The Daily Texan 2017-04-27

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POLICY

SB1511 aims to clarify free speech rights on campuses

By Claire Allbright @claireallbright

While the freedom of speech is protected under the Constitution, some universities across the country have implemented strict speech codes and free speech zones.

The Senate’s Higher Education Committee discussed Senate Bill 1151, authored by state Sen. Dawn Buckingham, R-Lakeway, Wednesday. The bill would emphasize students’ free speech rights, require institutions to implement a policy explicitly outlining their rights and ban institutions from punishing students solely on the basis of expressing free speech.

“The committee substitute to Senate Bill 1151 is intended to provide greater clarity in the growing controversy over what speech is protected,” Buckingham said. “Institutions of higher education have always been a place of learning and growing and the open dialogue of ideas, even those you may disagree with.”

Under the bill, Buckingham defines free speech as speech or expressive conduct protected by both the U.S. Constitution and the Texas Constitution. This includes the right to assemble, protest, distribute written material, carry signs or circulate petitions on campuses.

UT Austin does not have

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Thursday, April 27, 2017

House continues sanctuary city debate

By Mikaela Cannizzo and Claire Allbright @mikaelac16 @claireallbright

The Texas House of Representatives passed an amendment to Senate Bill 4 by a 81-64 vote Wednesday, after more than five hours of debate and a private meeting held by House Democrats, that would revert language back to a broader version passed by the Senate.

The amendment from state Rep. Matt Schaefer, R-Tyler, would allow police officers to inquire about the immigration status of someone they have lawfully detained, which includes being stopped for traffic violations.

SB 4, authored by state Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, originally included this more stringent provision. However, when the bill reached the House State Affairs Committee, the language was revised so that one’s immigration status could be asked about only if they are arrested.

State Rep. Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth, and the bill’s sponsor in the House, said he would not accept or reject amendments, but rather leave them to the will of the representatives. Geren, who voted against the amendment, said the pur-

Juan Figueroa | Daily Texan Staff

Students protest at the Capitol against the passing of SB4 on Wednesday. Senate Bill 4 amendment passed by a 81-64 vote and would allow police officers to inquire about the immigration status of someone they have lawfully detained.

pose of the bill is to increase public safety. “(The bill) is about upholding the rule of law and keeping our community safe from real criminals who are threats to other law-abiding Texans and who also happen to be in our country il-

legally,” Geren said during the bill’s committee hearing last month.

After Schaefer introduced his amendment, multiple representatives attempted to keep the arrest-only provision in the bill and proposed 10 amendments to

POLICE

By Kayla Meyertons @kemeyertons

NEWS

SPORTS Golf wins conference championship PAGE 6

LIFE&ARTS Biscuit Hut risks it for the biscuit PAGE 8

ONLINE Check out continuing coverage of the SB4 debate dailytexanonline.com

members to have confidence in what the committee has done and what Chairman Geren has done and vote against this amendment because it will not benefit this state,” Cook said. “You can

HOUSE page 2

Gregory Vincent leaves lasting impact on UT

INSIDE

Science and politics cannot be separated PAGE 4

his amendment.

State Rep. Byron Cook, R-Corsicana, told representatives on the House floor that approving this amendment would undo the progress the committee made on the bill.

“I’m asking my fellow

CAMPUS

WHAT’S

OPINION

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STATE

SPEECH page 2

Call boxes a priority for UTPD, campus safety PAGE 3

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Infographic by Liza Anderson | Daily Texan Staff

UTPD increases call boxes on campus, adds video cameras

By Catherine Marfin @catherinemarfin

Increasing the number of emergency call boxes on campus continues to be a top priority for improving campus safety, said Peter Scheets, assistant chief of the UT Police Department.

Currently, UT has more than 170 yellow-and-blue emergency call boxes distributed across campus.

When an individual activates a call box, they are automatically dispatched to the UTPD communications center, where the call is treated like any other 911 call.

Since 2013, call boxes have been activated an average of 160 times each year.

These totals, however, can be misleading, since they also include times the call boxes were activated in non-emergency situations, such as prank calls and accidental activations. Most people

don’t know the boxes are for any incidents when an individual needs the police to respond — even in cases when an individual’s life is not in danger, Lt. Robert Stock said.

“If someone is following you, and maybe you don’t think your life is danger, but it’s making you feel unsafe, that’s when you use the box,” Stock said. “You don’t have to feel imminent or immediate threat to use it.”

Shortly after the on-campus death of dance freshman Haruka Weiser last April, President Gregory Fenves requested the Texas Department of Public Safety conduct a security vulnerability assessment of campus. DPS identified increasing the number of call boxes on campus as one safety priority.

University officials also plan on creating a University-wide standard for the number of call boxes on

each pathway and around buildings as well as adding video cameras to all emergency call boxes. UTPD and Campus Safety and Security plan to implement these changes in the next two years, Stock said.

“I would rather you hit a call box or dial 911 and make sure you get home safe ... rather than have something happen to you before you think it’s time to call 911,” Scheets said. “We’re not lowering the standard (of when to call 911), we’re providing another level of service.”

UTPD hopes an increase in call boxes will encourage students to dial 911 in situations when they feel unsafe, one of the main messages of the Be Safe campaign UTPD began shortly after the on-campus death of Weiser, Scheets said.

“Most people are taught

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Name: UT Athletics; Width: 60p0; Depth: 2 in; Color: Process color; Ad Number: -

Gregory Vincent, vice president for diversity and community engagement, will leave the University in August to serve as the president of his alma mater, Hobart and William Smith Colleges in New York state. Vincent made the announcement April 20.

“It’s an enviable position. (The college has) strong finances, a really strong mission, a great relationship with the community (and a) great alumni base,” Vincent said. “I’m not looking forward to the winter, but you can’t have everything.”

Vincent said the position is a great opportunity because he sees a bright future for Hobart and William Smith Colleges.

“First, I was honored they selected me,” Vincent said. “It’s a great school and my alma mater ... and President (Mark) Gearan has done a great job over the last eighteen years, and it was a wonderful opportunity to build on that foundation.”

Vincent said the biggest adjustment from UT to Hobart and William Smith Colleges will be moving to a smaller institution. “(I’m) going from a school of 50,000 to a school of about 2,300,” Vincent said. “I grew up in New York City, but being back in New York state, there are some interesting challenges.”

These challenges include working around new state legislation for free

tuition at public schools and trying to increase the institution’s endowment.

In 2014, Hobart and William Smith colleges made national news for complications with Title IX, and Vincent said he has zero tolerance for that kind of behavior.

“You have to have the education for your students and staff and faculty beforehand and have processes in place to make sure those things don’t happen,” Vincent said.

“When they do happen, you have to have a comprehensive, fair investigative process so you can ... use your disciplinary procedures to address it.”

