The Dartmouth 05/24/18

VOL. CLXXV NO. 44

SUNNY HIGH 73 LOW 52

THURSDAY, MAY 24, 2018

Joseph Helble becomes new provost

By SUNNY DRESCHER The Dartmouth Staff

OPINION

HARRIS: CONSENT IS COMPLEX PAGE 6

AHSAN: WHAT WE OWE EACH OTHER PAGE 6

GHAVRI: WHERE ARE THE ASIANS? PAGE 7

CALCATERRA & CARITHERS: IN RESPONSE TO ‘YES MEANS YES’ PAGE 7

ARTS

ALUMNI FILMMAKERS SHOW HIDDEN SIDE OF PYEONGCHANG OLYMPICS PAGE 8 FOLLOW US ON

TWITTER @thedartmouth COPYRIGHT © 2018 THE DARTMOUTH, INC.

Thayer School of Engineering dean Joseph Helble has been appointed as Dartmouth’s next provost by College President Phil Hanlon. In October, Helble will replace interim provost David Kotz ’86, who assumed his interim position when former provost Carolyn Dever decided to return to teaching and research in October 2017.

“I’m really looking forward to it,” Helble said. “I’ll be in a position where I can see the entire landscape and have the opportunity to engage with the whole of Dartmouth in different

The Dartmouth

The faculty of arts and sciences voted on May 7 to approve language drafted by the Committee on Instruction for new distributive requirements, which were first proposed in 2016 and which are set to go into effect as early as two years from now.

The 2016 proposal consolidated the current distributives into four broad categories: Humanistic

Green Key sees 11 arrests

and substantive ways, which is one of the most exciting aspects of this position.”

Professor of anthropology Deborah Nichols said that Helble was selected through a national search with the help of an advisory committee comprised of students, faculty and staff.

Nichols championed Helble’s “transparent style of leadership and commitment both to liberal arts and to the graduate and professional schools.”

Given that it was a national search, the committee SEE HELBLE PAGE 2

MICHAEL LIN/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

Tall Heights was one of the many music groups that performed during Green Key.

By JESSICA MCDERMOTT

New language for distributives approved

By MADISON WILSON

HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE

and Aesthetic Inquiry, Natural Scientific Inquiry, Social Scientific Inquiry and a more abstract Interdisciplinary Inquiry category. The new requirements will also feature a new onecourse Quantitative and Formal Reasoning requirement, similar to the current Quantitative and Deductive Science requirement, but at the same level of importance as the current writing and foreign SEE DISTRIBUTIVES PAGE 5

The Dartmouth

This year, Green Key saw a similar number of incidents involving Dartmouth and nonDartmouth students compared to last year, and a lower number of non-Dartmouth student incidents compared to years prior, according to interim and associate director of Dartmouth Safety and Security Keysi Montás. In addition to the continuation of the wristband system, which was put in place last year, new s a f ety m ea s ures such as water jer sey barriers and clearer exit

and entry points were implemented, Montás said.

According to Hanover p o l i c e ch i e f C h a rl i e Dennis, there were 11 alcohol-related arrests from Thursday to Sunday, only one more than last year’s 10 arrests, which was a record low. In 2016, there were 22 and 17 in 2015.

There was a change, however, in the number of arrests that occurred during the concert. Last year, two arrests occurred during the concert and this year, there were six.

Montás said that from Thursday to Sunday, five Good Sam calls were

made. While he did not have the data to compare this number to previous years’, he said that this number was expected, given a big event of this nature.

He also said that a fight broke out at one of the fraternities during the weekend, and that this incident is currently under investigation by t h e H a n ov e r Po l i c e Department.

According to Montás, the lower number of non-Dartmouth student incidents compared to years prior can be attributed to the success SEE GREEN KEY PAGE 2

Sununu calls on NH Supreme Court to review bill B y WALLY JOE COOK The Dartmouth Staff

New Hampshire Gover nor Chris Sununu has called on the New Hampshire Supreme Court to review House Bill 1264 before he decides to approve or veto the bill.

On May 10, New Hampshire

General Court passed HB 1264, which modifies the definitions of “resident” and “residency” and has drawn concern that the language will restrict out-of-state students’ abilities to vote.

Sununu has stated that he does not support the bill in its current form.

“I remain concerned about the

bill’s constitutionality, and as such, I am asking the Supreme Court to weigh in on this issue to put this matter to rest once and for all,” he stated in a May 15 press release from his office.

According to Hanover director of administrative services and town clerk Betsy McClain, students in New Hampshire can currently vote

in the state without taking on the full responsibilities of residency, but this bill would likely change that status quo. Under the bill, students would need to acquire a New Hampshire driver’s license within 60 days of voting, which she anticipates would be difficult SEE VOTING PAGE 3

PAGE 2

THURSDAY, MAY 24, 2018

THE DARTMOUTH NEWS

Wristbands used again at Green Key New provost brings Thayer dean experience FROM GREEN KEY PAGE 1

attended four Green Key concerts, said he has seen fewer high school students since the wristband system was implemented.

Programming Board executive director Jane Gerstner ’18 said that students were more resistant to the wristbands last year but seem more willing to wear them now. She does not think they have decreased overall attendance to the concert.

“It’s one small, little hassle to go get a wristband from your Hinman [box], put it on two days before the concert, and hold it up when you walk in,” Gerstner said, “but it’s ultimately a safer experience for everyone, and that’s what we’re concerned about.”

Dennis added that the wristband system is “no different than if you go to a concert. You have to present a ticket to get in.”

According to Dennis, security measures are important because of how open Dartmouth’s campus is. He said that, in previous years, multiple people from the Upper Valley attended Green Key as a “free concert.”

Montás said that issues arise when a non-Dartmouth student at the

concert requires resources that the College reserves for its students.

“If we get someone from outside and they have no connection to the College and they are extremely drunk, I cannot take that person to Dick’s House.” Montás said. “That creates an extra layer of things that we and the town have to deal with.”

