VOL. CLXXVI NO. 61
PARTLY CLOUDY HIGH 68 LOW 41
OPINION
ALLARD: WIN THE BATTLE, WIN THE WAR PAGE 4
MALBREAUX: BAN FLAVORS FOR E-CIGARETTES PAGE 4
ARTS
Q&A WITH PASS BY CATASTROPHE MUSICIAN ZACH PLANTE ’18 PAGE 7
REVIEW: ‘THE GOLDFINCH’ FAILS TO LIVE UP TO NOVEL’S STANDARD PAGE 8
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TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2019
HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE
Phi Delta Alpha faced College restricts access to dorms, summer suspension house centers, citing bias incidents
B y THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF Phi Delta Alpha fraternity was suspended during the summer term after serving hard alcohol punch to an underage student, according to a report from the Organizational Adjudication Committee. The fraternity will undergo alcohol probation for fall term followed by one term of organizational College Probation during winter term 2020. The suspension of Phi
Delta Alpha is the latest in a series of Greek-related incidents in recent years. During fall 2018, Sigma Phi Epsilon provided alcohol to a minor and “[failed] to comply with the terms of its previous disciplinary sanction during the summer ter m 2018,” according to the OAC. The OAC planned to impose a threeterm suspension effective fall, winter and spring of the 2018-19 academic SEE PHI DELT PAGE 2
Sexual misconduct settlement details filed, Dartmouth denies fault B y THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
The parties in the sexual misconduct class action against Dartmouth made public the terms of their proposed settlement last week, with the College maintaining its position that it did not commit wrongdoing and expressly denying that it broke any law or statute. In a filing yesterday in the U.S. District Court of New Hampshire, the nine
representative plaintiffs and the College spelled out the ter ms of their proposed settlement — first announced last month — which, if approved by the judge, would bring to a conclusion legal proceedings in which the plaintif fs charged that Dartmouth knowingly turned a blind eye to accusations of sexual misconduct by former psychological and SEE SETTLEMENT PAGE 5
KATE HERRINGTON/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
House Center B now has restricted access to Allen and School House students only.
B y THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF Students will only be able to access College residences within their own House community effective this past weekend, associate dean of residential life and director of residential education Mike Wooten confirmed to The Dartmouth. Instead of having universal access to all College dorms, as has been the policy until now, students will only be able to use their student IDs to access buildings within their House community. That will include restricted access to House Center A — colloquially known as “the Onion” — for North Park and South House students, House Center B — known as “the Cube”
— for Allen and School House students and Brace Commons for East Wheelock House students. Students living in the McLaughlin cluster, a Living Learning Community house, Greek houses, College-owned apartments and off-campus housing will have access to buildings in their House. Student members of the residential life staff will continue to have universal access so that they can serve in their roles. Wooten first announced the policy change in an email sent to residential life staffers Friday afternoon. Wooten told The Dartmouth that the change comes in response to a request from Student Assembly to limit student access to dorms after a number of
racial bias incidents that occurred last October which included vandalism on student doors. In February 2019, after a series of racist emails were sent to members of the Dartmouth community, dean of the College Kathryn Lively publicly committed to recommendations made by Student Assembly, one of which included changing security practices for College residences. “We’re hoping this doesn’t come across as some draconian move — it’s not really meant to be that,” Wooten said. “It’s really about trying to find the right flexibility between open [spaces] … and also trying to be responsive to security.” SEE DORMS PAGE 5
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TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2019
THE DARTMOUTH NEWS
Immigration checkpoint near campus sparks community concerns B y KYLE MULLINS AND MARY WINTERS The Dartmouth Staff
Federal immigration officers operated a checkpoint on I-89 outside of Lebanon earlier this month, surprising residents, attracting strong criticism from immigrant rights groups and campus organizations and prompting an official rebuke from the College. The checkpoint, set up by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents between exits 18 and 19, was the closest to Dartmouth in recent years, according to a statement from the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire, and it coincided with the arrival of first-year international students on campus for pre-orientation activities, which began on Sept. 6. The College condemned the checkpoint as “unnecessary” in a press release that evening, stating that the checkpoint “sends a message at odds with the open and welcoming values of an institution like Dartmouth.” The statement also noted that Dartmouth wishes to maintain “an environment free of harassment and discrimination based on immigration or citizenship status.” The checkpoint was conducted weeks after the August arrests of 18 people without documentation in the Upper Valley. Those individuals were arrested between July 29 and Aug. 1, when CBP conducted patrols in the area. Other similar sweeps and subsequent arrests have taken place in New Hampshire and Vermont throughout the summer, with over 20 people being arrested in a series of sweeps in the Lebanon area this past week. Gilles Bissonnette, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire, expressed concern about the proximity of the checkpoint to Dartmouth’s campus as well as broader issues with its establishment in response to a request for comment. “These checkpoints are against our core values of liberty in New Hampshire,” Bissonnette wrote in an
