Monday-Friday, November 25-29, 2019
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20 years after the ‘Battle in Seattle’
A deep dive into neoliberalism Pg. 4-5
Vol. 128, Issue 10 SCIENCE
Where is the humanity? A look at research amidst
OPINION
The dark side of globalization
cut backs PAGE 5
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NEWS
Monday-Friday, November 25-29, 2019
‘It’s more than just stairs’: Office of Inclusive Design task force aims to make student life more accessible By McKenna Zacher Contributing writer
Last February, the ASUW Student Senate passed a bill proposing a new entity within the ASUW: an Office of Inclusive Design (OID). The bill created a task force that would do research to lay the groundwork for the OID. According to Camille Hattwig, the assistant director of the ASUW Student Disability Commission and author of the bill, the task force will report their findings later this year before the creation of the office, which could be realized as early as next year. “The task force includes people from all the different communities impacted, a number of members of the board … and other people who were originally involved in the process,” Hattwig said. The task force will ultimately recommend whether the OID should be created at all. If their findings support the creation of the OID, they will recommend how many employees to include, what the goals of the office should be, and how much money should be allocated to it, among other things. Hattwig envisions the OID as a resource that the ASUW and registered student organizations (RSOs) can use to make their events more accessible, whether that be by providing ASL interpreters, Communication Access Realtime
Translation (CART), money to rent accessible space, and much more. Currently, Disability Resources for Students (DRS), housed in the division of student life, manages student requests regarding accessibility. While DRS provides a wide range of accommodations, student requests often have to be submitted weeks in advance, a problem Hattwig hopes the OID can alleviate. “Frequently, I go to events I find out about the same day,” Hattwig said. “So for a lot of students, that means they’re not able to go to events they want to go to, and for RSOs, they really don’t have any guidance on this.” Hattwig explained how hard it can be for campus groups to make events accessible. “A lot of these things can be really, really expensive,” Hattwig said. “Making one event accessible can easily run into the thousands of dollars. Hopefully, we’ll have the biggest impact we can.” The OID hopes to provide that guidance and funding to make ASUW and RSO events accessible in the first place, even without a request. Kevin Mendez, ASUW vice president and chair of the task force, explained that the OID would aim to proactively give students accessibility. Just hiring an ASL interpreter or CART is close to $1,000 an hour, according to Mendez. Mendez stressed that ASUW
File photo Located in Mary Gates Hall, Disability Resources for Students is currently the main resource for students to receive accomodations. has a responsibility to be a service to students and that making more events accessible would assist this. “I think the most important aspect of the office is ultimately making sure that ASUW is known as being welcoming and here to serve students,” Mendez said. “I usually like to think of our programming as enriching student life.” Hattwig echoed Mendez’s sentiment, noting that the
OID would help diversify the student body and advocate for marginalized groups. “The most important aspect of the Office of Inclusive Design will be ensuring that access and accessibility becomes a priority on campus and specifically making it so that that burden is lifted as much as possible from people who have accessibility needs,” Hattwig said. Mendez explained why the OID is a necessary addition to
the ASUW and one that goes beyond a typical view of what a disability is. “No matter what your ability is, whether that’s physical ability or [others], I think there’s just so much on campus that needs to be addressed when it comes to making it accessible … it’s more than just stairs,” Mendez said. Reach reporter McKenna Zacher at news@dailyuw.com Twitter: @mckennazacher
For lecturer Kristi Park, landscape architecture is for equity and activism
Courtesy of Ava Ross
As part of an L ARCH activism project, one student created a “luxury couch” decorated with the prints above. By Thomas Newman The Daily When UW lecturer Kristi Park assigned her 29 students a project in their landscape architecture class, she had few requirements: use found objects, don’t get arrested, don’t deface public property, don’t get hurt, and be respectful. Most of the assignments in L ARCH 300: Introductory
Landscape Architecture Design Studio, fall along the lines of typical design projects. But, starting last year, a unique “art activism” project was added to the syllabus. The students were given broad leeway to artistically create something that represents something they are passionate about. After the projects were turned in, the Community Design
Building in West Campus was filled with projects of a huge variety of sizes and mediums, including a couch, a toilet, and a structure covered in vines and foliage. Park sees landscape architecture as an opportunity to design community spaces that emphasize the core values of equality, accessibility, and environmental responsibility. The idea of activism is a core aspect of the degree program. While the course provides the necessary design and graphic skills to successfully imagine and implement landscape architectural proposals, a proposal should also emphasize values. The aesthetic of a visual landscape, like a park, campus, or streetscape, is a high priority in landscape architecture. But Park believes that aesthetics don’t matter if the space is unusable or inaccessible. “Whether you’re two years old, an elder citizen, have accessibility needs, or need to stay in a public space for longer than one might anticipate, I just feel really passionate about designing spaces for everyone,” Park said. The emphasis on creativity is present throughout L ARCH 300. The studio meets for fourhour class sessions that provide ample opportunity for lively discussions, field trips to the Seattle Parks and Recreation, diverse reading lists, and a variety of projects to practice their design ability.