Gregory Perrin, associate vice president for development for the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement, said Vincent has brought the University closer to the Austin community, specifically with the east side of Austin.

“He has been the driving force over the past decade in building and mending relationships with those communities, and that’s part of the purpose of the DDCE,” Perrin said. “He (also) has been instrumental in practically every major African American faculty member being hired over the past decade (and) drawing in phenomenal graduate students of all races.”

Perrin said thanks to Vincent’s presence, graduate students know they will be accepted and respected at UT.

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Thursday, April 27, 2017

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NEWS

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Volume 117, Issue 148

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a “speech code” said Shilpa Bakre, communications strategist for the University. The University does lay out principles for speech, expression and assembly in their student catalogue, which include policies for speakers on campus, signs and obscene or harassing speech.

“The University is committed to the principles of free inquiry and expression and is dedicated to creating an environment where the expansion of knowledge and the freedom to exchange ideas is safeguarded,” Bakre said in an email. “As such, members of the University community have the right to hold, vigorously defend and express their ideas and opinions, and for such ideas and opinions to flourish or wither according to their merits.”

Another provision of the bill would require institutions to establish a policy expressly stating students’ free speech rights. This policy must be approved by the regents and

communicated to the students.

Because it is up to the universities to develop these policies, they could include provisions that limit speech, state Sen. Kirk Watson said.

“I think we have adequate case law to deal with first amendment rights,” Watson said.

Citing a recent incident at the University of California, Berkeley where students rioted to protest a speaker on campus, state Sen. Larry Taylor, R-Galveston, said the bill may allow students to riot and tear up the campus. Taylor said he was, however, in favor of strongly protecting students’ free speech rights.

“The whole idea of University students learning and growing, learning new things they never thought of before, that’s what’s supposed to happen,” Taylor said. “But if you have one group so forceful that they don’t allow another group to express their opinion, we’ve lost the battle.”

State Sen. Kel Seliger questioned if this bill would have a significant impact since speech

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Joshua Guerra | Daily Texan Staff

Under Senate Bill 1151, free speech would be defined as speech or expressive conduct protected by both the U.S. and Texas Constitutions.

is already protected in the Constitution and asked if the bill was just a restatement of the Constitution.

Buckingham said her bill is not a restatement of the Constitution and aims to ensure students don’t fear retribution

from their institutions.

Of the two witnesses who testified in favor of the bill, Thomas Lindsay, director of the center for higher education at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, said the first amendment and right to free

speech are fundamental to American democracy.

“I think this is a worthy bill,” Lindsay said. “It seeks to address a crisis that is all too present in today’s headlines.”

The committee did not vote on the bill Wednesday.

CALL BOXES

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This issue of The Daily Texan is valued at $1.25 Permanent Staff

Editor-in-Chief . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Alexander Chase Associate Editors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Michael Jensen, Janhavi Nemawarkar, Khadija Saifullah, Caleb Wong Managing Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Akshay Mirchandani Associate Managing Editors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Eva Frederick, Michelle Zhang News Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Ellie Breed Associate News Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Forrest Milburn News Desk Editors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Matthew Adams, Will Clark, Hannah Daniel, Sunny Kim, Wesley Story Senior Reporters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Claire Allbright, Mikaela Cannizzo, Lisa Dreher, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anusha Lalani, Catherine Marfin, Kayla Meyertons Senior Investigative Reporter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Van Nguyen Copy Desk Chief . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kasey Salisbury Associate Copy Desk Chiefs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Jaree Campbell, Vanessa Martinez, Bella McWhorter, Colin Traver Design Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Elizabeth Jones Associate Design Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Megan McFarren Senior Designers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Liza Anderson, Sierra Garcia, Sunnie Lee, Rena Li Photo Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Zoe Fu Associate Photo Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 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Audrey McNay Associate Comics Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Victoria Smith, Melanie Westfall Senior Comics Artists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Geovanni Casillas, Albert Lee, Bixie Mathieu, Jacky Tovar Social Media Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Stephanie Martinez-Arndt Editorial Adviser. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Peter Chen

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Laura Herrera, communication sciences and disorders senior and former DDCE student staff member, said she met Vincent in 2013 and he has been a kind, welcoming presence ever since.

“He’s a great role model and representative of what the community of UT really means,” Herrera said. “He was just one of those faces people were excited to know and to get to talk to.”

as kids that 911 is only supposed to be used in a life-threatening emergency, but that’s not the case,” Scheets said. “We don’t want that to carry over to campus.”

Biochemistry sophomore Alice Kanitz said most people might still be reluctant to use the emergency call boxes, despite an increased number on campus.

“When I was little, my mom always taught me only to use 911 if it was life-threatening, like if someone was coming in with guns pointing at us (or) if my parents were in danger or hurt,” Kanitz said. “I feel like because I was taught that growing up, I’d still be reluctant to press a call box, even though I know that I have that option, because I would feel like I’m wasting an officer’s time.”

road and it happens to be a routine traffic stop check, that is a detention — It is not an arrest,” Oliveira said. “In the bill, it was always about arrest, committing a crime, making Texas safer.”

One of the proposed amendments to Schaefer’s amendment would exempt children from the provisions of SB 4. State Sen. Diego Bernal, D-San Antonio, said while he would love to kill the bill completely, he wants to at least protect children.

“All I’m asking is for some understanding,” Bernal said.

“I want to ensure that children understand and that

parents can tell their kids that it doesn’t apply to them.”

This amendment failed by a 55-89 vote.

Sam Cervantes, government and political communications sophomore, said he believes the bill would produce tension and undue fear for undocumented students like himself. University Leadership Initiative, an undocumented student-led organization that Cervantes is a part of, helped create Longhorns Against SB 4.

This group marched from the University to the Capitol, made posters and held a sit in at the Capitol’s rotunda

in protest of the bill. While the scope of the bill is yet to be determined, Cervantes said he is fearful of a potentially harmful version of the bill.

“SB 4 (was) at its most powerful state when it was introduced in the Senate,” Cervantes said. “In the event that it passes the House, we don’t know what version is going to be adopted.”

At the time The Daily Texan went to press, the House had debated SB 4 for 13 hours and considered 36 amendments without a final vote.

This story will be updated on dailytexanonline.com

Tess Cagle | Daily Texan file

Vice President for Diversity and Community Engagement Gregory Vincent speaks to media at a press conference held in front of the Jefferson Davis statue in Jun. 2015.

VINCENT

continues from page 1 “I think I knew this was coming sooner or later,” Perrin said. “He’s a phenomenal leader, but initially it’s just we’ll miss him.”

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continues from page 1 pass (this bill) and still not do harm to a lot of really good people, so I beg you, vote against this amendment.”

State Rep. Rene Oliveira, D-Brownsville, said this amendment would increase racial profiling and make it harder for undocumented individuals to feel comfortable around officers. Oliveira emphasized the amendment might compel people to show proof of documentation during any encounter with the police.

