VOL. CLXXVI NO. 4
MOSTLY CLOUDY HIGH 52 LOW 39
OPINION
NECAMP: MAKING DARTMOUTH ACCESSIBLE PAGE 6
MAGANN: A LOSING STRATEGY PAGE 7
HILL-WELD: LASTING JOURNEYS PAGE 7
ARTS
REVIEW: ‘SHRILL’ IS A QUIET CELEBRATION OF PLUS-SIZE WOMEN PAGE 8
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THURSDAY, MARCH 28, 2019
State lawmakers delay firearms seizure bill B y CASSANDRA THOMAS The Dartmouth Staff
The New Hampshire House of Representatives has delayed consideration of a bill that would allow state authorities to remove guns from potentially dangerous individuals. On March 13, the legislation was unanimously retained by the Criminal Justice and Public Safety committee until Jan. 2020, meaning that the legislature will delay a final decision on the bill until it is reintroduced at that time.
Students advance in NASA competition B y EMILY SUN
The Dartmouth Staff
A team of eight Dartmouth students was one of five finalists for NASA’s Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-Changing Idea Challenge, a competition that invites both undergraduate and graduate student teams to create aerospace design projects to solve real-world problems. The Team Dartmouth members — Thayer School of Engineering students David Dick TH, Alexa Escalona TH, Grace Genszler
Dartmouth-Hitchock joins sexual assault prevention effort
HB 687, sponsored by Re p. Debra Altschiller (D-Rockingham), would e s t a bl i s h ex t re m e r i s k protection order designations and authorize the temporary seizure of firearms from individuals who have a significant risk of harming themselves or others. Fourteen states have already passed ERPO bills, while nationwide policymakers are also pushing forward ERPO orders. SEE BILL PAGE 2
TH, Thomas Hodsden TH, Peter Mahoney ’19, Morgan McGonagle TH, Zoe Rivas TH and Christopher Yu ’19 — aimed to create a greenhouse that would support a crew of four for a 600 Martian-day mission on Mars. The team will be representing the College during the second round of the competition at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, VA on April 23 and 24. The eight students met in SEE NASA PAGE 5
HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE
COURTESY OF DARTMOUTH-HITCHCOCK MEDICAL CENTER
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center is one of the original signatories of the Time’s Up Healthcare initiative.
B y GRAYCE GIBBS The Dartmouth Staff
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center is increasing its efforts to bring safety, equity and dignity to the workplace as part of the Time’s Up Healthcare campaign. Time’s Up Healthcare launched on March 1 as part of the larger Time’s Up movement started by a group of women in the entertainment industry following the emergence of the #MeToo movement . DHMC was among the initial seven signatories — there are now 12 — that pledged their commitment to preventing sexual assault and gender discrimination in the
healthcare field. Megan Coylewright, a professor of medicine at the Geisel School of Medicine and interventional cardiologist at DHMC, was among the 50 founding members of Time’s Up Healthcare initiative. Coylewright said that after Time’s Up launched in the entertainment industry, issues with sexual harassment and gender discrimination in other industries have come to light. Since the launch of the original Time’s Up campaign, se parate o rg an i z at i o n s i n c l u d i n g Time’s Up Advertising and Time’s Up Tech have also formed. “ D i f f e re n t a re a s a n d different places of work
began to focus in on what’s unique for their area and what might be ways to accomplish a goal of a safe, equitable and dignified workplace,” Coylewright said. Nurses, administrators, physicians and other health care workers have been fo c u s e d o n T i m e ’s U p Healthcare for the past year in preparation for its March launch, Coylewright said. She added that the members have worked together to define the best practices in the workplace regarding prevention of sexual harassment and gender discrimination. According to Coylewright, when a healthcare system SEE DHMC PAGE 3
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THE DARTMOUTH NEWS
THURSDAY, MARCH 28, 2019
Bill would allow courts to remove guns from dangerous individuals FROM BILL PAGE 1