One student, Ava Ross, approached the art activism project by utilizing a couch to highlight the use of hostile architecture in Seattle. Her “Luxury Couch” had large prints on it that read “Every human needs to sleep. Every human needs to sit.” “If you can’t have a private space because you’re experiencing homelessness, but you can’t exist in these public spaces and have these basic human needs met, like sitting and sleeping, then where are you supposed to go?” Ross said. She noted that urban areas, including Seattle, take efforts to make seating in public spaces unusable by putting spikes on a ledge or placing a bar on a bench so people can’t lay down. By doing this, people experiencing homelessness are pushed to the edges of society. “The art activism project has allowed students to see the design sequence in totality and also helps them to begin to develop a point of view,” Park said. The couch was rolled to various places around campus and the U-District, prompting onlookers to recognize that a couch is considered a necessity by those with homes, but is often seen as a luxury for those with limited access to indoor spaces. Ross explained that it was meant to blur the lines between public and private spaces. “It was interesting to see people interact with it, because people were taking photos of
it,” Ross said. “The coolest part was there was actually a family sitting on it.” In addition to teaching, Park is a professional landscape architect. In her work, she has practiced what she preaches. One recent project she worked on was the open parks and planning process with the Stillaguamish Tribe in Arlington. “Getting to work with the Stillaguamish community was definitely an honor of my lifetime,” Park said. “Just to weave cultural stories and ethnobotany and community involvement into the landscape in the projects we were building was a really awesome experience.” Throughout the process, Park engaged with Stillaguamish youth, having them participate in nature-based art projects of their own and give feedback on some of the design ideas. Having not discovered landscape architecture until her thirties, Park sees working with communities, like the Stillaguamish, as a way to enhance the visibility of landscape architecture and the opportunities for creativity and community involvement it provides as a potential career. Reach reporter Thomas Newman at news@dailyuw.com. Twitter: @thomasn456
SPORTS
The Daily Sports // 3
Ridiculous, spontaneous, and goofy
Conor Courtney The Daily
Intramural innertube basketball league serves as an escape for students
By Devon McBride The Daily In one word? It’s “ridiculous.” In one sentence? It’s “a stupid sport nobody’s played their whole life.” More than either of those things, the IMA’s innertube basketball league is an escape. Just down the hill from the responsibilities of life on the UW campus is the stress-free, stress-relieving game of innertube basketball. Research papers and graduate requirements were mentally checked-in Thursday evenings this quarter for a “fun, goofy, approachable” game, in the words of Matt Johnson, a player for the CSE graduate team A Series of Tubes. The fall intramural league consisted of six teams, most of which were made up primarily of returning players. One of those returning players was TJ Kennedy, team captain of the Slammin’ Salmon. There’s an old saying that the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. Grad school can feel like that sometimes, Kennedy said. He and students in his position — a majority of the players are graduate students — are constantly thinking about work, and he found innertube basketball could provide the rare instance of a headspace clear of work. “Can’t be having a basketball thrown at your face and be thinking about your research paper,” Kennedy said. Repeatedly, players said they appreciated how “present” innertube basketball was. For Robbie Weber, a player on A Series of Tubes, the appeal was similar. “I can’t write a proof while I’m being splashed in the face.” While it’s difficult to imagine anyone being a fan of being splashed in the face, the primary form of defense in the sport, some may not mind it as much as others and Kennedy may just be one of those people. “It’s water all around for me,” he said. Before coming to the UW for his masters in marine affairs — the department his team is a part of — Kennedy swam at the Coast Guard Academy where he studied marine and environmental sciences. Kennedy’s team has taken to calling itself the Slammin’ Salmon Sharks — “Sharks” was added later, Kennedy explained, when another salmon-themed team name emerged in the league, the Coho Chanel (think Coco Chanel, team captain Sam May said), because sharks eat salmon. The league held their playoff matches Nov. 14 and 21, where The Slammin’ Salmon fell in the quarterfinals to Tyler and the Turtles 36-18. The other quarterfinal match (the league’s top two seeds received byes) was a match between A Series of Tubes and More Concrete 6.0] a team formed by the
Concrete Canoe club. More Concrete 6.0 advanced after a 44-22 win and a buzzerbeater pass to the face that left the whole pool laughing. Passing is an essential part of innertube basketball, perhaps more important than passing is in regular, footed-basketball. Most teams would keep two players stationed under or near each rim with additional players roaming from the middle as needed. Unlike dry, tubeless basketball, there is no three-point shot, meaning there’s no incentive other than style-points to take a long shot. There’s no dunking either, despite some players regularly cheering to see it happen anyway. In fact, innertube basketball resembles basketball about as much as you might expect. A ball goes into a hoop, and that’s about it. Instead of dribbling, there is a fivesecond rule for holding the ball. There’s boxing (tubing) out and swatting, but most defense is splashing, which would almost certainly be a penalty in land basketball if it ever happened. Another key in-game dynamic is that because the intramural league is co-rec, shots have to be made by alternating genders. Although shots were reliably called out in the binary “boy-shot” or “girl-shot,” the