A new safety measure that was implemented this year was water jersey barriers on the road in front of the concert, in the event that a vehicle might attempt to crash into the crowd. According to Dennis, this decision was not prompted by events from last year’s concert, but rather by global occurrences.

“If you look at what’s going on in our world around us, you see people using vehicles in a manner to harm people,” Dennis said.

Montás also pointed to a recent vehicle attack in Toronto, Canada, as well as occurrences in Europe. Given these events, Montás said that Safety and Security worked with Hanover Police to put precautionary measures in place to mitigate the “remote possibility” of such occurrences.

Dennis added that these barriers served to prevent against any unintentional vehicular accidents as well.

In addition to the water jersey barriers, Montás said that Safety and Security worked to establish clearer entry and exit points to the concert.

“One of the things that we learned last year was that people were going in and out at the same place and it was difficult to see who was who and which way they were going,” Montás said.

Separating the entry and exit allowed for more controlled access so that Safety and Security could more accurately count the number of people in attendance, Montás said.

Gerstner said she believes that the Programming Board must balance two important priorities in planning the concert: safety and quality. She does not think that the wristbands affected the quality of the concert, and that, overall, stricter safety measures have not reduced attendance. She sees the wristbands as a necessary compromise with the town of Hanover so that the college can continue to run the event.

“We want to maintain the caliber of the Green Key concert as we’ve established it, but...in order for the town to agree to that, this is the method that we have to take,” she said.

PHIL HANLON REVISITS ACADEMIA

MICHAEL LIN/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

College President Phil Hanlon visited seniors as they presented their theses in the hall of Baker-Berry Library on Tuesday.

CORRECTIONS We welcome corrections. If you believe there is a factual error in a story, please email editor@thedartmouth. com for corrections.

Correction Appended (May 22, 2018): The original version of the May 22 article, “Student Spotlight: Claire Feuille ’18 reimagines Shakespeare” has been updated to clarify the theater experience of Rodriguez and Feuille.

FROM HELBLE PAGE 1

considered internal and external candidates with the help of executive search firm Witt/Kieffer before presenting President Hanlon with a list of finalists, according to Nichols, who chaired the advisory committee. She said that Helble’s “learning curve” will not be as steep as it would be for a newcomer to the College because he has had the experience of leading Thayer and working with other College leadership for the past 13 years.

Executive vice president Rick Mills said that Helble’s experience at Thayer has the potential for the College to get “the best of both worlds” because Helble is both familiar with Dartmouth and can also bring new a perspective.

“Because [Helble] sat at his own school that ran with its own operations and culture, he can bring those to this new role, and they’ll be a little different than just somebody who’s inside the center of Dartmouth,” Mills said.

According to Mills, it makes sense for the provost to have an academic “be the final deciding authority on budgets” because many of the budget decisions have to do with teaching or research. Mills said that he, as executive vice president, also works with the provost to go over any operational issues at the College.

In addition to working on the College’s budget and operational issues, Helble will work with academic deans to oversee the College’s constituent schools and provide oversight of student-related programs, such as enrollment management and financial aid.

Board of Trustees chair Laurel Richie ’81 said that one of the reasons why Helble stood out was how his leadership and vision for Thayer really transformed the school and its interaction with the College.

“The fact that Thayer is the only engineering school in the country to have more than 50 percent of its graduating class be women spoke to the way in which [Helble] champions diversity, equity and inclusivity,” Richie said.

Richie added that the connection between Thayer and the rest of the undergraduate institution will help Helble bring great insight to his new position. All bachelor of engineering candidates are required to earn an undergraduate degree in the liberal arts, and 70 percent of undergraduates take at least one course in engineering or computer science, which Richie said helped foster interactions between Thayer and the larger Dartmouth

community.

Helble said that one of the primary reasons he was interested in the position is that the provost has the opportunity to interact with all facets of campus and continue to pursue interdisciplinary programs, which he said make Dartmouth unique.

When he first started at Thayer, Helble said he would walk around and talk to people within the engineering community to understand what they thought made T hayer special in hopes of “[building] on the points of distinction in the integrated, interdisciplinary school of engineering.” He said that he is planning on doing the same thing when he assumes the provost position to connect with the greater Dartmouth community and learn about what faculty, students and staff think of Dartmouth and where it can improve.

“Even though I’ve been here for 13 years, this is a tremendous opportunity for me to learn, and I’m interested in helping us find ways to build on the things that truly make Dartmouth distinct,” Helble said.

Mills said that Helble brings a valuable skillset to this new position in terms of critical thinking and problem solving because of his training as an engineer. “[Helble] is going to bring to the role a certain structure to thinking about problems, working on solutions to problems, testing, measuring, and implementing in a way that may be really helpful,” Mills said. “[Being the provost] really is being the chief academic officer, the person who’s in a position most directly to help support the goals and aspirations of our faculty, staff and students,” Helble said. “Who wouldn’t find that exciting?”

In addition to Nichols, the advisory committee included engineering professor Margaret Ackerman; Tuck student Eunice Bii Tu’18; history professor Colin Calloway; religion professor Paul Christesen; vice provost for enrollment and dean of admissions and financial aid Lee Coffin; Geisel professor Deborah Hogan; Tuck associate dean Punam Keller; physics and astronomy professor James LaBelle; undergraduate Jay Raju ’18; trustee chair Laurel Richie ’81; and chief financial officer Michael Wagner.

Richie said that the mix of expertise and experiences that members brought to the committee was valuable for the search process, and she said that she said she was impressed that the committee was “united in what [they] were looking for and the opportunities that [they] saw for the next provost.”