email statement to The Dartmouth, alleging that they “cause unnecessary delays and are a tax on time, as well as create a police state where law enforcement seize people without any suspicion that a crime has been committed.” Bissonnette added that the ACLU is investigating how the checkpoint was conducted. CBP spokesperson Steven Bansbach wrote in an email to The Dartmouth that checkpoints are “a vital tool for the U.S. Border Patrol’s national security efforts.” “The United States Border Patrol (USBP) carefully selects checkpoint locations along routes of egress from the immediate border to maximize border enforcement while minimizing effects on the travelling public,” Bansbach wrote. Whenaskedforcomment,Dartmouth College Republicans chairman Daniel Bring ’21 directed The Dartmouth to a statement on the group’s Facebook page, which condemns the College for a “flagrant disregard for the rule of law in favor of what they call ‘open and welcoming values.’” “T he Dartmouth College Republicans support legal immigration to this great country, but those that cut the line and cheat the process should not be rewarded or protected for doing so,” the statement reads, also noting the group’s support for the “men and women of law enforcement.” The checkpoint operated one day before the start of the College’s International Student Pre-Orientation Program, a week-long series of events intended to help newly-arriving international students prepare for life at Dartmouth. It appears, however, that the stop did not impact any students coming to campus on Dartmouth Coach busses. Benjamin Blunt, vice president of the Dartmouth Coach, confirmed that none of their buses passed through the checkpoint because their route takes them off of I-89 before the location that CBP had set up its roadblock. “There were no interactions,” Blunt
CORRECTIONS We welcome corrections. If you believe there is a factual error in a story, please email editor@thedartmouth.com.
said. “I can tell you that CBP has never pulled over a Dartmouth Coach bus.” Representatives from Advance Transit, a free bus service in the Upper Valley often used by Dartmouth community members, could not be reached for comment. The Greyhound bus service, which operates in the Upper Valley, also could not be reached for comment. While the establishment of the checkpoint in a rural area far from the Canadian border may seem out of place, federal law says that CBP can establish such checkpoints “within a reasonable distance from any external boundary of the United States.” “Reasonable distance” is defined as 100 air miles from any external border, including the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans as well as the Gulf of Mexico. Dartmouth noted this wide reach in its statement, pointing out that Dartmouth is “far from an international border.” Bissonnette similarly noted that Lebanon is “approximately 100 driving miles from the Canadian border.” At these checkpoints, CBP can pull over any vehicle without reasonable suspicion and detain the driver for a brief period of time, generally defined as 15 minutes. Kira Kelley, an immigration lawyer and chair of the Vermont chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, said that anyone questioned by CBP should remain silent. “[Border Patrol is] not allowed to do anything other than pull you aside and detain you briefly, which again, should be 15 minutes,” Kelley said. Kelley said she was stopped for nearly 30 minutes when she drove through the checkpoint on Thursday and was held up by agents. She also said that she knows of people who were stopped for as long as 45 minutes. She said that she did not answer any questions asked by the agents and claimed that agents are allowed to lie to detainees about what they can and cannot do. “They’re gonna lie to you to make you think that they can [do things they cannot], and that, unfortunately, is totally legal,” Kelley said. Asma Elhuni, an immigrant rights activist and lead organizer at the United Valley Interfaith Project, said that her organization put up a sign on the
highway before the checkpoint to warn drivers to exit the highway to avoid the checkpoint. She added that the agents at the stop knew her by name because she has been through so many checkpoints in New Hampshire. Elhuni said she believes she experienced racial profiling the second time she went through the Lebanon stop. “I went into the checkpoint, sitting in the back seat, with a person that is black,” Elhuni said. “And when we entered … his windows are shaded, so they didn’t know it was me in the back — and right away, they put two fingers up, and they say, ‘two, two,’ running, as if to say ‘get this car.’” After being stopped and questioned, theywereallowedthroughthecheckpoint, according to Elhuni. A video posted to Elhuni’s Facebook page shows her and the agents trading accusations of harassment. Kelley also said that she believes racial profiling occurred at the Lebanon checkpoint. Hanover police captain Mark Bodanza said that neither he nor police chief Charlie Dennis received notification that CBP was conducting
operations in the Upper Valley, and that they have not been reached out to by members of the Hanover community. “We haven’t received any calls from members of our community in regards to any criminal investigation, or concerns over the police department’s involvement, or any members of our community being impacted by enforcement by Border Patrol,” Bodanza said. According to the Valley News, Lebanon police chief Richard Mello said that Lebanon police were not involved in immigration enforcement operations but that they had been notified of CBP’s presence beforehand. New Hampshire department of safety strategic communications administrator Michael Todd said in a voicemail message that the state police have “no operational or planning involvement with regard to [immigration enforcement] stops.” Dartmouth’s Office of Visa and Immigration Services and Office of Pluralism and Leadership did not respond to requests for comment. The ACLU of Vermont directed requests for comment to the ACLU of New Hampshire.