IMA’s intramural handbook reads students or other eligible players are permitted to play “in accordance with their expressed gender identity.” The accessibility and inclusion of the game were praised by multiple players. Kennedy admired the way it’s playable regardless of one’s athletic ability, unlike other sports and intramurals. And at least one player from each team mentioned that innertube basketball was more fun because everyone was on a mostly level playing field since it is not a sport anyone grew up playing. As goofy as innertube basketball can be, it’s not a game without strategy. Taylor Bellefeuille, a player on DIKSOK, explained his team’s strategy of changing their offense and who’s in the frontcourt depending on whose shot it is. When it’s a girl-shot, for example, they would send two female members forward with one male player, he said. Bellefeuille touched on another, less conventional aspect of their strategy as well. “We have a bit of a ‘DeflateGate’ going,” Bellefeuille said. He explained how some members of his team would let some air out of their innertubes, a practice that is not a violation of any particular rule of the sport, but not appreciated by IMA staff. Bellefeuille said this allows them to sit lower to the water, an apparent preference for some. He also said it contributes to flipping in the tubes less,
an occurrence that happens several times each game, including 10 times in the championship match. Whether the air in the tube made a difference is unknown, but whatever DIKSOK was doing each game worked. The team won the league after never dropping a game and holding the season high-score at 52. The championship match was a rematch between Coho Chanel, seeking a three-peat, and DIKSOK. A team of seniors, DIKSOK returned this year “ready” to win, they said, after learning the sport for the first time last year and finishing second. DIKSOK — whose team name the players claim has no real meaning but began as a house name for the friend group, a play off the Greek letters “Delta Iota Kappa Sigma Omega Kappa” — advanced to the finals after a 47-38 win over Tyler and the Turtles. The game was hard-fought, frequently tied or within one score, and the two teams only separated from one another in the final two minutes of the 20-minute match when DIKSOK hit multiple close shots under the rim to build their lead. Coho Chanel advanced out of the other semifinal match, against More Concrete 6.0, winning 16-14 after a slower-paced game that was reduced to only one 10-minute half due to IMA time constraints. In the finals, Coho Chanel managed to slow down the sharpshooting DIKSOK, keeping the game close through the first half, buoyed by multiple early steals. The tempo picked up in the second half and DIKSOK pulled ahead, ultimately winning 30-16.
Bellefeuille called the championship a “really feisty game,” and tiring after playing two in one night. By all accounts, a game of innertube basketball is a legit workout, both for cardio and arms. Bellefeuille said he’d “equate it to a nice day in the gym.” Despite games being feisty and competitive, the league is overall friendly inside and outside of the pool, according to its players. Several of the players who are in their final year at the UW stressed they wished they had found innertube basketball and its “good vibes” sooner. For Pascal Sturmfels — member of A Series of Tubes — and the innertube basketball athletes, Thursday nights meant being free, even if for just 20 minutes of gameplay, from the stresses of school. “It takes you out of your day, in a good way,” he said. Reach Development Editor Devon McBride at sports@dailyuw.com. Twitter: @DevonM98
Photo Caption: DIKSOK tops Coho Chanel 30-16 to win UW’s intramural innertube basketball championship held Nov. 21, 2019. Shown above are scenes from the tournament featuring players from teams DIKSOK, Coho Chanel, and More Concrete 6.0.
4 // News The Daily
Monday-Friday, November 25-29, 2019
On its 20th anniversary, what WT us about capitalism, civil disobe By Matthew Hipolito Contributing writer
D
epending on who you ask, the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) 1999 conference in Seattle was either a shining example of global cooperation in the 21st century, or a celebration of corporatocracy and the squashing of human rights, the environment, and entire communities. The WTO is the world’s largest international economic organization and works with national governments to negotiate and enforce trade agreements. Critics deride its lack of transparency and unelected leadership, claiming the organization views human rights and environmental protections simply as barriers to capital gain. In fact, in preparing for the WTO’s arrival in 1999, The Daily printed the following: “For those who don’t know, the WTO is a new organization composed of every big shot fat cat in the honkey world (and Japan too). They are all meeting to make the world a giant MacDonald’s, where you are going to make $4.75 an hour and like it!” At the turn of the century, the WTO’s meeting, or Ministerial, slated Nov. 30 to Dec. 3 at the Washington State Convention Center, was met with intense backlash. That first day would be cemented in history, known in activist communities simply as “N30.” “N30” started with peaceful planned demonstrations, but at 10:30 a.m., canisters of chemical gas landed among the protesters and all hell broke loose. SPD’s naiveté “Seattle has a long history of handling political demonstrations, including civil disobedience and occasionally violence,” former Seattle Chief of Police Dr. Norm Stamper recalled telling his officers in preparation for the WTO protests. In over 11 months of planning, the SPD engaged in 22,000 hours of meetings and doled out over 11,000 hours of training in plans and tactics outlined in “thousands upon thousands of documents.” Preparations were crowned by a “voluminous” operations plan and backed by a contingency plan. At the time, Stamper and his leadership considered violence associated with international conferences as a “European phenomenon.” As the SPD would come to learn, it was not. Stamper continued: “I believe that my naiveté was on display during WTO.”