THURSDAY, MAY 24, 2018

PAGE 3

THE DARTMOUTH NEWS

Governor Chris Sununu to weigh in on residency bill, HB 1264 “We believe it is a poll tax after voting,” he said. for many students because of “The reason that these types of their busy schedules and difficulty bills are going through is because acquiring access to transportation. New Hampshire legislators are “This will have an alienating scared of how powerful Dartmouth i m p a c t o n m a ny s t u d e n t s, ” students and other New Hampshire McClainsaid. c o l l e g e s t u d e n t s a re, ” We s t College Democrats president s ai d . “ I th i n k Jennifer West i t ’s p o l i t i c a l l y ’ 2 0 a g r e e d “This bill is really motivated.” that the bill Woodburn said important for may have that the bill is s i g n i f i c a n t Dartmouth students indeed strategic. e f f e c t s o n specifically because if “It’s a perpetual Dartmouth political strategy it passes we will have students. to make it harder “ T h i s to pay to vote.” for people who bill is really demographically important for vote for D a r t m o u t h -JENNIFER WEST ’20, Democratic s t u d e n t s COLLEGE DEMOCRATS candidates,” specifically Woodburn said. because if it PRESIDENT “It’s part of a passes we will national strategy have to pay of putting to vote,” West ro a d b l o c k s i n said. “That’s front of the not something vo t i n g b o o t h s that we and it’s been very currently have successful around to do and it’s the country.” not something Wo o d bu r n that we should noted that the ever have to do.” strategy has been effective at West added that compared to d i s e n f r a n ch i s i n g yo u n g a n d the current on-campus registration minority voters. system, it would be more difficult “The only way in their strategy for students to acquire drivers’ for them to combat that is to make licenses. it more difficult for people ... who Although the bill has passed don’t agree with their positions [to the Senate and the House of vote],” he said. “You either grow Representatives, State Senator your party or shrink those who can Jeff Woodburn, who serves as a participate in democracy.” member of the New Hampshire Woodburn also said that the Senate Election Law and Internal “terrible bill” is a response to Affairs Committee, said he believes shifting demographics in New the New Hampshire Supreme Hampshire, which he said is Court may oppose it and it may becoming more “blue leaning.” never become law.

He added that New Hampshire FROM VOTING PAGE 1

GETTING READY TO LEAF

NAOMI LAM/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

Students take advantage of the warm weather and recently bloomed trees.

colleges were very influential in the 2016 senatorial and presidential elections.

McClain agreed that the new bill could be a response to the strong college voter influence.

“I think there will be fewer resident college students registering to vote in New Hampshire and I think that’s a very targeted impact,” she said.

However, McClain said that the bill’s supporters are not making public statements about that potential motivation for the creation of the bill.

“I believe the sponsor will say that this will go a long way in keeping the purity of New Hampshire elections and the appearance of fairness and propriety,” she said. “I question that — there has been little to no evidence of voter fraud in our state and yet this bill is being championed by several folks in order to preserve the tarnished impression of our voter process.”

West also said that she believes the bill is a response to the close 2016 senatorial and presidential elections.

“They’re trying to keep us from voting in this state,” she said.

“They’re telling us that our voices shouldn’t be represented here.”

West emphasized the importance of Dartmouth students being able to voice their opinions, citing the recent vote on Article 9, a zoning law that affected student housing.

“It’s really important that Dartmouth students be able to vote in New Hampshire because the laws that are passed here at the state and local level really affect us on a day-to-day basis,’ she said.

“Dartmouth is where we live, it’s where we spend most of our time, and the politicians that represent us here in our state have more sway on our lives than the ones that represent our home states.”

West added that the College Democrats have sent students to testify against voter suppression bills at the state legislature in Concord, New Hampshire in the past and will continue to register students to vote on campus for as long as possible.

According to West, Dartmouth students currently have a powerful voice in the political process, which some politicians do not like. “ D a r t m o u t h s t u d e n t s a re incredibly influential because students are engaged and passionate, and care about making the world a better place,” she said.

“If we didn’t feel this way, it’s possible people wouldn’t be trying so hard to keep us from voting.”

PAGE 4

DARTMOUTHEVENTS

THE DARTMOUTH EVENTS

THE REFRAIN

THURSDAY, MAY 24, 2018

JESSICA LINK ’17 TH ’18

TODAY

4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Lecture: “The Elephant in the Text,” with Brown University French studies professor Thangam Ravindranathan, sponsored by the French and Italian department, Haldeman 41

4:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.

2018 Senior Fellowship Symposium, sponsored by Undergraduate Advising and Research, Occom Commons

4:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.

Honors Thesis and Goodman funded project presentations, sponsored by the Anthropology department, Rockefeller 001

TOMORROW

3:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.

Lecture: “The Place of Work in a Meaningful Life,” with author Emily Esfahani Smith ’09, sponsored by the Political Economy Project and the Nelson Rockefeller A. Center for Public Policy and Social Sciences, Rockefeller 002

7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.

Film: “RBG,” directed by Janus Metz, sponsored by the Hopkins Center for the Arts, Loew Auditorium, Black Family Visual Arts Center

10:00 p.m. - 2:00 a.m.

Performance: “Neo Soul Lounge,” sponsored by Collis After Dark and the Men of Color Alliance, Sarner Underground

ADVERTISING For advertising information, 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, MAY 24, 2018

PAGE 5

THE DARTMOUTH NEWS

Distributive requirements will see changes FROM DISTRIBUTIVES PAGE 1

language requirements. Finally, they will replace the current World Cultures requirement with a single course focused on Theories of Human Difference. The new language voted on at the faculty meeting gives more specific definitions for these categories.

Each broader category also has mandatory subcategories which will further structure students’ academic experience, said Samuel Levey, a government professor and a member of the Curricular Review Committee, which originally recommended implementing the new requirements.

Students will be required to take three courses in the Humanistic distributive, which is focused on the creative and humanistic arts, with at least one in each of two subcategories: one based on “critical inquiry or analysis” and one based on “performance or creation,” according to a letter from the COI distributed to the arts and sciences faculty. The Natural and Applied Scientific distributive includes a three-course requirement, one of which must include a “laboratory or fieldwork component.” The Social Scientific Inquiry category includes a three-course requirement and is concerned with the investigation of social and societal behavior from

multiple perspectives.