person should keep their gun.” Pearson said. “Things like this need to New Hampshire Representative be done. If that means the community needs to work harder Altschiller and her colleagues W i l l i a m on it, if that means expressed frustration with creating P e a r s o n ( D - “So far, there hasn’t people’s fears need gun violence prevention policies in Cheshire), a gun been a mass shooting to be assuaged, I the state of New Hampshire, a state owner himself, said think that’s the right famous for its emphasis on individual he spent his first in New Hampshire. two terms in office way to go. It’s never liberty. So, are we going to a good idea to cram “Doing gun violence prevention work focused on policy policy down anyone’s in New Hampshire is always fraught,” domains outside wait until it does throat.” Altschiller said. “We have a history of gun regulation. happen to close the A l t h o u g h of a rich gun culture … There’s no However, recent A l t s ch i l l e r a n d background check required to exchange increases in mass doors? One person, Pearson said that money for guns unless you are a registered shootings and one child losing their firearm dealer. We know that in New suicides have [life] is far too many.” they did not feel that retention of the bill Hampshire, 40 percent of gun sales are compelled him to was an outright loss, done without a background check. That’s advocate for this kind of legislation. -MARY JANE MULLIGAN, Mulligan expressed a real problem.” “It’s bizarre to a sense of urgency Proponents of the bill said they in passing similar specifically crafted HB 687 to avoid me that the Second NEW HAMPSHIRE Amendment is the legislation. putting individual freedoms in jeopardy. REPRESENTATIVE “When is New New Hampshire Representative Mary only constitutional Hampshire going Jane Mulligan(D-Grafton), a co-sponsor, right that people emphasized the narrow scope of the bill. can’t legislate,” Pearson said. “When to stand up and protect [its] citizens?” According to Mulligan, the bill would I was growing up in the aftermath of Mulligan asked. “So far, there hasn’t only affect individuals who are deemed Columbine, the conversation was about been a mass shooting in New preventing school Hampshire. So, are we going to wait dangerous by a court shootings because that until it does happen to close the doors? and would not strip all would obviously be One person, one child losing their gun owners of their “It’s bizarre to me a terrible thing. But [life] is far too many.” rights, as critics have that the Second the conversation suggested. Amendment is the now, is not, ‘Let’s prevent “ [ E R P O ] another Columbine.’ designations rely on only constitutional Now, it’s only a matter clear and convincing right that we can’t of time before a school evidence from a shooting happens.” court,” Mulligan legislate.” Although the explained. “For bill was retained example, recent acts -WILLIAM PEARSON, in committee, its or threats of violence, supporters expressed evidence of serious NEW HAMPSHIRE hope that debates mental illness, history REPRESENTATIVE surrounding the of domestic violence, proposed legislation past violent criminal history — those things can be considered would strengthen the bill in the long run. “I don’t view this as a setback,” by a judge when determining whether a
STACK ’EM HIGH, STACK ’EM WIDE
CORRECTIONS We welcome corrections. If you believe there is a factual error in a story, please email editor@thedartmouth.com. Correction Appended (March 26, 2019): This original version of the Mar. 26 article “A note from the Publisher” has been updated to clarify that Valley News’ printing press facility in West Lebanon has closed, not that Valley News has closed.
NAINA BHALLA/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
Spring sunlight filters in through the windows of the Rauner Special Collections Library.
THURSDAY, MARCH 28, 2019
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THE DARTMOUTH NEWS
Initiative seeks effective practices to prevent gender inequity
Tiffany Love serves as a member, is tasked with aiding the direction and becomes a signatory on Time’s strategy of the movement. Up Healthcare, they indicate a “Right now, our focus has been commitment to the main tenants on increasing awareness of the of Time’s Up Health Care. In statistics,” Love said. “Even people addition to DHMC, signatories who work in healthcare might not include Boston University, Brown have an awareness of how pervasive University, The Mayo Clinic, the the problem is. When you are in University of Wisconsin-Madison the culture for so many years, you School of Medicine and Public tend to become desensitized to the Health and the Yale School of harassment you witness on the dayMedicine. to-day.” The core statements of Time’s She added that the group is Up Healthcare state that sexual also in the process of creating a harassment and gender inequity structure to help organizations have no place in the workplace and strategically address each case that the health care system must of sexual harassment or gender be committed to preventing sexual inequity. harassment and gender inequity, as A c c o r d i n g t o T i m e ’s U p well as protecting and aiding those Healthcare founding member and who are targets of harassment and professor of medicine at the Yale discrimination. School of Medicine Lynn Fiellin, Part of the signatory letter signed there have been a number of by DHMC CEO and president ongoing issues at the Yale School Joanne Conroy ’77 states that “we of Medicine that have infiltrated cannot address an issue without the press over the last few years understanding