Seattle prepares for direct action
To activists like John Sellers, the selection of Seattle as the site of the WTO Ministerial was a dream come true. Sellers is the president of The Ruckus Society, which trains activists to engage in a form of civil disobedience known as direct action. Direct action includes climbing buildings, hanging banners, forming blockades, and more. According to Sellers, Seattle was the epicenter for direct action movements. In choosing Seattle, he said, the WTO was “choosing to host themselves in a city where we could get thousands and thousands of direct action activists within a day’s drive.” At a live taping of the Crosscut Talks podcast earlier this month, Sellers recalled the plans for Nov. 30. He estimated that 5,000 trained direct action practitioners showed up, later joined spontaneously by 5,000 more. Thirteen autonomous direct action groups intended to blockade intersections around the Convention Center to prevent the WTO delegates from getting to the Ministerial. According to Sellers, between protest art, giant puppets, political theater, anarchist cheerleaders, and the tractortrailer sound system provided by the Teamsters labor union, “it was one of the best protest parties I’d ever been to.” Around the city, other protests ran simultaneously, like the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations’ (AFL-CIO) labor march, whose numbers were upward of 40,000. The protests were both peaceful and successful. By 8 a.m. Nov. 30, according to the city’s WTO timeline, vehicular and pedestrian access to the Convention Center had been shut down, and protesters were ecstatic. Despite the disruption, Stamper said, the attitude among the SPD was still largely one of “we got it.”
Things fall apart
But by 10 a.m., it became clear to the SPD that they were slowly losing control over the situation. Police needed the intersection of 6th Avenue and Union Street clear to ensure passage for emergency vehicles. According to Stamper, police had planned with protesters to conduct a televised mass arrest there, but the unexpected arrival of other protesters from other parts of the city complicated matters. “We spoke to the leaders [whom]
“The left that we see today had its coming-out party in the streets of Seattle at the very end of the 20th century,” said Dr. James Gregory. we had been meeting [with] that week and said, ‘All bets are off,” Stamper said. “‘Sorry, but you can see, we are overwhelmed.’” The SPD was faced with a rapidly deteriorating situation in a strategically vital intersection. “I made the biggest mistake of my career on Tuesday of that week, when I authorized the use of chemical agents against nonviolent and, indeed, nonthreatening protesters,” Stamper said. “Dealing with stormtroopers” Sellers remembers being at 6th Avenue and Union Street and watching the police don their riot gear. “When I saw them starting to put their gas masks on, that was when I knew we were really in trouble,” Sellers said. Prior to that moment, protesters like Sellers had cordial relations with the police. Sellers had even met with the sergeant commanding the intersection that day, saying he “seemed like a super solid guy.” “It was really sad to see him have to accept these orders he was getting from above his head and pull that gas mask down over his eyes,” Sellers said. “Once those gas masks come down, it’s like you’re not dealing with humans anymore. It’s like you’re dealing with stormtroopers.” Not long afterward, Sellers said, “the tear gas and pepper spray started flowing freely, and it just became a melee.” By that time, delegates had already been advised to stay in their hotel rooms until peace could be restored. By noon,
the Ministerial’s opening ceremonies had been canceled. The SPD quickly gained the upper hand. “When they’re using brute force and chemical weapons, you can only last so long,” Sellers said.
The Ministerial begins
In the following days, tensions remained high. Although the Ministerial began meeting as scheduled Dec. 1, it ended two days later having failed to reach consensus on many important issues. The National Guard was brought in to enforce the SPD’s “no protest zone” around the convention center, which resulted in over 200 arrests, according to the SPD’s after-action report (AAR). Over a thousand protesters blocked access to the East Precinct police station and were dispersed around 3 a.m. with tear gas, pepper spray, and rubber bullets. Although many media outlets highlighted the violence perpetuated by anarchists, Stamper still traces the chaos back to his fateful decision. “If you tear gas nonviolent, nonthreatening people ... you’re going to refocus from free trade, fair trade, economic policies, global issues of geopolitical importance and so forth to the police department,” Stamper said. “A great deal of the anger was redirected from globalization to the Seattle Police Department.” Just days after making one momentous decision, for better or for worse, Stamper decided to make another. On Sunday, he resigned. “I just absolutely believe that I am responsible for what happened on that morning,” Stamper said. “And what happened on that morning is what blew everything to smithereens.” In the end, Stamper believes that Seattle should never have hosted the WTO in the first place. Even with more time to plan, there simply weren’t enough officers in the Seattle metropolitan area to control the protests effectively. According to the AAR, a total of about 1,700 officers were expected to police upward of 40,000 protesters.