The Interdisciplinary Inquiry distributive is perhaps the most abstract of the four and is intended to “highlight methods from more than one discipline and make them a part of student work.” French professor and chair of the COI Kathleen Wine said that the requirement could resemble current courses that are cross-listed between multiple departments, but that the distinction could be more nuanced. For example, Levey said that a cognitive science course might fall under this category as it combines philosophy, psychology and computer science. Wine said the Interdisciplinary category should show students how disciplines can diverge, converge and inspire each other.

The new system will continue the foreign language and writing requirements, but will also implement a one-course Quantitative and Formal Reasoning requirement, which will resemble the current Quantitative and Deductive Science distributive and must be fulfilled in order to graduate.

Classics and linguistics professor Lindsay Whaley, who is the chair of the Committee on Organization and Policy, said that faculty members felt that a quantitative reasoning course was indispensable to a well-rounded liberal arts education.

The current three-course world culture requirement will also be consolidated into the one-course Theories on Human Difference r e q u i r e m e n t . Fe w e r, m o r e comprehensive classes will be required to fulfill the requirement, according to Wine.

The changes were originally proposed as part of a larger curriculum review that takes place at the College every ten to fifteen years, according to Braz. The College then created the Curricular Review Committee, which is composed of Arts and Sciences faculty members, to review the current system and propose and vote on changes. In 2016, the CRC sent its proposals to the Committee on Instruction, which crafted specific language to describe the new requirements.

Finally, the COI sent its descriptions to Whaley, who sent the proposed language to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences to approve.

Levey said the new distributive requirements will give more freedom to students to design their own academic paths without the structure of the current system. He added that “the hope was that … students are going to learn what it is to be liberally educated, not just by exposure but by principle.”

Wine said that the faculty hope

the new system will change the way students see distributives, adding that she hopes students will no longer see distributives as boxes to check off and will have a more active role in deciding their academic path.

“The way [students] will think about fulfilling [their] distributive requirements will be a little bit different,” Wine said. “The new system will give students more choices as to how they combine the courses they take within each division.”

Implementing these changes could take some time. Braz said that each current course would need to be reclassified into the new system, a potentially laborious process for faculty and the Registrar. Each faculty member will reclassify their courses according to the new system then send those classifications to the Committee on Instruction.

The Registrar’s office will also work closely with the Information Technology department to redesign the Organization, Regulations, and Courses and the DartHub as necessary.

Levey said that the new distributive system will likely be accompanied by more robust academic advising, anticipating more advising training in the future as well. As the new distributives are more abstract, they would likely require a more intentional

and intensive course selection process, he added.

Some courses may even carry multiple distributive designations, said Wine. However, many courses will not be too difficult to reclassify. Chemistry classes, for example, will easily fall under the new Natural Scientific Inquiry distributive. For courses that are more difficult to classify, a lengthier process involving the Committee on Instruction will likely have to take place, she added.

Dartmouth has changed its distributives before. Wine said that the distributives have changed at least once before just in her time teaching at Dartmouth, and faculty are not unaccustomed to the changes. Braz said that during the transition period classes will carry both the old and new distributions, a somewhat confusing but necessary step as students who matriculated under the old system will stay under the old system until they graduate.

Ultimately, faculty do not see the new distributives changing life at Dartmouth too drastically.

“I don’t see it being a big difference,” said Whaley. “The whole point of a general education requirement is ensuring that students [who] come to Dartmouth have a maximally effective liberal arts education, and nothing has changed with that.”

PAGE 6

GUEST COLUMNIST MARSHALL HARRIS ‘19

CONTRIBUTING COLUMNIST SAJID AHSAN ‘20

Consent is Complex

What We Owe Each Other

Thinking of consent as a simple binary promotes coercive sexual behavior.

In a recent column entitled “Yes Means Yes,” Jillian Freeman ’21 laid out an argument against the phrase “unenthusiastic consent is not consent.”

Unfortunately, this argument is disconnected from the power dynamics and pressures regarding sex and consent. All too often, propositions for sexual contact happen under circumstances of coercion, where unenthusiastic consent is often an escape route from a more unsavory outcome. The reality is that men control the power dynamic of potential sexual encounters and can pressure their partners to consent, even implicitly. Clearly, no one would fault the victim of a robbery for consenting to have their wallet stolen when threatened at gunpoint; obviously, their consent in that situation should not be considered valid.

Freeman notes in her article that “after consent is given, one may choose to take it back at any time before or during the sexual encounter,” which is undoubtedly true. However, the act of withdrawing consent can be problematic if it means potentially being subjected to manipulation or even physical violence later. When there are more forces at play then simply desire, consent is a complex calculation of risk, not a simple binary choice. Therefore, it is surely the case that unenthusiastic consent does not always translate to a willful “yes.” Discrediting someone who consented unenthusiastically while under duress is harmful and dangerous in its own right.

Of course, unenthusiastic consent would not be used as evidence in a courtroom, but it is time to stop holding society at large to the same standards and burdens of proof as a courtroom. Clearly, the phrase “unenthusiastic consent is not consent” was not attempting to change the legal definition of consent, but to raise awareness about coercive and aggressive behavior in sexual encounters.

No one is arguing that “enthusiastic consent” be used for criminal convictions, because obviously enthusiasm is subjective; but unfortunately, sexual consent is subjective, too. Therefore, there is no reason why enthusiastic consent can’t be the standard for consent in daily society.

If it is clear that someone is not enthusiastic about engaging in sex, it is obviously immoral to continue the sexual encounter, even if it is not technically illegal. Why, then, is it not clear that attempting to get consent from an unenthusiastic partner is outside the realm of good taste? Surely a tepid response of “Sure” or “I guess” would be

sufficient to demonstrate that someone is likely not enthusiastic about a sexual encounter, so continuing would be wrong. What Dartmouth students need is not a lecture on the dictionary definition of “yes,” but more awareness in order to identify coercive behavior and recognize when it is acceptable to continue a sexual encounter.