“If you’re going down the

W&N 3

ZIA LYLE, SCIENCE&TECHNOLOGY EDITOR Thursday, April 27, 2017

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GEOLOGY

Petra Nova makes extracting oil easier, removes CO2

By Angela Kang @angelaa_kang

Everything’s bigger in Texas: Oil companies and environmentalists alike welcome Petra Nova, the largest carbon dioxide capture system in the world, to the state.

The system, a partnership between UT’s Bureau of Economic Geology, NRG Energy and Hilcorp Energy, was declared operational last December. Petra Nova removes carbon dioxide, which is a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change, from a coal-powered power plant and pipes it 80 miles away to an oil field near Houston.

The system then pumps the carbon dioxide approximately one mile underground, through a process called sequestration. Once underground, the carbon dioxide makes it easier for oil companies to extract oil.

“The project is expected to last for about 15 years and produce an additional 60 million barrels of oil that could not otherwise be produced, all while using carbon diox-

ide that would have otherwise been released,” said Justin Furnace, Hilcorp Energy’s Director of External Affairs.

Furnace said while carbon dioxide-based enhanced oil recovery projects are nothing new, Petra Nova is recycling carbon dioxide from a new source.

“What makes this project unique is that it uses anthropogenic (or human-created) carbon dioxide captured from a coal-fired power plant rather than underground sources of carbon dioxide,” Furnace said.

Petra Nova pressurizes this captured carbon dioxide and carries it 80 miles away, where it is returned to the ground.

When the pressurized gas is transported underground, it changes the pressure and temperature of the surrounding geological environment, making it easier to extract oil. “(The injected carbon dioxide) doesn’t change the oil chemically, but it does change...the viscosity of the oil to make it more slippery, which allows oil companies easier access to the oil,” said NRG Energy spokesperson

David Knox.

Knox said some of the carbon dioxide stays in the earth, while some is returned to the surface with the extracted oil.

The carbon dioxide that makes it to the surface is once again recaptured, repressurized and reinjected into the oil field.

Knox said because 25 percent of the carbon dioxide stays within the earth, Petra Nova helps reduce carbon emissions that would otherwise escape into the atmosphere.

UT’s Bureau of Economic Geology will be monitoring the underground carbon dioxide levels to ensure that the expected 25 percent remains underground.

“We have established the carbon capture system as a business, but part of that business is sequestering that carbon dioxide and having the world’s premier geological monitoring team as part of this allows us to have scientific backing and credibility,” Knox said.

Knox said the lack of current regulation requiring carbon-capture and the high cost

Courtesy of NRG

The Petra Nova carbon capture facility enhances oil recovery by pumping carbon emissions underground.

of the process means there is little incentive for businesses to begin the process. Knox said Petra Nova, while expensive, is a model for how carbon-capture systems can be profitable in the long run.

“Petra Nova pays for itself,” he said. “Petra Nova turns (carbon capture) around and

makes it a business model so that businesses are incentivized to do it.”

Since December, Petra Nova has captured and returned underground 300,000 tons of carbon dioxide, setting a precedent for future capture systems.

“You look at the amount

of carbon going into the atmosphere, and coal is a large contributor,” Knox said.

“We’re doing a lot to reduce carbon dioxide with solar and wind, but there’s still going to be coal for many decades, and we need to address coal emissions in the existing infrastructure.”

INNOVATION

Researchers begin new chapter in literary studies

By Freya Preimesberger @freyapreim

Computers can read between the lines of classical literature in a way humans cannot.

Humanities researchers, computer scientists and biologists from UT Austin and collaborating institutions have developed a new method, named quantitative criticism, for studying the relationships between classic Latin and Greek texts and the cultural evolution of literature. The researchers published their findings in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on April 3.

Works of literature often contain references to or imitations of previous works.

Researchers call these relationships between texts “intertextuality.” This study used computers, literary criticism and big data to study subtle differences in rhythm, sound and sentence structure in a variety of literary works.

“Quantitative criticism will look to most people, rightly, as

a developed form of the digital humanities, which is the application of computation to enable human scholars to pose new questions by the power of computation,” said Pramit Chaudhuri, associate professor of classics and last author of the study. “People have been bringing computation to identify meaningful relationships between texts in ways that are more sophisticated than just hitting ‘CTRL-F.’” When trying to figure out who wrote a piece of text, classicists often use stylometry, which is the study of variations in writing style. Researchers in the study wanted to repurpose this same technique to answer literary questions, such as what makes one work distinct from others.

Researchers focused on two separate case studies: the works of Roman playwright Seneca and of the Roman historian Livy. They looked at how eight works that appeared to be written by Seneca were related to each other and how two works not written by him were different from the others. The study

found that four of Seneca’s plays had subtle stylistic differences from those not written by him.

For the second case study, researchers used machine learning, a form of artificial intelligence, to study how Livy incorporates the works of previous Latin authors, most of which have not survived, into his works. The lack of reference texts makes it difficult to determine whether Livy was quoting, paraphrasing, imitating or referring to a previous writer, but researchers found that certain passages stood out, warranting further study. Using the same technique, the researchers also found that Latin prose shifted stylistically around the time of Caesar’s writings.

“There’s a growing appreciation that cultural artifacts and institutions can evolve much the same way that biological organisms can, and many of the techniques developed for studying biological evolution can be profitably deployed to studying cultural evolution,” said Joseph Dexter, PhD can-

didate in systems biology at Harvard University and first author of the study. “There’s been some really nice progress in extending this work to linguistic evolution, but there’s been less work on moving beyond the dynamics of how individual words or phrases of syntactic construction change over time to more integrated consideration of the evolution of literature.”

Chaudhuri said the study was unique in that people from a variety of backgrounds and fields worked on it, including a high school student, undergraduates and professors as well as people with expertise in topics from theoretical physics to classics. The study also focuses on different literary features than other studies.

“Most studies of literary evolution focus on features like words or subject matter, but we show how subverbal or nonverbal features, as well as sentence structure, play a role in the development of literature,” Chaudhuri said.

The project comes out of the Quantitative Criticism Lab

Illustration by Hyeyun Jeong| Daily Texan Staff

co-founded by Dexter and Chaudhuri and received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, a

Digital Innovations Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies and the New Directions Fellowship from the

ENGINEERIING

UT professor analyzes population changes in cities

By Tonya Chen @thedailytexan

When Kasey Faust’s high school physics teacher told her she was going to be an engineer, she laughed.

“I thought engineering was just train conductors,” Faust said.

Faust, a civil engineering assistant professor, grew up in Alaska with a single mother, two siblings and not a single engineer in the family.

She went to college planning to study social work.

Some time during her sophomore year, Faust said she came across a presentaand tion on civil engineering and o a realized that engineering was eo- just social work on a larger The presentation conote scale. vinced her there was no better - way to impact a whole community than through critical infrastructure services.