its scope and its surrounding the issues of sexual impact.” In order to do this, she harassment and sexual misconduct. wrote, DHMC has committed to “It felt very compelling to measuring and have something tracking sexual “The first step is to c o n c r e t e harassment and established that identify the scope gender-based has a strong inequities that of this problem and likelihood of occur within the then we can identify actually having institution. an impact on “The first step best practices, which issues around is to identify the is the role of Time’s safety and equity scope of this in healthcare,” Up Healthcare — to problem and then Fiellin said. we can identify help health systems Similarly to best practices, share what’s been DHMC, the which is the Yale School of role of Time’s effective, and then Medicine is now Up Healthcare we can measure our in the process — to help health of collecting successes based on systems share more data and w h a t ’ s b e e n those initiatives.” i n c re a s i n g t h e effective, and then transparency we can measure around issues o u r s u c c e s s e s -MEGAN COYLEWRIGHT, of sexual based on those PROFESSOR AT GEISEL harassment, initiatives,” safety and gender SCHOOL OF MEDICINE Coylewright said. equity with their The Time’s Up institution. Fiellin Healthcare steering committee, said that she has been engaging with on which chief nursing officer different signatory institutions and at Coastal Healthcare Alliance partners who are committing to FROM DHMC PAGE 1
working with Time’s Up Healthcare. As part of this commitment, the institutions will design and establish systems to address and better understand these issues. “In the case of Yale, there had been a lot of stories in the press and unrest within the Yale community about what had been going on at Yale,” Fiellin said. “I think that [joining Time’s Up Healthcare] was felt to be an open door that leadership could walk through and make a concrete effort to — in collaboration with this national organization and this growing network — really create something that is meaningful, sustainable and effective.” According to Coylewright, one of the reasons that many of the initial 50 founders became involved in Time’s Up Healthcare was the publication of a variety of highprofile manuscripts in top medical
journals about gender equity and to be addressed in regard to sexual sexual assault within the healthcare harassment and gender inequity.” industry. In midYet the Fe b r u a r y, T h e problem is not Lancet, a weekly “Right now, our immeasurable, p e e r - r e v i e w e d focus has been on Coylewright medical journal, said. increasing awareness dedicated an “ We ’ r e a l l e n t i r e i s s u e of the statistics. Even scientists at to s e x u a l people who work in the core, and harassment and we’re very gender inequity healthcare might not data-driven, so in the healthcare have an awareness when we had a workforce. series of highof how pervasive the “This provided profile science a lot of important problem is.” reports and backg round to manuscripts understand showing data t h e s c o p e o f -TIFFANY LOVE, COASTAL that could not t h e p ro bl e m , ” HEALTHCARE ALLIANCE be refuted about Coylewright said. the problem, CHIEF NURSING OFFICER “We’re at a point it called us to now that we can gather together all agree: Medicine and health to figure out what we could do,” care do have a problem that needs Coylewright said.
SPRING SHREDDING
PETER CHARALAMBOUS/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
Students take advantage of the warmer weather to bust out some skateboarding moves.
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THE DARTMOUTH EVENTS
THURSDAY, MARCH 28, 2019
DARTMOUTHEVENTS
TODAY
9:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.
Teacher Workshop: “The Art of Engagement,” sponsored by the Hood Museum of Art.
12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Seminar: “Towards Precision Policies: Learning Genetic Variation that Sensitizes Children to Social Environments,” lecture by Rebecca Johnson, PhD, Auditorium H, DHMC.
6:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.
Lunch: “Towards a Sustainable Energy Future,” hosted by the Dartmouth Energy Collaborative, sponsored by the Arthur L. Irving Institute for Energy and Society, Fahey Hall, First Floor Commons.
TOMORROW All Day
Exhibition: “Daniel Webster & the Dartmouth College Case,” sponsored by the Library, held in Rauner Special Collections.
4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Seminar: “Phenotypic Heterogeneity Between Genetically Identical Cells Permits Growth with Lethal Levels of Formaldehyde Stress,” talk by Christopher Marx, PhD sponsored by Biological Sciences Department, Class of 1978 Life Sciences Center, Room 201.
7:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.
Cinema: “Stratford Festival in HD: ‘Coriolanus,’” sponsored by: Hopkins Center for the Arts, held at Spaulding Auditorium.