Furthermore, shifting the discussion about consent and sexual violence toward the potential for false accusations, as Freeman does, is unproductive. In reality, false accusations are incredibly rare and are unlikely to increase simply due to a change in public perception regarding consent. In fact, Freeman puts it perfectly when she writes that “society cannot normalize exceptions” — false accusations have been, and always will be, the exception.

Shifting the discussion to the imagined problem of false accusations only perpetuates the shaming of sexual coercion victims. Giving perpetrators of unhealthy sexual practices cover for their actions reinforces the already-rampant rape culture on campus. Rather than focus on what the victim should have done in an unhealthy sexual situation, the focus should be on preventing the situation from occurring at all. Placing the onus of action on the victim is unproductive and does not treat the root of the problem.

Therefore, in order to create more productive campus discussion and to effect positive change regarding sexual violence, consent must be thought of not in legal, but moral, terms. Students shouldn’t have to use an unenthusiastic yes as an escape route; in fact, they shouldn’t have to be placed in such a situation at all. Thus, the phrase “unenthusiastic consent is not consent” is desperately needed to promote awareness about the complexities of consent.

It is immoral to discredit victims of coercive sexual behavior simply because they gave an affirmative answer while under duress. Sexual violence and issues of consent are pernicious and intricate matters, and reducing them to simple binaries is neither useful nor healthy.

Harris is a member of the Class of 2019.

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.

6175 ROBINSON HALL, HANOVER N.H. 03755 • (603) 646-2600

ZACHARY BENJAMIN, Editor-in-Chief IOANA SOLOMON, Executive Editor ALEXA GREEN, Managing Editor PRODUCTION EDITORS MATT BROWN & LUCY LI, Opinion Editors MARIE-CAPUCINE PINEAU-VALENCIENNE & CAROLYN ZHOU, Mirror Editors MARK CUI & SAMANTHA HUSSEY, Sports Editors BETTY KIM & EVAN MORGAN, Arts Editors MARGUERITE IREFIN & ALEXA TUCKER, Dartbeat Editors DIVYA KOPALLE & MICHAEL LIN, Photo Editors

HANTING GUO, Publisher AMANDA ZHOU, Executive Editor SONIA QIN, Managing Editor BUSINESS DIRECTORS HEEJU KIM & BRIAN SCHOENFELD, Advertising Directors SARAH KOVAN, Marketing & Communications Director CHRISTINA WULFF, Marketing & Communications Director VINAY REDDY, Assistant Marketing & Communications Director BRIAN CHEKAL & CAYLA PLOTCH, Product Development Directors BHARATH KATRAGADDA, Strategy Director YEONJAE PARK, Technology Director

JESSICA CAMPANILE, Multimedia Editor JEE SEOB JUNG & SAMANTHA BURACK, Design Editors JACLYN EAGLE & HATTIE NEWTON, Templating Editors

ISSUE

THURSDAY, MAY 24, 2018

THE DARTMOUTH OPINION

LAYOUT: Eileen Brady

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.

Focusing on the politics of Trump’s rhetoric ignores human rights concerns.

While it would be impossible to pay attention to every jumbled phrase that streams out of the President’s mouth, the impulse to ignore him is tempered by the sobering reality that his offhand statements often become the policy direction of the United States government. This seems to be the case with a comment he made recently in which he referred to MS-13 gang members as “animals,” a statement that the White House doubled down on Monday with a Breitbart-style press release entitled “What you need to know about the violent animals of MS-13.” Trump’s tendency to vilify all undocumented people and conflate immigrant communities with violent criminals is well-documented, and to parse his general incoherence in order to pretend he or his administration care to make any real distinction is intellectual dishonesty at its boldest. One only needs to ask what to make of the families of these so-called “animals” or the communities they live in to recognize the real intent of this rhetoric.

Refusing to further interrogate these attitudes demands people treat each individual development as an isolated incident rather than as inextricably based in a troubled historical tradition. It should be criminal negligence, for example, to ignore the history of American law enforcement’s abuse of the concept of gang affiliation. Just last year, a federal court found that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had attempted to deport a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program recipient with no criminal record on the basis of his non-existent “gang affiliation” with doctored evidence. As many legal advocacy groups have pointed out, law enforcement databases of suspected gang members are often racist and arbitrary, with no real oversight or transparency.

The concern felt at the acceptance and subsequent defense of these statements cannot, however, be reserved solely for the innocent.

Suppose the president’s remarks could be taken in the best faith possible, that he had no history of violent rhetoric aimed at the marginalized.

If such well-intentioned assumptions could be made, it would not change at all the fact that referring to criminals as subhuman is a worrying development for a nation that claims to be concerned with human rights.

As is so often the case, much of the discourse around this development is utterly incapable of looking beyond this particular moment at the broader implications it brings with it. The general attitude can be summed up succinctly

by Lachlan Markay, a reporter for The Daily Beast who tweeted rather glibly that asserting the continued humanity of gangbangers was “not the hill to die on” for liberals expressing outrage.

This is a curious notion, since it seems to posit outright not only that humanity is something to be conferred on the deserving rather than something that is innate and inalienable, but also that it should only be doled out when doing so is a politically savvy move.

It does not take careful study of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to realize that this is not how civil rights work. While it can be tempting to reassure oneself that individuals who put forth horrifying transgressions lack humanity, doing so is willfully ignorant of the terrible things all people are capable of because of humans’

intrinsically flawed nature. This is not to say that there is no moral distance between any given two people, of course, but rather to point out the dangers of assuming that it takes a monster to commit monstrous acts. There are countless examples of horrific deeds done by supposedly decent people, for supposedly justified causes, that prove otherwise.

Regardless of guilt or criminal status, humanity cannot be meted out or taken away.

(The religiously inclined should recognize that this particular decision is the responsibility of a figure of considerably higher authority.) Human rights, therefore, are likewise nonnegotiable.