When Faust returned to - her high school a few years lle, later, she told her physics nt teacher that not only was she an engineer, but she had four ial degrees in engineering. He e really seemed to get a kick c- out of it, she said.

She recounts right after als she switched to civil engineering, she received a C in

her first statics class, a basic engineering course.

“I was crying when I called my mother,” Faust said. “She said, ‘Do better next time,’ and hung up. It made me realize not every class can be your best class. It’s a means to an end to get to where you want to be. All you can do is your best.”

Faust studies human infrastructure interaction, or how people use the components of their built environment. Faust started researching how changing populations affect infrastructure in shrinking cities, or dense places that have experienced notable population loss, while working on her Ph.D. dissertation.

Urban decline in shrinking cities puts its remaining residents at a disadvantage: The fixed costs of the infrastructure that were intended to support a larger population get passed on to a smaller tax base. Through her research, Faust identified alternatives on how to lower some of these fixed costs.

“In the U.S., there are approximately 20 shrinking cities, but people don’t talk about them because we’re so growth-centric,” Faust

said. “We need to embrace the reality of our population dynamics. We need to see what the trends are doing instead of the idealized view of what’s going on.”

One of the shrinking cities Faust looked into was Flint, Michigan. Flint had lost about 46 percent of its population since 1960, and Faust was already there talking to its residents years before a 2014 crisis when elevated lead levels were found in the city’s water supply.

During this crisis, Faust’s team returned to study how public perception toward water sector infrastructure had changed in Flint. Faust said that because the team had already collected data on public perception before the water crisis, they were able to identify how the event affected the public’s trust in the government, the community’s interaction with infrastructure and people’s behaviors.

Although Faust said she never expected the city’s water source to be contaminated, she wasn’t surprised when she heard the news.

“When I heard about the crisis, I was sad but not surprised,” Faust said. “A lot of what happened with the cri-

sis was a product of decline: the reduced personnel, the need to switch from Detroit to the Flint River as the water source. I didn’t know that this would be the particular outcome, but these type of things can happen in an environment of reactive planning because of the constraints preventing proactive planning.”

Faust’s most recent study focuses on the opposite problem: The study documents changes in German cities in response to an ongoing influx of refugees, the largest mass migration event since World War II. The initial idea of the study sparked from a conversation Faust had with colleague Jessica Kaminsky from the University of Washington and led to a collaboration to examine the changes in Munich, Berlin and Leipzig in response to the refugee crisis.

So far, they have collected data from interviewing nonprofits, government agencies and others who play a critical role in providing service to displaced persons. The paper is expected to be published next February.

As a member of several initiatives to include women in

Kasey Faust is a civil engineering professor who studies population change in cities around the world.

Courtesy of Kasey Faust

engineering, Faust said that greater diversity will open up her field to new ideas. Faust said men and women take different approaches to civil engineering; she cited a study that found differences between the playground designs of school-age boys and girls.

“Moral of the story is we need both sides,” Faust said.

“The females are going to build the most expensive playground. Males are building one without a toilet. I think it’s really important

to work towards creating an environment where anyone can have seat at the table. The only way we’ll get a solution is if we have different points of view.”

When Faust studied construction engineering earlier this decade, she and her best friend were the only females in the class.

“At the end of the day, we knew we wanted a seat at that table because we wanted to bring in a different point of view,” Faust said.

4 OPINION

ALEXANDER CHASE, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF | @TexanEditorial Thursday, April 27, 2017

4

COLUMN

HeLa case shows need for patient privacy

By Alyssa Fernandez

Daily Texan Senior Columnist

Henrietta Lacks was an African-American woman who died of cervical cancer in 1951. Just before her death, doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital took tissue samples of her tumor without her consent and discovered something miraculous — her cells didn’t die. Researchers developed a line of immortal cells dubbed HeLa and distributed them to labs all over the world, giving birth to the biomedical industry and forever changing the landscape of modern medicine.

Lacks’ case is unique and it’s unlikely any of us would go through a similar experience. However, that doesn’t mean we aren’t vulnerable. Our health has become a commodity, therefore, there needs to be a conversation about patient privacy and how we quantify that.

For Lacks, there is no question that researchers had no right to take her cells. The HeLa cells have been used in countless studies and were even instrumental in developing the polio vaccine. Yet, these scientific innovations came at a cost and breached

medical ethics, which led me to wonder: Are deceased patients entitled to privacy?

It’s easy to defend what researchers did to Lacks as a necessary evil, the logic being that one woman’s involuntary sacrifice has saved countless lives. Despite the good that came from this, it doesn’t undo the fact that the researchers violated Lacks’ privacy rights.

This is important to consider because many questions concerning medical ethics revolve around the conflict between the greater good versus the individual. Outside of the case of Lacks, this is evident in DNA testing and whether the government or corporations should have access to your genetic information. In fact, each state independently mandates that all newborn babies have their DNA screened for certain genetic disorders. Many states store this data for research purposes. In 2008, some families sued Texas A&M for storing this information without parental consent. So far, there is nothing inherently malicious about genetic databases. All they want to do is collect your DNA and conduct screenings. You know, stuff to help the greater good.

COLUMN

Despite the good that came from this, it doesn’t undo the fact that the researchers violated Lacks’ privacy rights.

But then there’s corporations who want to monetize your health data. Fitness trackers and health apps are known to sell your data to companies for advertising purposes. If you found someone off the street and asked them if it is ethical to collect health data for research purposes or for advertising, they’d probably justify the former and condemn the latter.

In reality, there is hardly a difference between the two. In terms of privacy, it’s normally only breached if someone is targeting your specific information. But we’re vulnerable to this when that data is stored or sold because then we’re exposed. Individually, your health data means nothing to these public or private entities. They need patterns, a database, information

to predict abnormalities or behaviors to reach a large population — unless you’re Henrietta Lacks.

Last Saturday, HBO premiered the movie adaptation of the best-selling book “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” starring Oprah Winfrey as Deborah Lacks and Rose Byrne as Rebecca Skloot. Henrietta Lacks may be the titular character, but the movie and book are centered on her family, especially Deborah.

For decades, Henrietta’s family didn’t know what researchers did with her cells and when they finally revealed HeLa to them, it brought on a substantial psychological and physiological burden on them.

At one point, the author discovered that a researcher had publicly published Lacks’ genome online and exposed the surviving family’s privacy. The effect HeLa has had on the surviving Lacks family is reason enough for the deceased to retain their privacy. It’s not ethical to value the greater good without the individual’s consent and the story of Henrietta Lacks demonstrates why this is an injustice.

Fernandez is a Spanish and rhetoric and writing Senior from Allen.

COLUMN

Proposed bill threatens legal protections for journalists

By Madalyn Marabella Daily Texan Columnist

Joshua Guerra | Daily Texan staff

Protesters gathered at Austin’s March for Science on Saturday, April 24. Supporters voiced their concerns about the Trump administrations controversial handling of science issues.