ADVERTISING For advertising infor mation, please call (603) 646-2600 or email info@ thedartmouth.com. The advertising deadline is noon, two days before publication. We reserve the right to refuse any advertisement. Opinions expressed in advertisements do not necessarily reflect those of The Dartmouth, Inc. or its officers, employees and agents. The Dartmouth, Inc. is a nonprofit corporation chartered in the state of New Hampshire. USPS 148-540 ISSN 0199-9931
THURSDAY, MARCH 28, 2019
Thayer courses serve as inspiration for project
term missions on different planets, namely Mars,” Genszler said. “We ENGS 89, “Engineering Design figured out [which] plants, how to Methodology and Project Completion” design the inch-area of a structure so and ENGS 90, “Engineering Design that it could store all the plants, how Methodology and Project Initiation,” you can power it, what sensors, where which are taught together as a two- you supply water — everything.” The team’s project is called term engineering design sequence in which students work on projects DEMETER, short for “Deployable as teams. Professor of engineering Enclosed Martian Environment for Technology, Eating, Benoit Cushmanand Recreation.” Roisin, who serves “It was very nerve The eight food crops as a faculty advisor the team decided for the team, said wracking for a little on — broccoli, that the timing while and we were chufa, kale, of NASA’s video potatoes, soybeans, s u b m i s s i o n pretty nervous. But strawberries, sweet d e a d l i n e — then we won, so that potatoes and wheat which coincided was awesome!” — would provide with the students’ 3,100 calories time in ENGS per day for the 90 — increased -ALEXA ESCALONA TH, astronauts. the students’ “We were really excitement for TEAM DARTMOUTH hoping we’d win, the challenge. He MEMBER and, for a while, added that the I think, after we leadership of Yu and Escalona catalyzed the eight submitted our proposal, we had to wait a few weeks,” Escalona said. “It students’ work together. “The milestone [of the project] was was very nerve wracking for a little the submission of the video back in while and we were pretty nervous. But January and then the great excitement then we won, so that was awesome!” Despite the team’s success, of finding out that our team was among the five finalists, combined with the fact however, the students are still that the other finalists were large teams refining their design based on feedback they f ro m mu l t i p l e received from universities,” NASA after the Cushman-Roisin “It was a wonderful competition’s said. “[We were] a ride. Not only [was] first round. single team of eight the project very After the second students — large for us, but small intriguing and unusual, round, five BIG participants will compared to the but this was also a be given to the competing teams.” opportunity G e n s z l e r great team to work to intern with explained that with.” NASA this the team aimed summer. to solve some “It was of the logistical -BENOIT CUSHMANc h a l l e n g e s ROISIN, FACULTY ADVISOR a w o n d e r f u l r i d e , ” associated with FOR TEAM DARTMOUTH Cushmantravel to Mars. Ro i s i n s a i d . “Our general problem statement that we’ve been “Not only [was] the project very working on whenever we present is to intriguing and unusual, but this was look at different ways to report long- also a great team to work with.”
THE DARTMOUTH NEWS
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SPIKIN’ INTO SPRING
FROM NASA PAGE 1
NAINA BHALLA/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
Students engage in an intense game of Spikeball outside of Baker-Berry Library.
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THURSDAY, MARCH 28, 2019
THE DARTMOUTH OPINION
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
GUEST COLUMNIST UKASHA FAROOQ GR’20
Making Dartmouth Accessible
Fifty Dead Muslims
How embarrassing is it that nearly 30 years after the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed, and nearly 10 years after then-Dean of the Faculty Carol Folt pledged to rectify this problem, Dartmouth still can’t provide an equal education to students with disabilities? Worse, it’s no surprise that Dartmouth is now forced to settle a lawsuit over this; perhaps the $3 billion “Call to Lead” campaign ought to be renamed the “Call to Pay All of Our Avoidable Legal Bills” campaign. I attended Dartmouth 10 years ago and my time here was marked by the things that made me love it, but it was also a constant battle to receive the education I paid for and was guaranteed by law. Dartmouth has failed its students with disabilities for over a decade. As a student, I was part of an effort to create a support group for students with disabilities when Student Accessibility Services failed to provide the accommodations we needed. We took matters into our own hands and held a workshop for faculty on ways to make their classrooms more accessible. Many of us were also quoted in a June 2009 article in The Dartmouth noting the lack of leadership at Student Accessibility Services and the hurdles that we students had to go through to get basic accommodations. This article was the key thing that got the College to change — not regularly complaining to College leadership, not workshops for faculty, not recommendations for better policies and procedures and an actual grievance process — but an article in The Dartmouth about our collective experiences and our mutual understanding that suing the College was our best and only option. And for a while, it seemed like things might
get better: as a Presidential Fellow under Dean Folt, I was assigned a project providing research, data, justification and recommendations for making the College accessible to all students. But I have no idea if anything came of the report. Ten years later, the Mannella Protocol seems ignorant of the work of countless students, faculty and administrators and smacks of the College doing the bare minimum. Where is the leadership? How many other students have been denied equal access and for how long? Will the Mannella Protocol reflect the needs of all students with disabilities or just one? How will the College make sure that all students with disabilities are heard, whether or not they have the wherewithal to sue? Why do these issues persist, year after year? How can Dartmouth issue a headline-making $3 billion “Call to Lead” yet refuse to take the lead on this? How is one of the best colleges in the world failing so dramatically? And how will the College know if the needs of students with disabilities are actually being met? The Mannella Protocol is the College’s best attempt to put a pretty bow on a lawsuit that was entirely avoidable. Will Dartmouth truly lead, or will it repeat the cycle of promises, failures and lawsuits yet again? — Alessandra Necamp Necamp is a member of the Class of 2009 The Dartmouth welcomes guest columns. We request that guest columns be the original work of the submitter. Submissions may be sent to both opinion@thedartmouth. com and editor@thedartmouth.com. Submissions will receive a response within three business days.