This, of course, is what separates them from privileges. The rights of criminals — not only the accused, but the convicted and the guilty — may differ from those of one’s own friends and neighbors, but they are equally sacrosanct; the reality no amount of rhetorical distancing can evade is that their rights are the foundation of those shared by every member of society.

All successes and failures in organizing society have been concerned with a central issue: the question of what people owe to one another.

The fact of humans’ mutual indebtedness is as inescapable as the turning of the Earth. People are all bound together insolubly, no matter the revulsion some inspire in the rest, by the terrifying truth that everyone has in common one life during which to live and struggle and, one day, die. The recognition of not being alone in the terror of this realization is what unites people, and what forms the basis of human rights.

It is easy to think about the extent of people’s obligation to one another if one only considers one’s friends and neighbors, the members of polite society who have agreed to adhere to the rules, the people who are easy to look at. This, however, leaves the central question unanswered. When all social niceties have been stripped away and all agreements to behave in a civilized manner have been transgressed against, all that remains are people who hold nothing in common but the inextinguishable link of their shared humanity. This is when the question is really confronted for the difficult one that it is. What could one owe criminals and murderers? The answer lies in the fact that the nature of the obligation is not individual, but societal, and criminals can no more extricate themselves from humanity through violence than the most blameless saint can through innocence.

Whatever people owe the transgressor and the stranger is the bedrock on which everyone’s rights rest, safe in the knowledge that there is an inviolable, inherent dignity in each living soul. When that shared humanity is denied, whatever the intention, the bottom falls out.

No matter what is supposedly being defended, when cruelty is used to justify cruelty, the way gang violence has been used to justify tearing families apart and locking people in detention centers with endemic cultures of sexual abuse, nothing worth defending remains intact. People’s humanity, Archbishop Desmond Tutu once famously said, is “inextricably bound up” in each other’s. It would be wise to remember that the same is true for people’s inhumanity. After all, if they are only animals, why would the rest of society be anything else?

THURSDAY, MAY 24, 2018

PAGE 7

THE DARTMOUTH OPINION

STAFF COLUMNIST ANMOL GHAVRI ‘18

GUEST COLUMNISTS PAULINA CALCATERRA ‘19 & KATHERINE CARITHERS ‘20

Where Are the Asians?

In Response to ‘Yes Means Yes’

Deconstructing what “Asian” means requires understanding “Asia’s” emergence.

May is Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month (AAPIHM) in the United States, and Dartmouth has been recognizing the month through programming over the past few weeks. The theme of this year’s AAPIHM at Dartmouth has been “Counter Currents: Beyond the Surface,” which was meant to highlight and uplift identities and narratives that are typically subsumed and homogenized within mainstream definitions of “Asian,” “Asian-American” and “Pacific Islander.” Much of the programming planned by this year’s AAPIHM committee has centered around deconstructing perceptions of identity and making new connections and solidarities with those identities, which typically do not get included in popular discourse of what being “Asian” is. This impulse toward further reflection, critique and inclusion in AsianAmerican and Pacific Islander communities should be lauded. In my view, Pan-Asian activists and community members should take a step further and seek to deconstruct how “Asia” emerged as a geographical unit in order to understand how and to what degree myriad people from various populations in “Asia” do and do not self-define as “Asian.”

Where does Europe end and Asia begin?

Historically, this delineation has shifted significantly. What makes one corner of the Eurasian landmass “Europe” and the other threefourths of it, consisting of 4.5 billion people and 55 countries, “Asia”? The Greeks and Romans during classical antiquity defined “Asia” as the eastern realms of the Mediterranean where they had colonies. Asia Minor was and still is considered essentially the Anatolian peninsula, and Asia Major, to the Greeks and Romans, was the domain of the various hostile Persian empires that rose and collapsed. This definition from classical antiquity was based on an “otherizing” of non-Greek and Roman territories and excluded entirely what Westerners typically include in their imaginations of Asia and most of Europe, too.

Do the peoples and countries that now fall into the massively expanded category of “Asia” share anything in common?

Yes and no. Many of the nation-states and ethnic identities in South, Central and Western “Asia” have a cultural link due to the history of Islam and use of Perso-Arabic scripts in languages.

Indonesia, too, shares this socio-cultural link as the most populous Muslim nation-state in the world. The peoples living in the nation-states of South Asia and East Asia share some cultural affinities as well, due to the spread of Hinduism and various forms of Buddhism. But are these characteristics enough to lump the majority of the world’s population into its own continent at some arbitrary geographical cutoff point when Eurasia is a geographically contiguous landmass?

Indeed, the definition of Eurasia’s northwestern corner as its own continent is primarily based on a shared cultural milieu and myth based in Christianity and self-perceptions of a GrecoRoman past. Hence, if continents are not simply based on contiguous landmasses, would it not make sense to delineate continents consisting of “East Asia,” “South Asia” and “West Asia” based on some shared cultural milieus and histories?

Samuel Huntington, in his widely discredited work published toward the end of the Cold

War, essentially did that when he split the world up into various “civilizations” based on what he saw as shared cultural identities, political systems and histories. Actually defining new continents within Eurasia based on perceptions of shared cultural and historical identities would certainly still be insufficient, as the entire concept of “Asia” and “civilization” has a problematic past.

The most important shared characteristic of the people living in the nation-states of “Asia” is the shared experience of varying forms of European colonialism. Practically no section of so-called “Asia” was untouched by European empires; even China and Japan experienced a degree of informal European imperialism.

During the late stages of European colonialism in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the ideology used

by European powers to justify violently holding onto colonies was that so-called “Asiatics” were in various states of civilizational backwardness vis-à-vis the liberal “enlightened” European nation-states. The practices and ways of living that colonial administrators encountered in colonized lands, where inhabitants allegedly practiced barbaric customs, reified an auto-imagination of difference and of Europe as “other” in an otherwise contiguous landmass. Thus, the entire conceptualization of “Asia” was invented

by Europeans as a place where they “civilized” inhabitants deemed as “others,” which was not perceived as such by the people living in the encompassed territories.