Phi Delt suspension one of many in recent years FROM PHI DELT PAGE 1
year, followed by two terms of probation, but the sanction could not be enforced after the national organization revoked the chapter’s charter. During winter 2018, Kappa Kappa Kappa admitted responsibility for activity that violated Dartmouth’s “Other Drug and Hazing and Alcohol” policies. The organization received a threeterm suspension, followed by four terms of alcohol probation and two terms of college probation — which remain in effect. Other fraternity organizations have received similar disciplinary action — and, in some cases,
formal derecognition by the College — in recent years. Alpha Delta came under fire for “threatening or causing physical harm to new members” during the fall term 2014, according to the OAC. Additionally, after its national charter was revoked in 2015, Sigma Alpha Epsilon faced scrutiny over allegations of hazing and other violations, which an internal investigation by the College validated. Both organizations were ultimately derecognized. The president and vice president of Phi Delta Alpha could not be reached for comment as of press time. This story will be updated as more information becomes available.
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2019
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THE DARTMOUTH NEWS
With advocacy from professor, state passes menstrual health law B y LORRAINE LIU
The Dartmouth Staff
Under a new state menstrual health law passed in July, public middle and high schools in New Hampshire will now be required to provide free disposable menstrual pads and tampons in female and gender-neutral bathrooms. The bill, Senate Bill 142, was first proposed by Rochester, NH high schooler Caroline Dillon and later garnered support from female state legislators, such as Sen. Martha Hennessey ’76 (D-Hanover), Rep. Po l l y C a m p i o n ( D - H a n ove r ) and Rep. Mary Jane Mulligan (D-Hanover) and gover nment professor Deborah Brooks. Brooks, who has been researching global menstrual health with her students and recently helped develop the International Menstrual Health Entrepreneurship Roundup, a menstrual health website, testified
in favor of the bill. After the bill took shape late last year and passed in the Senate nearly unanimously, supporters and opponents of the bill testified in front of the House Education Committee in March and the House itself in May, where it received party-line votes, according to Hennessey. The bill was then signed into law in July by Gov. Chris Sununu (R), who met with Dillon before the bill’s passage and signed the bill in private, Hennessey added. Dillon became inspwired to propose the bill when she learned about “period poverty,” the term for the stigma experienced by those who cannot afford or lack access to menstrual hygiene products, as part of a school project. Before the bill was passed, certain public middle and high schools in New Hampshire provided free menstrual and other hygienic products to students
in the schools’ nurse’s offices, Brooks said. However, Brooks, referring to Dillon’s testimony, added that accessing those products was inconvenient and sometimes embarrassing for individuals who needed those products and was also an invasion of privacy at the public nurses’ offices. “It’s really challenging if they don’t have quick and easy access to products,” Brooks said. Because some schools already offered free menstrual products in the nur se’s of fice, Brooks said that she did not imagine a costly expenditure for schools to distribute free menstrual products in their female and gender-neutral bathrooms under the new law. “In many cases, schools are providing some of these products anyway, so the actual extra cost for mandating that schools provide them may not be that much higher,” Brooks said.