How N30 shaped the United States
Photos courtesy of The Daily archives According to human rights lawyer Michael Withey, “The WTO enforces trade rules using ‘secret courts,’ and strikes down environmental regulations they deem ‘unfair to trade.’”
Although it’s been 20 years since N30, we are still learning how the three-day “Battle in Seattle” has impacted our nation. To Dr. Eva Cherniavsky, a UW English professor who studies free trade, the WTO protests mainstreamed the idea that capitalism has failed in many ways and created the language we use today to discuss those failures. “It was a really novel thing in American culture, which had always had, at most, a reformist relation to capitalism in terms of mainstream discourse,” Cherniavsky said.
The Daily News + Science // 5
Monday-Friday, November 25-29, 2019
TO protests taught edience, and SPD According to labor historian and UW professor Dr. James Gregory, the protests also marked one of the first times that national labor groups, including the largest union organization in the United States, supported a progressive agenda. The WTO left indelible images of union workers alongside environmentalists clad in sea turtle costumes and the catchphrase, “Teamsters and turtles, together at last.” After the WTO protests, human rights lawyer Michael Withey won a class-action lawsuit, arguing that the SPD violated the constitutional rights of the 200 people arrested inside the noprotest zone. Withey says that the inclusivity of the WTO protests foreshadowed the intersectionality that modern movements like the #MeToo movement, the immigrants’ rights marches, and the Women’s March demonstrated. Stamper believes that the protests illustrated a deepening divide between police and the people they are sworn to protect. He believes that the police must be partnered with the community. Although the force may not be receptive to it, he said, citizens have the right to regulate their police. “What’s wrong with citizens being involved in the investigation of citizen complaints? What’s
wrong with legitimate citizen oversight, with teeth?” Stamper asked. “What’s wrong with citizens teaching in the academy, riding along with officers, being really involved in all aspects of police work?” Dr. Michael McCann, a UW political science professor specializing in social movements, is “reluctant” to say that the WTO protests were the “first” of any kind, noting that protests that clash with law enforcement are as old as the country itself. The most novel thing about the WTO protests, he said, was its effective use of emerging communications technologies like the internet, but even that misses the most important topic. “The key question isn’t what they achieved,” McCann said. “The key question is not, ‘How do they do it?’ It’s whether they leave a legacy of inspiration for other people to pick up on and do it in a different way in a different time. And that’s what I think WTO left: an incredible image of activism and aspiration.” Reach contributing writer Matthew Hipolito at news@dailyuw.com. Twitter: @hipolmat
“They’re unelected. They’re unaccountable. They’re undemocratic. It’s a corporate body, a manifestation of corporate power,” said activist John Sellers.
‘Questions of enduring value’
SCIENCE
Humanities struggle against logistical and economic conditions By Sarah May, Henry Zing Contributing writers For students at the UW, 10 writing credits are mandatory for graduation. With over 45,000 students trying to meet these requirements, registration can be a scramble of trying to fill one of the limited number of seats in these classes. These issues stem from a limited number of TAs in the humanities, and the size of many courses that fulfill this requirement is determined not by demand but by constraints on grading and resources. For professors and prospective students, the lack of TAs also prevents professors from offering alluring undergraduate classes capable of drawing students to humanities majors. Eva Cherniavsky, the Andrew R. Hilen Professor of American literature and culture and director of graduate studies for the English department, lamented not being able to teach a zombie apocalypse literature course that had been well received by students in the past. On a larger scale, the loss of public funding following the 2008 economic crisis contributes to many of the issues facing humanities research and curriculum today. “The state economy has recovered,” Cherniavsky said. “Our funding has never been restored.” Popular belief holds that only STEM degrees are capable of providing recent graduates with wellpaid employment, but the underappreciated value of humanities degrees in the modern economy and specifically in the tech industry is often overlooked. “I do think there’s been a societal turn in thinking about what the purpose of a college education is,” Deborah Kamen, associate professor of classics, said. “Many people think it’s to be trained for a job, and so you shouldn’t necessarily study things that are not going to contribute directly to that end.” The shortage of TAs in the humanities is correlated with the reduction in the class size of graduate programs, a trend motivated by the decreasing availability of tenured academic positions. In academia, the key to getting a job or professorship is research experience. Humanities research can be both free from and dependent on funding constraints. “We are both blessed and cursed by fields that allow for research on a shoestring budget,” Milliman endowed chair and divisional dean of humanities Brian Reed said. “We don’t need grants to pursue our research, they facilitate research.” While a strong STEM department needs a steady stream of funding to maintain labs and resources, the humanities mostly require travel expenses for researchers to collect information from archives. This can contribute to the perception that humanities departments can make do with fewer resources This is illustrated by the disparity in humanities research funding which accounts for only 0.2% of the UW’s research and development spending. Reed explained the UW prioritizes a lot of that funding to tenure track professors in their first year, which makes it much more competitive for full-time professors and graduate students to get access to funding for research. Rachel Arteaga, assistant director of the Simpson Center for the Humanities, echoed Reed’s thoughts. The