Yet inhabitants of what Europe defined as “Asia” began re-appropriating the label beginning in the early 1900s as various flavors of nationalism and anti-colonialism began emerging. PanAsianism in Japan and Bengal sought to flip the notion of European superiority over “Orientals” on its head by either reviving cultural glory, or, in the case of Japan, actually defeating a European power in a war and going on to become an empire itself. Practically every form of anti-colonial nationalism in “Asia,” from India and Iran to Egypt and China, sought to contest European imaginations of non-Europeans to justify calls of nationalism. Accordingly, “Asian” was then re-appropriated and “Asians” were agents in self-defining as such.

Hence, I am not advocating to discontinue the usage of “Asia” and “Asian.” These terms have entered scholarly and popular discourse, and as laid out above, so-called “Asians” have been and continue to be agents in re-appropriating these terms. If the entire notion of “Asia” is a cultural construct originally developed by Europeans to self-define against an “other,” then people from the nation-states of “Asia” should be encouraged to be agents in self-defining and negotiating their own identities, whether or not that involves a geographical definition or label. Yet if people only seek out Pan-Asian identities that fit the geographical definition of “Asia” on maps, then that fails to acknowledge the heterogeneity of Pan-Asian identities. The mainstream hegemony of “Asia” as a historical construct in geography should be complicated in order to further the cause of making room for as many heterogeneous identities as possible.

Ghavri is a Pan-Asian student coordinator for Dartmouth’s Pan-Asian Community.

“Yes” doesn’t always mean “yes.”

We are writing as individuals who are deeply We also want to address the claims about engaged in sexual violence prevention and false reports that were made in “Yes Means Yes.” response work at Dartmouth.

There is a difference between regretting a sexual By encouraging people to accept that real encounter and walking away from an experience consent is enthusiastic consent, we are hoping feeling violated. Conflating these experiences to foster a culture in which people want their perpetuates the idea that many allegations of partner(s) to be 100 percent confident in their sexual assault are “false reports” made in bad decision to engage in sexual activities together. faith. The idea that people are looking for an The Dartmouth’s recent op-ed “Yes means excuse to make “false reports” is outrageous.

Yes” by Jillian Freeman ’21 critiques the language Sexual assault is a traumatic experience; no one of “enthusiasm” for not being objective, which is asks for it. People do not label a hookup that true. Different people do not express enthusiasm they regret sexual assault as an “easy way out.” in the same way. However, “enthusiastic consent” Often, for a survivor, coming to terms with the refers to the clear, unambiguous expression of assault is difficult in itself, let alone facing the desire. It is difficult, and maybe even impossible, backlash, blame and invalidation that many to express genuine enthusiasm when harmful survivors experience. power dynamics and coercion are present in Although false reporting does occur, the a sexual interaction. Therefore, unenthusiastic rates are low. According to a 2012 report by consent is not consent. Dartmouth policy the National Sexual Violence Research Center, and many state laws recognize that a coerced a review of the literature indicates that false “yes” is an invalid form of consent. As a reporting rates are between 2 percent and 10 result, spreading the idea that “the word ‘yes’ percent. This means that at least 90 percent ... always demonstrates consent” propagates of reports are true. Furthermore, these falsemisinformation. reporting rates are consistent across other crimes.

These concepts are especially important to For instance, at least 10 percent of auto theft understand because sexual coercion is incredibly reports are estimated to be false reports made to common at Dartmouth; this reap the benefits of insurance community needs to legitimize “Additionally, claims, according to research those experiences of violence. on auto theft prevention by the concept of The 2017 Dartmouth Sexual the National Conference of Misconduct Survey, featuring ‘enthusiastic State Legislatures. responses from a total of 3,147 consent’ asks Many people also conflate undergraduate and graduate/ unfounded reports with professional students, found people to consider false reports. However, just that “approximately a third the following: why because a perpetrator is not to over half ” of respondents found responsible for their would someone “know someone who has been actions in a criminal or college forced or coerced by another not be enthusiastic, investigation does not mean person to do something yet still say yes?” that a survivor made the report sexually they did not want to in bad faith or with “malicious do.” intent.” Instead, there may be Additionally, the concept a lack of evidence, witnesses of “enthusiastic consent” asks people to consider or other resources that are necessary to obtain the following: why would someone not be a finding of responsibility. enthusiastic, yet still say yes? Primarily, it is Ultimately, being intimidated or pressured because communities, both within and beyond to mumble “‘yes,’ ‘sure’ or ‘okay’” to things Dartmouth, are fraught with power imbalances. one is not fully comfortable with is not consent.

These dynamics impact sexual encounters and Clearly, yes does not always mean yes. Ideally, can lead to coercion. The presence of direct it would be that simple, but we exist in a society or indirect threats and pressuring can push rife with power imbalances and coercion. As a people to participate in behaviors they may be community, Dartmouth should work to correct uncomfortable with in order to avoid various power imbalances rather than ignoring the forms of retaliation. This is an evidently true impact they have on interpersonal interactions. statement. There is a tragically rich history of Misunderstanding these issues can be incredibly retaliatory violence against individuals who reject harmful to survivors and the entire community. unwanted sexual advances. This is just one reason Most importantly, to survivors of sexual why some people might feel that saying “yes” is assault who may have felt invalidated by the necessary to get through an unwanted encounter. ideas presented in the op-ed, “Yes Means Yes,” Therefore, it must be acknowledged that there we see you and we hear you. are instances in which people might say “yes” to activities to which they do not consent.