SOMEONE SPIKED THE PUNCH
DIVYA KOPALLE/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
Phi Delta Alpha was placed under suspension summer term due to an alcohol violation.
Hennessey said she expected a slight increase in the number of menstrual products purchased in schools, with the spending coming from the budgets of individual school districts. Since the bill does not include a budget plan, districts can additionally partner with nonprofits or organizations to fund or supply menstrual products. Hennessey attributed the bill’s relatively quick passage to the lack of emphasis on creating a budget for it. “I think if we had to put [the bill] through the state as a finance committee saying that we needed money, it would have had a harder time passing,” Hennessey said. In addition, Hennessey noted that Dillon’s courage and initiative were crucial reasons that the bill passed smoothly. “I think [the bill was able to pass relatively quickly] largely because we had this very articulate and well-
prepared high school senior who was in charge of it,” she said. “In other states, it’s simply legislators who are coming forward and talking about how they need these kinds of bills.” Aika Riguera ’21, an IMHER research assistant who helped Brooks edit her testimony for the bill, said she was happy to see that her efforts were helpful in a real-world legislative capacity. “When you’re doing research, you rarely get to enact real legislative change,” Riguera said. “So that was really exciting.” Since the launch of IMHER, the website assembled information on organizations that aim to address global menstrual health problems and posted information on activities relevant to menstrual health, according to Brooks. She noted that the website added 40 new organizations to the database and that students wrote about 20 articles for the website this past summer.
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TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2019
THE DARTMOUTH OPINION
STAFF COLUMNIST SYDNEY ALLARD ‘21
SENIOR STAFF COLUMNIST TYLER MALBREAUX ‘20
Win the Battle, Win the War
Ban Flavors for E-Cigarettes
Victories for birth control provides a valuable lesson on social justice. The legalization of the birth control pill was one of the greatest victories for feminism in recent history: Its use is prevalent, and its effects are profound. Though they were aware of the pill’s potential for women’s liberation, the women who worked to legalize the pill strategically prioritized legal goals over making an ideological statement. Their success was striking. As thencongresswoman Clare Boothe Luce put it just after the pill was legalized, “Modern woman is at last as free, as a man is free, to dispose of her own body, to earn her living, to pursue the improvement of her mind, to try a successful career.” The movement to legalize the birth control pill should serve as a model for other movements for social change: Focus on the practical, and the rest will follow. Given the pill’s widespread and revolutionary effects, it is likely surprising that the women behind the effort to legalize the pill, namely Estelle Griswold and Margaret Sanger, did all that they could to deemphasize the pill’s potential for feminist social change. The 1965 Supreme Court ruling that legalized the pill for the first time, Griswold v. Connecticut, actively avoided using equal protection language, even when some justices recommended it. The movement was successful precisely because it valued practical victories over rigid principles. In fact, in preparation for the case, the Planned Parenthood Federation and Griswold fired all of their female attorneys and replaced them with males. Sure, firing female attorneys wasn’t a particularly feminist move, but it may have made the case more likely to win over an all-male Supreme Court. We can’t know for sure why Planned Parenthood replaced their female defense team, but it’s possible that their willingness
DEBORA HYEMIN HAN, Editor-in-Chief
to forgo an all-female defense improved their chances of achieving a much more important victory for women. Compared to modern social justice movements that often emphasize ideological consistency (for example, the idea that feminist movements should be publicly led exclusively by women, that antiracist movements should only be led by people of color, etc.), the success of the birth control legalization movement serves as a compelling counterpoint. Achieving concrete victories is often more important than taking a high-minded ideological stand. Griswold ran a Planned Parenthood clinic in New Haven, CT, where she distributed contraceptive pills to women . When she was arrested, she challenged the constitutionality of the law prohibiting the distribution of the pill and her case made it to the Supreme Court. Her challenge, though, was based on the sanctity of marriage. She didn’t argue that the pill should be legalized for the good of women — rather, her defense won on the grounds that it should be legalized for use by married couples only because couples have a constitutionally protected right to privacy from government interference. Justice Hugo Black even commented on the conspicuous absence of any equal rights rhetoric, saying, “I can understand an argument, from my own constitutional ideas, based on equal protection … As I understand it, however, you’re abandoning your idea of any argument under equal protection as such.” Griswold’s attorneys confirmed. Some feminists would see this lack of equal protection in the defense as a missed opportunity — not only did Griswold fail to mention gender SEE ALLARD PAGE 6