Science and politics cannot be separated from each other

By Sam Groves

Daily Texan Senior Columnist @samgroves

The March for Science, which drew protesters across the country and around the globe into the streets on Saturday, presents a kind of contradiction. Implicitly if not explicitly, the march was a reaction to the anti-science policies of President Donald Trump, who denies the reality of anthropogenic climate change and flirts with baseless and harmful vaccine conspiracy theories. In this sense it was a march against the politicization of science. But as a political protest, the march itself was just that — an example of politicized science.

Does the March for Science contradict itself ? Perhaps. But then, it certainly contains multitudes — in Washington alone, turnout reportedly numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Most of those protesters would probably agree science has a role to play in politics, but that politics should stay out of science.

Facts over “alternative facts,” etc.

Nevertheless, the sentiment that science should remain above politics is popular across the political spectrum.

You hear liberals invoke it in debates over climate change, and conservatives invoke it — somewhat disingenuously, I might add — in debates over abortion and the rights of LGBTQ people.

But if science should remain above politics, then what is it actually for? If values like “good” and “bad” are irrelevant to the work of better understanding the world around us, then what “good” can that work possibly be? When scientists discover that smoking causes cancer, what do they do with that knowledge?

Leave it out there for tobacco companies to distort before it reaches the general public? Or take an active role in its dissemination, interpretation and ultimately political ramifications?

To the extent that politics and science

A wide gulf between science and politics isn’t just unrealistic; attempting to maintain one is harmful to both fields, and to the fabric of our society. have a history of working together, it’s not necessarily a very promising one. In the past, politicians and political actors have co-opted scientific learning and used debunked racial theories to justify systemic discrimination, disenfranchisement and worse. To this day, racists and sexists still use junk science to justify their hatred and delusion.

But if the marriage of science and politics can be used to achieve harm, then surely it can also be used to achieve good. Politics and science are constantly intersecting whether politicians and scientists like it or not. The most wellknown examples usually involve the reverberations of science in the political world: in climate policy, in public health policy and so on. But politics also have reverberations in the scientific world, which has a well-documented diversity problem: According to the National Science Foundation, 84 percent of people working in science or engineering fields in the U.S. are white or Asian males.

The scientific community would benefit from greater diversity, but that can’t be achieved without some political literacy.

American politics would benefit from an informed consensus on the facts regarding pressing issues like climate change, but that can’t be achieved without some scientific literacy. A wide gulf between science and politics isn’t just unrealistic; attempting to maintain one is harmful to both fields, and to the fabric of our society.

Groves is a government sophomore from Dallas.

LEGALESE | Opinions expressed in The Daily Texan are those of the editor, the Editorial Board or the writer of the article. They are not necessarily those of the UT administration, the Board of Regents or the Texas Student Media Board of Operating Trustees.

If you are reading this, you probably value the news, which means you probably value freedom of speech. If that is the case, keep your eyes on two Texas House bills proposed by Rep. Ken King, R-Canadian, that would weaken some of the legal protections afforded to journalists.

One of the bills, HB 3388, would weaken Texas’s shield law, which protects many reporters from having to reveal their sources. The bill would deny the shield law’s protection to journalists who have been involved in political campaign in the last five years. Even more shocking, journalists whose employers have worked for campaigns would also lose that right.

So, for example, if a board member of the Texas Student Media donated to a political campaign, student reporters would potentially lose the shield law’s protection.

Those reporters may then feel less comfortable interviewing confidential sources, such as sexual assault victims.

Though King only aims to restrict people “who buy themselves an iPad and call themselves a journalist,” the proposed bill would also unconstitutionally limit freedom of speech, according to Donnis Baggett, executive vice president of the Texas Press Association.

More specifically, the bill would restrict political freedom of speech by targeting strongly politically affiliated news sources, such as Empower Texans. Members of the conservative, politically linked news organization believe that the bill targets their organization specifically. But HB 3388 would prevent many reporters who exercise their right to be politically involved, not just those at Empower Texans, from reporting freely.

The second bill, HB 3387, would empower public officials to more easily sue for libel and hurt news sources’ abilities to defend themselves. The legislation would

But if the government oversteps its bounds and tries to define what constitutes journalism and who deserves protected freedom of political speech, journalists will not feel comfortable tackling controversial or unpopular topics. effectively discourage critical pieces on public figures and violates reporters’ constitutional rights, as attorney Laura Prather explained to Courthouse News.

As a result, the bill could disempower journalists from serving their key societal purpose: monitoring abuses of power.

Though reporters could still report on clear-cut scandals without fear of a libel suit, the gray areas of political controversy could go unreported.

If you are reading this, you probably value staying informed, which means you probably value accurate information. Unfortunately, accurate information is getting harder and harder to come by.

We live in a time when 62 percent of Americans get their news from social media — a time when buzzwords such as “fake news” and “alternative facts” float around social media, eroding the public’s confidence in journalism itself.

Accurate, un-biased reporting matters, which is why I understand why King wants to clamp down on false information from untrustworthy sources.

But if the government oversteps its bounds and tries to define what constitutes journalism and who deserves protected freedom of political speech, journalists will not feel comfortable tackling controversial or unpopular topics.

Marabella is a business honors, Plan II and Spanish freshman from Austin.

GALLERY

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Place the paper in one of the recycling bins on campus or back in the burnt-orange newsstand where you found it.

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CLASS 5

LIFE&ARTS

5

Thursday, April 27, 2017

ANIMALS

continues from page 8 constantly checking things off my to do list,” Martinez said. “I don’t see it as a chore, I see it as something that’s rewarding for me.”

Undeclared freshman Carlee Bradley bought her cat, Callisto, her senior year of high school. When she came to college, Bradley brought Callisto with her to college to help cope with stress, depression and PTSD. “(Callisto) definitely can’t cure anything,” Bradley said.

“When I do have a bad day I just go home and she always knows when I’m upset and

cuddles with me. Even playing with her relieves a lot of stress.”

Bradley’s positive experiences owning Callisto led her to recommend an emotional support animal to her future roommate, biochemistry sophomore Shams Alkamil. Alkamil became stressed about school after she was placed on academic probation and found it difficult to relieve stress within her friend groups. To help, Alkamil bought Moby, an emotional support cat.

“Friendships haven’t been as great as they should be so having an animal helps replace that in some aspects,” Alkamil said. “With

an animal, there’s a comfort in laying down and not saying anything. There’s no responsibility to fill in the blanks.”

Martinez, Bradley and Alkamil all said students considering adopting or buying a pet should make sure they have enough time and money to devote to the animal.

They also said the process obtaining permission for an emotional support animal in on campus dorms through Services for Students with Disabilities can take time and is difficult, requiring an outside doctor’s note and time to get the request approved.