Simpson Center’s main fellowship, the Society of Scholars, is well-funded, but not representative of graduate students and they often don’t have anywhere else on campus to turn if they’re unable to procure it. Most funds for research are department-specific, which doesn’t always encourage or facilitate collaboration with other departments and, further adding to that deemphasis, this research doesn’t always fit the mold of grant applications, which can dissuade graduate students from applying. The Simpson Center’s grant process tries to counteract some of those issues. Comprised of two rounds of applications, one in the fall and one in the spring, they fund projects to take place in the following academic year. Applications are reviewed by an executive board of faculty and range across not just what the UW considers humanities fields, but also fields like history and philosophy that are classified as social sciences by the university. Arteaga said that the Simpson Center tries to emphasize collaboration in the projects they fund. But the applications they get don’t fall in line with that goal because they can’t offer tenure or dissertation support like departments can, so most researchers end up working on projects geared towards their specific fields, rather than crossing departmental boundaries. Assessing the funding issues facing the UW’s humanities departments brings into question what the university stands to lose by neglecting the very departments that are facing an existential crisis at the
whim of the university. Though research may be somewhat isolated from other departments, the scope ha s far-reaching effects. “The research that we’re doing in the humanities feeds into the entire educational system,” Arteaga said. “And if we can’t do that research, everyone’s education, from K-12, in every education institution … is diminished by that.” Though these issues may seem concentrated on graduate students and research, they create visible issues for undergraduate students looking for humanities degrees and even those just trying to fill their general education requirements. “Part of what we think about in the humanities are questions about identity, and power, and representation, and those seem like pretty current topics to me,” Cherniavsky said. Cherniavsky further explained that a decline in the vitality of these departments will result in a decreased number of students, researchers, and professors engaged with these relevant issues. “You have to start asking what are the kind of questions we’re trying to answer,” Arteaga said. “And we’re trying to answer or at least ruminate on questions of enduring value. I would like to see that kind of research informing public discussion.” Reach contributing writers Sarah May and Henry Zing at science@dailyuw.com. Twitter: @SarahM3204, @ZingHenry
Emily Cole The Daily In academia, the key to getting a job or professorship is research experience. Humanities research can be both free from and dependent on funding constraints.
HEALTH & WELLNESS
Monday-Friday, November 25-29, 2019
Our data is as biased as we are
Harmful biases perpetuated throughout our ‘objective’ data and algorithms By Deborah Kwon Contributing writer Most people associate technology and data with objectivity and neutrality. This should make sense; technology is assumed to be fair, based on the facts, and not tainted by bias. The Vulnerability Index Service Prioritization Decision Assistance Tool (VI-SPDAT) is a tool used by various homeless housing service providers throughout King County. First reported by the Seattle Times, it was found that this tool actually increased the barriers for housing for populations of people experiencing homelessness, like black, Native, and Latinx people; groups that make up a disproportionate amount of the homeless population. This data tool is one of many examples of how people have started looking to technology as a fix to social problems. However, it is also an example of how algorithms and data can be discriminatory in the same ways
humans are, rather than truly objective. Dr. Jevin West, a professor at the UW Information School, looks at the role that technology plays in society and science. West’s course, INFO 270: Data Reasoning in a Digital World, teaches this algorithm bias and the overhype of AI and big data. In this specific instance of bias in the housing tool, the system is looking at factors that are more easily visible and machine-readable in this specific instance of bias, West explained. “In doing so, you then have these biases that are just sitting right in that data,” West said, due to how it doesn’t take into account other pieces of information that are more unique to the experiences of homeless people of color. The New York Times recently reported similar findings about algorithm discrimination in regard to BERT, Google’s new AI system used in its search engine. This tool was found to have gender biases in the present online data it uses to make its predictive decisions.