AIDAN SHEINBERG, Publisher
ALEX FREDMAN, Executive Editor PETER CHARALAMBOUS, Managing Editor
ANTHONY ROBLES, Managing Editor
PRODUCTION EDITORS CAROLINE COOK & EOWYN PAK, Opinion Editors
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KYLEE SIBILIA, Mirror Editor LILI STERN & BAILY DEETER, Sports Editors LEX KANG & LAUREN SEGAL, Arts Editors DIVYA KOPALLE, Photo Editor SAMANTHA BURACK & BELLA JACOBY, Design Editors
HIMADRI NARASIMHAMURTHY & KAI SHERWIN, Business Development Directors ALBERT CHEN & ELEANOR NIEDERMAYER, Strategy Directors VINAY REDDY & ERIC ZHANG, Marketing, Analytics and Technology Directors
HATTIE NEWTON, Templating Editor JESS CAMPANILE, Multimedia Editor ELIZA JANE SCHAEFFER, Engagement Editor
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 federal ban on e-cigarette flavors will discourage teen use. While e-cigarettes are now, for the first time, attracting serious national attention, their popularity is nothing new to me. Nearly five years ago, there existed a sort of underground market for e-cigarettes at my private high school in Louisiana. The profiteers in this racket, a handful of sophomore boys, used all sorts of ingenious means to buy product to skirt legal age restrictions — fake IDs, siblings over 18 and online purchases made with Bitcoin. What I saw in my high school five years ago is a reflection of what is happening nationwide — a nicotine-fueled epidemic in which those most likely to develop addiction are teenagers who were not previously tobacco smokers. Let’s face it: Vaping e-cigarettes is “cool” among young adults now in the same way tobacco smoking in the 1920s was stylish and sexy. This is because the big companies that make e-cigarettes sell candy-flavored e-liquids — the often nicotine-filled vapor inhaled by the user — to appeal to younger crowds. The federal government ought to take swift action against these companies, first by banning the sale of all e-liquid flavors until further evidence can attest to the safety of ingesting the chemicals present in them. E-cigarettes were developed as a safer alternative to tobacco smoking. Kevin Burns, the chief executive officer of Juul Labs — the vaping behemoth that controls roughly three-fourths of the e-cigarette market — has warned that his company’s own products should not be used by those who are not already tobacco smokers. Yet, it is hard to take Burns’ advisory notice seriously. Until recently, not only did Juul Labs offer such salivating e-liquid flavors such as mango, crème and cucumber, but they also continued to market their products as being safe. The Food and Drug Administration confirmed as much after reviewing congressional testimony given this past July, in which Juul publicly admitted to giving school presentations that told parents and teens that their products were “safer than cigarettes” and “totally safe.” But the usage of e-cigarettes is so recent, having only really taken off within the past decade, that any claims regarding their safety are premature at best. At the very least, advocates for vaping should be cautious given the recent surge of vape-related illnesses. As of last week, there are least 450 active cases, many involving teenagers, around the country
of people suffering from life-threatening pulmonary illnesses. And there is growing consensus among doctors, health officials and government offices that these pulmonary illnesses are caused by the use of electronic cigarettes. On top of that, Bloomberg News reported that the FDA is investigating more than 120 reports of seizures, which occurred between 2010 and 2019, believed to be linked to vaping. Vaping’s defenders claim that e-cigarettes are safe when products are purchased from reputable companies like Juul, and that the real blame lies in illegal modifications — often including cannabis e-liquid products — purchased off the black market. But that argument ignores the fact that users who vape black market products often also vape the legal products that are purchased from store shelves. Federal investigations into the current pulmonary illness cases have confirmed that while only some patients used cannabis products, but that all of the patients used some type of e-liquid. While many have focused their ire at Juul Labs, to their credit, Juul has been the most proactive in reducing their product’s appeal to adolescents. In 2018, under mounting pressure from federal authorities, Juul Labs stopped accepting retail orders for flavored pods, which alone accounted for nearly half of the company’s yearly earnings. In addition, they implemented new photo ID requirements for online purchases and shut down their promotional Instagram account. But this has not been enough to stop teen usage of e-cigarettes from increasing by 20 percent from last year. While Juul has stopped selling some of their most popular flavors, they continue to sell menthol and mint, which could be a substitute for young users. In addition, other smaller companies still offer fruit and candy flavors. This is why a federal ban on all flavors must be implemented across the board. The Trump administration proposed plans for such a sweeping ban this past Wednesday, modeling similar responses in Michigan and San Francisco. But those plans could take months before they go into effect. The country needs action now. The rise of vaping among this nation’s adolescents is a pressing health emergency. The spate of illnesses is already enough for a swift call to action — action which must be taken quickly before good intentions go up in smoke.