Calcaterra is a member of the Class of 2019 and Beyond the question of coercion, the phrase Carithers is a member of the Class of 2020. Calcaterra “real consent is enthusiastic consent” is related to and Carithers are Movement Against Violence facilitators broader barriers to having healthy and positive and Sexual Assault Peer Advisors. Calcaterra also serves as sexual relationships. Many accept as a norm executive chair of the Student and Presidential Committee that people should put up with and engage in on Sexual Assault. encounters that are not enjoyable or pleasurable The Dartmouth welcomes guest columns. We request for them. But pleasure should be at the heart that guest columns be the original work of the submitter. of conversations around sexual encounters. Submissions may be sent to both opinion@thedartmouth.

Enthusiasm should not be a weird or burdensome com and editor@thedartmouth.com. Submissions will expectation. receive a response within three business days.

PAGE 8

THE DARTMOUTH ARTS

THURSDAY, MAY 24, 2018

Alumni filmmakers show hidden side of Pyeongchang Olympics

By EMMA GUO

The Dartmouth Staff

Years after meeting in the basement of a Dartmouth fraternity, Alexi Pappas ’12 and Jeremy Teicher ’10 embarked on an Olympic journey unlike any other. After the president of the International Olympic Committee happened upon the couple’s first feature film “Tracktown” during a flight, they were chosen to participate in the Olympic Art Project during the 2018 Pyeongchang Games.

Teicher and Pappas, the latter of whom represented Greece at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games, decided to create a series of five episodic shorts that details the Olympic experience through an Olympian’s point of view. The series, “Olympic Dreams,” was recently released and is now available online.

The series depicts the experiences of Penelope, a young cross-country skier played by Pappas, as she competes for the first time at the Olympic games. Pappas and Teicher collaborated with comedian Nick Kroll, who plays a volunteer dentist named Ezra in “Olympic Dreams,” to write and film the shorts. Drawing upon Pappas’s experiences as a competitor at the

2016 Games, experiences of winter Olympians interviewed by the team and Teicher’s experiences as an observer, the team crafted a story that focuses not only on the glory and magic of the Olympics but also on its day-to-day aspects.

Pappas and Teicher were granted access to training facilities and other locations in the Olympic Village that had never been filmed prior to the development of their project. They took advantage of this opportunity to create a full-bodied picture of Olympic life.

“People can see a medal ceremony, interviews and stories about the top couple of athletes, but there are thousands of other athletes and stories … that allow the viewer to peek into a window of a world they might not have seen otherwise,” Teicher said.

The main story told in “Olympic Dreams” focuses on Penelope, documenting her experiences from the opening ceremonies to the closing ceremonies. Awed and excited to be part of her first Olympics, Penelope finishes outside the top positions in her first and only race. It’s a rare snapshot of the inevitable disappointment of many Olympians who do not make it to the podium despite working

nearly their entire lives to reach the Games. The feeling fades, however, as Penelope realizes how lucky she is to be surrounded by similarlyminded people who have dedicated their lives to a sport. Along the way, “Olympic Dreams” gives viewers an all-access pass into the lives of Olympians in the Olympic Village, from the dining halls to the laundry room to the leisure stations where Olympians are seen battling it out on the air hockey tables.

The series also follows Ezra as he navigates his way through the Olympic village — not as an athlete, but as an observer and volunteer dentist. Ezra’s story serves to introduce viewers to a wide variety of Olympians, such as freestyle skier Nico Porteous, bronze medalist in the men’s halfpipe at the Pyeongchang Games, as they sit at his dentist’s chair and make conversation with him. Finally, Ezra and Penelope meet, and sparks fly as they travel through the Olympic village and the city of Pyeongchang, experiencing the culture, food and nightlife.

Wandering around Pyeongchang and the Olympic Village to film, Pappas and Teicher used their Dartmouth connections to work with Chinedum Nwaigwe ’19

COURTESY OF OLYMPIC.ORG

As part of the Olympic Art Project, the filmmakers had behind-the-scenes access to Olympic facilities and the Olympic Village.

COURTESY OF OLYMPIC.ORG

Pappas and Teicher previously collaborated on the 2016 film “Tracktown.”

in the editing process. Nwaigwe as observer and Olympian to be worked closely with Pappas and pivotal in creating the story and Teicher while she was on the film choosing which aspects of Olympic studies domestic study project in life to highlight. Pappas believes that Los Angeles, editing footage for her experiences as an Olympian Pappas’s behind-the-scenes vlog were particularly important in from the Olympic village. constructing a narrative that felt “Alexi and Jeremy would give real and authentic. me footage along with a narrative “It’s fun for me as an Olympian to they wanted me to use, and I would represent the Olympic world in a way sit and edit their footage for them that would make other Olympians while choosing parts I thought were proud … I wanted the film world to important for their overall story,” view it as a great standalone movie, Nwaigwe said. but it was also Pa p p a s a n d “Jeremy and I make a important that Te i c h e r h a d I wasn’t a nont wo g o a l s fo r great team, and I think athlete trying t h e “ O l y m p i c both of us had the to capture that Dreams” series: background to tell a experience,” to capture a side she said. of the Olympics very unique story.”

B y that people had in cludin g a never seen before roster of real and to create an -ALEXIS PAPPAS ’12 Olympians, indie film that like American could stand on its freestyle own. skier Gus “Jeremy and I make a great Kenworthy, Pappas and Teicher team, and I think both of us had hoped to create a standalone indie the background to tell a very unique film similar to “Tracktown.” story,” Pappas said.

“Hopefully, people who might Pappas and Teicher hope that not necessarily be interested in the this series will shed more light on Olympics would still want to watch what Olympic life is actually like, it simply because it’s a good story,” apart from the glories of medaling. Teicher said.

“I think we deepen people’s Though Pappas and Teicher appreciation for the Olympics have more creative projects in the and create more empathy [for] the offing, including a full-length movie Olympic experience — you can made from the raw leftover footage understand what it’s actually like of “Olympic Dreams,” their focus to be there,” Teicher said. may be elsewhere for the time being.

Weaving their respective realities After years of romantic and creative into a fictitious story, Teicher and partnership, the couple is getting Pappas found their experiences married early next month.