According to West, issues related to bias within an algorithm should be attributed to the biases that exist in data. Data have biases built into them, and this is what is used to make future predictions, which is where implicit bias can become a practical problem. “It’s a product of our own world,” West said. “The reason that these algorithms are discriminating is not because they were purposely designed to have those features, but just based on the data given.” In trying to fix issues with data and discrimination, the first step is to inspect data to look for issues within them, West said. He refers to the idea of thirdparty organizations that audit various algorithms. “It’s easier said than done, but the idea would be to have these auditing systems to make sure that you can do some of these ‘checks’ to make sure [the data]
Vivian Mak @vivianlmak doesn’t have these biases,” West said. This work is hard to do, but it’s meaningful work that should be done, West continued. Many important decisions like getting housing and loans, or predicting criminal convictions are made by automated systems, and if it’s faulty or discriminatory, everyday life is drastically impacted. “If your ability to get a house
loan is based on an algorithm that’s faulty or discriminatory, that’s pretty serious. These aren’t minor things,” West said. “More and more data is being used to make more and more decisions.” Reach contributing writer Deborah Kwon at wellness@dailyuw.com. Twitter: @debskwo
In defense of the Turkey Dump
It’s OK to break up with your high school sweetheart over the break By Hannah Krieg The Daily Editor’s Note: Thirst Trap is a weekly column on dating and relationships in college. Prepare for an influx of sad texton-black-screen Snapchat stories ... it’s Turkey Dump season. The Turkey Dump is a phenomenon in which students (usually freshmen) return home from the bubble that is university life for the first time and use it as an opportunity to cut ties with their high school sweethearts. This does not mean the breakup occurs over Thanksgiving dinner; you really should not break up with anyone over Thanksgiving dinner. That’s disrespectful to the food. There’s a certain taboo surrounding the Turkey Dump. It’s seen as cliché, cruel, and
driven by the recent expansion of the dating pool. The Turkey Dumper is often criticized for getting the Turkey Dumpee’s hopes up only to break their heart right when they were most excited to reconnect. While I do think it’s sad — as breakups so often are — I am a strong supporter of Turkey Dumpers. Say you had the perfect high school romance. Maybe you met in biology and ended up having chemistry. Maybe he asked you to two dances before you realized you weren’t just going as friends. You both swore college wouldn’t change a thing. Distance would be no issue for a love so beautiful, so pure, so naive. People say wild things when they’re in love, especially when they’re young. As a senior in high school, most people kind of feel like they have it all figured out. When you come to college,
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it’ll hit you like the 372 bus that you are, in fact, totally clueless. There is no way you could have known just how much you would change and learn. It is not your fault for changing your mind. You cannot promise your life to someone at 18, no matter how many times you rapped “Super Bass” in the car on the way to school together. This is not to say you should never attempt to make things work with your high school boo. There are situations where distance can be really successful. However, if you feel like a relationship is stifling your growth, you should take your first available opportunity (which may be Thanksgiving) to get out of that relationship. This can be a really hard decision. You might still love this person and really cherish the time you spent together. You
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would not have been thinking about it so much. Once you feel thirsty, you are already dehydrated. It’s scary, and it can make you feel like you are breaking promises to an important person in your life, but you need to look out for yourself. If you plan on Turkey Dumping someone this year, still do be gentle. Do not spend the whole weekend with them and then call it quits right before your flight to SeaTac. And for the love of God, don’t try to sneak in one last hookup. Just remember that college is a time for growth and anything that inhibits that growth needs to be dropped, or rather dumped ... Turkey Dumped.
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might not understand why you have so suddenly outgrown this relationship. College is a little like a second puberty: you gain 15pounds and a whole bunch of perspective. I came to college with an umbrella for the infamous Seattle rain and the hopes of sustaining a relationship of three years; both of which I ditched before the end of fall quarter. I realized that one: umbrellas were for tourists, and two: I needed to focus on myself. So, I did something a little cliché, maybe a little cruel, but totally necessary. I did the Turkey Dump. And I agonized over it. I almost purposely missed my flight to avoid confrontation. But no matter how much I wanted to, I couldn’t decide not to decide. The thing is, if I didn’t want to end the relationship, I
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OPINION
The Daily Opinion + Arts & Leisure // 7
Globalization continues to create winners and losers The 20th anniversary of the WTO protests By Priya Sarma The Daily Globalization was heralded in the late 20th century as a solution to the world’s economic ills. Supported by technological advancement and lower trade barriers, globalization created a more interconnected and interdependent world economy. The world, in some sense, became flat. It was a moment of progress. Corporations started to transcend national borders, neoliberal ideals flowed into countries, free trade was promoted, and profits could be made. With all the celebrations that accompanied globalization, many lost sight of what the possible downfalls of the new global economy could be. What the protesters in Seattle anticipated 20 years ago was the dark side of globalization. The unfair effects of globalization are still present today, and Seattle saw that there would be winners and losers, first. Twenty years ago, the World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conference was set to take place in Seattle. The agenda included trade negotiations, with 135 countries at the table. Instead, protesters took to the streets of Seattle to make their voices heard. Globalization, they feared, emphasized too much on free trade rather than fair
trade. With the use of the internet, mobilization efforts were strengthened for this historic event. People from different organizations, groups, backgrounds, and countries all came to Seattle with the single purpose of shedding light on the dark side of globalization. At the time, President Bill Clinton had said: “Every group in the world with an axe to grind is going to Seattle to protest.” Seattle became largely associated with the anti-globalization movement. But what was the dark side that the protesters saw? It was factors such as unsafe imports, competition of cheap foreign labor, bad working conditions, rampant pollution, and general anger toward capitalism that led them to the streets of Seattle so that the world could hear about them as well. Seattle’s protest was unique because such a large demonstration against globalization took place in a city home to booming corporations such as Microsoft, Amazon, Nordstrom, Starbucks and many more. International organizations like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and WTO have generally been condemned by developing nations who have endured their unfair negotiations, and conditionality policies that have destroyed their domestic economies.