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2019
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THE DARTMOUTH NEWS
Independent expert to evaluate claims of proposed settlement class FROM SETTLEMENT PAGE 1
brain sciences professors Todd Heatherton, William Kelley and/ or Paul Whalen for over 16 years. While the parties’ settlement agreement states that the behavior o f t h e t h re e p ro f e s s o r s w a s “antithetical to the mission of Dartmouth College,” the agreement also provides that the College “has denied and continues to deny liability” for the allegations made in the lawsuit filed in November 2018 — a position matching the College’s initial response to the lawsuit in January. T he ag reement states that Dartmouth wishes to settle “to eliminate the burden, expense, i n c o nv e n i e n c e, u n c e r t a i n t y, distraction, and risk of further litigation,” as well as to compensate those harmed by the conduct of the professors. The agreement provides that the settlement should not be seen as an admission of the merits of any allegations of either party. “The Court nor any other court has made any findings or expressed
any opinion concerning the merits, validity, or accuracy of any of the allegations, claims, or defenses in this case,” the agreement states. College spokesperson Diana Lawrence wrote in an email to The Dartmouth that the College recognizes the actions of the three former professors “flies in the face of Dartmouth’s mission and core values.” “This mutually agreed upon settlement resolves the matter without having to go through a courtroom trial,” Lawrence wrote. “The settlement allows the parties to move forward and work together to improve the inclusivity of the research and teaching environment on campus and eliminate power imbalances wherever they exist.” The filing reveals other terms agreed on by the parties, notably defining the class of women who, if the Court approves the settlement, will be entitled to shares of the $14 million settlement fund being established by the College. An automatic $1,000 will be paid to every current or former female
undergraduate who, between April 1, 2012 and Aug. 31, 2017, worked as a research assistant for one or more of the three professors, or who worked on an honors thesis or independent research study in one of the three professors’ labs. An automatic $1,000 will be paid to every female graduate student who, between April 1, 2012 and Aug. 31, 2017, were graduate advisees of any of the three professors; were teaching or research assistants for any of the three professors; or, as graduate students in the PBS department, co-authored a paper with any of the three professors based on research conducted in the lab during the relevant time period, or co-authored at least three papers with any of the three professors. An automatic $1,000 also will be paid to any current or former female graduate student in the department who “will attest that they experienced dignitary, emotional, educational and/or professional har m during this period as a result of the misconduct
Student Assembly leaders strongly criticize policy, call College claim “false” FROM DORMS PAGE 1
Wooten said that since House Centers A and B were constructed to be spaces primarily for their respective House communities due to the relative lack of existing social spaces for those four Houses (Allen, North Park, School and South Houses), limiting access to those two buildings is in line with their original purpose. He added that the College always has to balance the objectives of keeping spaces open with student safety. “This is just one step we’ve taken to make people feel that their home has some measures that protects them and that localizes their experience as if it’s theirs,” Wooten said. In an email sent to Dartmouth’s student body on Saturday afternoon, Student Assembly president Luke
Cuomo ’20 and vice president Ariela Kovary ’20 strongly criticized the College’s decision, writing that “such restrictions pose a threat to Dartmouth’s open and communal nature.” Cuomo and Kovary wrote that the College had not met with SA since February 2019 to discuss changing security practices at College residences and that the College’s claim that the recently-introduced restrictions occurred because of an SA request is “false.” They added that SA had no prior knowledge of the restrictions before their implementation. Regarding the College’s claim that the new restrictions were in response to racial bias incidents and were intended to make campus safer, the pair wrote that the new rules would have the opposite effect, stating that the new policy “reduces the
information” the College has about who enters residences. “Anyone wishing to enter a dorm for nefarious purposes would be able to reach their same perverse objectives under this new policy — in effect, nothing has changed from the status quo,” the statement says. While Cuomo and Kovary wrote that they were committed to working with the Office of Residential Life, they also called on the College to rescind the new rules immediately. “We oppose this change because it is unnecessary and harmful,” Cuomo and Kovary wrote. “It reduces safety, fractures our social spaces, and fails to address the underlying issues, all while inconveniencing students and diminishing Dartmouth’s special character.”