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ISSUE PETER CHARALAMBOUS, JULIAN NATHAN & ANTHONY ROBLES SUBMISSIONS: We welcome letters and guest columns. All submissions must include the author’s name and affiliation with Dartmouth College, and should not exceed 250 words for letters or 700 words for columns. The Dartmouth reserves the right to edit all material before publication. All material submitted becomes property of The Dartmouth. Please email submissions to editor@thedartmouth.com.
A letter to America, from an American Muslim. People often don’t fully process deaths when they occur in wholesale numbers. Fifty Muslims killed. Men and women, young and old. Mothers and fathers, daughters and sons. Someone will have to tell a mother that her son was killed. She will probably have spent a few hours frantically calling his cellphone after seeing the news coverage. In my time as a Muslim in Europe and United States, the best treatment I have received from the non-Muslim community, mostly white Americans and British people, has been passive sympathy. My explantations about Muslim and immigrant distress are listened to patiently. But I always feel like I am inconveniencing them with my complaints. They’d rather not hear me talk about 50 dead Muslims, up to one million Uighurs in detention or Rohigyan babies thrown into a fire — literally. I feel like my conversation is often ended for me; “I’m so sorry. It must be hard — being Muslim in America.” They stutter as they say the M-word. Here is my request: Keep the sympathy. As a matter of fact, keep the thoughts and prayers, too. And your social media posts. Some of those posts come from the same mouths that foster a fear of immigrants and Muslims and are written by the same hands that draft policies like the Patriot Act and the Muslim “travel ban.” Others come from people who stand by too quietly in the face of hate, and who also deserve condemnation. One may argue that not all white Americans deserve condemnation. After all, are they really all Islamophobes? That question misses the point. No, they’re not all Islamophobes. No, not all of them are standing silently outside of mosques with semi-automatic weapons. But a large majority maintain the kind of pernicious silence that led to the Christchurch attack. They may not be “active Islamophobes,” but they are passive ones. I don’t know which group infuriates me more. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said that it wasn’t the outright racist Americans who frustrated him the most, but the ones who said they supported the black community but did not approve of the noisy way in which they wished to gain their rights. Implicit in that position was a failure to fully condemn or understand racist treatment of black people by white supremacists. If apathetic Americans did that, they would have more strongly condemned white supremacy, and more effectively supported the civil rights movement. The American public has acted similarly in relation to American Muslims. There has been no outreach to the Muslim community. No attempts to understand us in a human and intelligent way. There is simply a fear of our difference. Most white Americans have little to no contact with American
Muslims. They are too put off by our beards, hijabs and our brownness. They think Islam is weird anyway. Of course, they say, Islam doesn’t have anything to do with misogyny and terrorism. But it must have something to do with it. Almost half of the American public thinks that Islam is a religion of violence. Almost half believe that there is a “great deal” or “fair amount” of support of extremism amongst Muslims. According to a recent Pew poll, Muslims placed last, behind all other major religious groups in America, on the general public likeability scale. To put that into perspective, every time I walk out onto the street, many, even most of the people I meet dislike me because of my religion. Muslims die every day — Palestinians, Kashmiris, Rohingyas, Uighurs, Americans, New Zealanders, Canadians. Our lives are expendable, and our deaths are politically inconsequential. According to researchers at the University of Alabama and Georgia State, terrorist attacks committed by Muslims get on average 357 percent more coverage than those carried out by non-Muslims. Yet there are millions of Muslims worldwide who are being persecuted every day, and there is not enough news coverage of their suffering. For instance, China holds a million Uighur Muslims in detention centers, where they face “reeducation” by means of physical and psychological torture, imprisonment and murder. These are one million Muslims who have been imprisoned simply because they are Muslim. One million. Where are they in the American public conscience? Where are they presented in the media? Someone reading this may start to feel some sense of sympathy well up inside of them for Muslims. Save it — just remember that Muslims do not need saving. People need to recognize their indifference to our deaths and their hypocrisy when it comes to a white person dying compared to a Muslim dying, and their hypocrisy when it comes to an attack on American soil compared to one on Middle Eastern or South Asian or African soil. I hope to God that not one more Muslim mother will have to hear of her son’s death through a white stranger. As she desperately searches for answers in his distant and professional gaze, averted as they face each other. Ukasha Farooq is a graduate student at Dartmouth College The Dartmouth welcomes guest columns. We request that guest columns be the original work of the submitter. Submissions may be sent to both opinion@thedartmouth.com and editor@ thedartmouth.com. Submissions will receive a response within three business days.