Alkamil said her process took about a month and a half, while Bradley said her process took two weeks.

Martinez said her daily walks with Max were worth the lengthy process and are a priority because of the benefits she gets from them. She said she feels less isolated when people stop to pet Max and chat with her.

“Max can light up the room and bring smiles to people’s faces,” Martinez said.

“A dog is the one animal that loves you more than you love yourself. Your pet is going to be there to give you whatever you need.”

BOOK CRAWL

continues from page 8 less about the big boom and just getting the individual minds.”

On a larger scope, Hagelman said she hopes this is only the first chapter of the Austin Bookstore Crawl. She said she’d like for it to continue keeping the Austin community connected in years to come.

“We’re all thinking and working together as a community on how to make things better,” Hagelman said. “A lot of that comes from education and from books.”

WEST CAMPUS

Food truck dishes affordable biscuits

By Stephen Acevedo @thedailytexan

Dylan Touchstone, founder of the Biscuit Hut, decided to risk it for the biscuit.

“I wanted to do breakfast because if I do breakfast, then I get the rest of the day to do whatever I want,” Touchstone said.

With his original location being on the East side, Touchstone wanted to serve food that would appeal to a demographic without stepping on anyone’s toes.

“I thought about tacos, but then also thought that nobody was going to buy tacos from a white guy,” Touchstone said. “Especially where I was, you could go right down the street and buy better tacos made with people’s grandparents’ recipes from way back.”

After further rumination, he landed on the concept of custom biscuits made to order, something more in his wheelhouse of his culinary skills.

After some nightmarish encounters he had with picky eaters while working as a waiter at various restaurants, Touchstone got the idea to offer a customizable menu at the Biscuit Hut. “I hated when people would ask for recommendations and

then tell me what they didn’t want on it,” Touchstone said.

“So I figure here I can just be like, ‘Here are the options. Let’s break it down right now, and you decide what you want.’ It’s so much easier, especially for the customers.”

Touchstone said it’s important to him to keep his menu affordable, especially now that his trailer is located in West Campus.

“There’s this biscuit place right by my brother’s house, and they want $11 for biscuits and gravy with some stuff on top,” Touchstone said. “$11 for breakfast is crazy. Breakfast is supposed to be cheap. It’s supposed to be an everyday common person thing.

Real quick and to the point.”

Touchstone also makes a point of keeping everything in his truck fresh. He bakes his biscuits daily in the trailer, and if he feels that they’ve been sitting for too long, he will toss them out and bake a fresh batch.

“That’s the joy of my truck,” Touchstone said. “I have it so small that no matter what I have to restock every day. You’re never going to get old food from here.”

The Biscuit Hut is a surprisingly convenient and quick breakfast option for being a food truck. It’s positioned on

newscast listen fridays at 5 p.m.

Name: HOUSE/ Board Meeting; Width: 9p2; Depth: 5 in; Color: Black; Ad Num-

Jessica Joseph| Daily Texan Staff

The Biscuit Hut, founded by Daniel Touchstone, just opened up its doors in West Campus.

The food truck offers a customizable menu of affordable and fresh biscuits.

26th and Rio Grande streets with the window facing out toward the sidewalk so students walking to class can quickly order a biscuit to go.

Touchstone is quick to get orders down and have the biscuits ready to go in under a minute.

Even for some of the toppings that require extra time to fry, like the chicken strip, the biscuits still get made at an impressively quick pace.

The options to fill the biscuits

go far beyond the standard sausage, eggs and cheese, although that level of simplicity is still certainly available. The Biscuit Hut offers an eclectic array of additions like boudain, spinach and even sloppy joe, along with many others.

All of the ingredients offered for the biscuits are noticeably fresh and tasty.

The boudain, in particular, serves as an exceptional base for a biscuit sandwich. The

vegetables, especially the tomato and spinach, do a great job of balancing out the heartiness of the meat and the heaviness of the biscuit in order to make this breakfast sandwich a little more of a subtle early morning meal.

With low prices, quick service and a convenient location, The Biscuit Hut has found the secret to making a West Campus food truck quick and practical for students in a hurry.

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6 SPTS

6

TYLER HORKA, SPORTS EDITOR | @texansports Thursday, April 27, 2017

SOFTBALL| TEXAS 6–0 UNT

Wright pitches shutout over Green

By Wills Layton

103 BULLS

97 CELTICS

108 TOP TWEET Stan Drayton @StanDraytonUT “ If you are working so hard but can’t have fun doing it, you are doing the wrong thing.”

Joshua Guerra | Daily Texan Staff

Redshirt sophomore pitcher Erica Wright pitched six shutout innings Wednesday night. Wright had six strikeouts while only allowing four hits, and Texas romped to a 6-0 victory over North Texas.

Senior infielder Celina Felix walloped a triple and drove in two runs on the play in the bottom of the third.

In the bottom of the fifth, the offense continued to produce with an RBI fielder’s choice by pitcher and designated player junior Paige von Sprecken.

In the same inning, senior infielder Kelli Hanzel hit a sacrifice fly to drive in an additional run. Sophomore infielder Bekah Alcozer drove home two more runs

to finish the scoring effort by knocking a ball out of the park.

“Yesterday we had a feelgood hitting day,” Alcozer said. “We just hit, we felt good, and today we came out and executed our plan really well. Whatever someone was going to the plate looking for that’s what we hit. We just had a really good time.”

A good portion of the offensive opportunities came on the base-paths. In the bottom of the third, on a groundout by Tunning,

heady running from senior Stephanie Wong continued the inning and later resulted in two runs scoring.

In the bottom of the fifth, a potential squeeze situation was averted when freshman Kaitlyn Washington danced her way to home plate after being caught in between third and home.

“Stephanie Wong happens to have pretty good foot speed,” Clark said. It just comes down to being real heady on the bases and sometimes knowing when

TODAY IN HISTORY

1983

Nolan Ryan becomes the MLB’s all-time strikeout leader, throwing his 3,509th K.

Longhorns face-off against Sooners in Big 12 quarters @JustJustin956

Stephanie Martinez | Daily Texan Staff

Junior Scottie Scheffler was instrumental in the Longhorn’s championship effort. Scheffler finished the Big 12 Championships at 8-under, tying for second place.

Texas claims fourth straight conference title in tight finish The last several years for sports teams on the Forty Acres have been somewhat inconsistent compared to what Texas fans have become accustomed to.

The baseball team parted ways with the winningest coach in NCAA history last spring after another uninspired season.

Texas basketball just finished its worst season in 34 years at 11-22. And the once mighty football team has been stuck in a rut of mediocrity since the days of Colt McCoy. However, through all of this pedestrian play and coaching turnover from the big three sports on campus, the men’s golf team has been a paradigm of consistency – winning a national championship in 2012 and adding four straight Big 12 titles since.

