his roommate and a recent Rutgers graduate was shot and is in critical condition. His name has not been released. Emergency medical personnel pronounced Patel dead at the scene, according to the press release. The second victim was taken to University Hospital and is undergoing surgery. There are currently no suspects and no arrests made, Murray said. The shooting was not random and there are no threats to the University, school officials said, according to CBS. The incident remains under active investigation by the Newark and Rutgers police departments as well as the Essex County Prosecutors Office, according to the article. The Essex County Sheriff Armando Fontoura’s Crimestoppers Program will award up to $10,000 for information regarding suspects and arrests. People with information can call the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office at (877) 847-7432.
Nuttin’ But V.O.C.A.L.S. won first place at Gathe Raho, after being one of only seven South Asian groups able to compete in the event. THE DAILY TARGUM / DECEMBER 2015
South Asian a capella group wins competition MADHURI BHUPATHIRAJU CORRESPONDENT
Nuttin’ But V.O.C.A.L.S, a Rutgers’ all-male South Asian a cappella group, won first place on April 2 at Gathe Raho, one of the most prestigious South Asian a cappella competitions. Gathe Raho is an a cappella competition held annually by the University of Iowa in which seven of the best South Asian teams compete for $4,000 in total prize money, according to the Gathe Raho website. Teams from all over country apply for the competition, and the top seven teams are chosen to compete on stage in Iowa. NBV, the only all-male South Asian a
cappella group at Rutgers, was founded in 2011 by Ronak Chawla and Saiharish Kota, according to their Facebook page. The group sings a mixture of South Asian and English songs, and often fuses the two genres together. The organization has been trying to qualify for Gathe Raho for the past couple of years and were finally able to compete, said Mihir Dixit, a School of Arts and Sciences junior and NBV’s music director. “Our journey was paved with a lot of hard work,” he said. “All of us really put in a lot of time and effort to create the mashes, to come up with the choreography, to do everything.” SEE COMPETITION ON PAGE 5
Students tired of flipping through tabs while fighting the registration rush now have a way to quickly find the professors they want for the classes they need. Three Rutgers students have created a Google Chrome extension named “Five Point Oh,” that allows users to see a professor’s Rate My Professor’s rating directly on WebReg or Course Schedule Planner. “So what we did was basically expedite that process and put all the professors’ scores in one easy-tosee and easy-to-compare place that gives you the option to pick the best professor,” said Daniel Tsioni, a School of Arts and Sciences junior. Gavriel Tsioni, a School of Arts and Sciences junior, came up with the idea during one the groups brainstorming sessions for the 2015 Spring HackRU, said Daniel Tsioni, one of the extension’s creators. The project ended up winning a prize for “The Best Rutgers Hack” and also placed in the top five hacks at HackRU, he said. “We wanted our users to basically get the best professors. We saw that people were still using Rate My Professor but it was much slower, and you had to open up a 100 tabs and try and compare professors, and even then looking up the professors took a while,” he said. Initially for the hackathon, the group made a prototype in which WebReg
VOLUME 148, ISSUE 45 • UNIVERSITY ... 3 • OPINIONS ... 6 • CLASSIFIEDS ... 7 • SCIENCE ... 10 • DIVERSIONS ... 11 • SPORTS ... BACK
had a link directing the user to the corresponding professor’s Rate My Professor page, Gavriel Tsioni said. It was not until afterwards that the three “really developed” the app. “From the reception we got at HackRU, we knew that people would really be interested in a Chrome extension. Even with just the prototype people were just really excited about,” he added. Now instead of being linked to another page, users can directly see a professor’s score next to their name on WebReg, the University Schedule of Classes and the Course Schedule Planner. The team first launched the developed extension on reddit for a trial run, where they received about 100 users. Afterward, they posted a link on Facebook and within a day, received 1,000 users. Now, less than a year after the app’s launch, they have more than 3,200 users. More recently, they have worked on adding a ratings option to the extension. They’ve created their own custom scoring server that is separate from the Rate My Professors page, Gavriel Tsioni said. Rate My Professer does not make getting scores from their page easy, he said. So now the team is working on a server allows them to obtain the scores much more quickly. “Through this ser ver that Daniel set up, we should be able to make that process instant,” said SEE SYSTEM ON PAGE 4