THURSDAY, MARCH 28, 2019
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THE DARTMOUTH OPINION
CONTRIBUTING COLUMNIST TEDDY HILL-WELD ’20
Lasting Journeys
Trips is great, as long as we don’t forget its lessons. At the end of the winter term, 2019 Trips throughout our time at Dartmouth rather than Director Madeleine Waters wrote an excellent artificially packed into the beginning? Dartmouth piece detailing the upsides and shortcomings is far more of an ignore-it-and-party, study, workof this potentially magical yet simultaneously through-the-pain kind of space than it is an alienating orientation program. The crucial embracing community. We go out three or more question she asks is this: times a week, play sports, “What can an orientation “Learning dances with join clubs, do research, program accomplish if its take classes, volunteer on a bunch of equallyjob is to welcome people campaigns, work multiple into spaces where they do disoriented freshmen jobs and undertake a host not see lasting evidence that is probably the most of other pursuits that leave they are welcome?” While little time for self-reflection I have never been a Trip unified any of us will and self-care, let alone leader and periodically regret ever be with such a time to care for people that decision, a number of we barely know. Students large percentage of friends who have joined who don’t integrate found themselves frustrated our class, and that themselves with ease into and disillusioned — a stark realization can be the Dartmouth lifestyle contrast with the optimism find themselves in a giant expressed by many in charge a source of serious pinball machine, slapping of the program. For these frustration and them through an endless students, the presentation cycle of extracurriculars disillusionment.” of a convivial, homogenous through which people may community at the beginning engage each other over of their Dartmouth experiences was not common interests. None of this ever comes close representative of their time spent navigating to resembling the Trips model of welcoming — campus. that kind of structure doesn’t exist anywhere else Trips paints a picture of Dartmouth as a fun- on campus. loving, easygoing, non-stop outdoor adventure. There is no unconditional hospitality at And while it certainly can be fun-loving, life on Dartmouth. There are no communal spaces campus is often more taxing than easygoing, and that will embrace you without qualification or it’s really more fun-simulating than it is actually expectation of assimilation, none that are fully concerned with the pursuit of fulfillment. Learning on board with embracing the complexity of each dances with a bunch of equally-disoriented individual and the ways that our experiences freshmen is probably the most unified any of us will inevitably not line up with one another as will ever be with such a large we navigate this campus. percentage of our class, and Dartmouth predetermines that realization can be a “Trips is the beginning, our interactions. We engage source of serious frustration not the end, of our with people for a purpose, and disillusionment. rarely just due to the virtue Director Waters’ description aspiration to create a of their existence. Through of “unspeakable” loneliness truly communal and Trips, we pretend to solve that is probably familiar to a problem; we pretend that supportive Dartmouth great deal of us. It is hard Dartmouth is a universally to see so much energy being experience.” welcoming community put into an invigorated where anyone and everyone communal experience like can fit in with ease. What Trips when we will inevitably encounter so many I’m getting at isn’t that Trips itself he problem spaces where we wish we could see that energy — the problem is that somewhere along the line, put to a more crucial use. we forget how it all began and let ourselves slip Being a part of Trips isn’t indicative of a broader back into complacency. Trips is a good program. social orientation; just because someone chooses to It embraces a model of unconditional hospitality lead a trip, that doesn’t guarantee that they will take to which we should all aspire. But we cannot allow that principle of hospitality into the rest of their ourselves to forget this crucial idea — Trips is the Dartmouth life. Wouldn’t that welcoming model beginning, not the end, of our aspiration to create accomplish a lot more good if it were distributed a truly communal and supportive Dartmouth
OPINION EDITOR MATTHEW MAGANN ’21
A Losing Strategy