ARTS & LEISURE
The Seattle protest was different — it grew on the soils of America. According to some delegates in developing nations at the WTO conference, the protests had created an environment for them where their dissent could be heard. In the course of three days, these protests changed the way globalization was viewed by the world. It shed light on the ethically questionable ramifications that arose from shrinking our world through trade. But did these three days change the course of globalization? I’d answer no. The protests were seen and heard; but if we take a look at Seattle — the home of the protests 20 years later — can we say that globalization has been reinvented as a result of the protest? The sentiments of the protest still hold true. For many, globalization is seen as something pushed by “the liberal world order” but only benefitting a small amount of the global population. Political economist Dani Rodrik of Harvard coined the term “hyper globalization” which he defined as “singleminded effort to eliminate all barriers of the free-flow of goods and capital, even if that comes at the expense of political autonomy or domestic, economic and social objectives.” Rodrik believes that
The Campus Sketcher
Where to find color when all the leaves have fallen Written and illustrated by Elijah Pasco The Daily Autumn is one of the rare opportunities I have as a Seattle artist to use colors other than gray, deep blue, and forest green. As we move into winter, there is the temptation to limit my palette and sketchbook to drawings of architecture with muted colors and black ink. However, this week I decided to do something a bit uncon-
The paper made with help from
Abigail Dahl @abigailgracedahl globalization needs to be reinvented to better serve the people. “Large segments of society have been served poorly by the kind of globalization we’ve had,” Rodrik said. “I think the benefits of the hyper globalization of the last three decades were oversold. I think those benefits were largely concentrated in corporations, in big banks, and in wealthy and skilled professions.” The protesters took to the streets of Seattle because they were alarmed by the concentration of wealth in the hands of corporations and big banks at the cost of millions of poorer people around the globe. Corporations manipulated their power and corrupted systems for their advantages. And not much has changed since. The truth is that globalization is here to stay. With the growth of technology and the everpresent internet and social media in people’s lives, being interconnected is inevitable. And as the world is becoming flatter, liberal ideas are being pushed further by large institutions such
as the IMF and WTO. This push for neoliberalism is coming at the expense of development for developing countries, which are struck by conditionality policies that institutions such as the IMF and World Bank impose. In search of increased globalization, every nation, whether they are ready to or not, encourages foreign direct investment (FDI) to the detriment of their own citizens’ financial conditions. Globalization’s ill-effects are created in an intertwined web of vested corporate and government interests. It is supposed to be a zero-sum game. World trade is supposed to be a fair process. But that has not been the case. There are winners and losers in globalization’s game. What Seattle protested 20 years ago as pernicious effects of globalization are still at play. But Seattle did see it before others did. For this, it deserves the world’s applause.
ventional and sketch as many bright, neon, orange things on campus as I could. This collection of cones, construction signs, and caution tape was a fun and interesting way to sketch things that are brighter and livelier. With no end in sight to the construction on campus, I had no trouble finding things to sketch. There are weeks where I will have no idea what to sketch. It seems paradoxical as there are so many things to use as subjects, but at the same time, I will still be at a loss of what to draw. Inspiration tends to come from the strangest of places, and this time it came in the form of the multitude of traffic cones that populate our campus. Gabriel Campanario, founder of the Urban Sketchers and fellow artist, once shared during a workshop that he’ll often use mundane everyday objects as subjects for sketches. I usu-
ally want to be more and more ambitious with my projects and try and tackle complex subjects with intricate designs and difficult perspective. But it’s not so much the subject that matters, as the translation of the subject from reality to paper. And I can say with certainty that I have never used so much orange for a sketch in my life. So if you have been feeling blue and a bit sad now that all the vibrant leaves have made their way to the ground, perhaps the multitude of orange construction cones will hold you over until springtime. Until the next sketch,
Reach writer Priya Sarma at opinion@dailyuw.com. Twitter: @Priyayasarma
Reach The Campus Sketcher at arts@dailyuw.com. Instagram: @the_campus_sketcher
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8 // The Daily
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