On Wednesday, they made it five straight.

The No. 18 men’s golf team closed out the Big 12 Championship with a final-round 298 to defeat No. 2 Oklahoma State by one stroke.

The Longhorns erased a six-shot deficit during the final round to win their eighth over-

you have that first step or that quick read.”

With the season winding down, and only two more Big 12 series left against Kansas and No. 15 Baylor, every game counts. The game versus North Texas was a victory over a top-80 RPI team, and helps bolster the team’s resume moving into postseason.

“They’re all must win situations,” Clark said.

“We are always playing to win that’s how we go out and play.”

TENNIS

By Justin Martinez

@zmilton13

HAWKS

WIZARDS

MEN’S GOLF

By Zephyr Milton

NBA

99

@willsdebeast

The Longhorns were the benefactors of a strong pitching performance on Wednesday. Redshirt sophomore Erica Wright pitched a shutout, as Texas beat the North Texas Mean Green 6-0.

The game got off to an inauspicious start, with Wright giving up a single in the first at bat of the game.

However, she would not allow another hit until the fifth inning. Wright went on to record six strikeouts and no earned runs over six innings of work.

To complement Wright’s dominant pitching performance, sophomore Brooke Bolinger came into the game in the seventh inning to shut the Green’s bats down. She recorded two strikeout against her first two batters and ended the game by inducing a ground-out to senior Devon Tunning.

“It was good to get Erica some work tonight,” head coach Connie Clark said. “We were planning to go maybe three-deep with the rotation but she was just dealing, kind of getting into a rhythm so we wanted to stay with her and let her work through some things.

Brooke coming out of the bullpen, she’s been really consistent doing that so I like it.”

Offensively, the Longhorns opened the scoring and never looked back.

SIDELINE

all Big 12 title.

The tournament came down to the final holes with Texas using solid play on No. 17 to clinch the victory – including a crucial eagle from senior Gavin Hall. They were 5-under as a team on the hole, three better than Oklahoma State.

“I think we played 17 5-under-par and that gave us a chance to get back in the tournament,” said head coach John Fields. “Oklahoma State is a great team. They’re coached incredibly well. It just came up for us this time. Our guys finished really well.”

Hall has now won a Big 12 Championship each of his four years on campus. The senior finished in 22nd at 19-over, but he led the tournament in eagles – including a three on the penultimate hole that put Texas in the lead.

Juniors Doug Ghim and Scottie Scheffler led the way for Texas as they tied for second place at 8-over. Ghim shot 70 in the final round, including birdies on No. 17 and No. 18 to clinch the victory.

Scheffler closed with a 73 in the final round, but a strong second day of the tournament got him back into contention.

He shot 77 on day one, but

followed it up with rounds of 68 and 70 on day two.

Texas was in sixth place after round one after they shot 313 – 11 shots behind leader Oklahoma State -- in difficult conditions. But they came back on day two and posted 274 and 283 to tie Oklahoma State for the lead heading into the final round.

Timely play from Steven Chervony and Spencer Soosman was crucial for the comeback. The underclassmen each shot rounds of 68 and 75 on day two as Texas climbed back into the tournament. Chervony finished tied for 28th at 22-over and Soosman finished tied for 34th at 26-over.

Fields was impressed by the way his team has come together at the right time. After last season’s heart-breaking defeat in the national championship, this year was supposed to be a rebuilding effort.

“After losing Beau Hossler last year and revamping this team, these guys have had to assume a lot of pressure because we have won four Big 12s in a row,” Fields said. “So to come in here to Prairie Dunes, a great golf course, incredible circumstances and difficult conditions, I’m really, really proud of our guys.”

It’s “win or go home” for No. 9 Texas as they head to Norman, Oklahoma, for the quarterfinals of the Big 12 Championships.

With the regular season in the books, Texas is ready to make a splash in tournament. The Longhorns didn’t end the year the way they hoped to, suffering a 4-1 loss to No. 4 TCU on Saturday that dropped them to the No. 4 spot in the Big 12.

“I thought our doubles was better against TCU, and we competed well,” head coach Michael Center said.

“We had chances to take some of those sets and extend the match, but TCU earned the win.”

Texas is now shifting its focus to a rematch with the fifth-seeded Sooners on Thursday at 10 a.m. The Longhorns can expect a sea of crimson in the stands as Oklahoma plays host to the three-day tournament.

Texas defeated an injured Sooners team in Norman on March 31, edging the rival in a 4-3 nail biter. Oklahoma is now back at full-strength

after senior Andrew Harris, who was All Big 12 in singles in the 2015-2016 season, returned last week from an injury that kept him out since February.

The late addition comes at a perfect time for the Sooners after finishing the season with losses in five of their last seven matches — their worst stretch of the season.

But the Big 12 Championships is an entirely different terrain, and Oklahoma reigns supreme. The Sooners are winners of three of the last five tournaments.

“We’re excited to go up and see what we can do against a very tough Oklahoma team with Andrew Harris back in its lineup,” Center said. “OU is an elite team, and this will be a great challenge for us.”

The winner faces a short turnaround as they’ll play the first-seeded Horned Frogs on Friday. Despite posting a record of 2-3 in conference play this season, the Longhorns have high hopes of winning their first Big 12 title since they hosted the tournament in 2010.

The path is in no way an easy one. The Big 12 holds five of the top 15 teams in

We’re excited to go up and see what we can do against a very tough Oklahoma team with Andrew Harris back in its lineup, OU is an elite team, and this will be a great challenge for us” —Michael Center Head Coach

the country. But the Longhorns are no strangers to the big stage. Texas boasts regular season wins over No. 2 Ohio State, No. 8 Oklahoma State and No. 10 California.

It’s this experience that the Longhorns plan to lean on as they make a postseason push.

“We’ve seen it all at this point,” Center said.

“It’s a real challenge every time out there in a Big 12 match, but when it’s time to compete, we’ll be ready for whatever comes our way.”

Noel Mahouch | Daily Texan Staff

Sophomore Harrison Scott and the Longhorns will look to best Oklahoma this week in the Big 12 quarterfinals. The Sooners have won three conference titles over the past five years.

COMICS 7

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Thursday, April 27, 2017

Name: CROSSWORD; Width: 29p6; Depth: 5.5 in; Color: Black; Ad Number: -

SUDOKUFORYOU

Today’s solution will appear here next issue

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atey. This scurrvy beast be today’s answerrrrrr. out, or it’ll be the fishes for ya!

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MAE HAMILTON, LIFE&ARTS EDITOR | @thedailytexan Thursday, April 27, 2017

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LECTURE

Symposium highlights impacts of border wall

By Acacia Coronado @acaciatree18

For the past decade, a wall of wire and fencing has stood between two neighboring cultures — a physical divide between U.S. Latinos and their heritage.