Progressive insurgents may act radical, but their partisanship is nothing new. Tensions are rising within the Democratic Party. Last August, Gallup’s poll of American voters revealed that, for the first time since polls began, more Democrats held a more favorable view of socialism than they did of capitalism. To be fair, respondents approved of “free enterprise” more frequently than “capitalism,” but still: any mainstream Democrat ought to find that result concerning. The survey comes as progressive insurgents strive to reshape the Democratic Party, spurred by self-described democratic socialists’ primary wins over mainstream Democrats. Wi t h P re s i d e n t Tr u m p ’s p o p u l a r i t y languishing around 40 percent and the country increasingly wracked by division, Democrats have the opportunity to steer U.S. politics back on course. They can’t do that, though, if they succumb to the partisanship advocated by their ascendant left wing. Progressive victories often raise alarms, especially when a candidate espouses so-called democratic socialism. We’re right to fear socialism, a discredited economic doctrine that, with seeming inevitability, demolishes civil rights and devolves into authoritarianism. Still, the newly-prominent far left brings little threat of actual socialist governance. Selfprofessed democratic socialists like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez may support bigger government, but they hardly call for collective ownership of the means of production — in reality, they’re social democrats. They call for more social spending and greater government intervention in the economy, not for a truly radical restructuring of the American system. Whatever the merits of those policies, they pale in comparison to true socialism. To suggest that socialism itself now threatens America is inaccurate. The true danger presented by a resurgent left wing doesn’t come from polices; it comes from partisanship. For one, democraticsocialist ideology alienates the majority of Americans who simply do not support far-left ideas. Remember, around 40 percent of the country still supports Trump, and a far greater number have no desire for socialism. Those facts don’t mesh well with a commitment to ideological purity, and unsurprisingly, they get swept under the rug. Ocasio-Cortez, a prominent figure among the left wing of the Democratic party, has a favorite line, one frequently-repeated and often followed with cheers. As she proclaimed at a rally in Flint, Michigan, “Our swing voter is not red to blue.
Our swing voter is . . . the non-voter to the voter.” That logic is intensely partisan. It promotes ideological absolutism, even at the cost of alienating the majority of Americans. This presents an electoral problem, and democratic socialists propose a solution: Give up on Republicans and moderates entirely and mobilize an as-yet-nonexistent bloc of progressive non-voters. There’s not much evidence for such a bloc, but the mental gymnastics required to believe in it evidently come easier than reaching out to moderates. It’s that same uncompromising, ideology-first, representation-second mentality that Trump embodies. And that mentality isn’t good for America. Ultimately, the new far-left insurgents aren’t that far outside the mainstream. In reality, their social-democratic policies prove far less radical than rhetoric might suggest. That’s why this movement is so threatening. It’s yet another partisan group on one extreme of the political spectrum and, like fringe groups left and right, it prefers to sow division rather than bridge divides. The recent surge in combative left-wing candidates isn’t much of a revolution. True resistance to Trump’s divisiveness won’t be extreme, and it will never sink to the president’s level. It will reject partisan crusades and reach out to all Americans, reminding us of those fundamental ideals — ideals like freedom, equality and opportunity — that we all share. The far left is not that principled resistance. It’s just another manifestation of partisan division. The late Senator John McCain left us with a simple truth. As Americans, he wrote in the Washington Post, “our shared values define us more than our differences.” As a registered Democrat who often disagreed with McCain’s policies, I can affirm that. At the senator’s funeral, Democrats and Republicans alike rose to commend a man who served his country — and that always before his party — with honor and with integrity. That ceremony challenged us to reject division, to seek compromise and to unite across differences. With that in mind, Americans should reject the ideological absolutism of both Trump and the far left. America needs principled, open-minded, bipartisan leadership to guide us through this period of division. However much they speak of change, progressive insurgents do not offer that.