On April 27 and 28, the The Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center at the UT School of Law is set to host The First Decade of the U.S. - Mexico Border Wall symposium.

They hope to bring to light the current and future effects of the wall on both sides of the divide.

“We hope to foster a collective intervention in thinking about the significance (of the wall),” said Mexican-American and Latino studies lecturer Olivia Mena. “Part of it is addressing (a) forgetfulness about the wall that already exists and reflecting critically on the proposals that have gone out on this new bigger, more intensive structure.“ A decade after the signing of the Secure Fence Act, Mena, who helped in organizing the event and will be speaking during The Built Wall panel, said this year seemed like an appropriate time to hold this event.

“Now that the new (bid requests) have gone out for the construction of the new border wall,” Mena said. “We thought this was a critical moment for scholars and communities who are impacted by this structure to have a space to reflect on that.”

Clinical law professor and immigration clinic director Denise Gilman, one of the event’s organizers and speakers, said an interdisciplinary group of UT researchers set

Courtesy of Olivia Mena

The U.S.- Mexico border wall that marks the boundary of the neighboring nations. The UT School of Law will host a symposium on the wall on April 27 and 28.

out a decade ago to examine the impact of the then current border wall construction. She said she hopes this event will bring back the conversation as it applies to the immigration policies today.

“The idea of the panel is to recognize the extent in which the government has been hardening the border, treating it as a site of national security concern, rather than just a

border, a place where people cross from one country to another, a site of trade and interaction,” Gilman said.

South Texas College’s Scott Nicol will also be speaking at the event about an aspect of the wall that often goes unnoticed or unmentioned: the environmental implications. “(Walls) push people who would otherwise cross in urban

areas into harsher desert areas and that increases the death toll on migrants,” Nicol said. “They (cause) lots of real, concrete damages, and I think it is important to discuss that.”

Nicol said he hopes The Environmental Impact of the Wall panel will serve to bring to light the ways in which the wall’s human and environmental impacts intertwine.

“I live in McAllen, and I have

CITY

watched the walls go up here,” Nicol said. “When you stick a wall in the middle of an area where water flows it basically just acts like a dam. That is not only an environmental problem, it is a treaty violation.”

Gilman said she hopes bringing all of these rarely thought about impacts to light will allow for people to consider multiple facets of the immigration issue as they continue to participate

in politics in the future.

“It has been the focus of the first candidate and now president Trump’s approach to immigration issues,” Gilman said. “Under scrutiny, it should become apparent that the focus on the wall is really misplaced.

It is very important for students to understand that the wall is largely about symbolism rather than effectiveness or any real security threat.”

HEALTH

Noel Mahouch | Daily Texan Staff

Karalyne Martinez relaxes with her emotional support pet, Max, at their apartment Sunday afternoon. Studies have shown that therapy dogs can help to alleviate stress for students.

Rachel Zein | Daily Texan Staff

English junior Walden Hagelman, left, and English and Plan I Honors senior Hillary Sames were the planners behind the first-ever Austin Bookstore Crawl. The crawl, which will take place this Saturday, will consist of a bookstore scavenger hunt includng 14 local bookstores.

Students plan first Austin book crawl

By Jose Gonzalez @Jose_thewriter

Austin’s eclectic variety of bookstores cater to the niche audiences they serve, but their limited exposure inspired two UT students to show Austinites what the local literary scene has to offer.

English and Plan I Honors senior Hillary Sames and English junior Walden Hagelman are longtime friends who work together as part-time as booksellers at Book People. Their friendship strengthened over their shared passion for literature.

During the course of winter break, Sames spoke with Hagelman about utilizing that mutual passion to plan out the first ever Austin Bookstore Crawl. The crawl is planned as a scavenger hunt where participants look for specific books in various stores in order to win a prize.

“Austin has about 20

independent bookstores, and so I was like – ‘we can do this,’” Sames said. “People would love doing this, and Austin is a community that loves supporting their local businesses.”

Sames said she wanted to bring something new to Austin and was inspired by the Brooklyn Bookstore Crawl when she interned at a publishing house in New York City. She said she was astounded when 14 bookstores jumped onboard with the idea and even donated $500 worth of prizes to encourage Austinites to visit independent bookstores around the city.

“We originally were like ‘Hopefully we have five stores’ because (at first) we didn’t have anyone,” Sames said.

Hagelman said the wider distance between Austin bookstores might get people out of their comfort zones

and explore something new.

“Austin is more spread out, obviously, but I think in a lot of ways that fosters more community,” Hagelman said. “You are getting to taste and find out new things that you didn’t know existed.”

Sames said the scavenger hunt model of the event is well-suited to motivate people to browse the shelves at local bookstores. She said she hopes people will discover titles along the way that they otherwise would never pick up.

“The point is to actually look at the stock and browse – spark interest – so they actually have to explore the stores to complete the scavenger hunt,” Sames said. “We’re trying to really encourage the crawlers to get out and just see what Austin independent bookstores have to offer.”

The Austin Bookstore Crawl coincides with

Independent Bookstore Day, a national holiday celebrating booksellers that tailor to niche markets. Hagleman said she hopes the bookstore crawl will bring together all kinds of readers.

“We hope to bring diversity to the conversation,” Hagelman said. “The idea that you can get out of your own bubble and into another space that you know is going to provide you with something new to think about is just amazing.”

Chris Hollingsworth, also a seller at Book People, said the Austin Bookstore Crawl may give independent bookstores more exposure — so long as readers are still captivated by the literature they discover.

“At the end of the day if even a select few get a cross-section of what’s available in the city, that’s mission accomplished,” Hollingsworth said. “It’s

BOOK CRAWL page 5

Therapy animals help students handle stress

By Sydney Mahl @sydney_mahl

Coping with the stress of college can be challenging, but a few UT students have found a furry solution to their problems.

Studies show interaction with therapy animals can decrease peoples’ levels of stress. Particularly around finals and midterms, UT has been known to bring therapy dogs and fundraising petting zoos to different spots around campus.

Mathematics and sociology junior Karalyne Martinez left her dog, Max, at home during her freshman year, but when she began to notice she was struggling with grades and her stress levels, she began to crave the comfort of an animal friend. Martinez worked with UT Student Services to get Max classified as an emotional support animal so he could live with Martinez in Kinsolving during her sophomore year.

“The college experience for me has been marked by episodes of depression and episodes of stress for sure so it’s

To many people, it can seem like an added responsibility, but what I get from walking with Max is a peace of mind and a pause from constantly checking things off my to do list —Karalyne Martinez, Mathematics and Sociology Student

nice to have him,” Martinez said. “Having Max has made a world of difference.”

Martinez said she prioritizes her time to focus on caring for Max because investing time and energy in her pet, which can’t care for itself, helps motivate her.

“To many people, it can seem like an added responsibility, but what I get from walking with Max is a peace of mind and a pause from

ANIMALS page 5