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THE DARTMOUTH ARTS
THURSDAY, MARCH 28, 2019
Review: ‘Shrill’ is a quiet celebration of plus-size women wrote, “not, by any definition of the word, shrill.” That being said, over The Dartmouth Senior Staff the course of its snack-size season In Hulu’s original comedy which only includes six episodes, “Shrill,” a TV adaptation of Lindy “Shrill” still manages to lift viewers’ West’s 2016 essay collection “Shrill: spirits even when it fails to truly Notes from a Loud Woman,” raise its voice. Saturday Night Live’s Aidy Bryant As we follow Annie’s day-to-day gets the spotlight she deserves as realities, viewers are reminded of the lead character Annie Easton. the ways in which body image and An earnest writer in her late self-confidence reflect internal twenties, Annie dialogues that i s i n t ro d u c e d “Though Annie are inextricably to audiences as linked to and is undoubtedly a charismatic compounded dreamer stuck in entertaining and by exter nal a rut. After years compelling in her influences and a n d ye a r s o f social pressures. being demeaned efforts to shake up to Fo r c e d to or discounted world around her and contend with f o r h e r the unsolicited cultivate a tougher appearance as advice and a “fat” woman, skin, her best friend suggestions of she has come Fran, a queer black self-righteous to her breaking people who try p o i n t i n h e r British photographer to tell her about workplace and living in Portland, is her own body, her love life. As Bryant portrays arguably the show’s Annie reclaims a woman dominion over secret weapon for caught between her body and comedic and narrative laughing and self-esteem, we crying while b e a r w i t n e s s power.” living in a body to the changes that other people taking place as feel entitled to she resets the comment on. standards for those who wish to As Annie grows to resist outside remain in her professional or commentary over the course of personal life. the season, the character serves Divesting from West’s more to affirm those who have had infamous crude and abrasive to endure the presumptions of tendencies, “Shrill” resists full others. In effect, the show manages commitment to the format of to establish itself as a narrative biography where Annie’s story intervention in the representation is concerned. Thus, despite its of plus-size women on screen, while inspiration at the hands of West and also leaving room for the characters her emergence as a “loud” feminist to stumble their way through selfblogger and comedian, the show is, acceptance. as critic-scholar Andrea Long Chu A n n i e ’s bu m py ro a d t o
B y Jordan mcdonald
unapologetic confidence is marked by a series of trials in which she must confront the people in her life who have routinely demeaned or disregarded her. For example, at her job, a small office for a Portlandbased publication, Annie has grown disaffected with her boss Gabe Parrish, played by John Cameron Mitchell, who flippantly rejects all her pitches to write for the site. After a dramatic show of assertiveness, however, Annie is finally assigned a piece — a food review of a local strip club’s buffet. Taking on the assignment with glee, Annie turns an arguably undesirable topic into an opportunity to write about the people who work at the club, zeroing in on the women who perform there. In an unexpected turn that resists more stigmatizing depictions of strippers, the scene unfolds into a teachable moment for Annie. From these women, Annie learns about the power of a wax and the life-changing magic of negotiating your own terms within romantic relationships. Still, while the show invests plenty of narrative time in the fledgling “situationship” between Annie and Ryan, played by Luka Jones, Annie’s attempts to apply this empowerment education in her real life often fall flat. As a replacement, the friendship between Annie and Fran, portrayed by Lolly Adefope, rises to the forefront of the show as its most powerful statement about what love, support and acceptance ought to look like. Though Annie is undoubtedly entertaining and compelling in her efforts to shake up the world around her and cultivate a tougher skin, her best friend Fran, a queer black British photographer living in Portland, is arguably the show’s
secret weapon for comedic and shortcomings. The unanimous narrative power. Fran exudes a fan-favorite episode of the season, kind of confidence that ought to “Pool,” which was written by be bottled and shared with the Samantha Irby, author of “We Are public. Lighting up every scene Never Meeting in Real Life” and with a knowing smile or witty joke, “Meaty: Essays,” showcases the best Fran serves to keep Annie on the of what “Shrill” has to offer. When right track while Annie attends a also modeling an “Fat Babe Pool embodied self- “As [Annie] watches Party” for the esteem. first time, she is [the partygoers] all H o w e v e r, astounded by the at times, this embrace their fat community of u n w a v e r i n g and curves, [their] women partying bravado appears before her. As she joy pushes Annie as weakness in watches them all Fran’s character. to go beyond selfembrace their Fran often fails acceptance into the fat and curves, to concede to the party-goers’ her faults and is realm of self-love, joy pushes Annie never afforded a notable change t o g o b eyo n d t h e ch a r a c t e r self-acceptance in attitude despite development into the realm t h a t c o u l d it lasting just a few of self-love, a e x p l a i n h e r hours.” notable change steely resolve. in attitude For a show that despite it lasting is presumably just a few hours. interested in In one scene, exploring what it the freedom means to take up space as a woman, and vibrance of the women in both physically and socially, it is attendance speak volumes about disappointing that it fails to take the show’s investment in celebrating Fran seriously in its investigation of uncelebrated bodies. In episodes body politics and self-love. Instead, like “Pool,” in which “Shrill” we meet Fran as an overly simplistic chooses to use powerful imagery figure of self-assurance divorced rather than bluster, we can see from insecurity or nuance. For all the beauty in the way the show her star power, Adefope’s character falls does not match its namesake would surely benefit from the series adjective. had it delved deeper into the ways The show is not shouting or being that race, gender and sexuality have “shrill” because it’s not trying to shaped Fran’s world view differently get everyone’s attention. “Shrill” compared to Annie, even as they is in the business of affirmation both navigate the world as plus-size rather than advocacy. In this way, it women. reminds us that affirmation is quiet, Nonetheless, there are moments intimate work—signals broadcasted in “Shrill” in which the power of its on a frequency legible only to those imagery makes up for its narrative who are already tuned in.