PETER CHARALAMBOUS/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
Moore Hall houses the psychological and brain sciences department.
of one or more of the” three professors. After the automatic $1,000 payments are distributed to class members, any remaining balance of the $14 million settlement fund will be divided among the class members in unequal sums to be determined by an “independent claims expert” to be selected by class counsel and approved by the Court. The independent claims expert will evaluate all of the claims to determine each class member’s share of the settlement funds, considering such factors as: the severity and duration of the alleged hostile environment, emotional distress, physical illness, functional impairment to studies and personal life, economic losses, degree of future treatment needed due to the hostile environment and the overall likelihood of success of each of the claims under Title IX. To be eligible for compensation, women will be required to submit a claims form. When the independent claims ex pert c o m pletes h is or h er allocation within 100 days after the submission deadline, the decision will be binding and not subject to review. Women will have the right to “opt out” of the settlement class and, if they choose, pursue their
own individual claims rather than accept payment from the $14 million settlement fund. Regarding the use of pseudonyms by three of the representative plaintiffs, both sides agreed that Jane Doe and Jane Doe 2 will be permitted to remain anonymous, though their real names will be filed under seal with the court. Any approved settlement class members will be able to seek confidential access to the names of the representative plaintiffs using pseudonyms if they show good cause. Jane Doe 3 will proceed with her existing pseudonym. The use of pseudonyms garnered national attention in May when three additional women signed on to the lawsuit as anonymous plaintiffs, a move to which the College objected. Dartmouth’s challenge to the plaintiffs’ anonymity led to a petition criticizing the College’s tactic. More than 600 people, including presidential candidates Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand ’88 (D-NY), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), signed the petition. The plaintiffs will file a motion for preliminary approval of the settlement on Sept. 25, and the parties requested that a preliminary hearing be held in mid-October, if the Court deems it necessary.
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DARTMOUTHEVENTS
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2019
THE DARTMOUTH EVENTS
FACETIME-BOT
NEELUFAR RAJA ’21
TODAY
10:30 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Exhibition: “Corporeal Imaginations,” sponsored by Dartmouth’s Digital Jusice Lab, Baker Library, 2nd Floor.
3:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Fair: “Student Job Fair - Fall Term,” sponsored by Dartmouth Human Resources, Collis Common Ground.
5:00 p.m. - 6:15 p.m.
The Brooks Family Lecture: “Conservatives and the Constitution,” by Ken I. Kersch, professor of political science, Boston College, sponsored by the Rockefeller Center for Public Policy, Rockefeller Center, Room 003
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8:00 a.m. - 2:00 a.m.
Exhibition: “Generations of Community,” sponsored by Baker Library, Baker Library Main Hall.
4:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m.
Fair: “Social Impact Fair,” sponsored by the Dartmouth Center for Social Impact, Common Ground, Collis Center.
The Dartmouth, Inc. is a nonprofit corporation chartered in the state of New Hampshire. USPS 148-540 ISSN 0199-9931
FROM ALLARD PAGE 4
equality, she also limited the scope of the pill’s availability to married couples. But this was strategic defense on Griswold’s behalf. The Supreme Court was, at the time, completely male. Griswold and Sanger were aware of the sad reality that the justices might have difficulty relating to an argument for the equality of women. They did know, however, that the Court had historically respected the privacy owed to a married couple. Griswold and Sanger were willing to play the game — to make some small sacrifices in the short term to start a conversation about legalizing the pill. Just seven years after Griswold v. Connecticut, the pill was legalized for all Americans regardless of
marital status. Given how pivotal the case was, had Sanger and Griswold not been so strategic, birth control might still not have been legal. Their specific appeal to privacy made it successful. Griswold and Sanger trail blazed a type of pragmatic political activism that has the potential to deliver measurable progress towards a more just society. Their example extends beyond 1960s feminism to all progressive movements fighting entrenched social ills. In today’s world, the Griswold and Sanger example would have a lot to teach the gun control movement, for instance. Sweeping rhetoric supporting the prohibition of guns in general and across-the-board anti-gun statements might not be the
most effective way to build a gun-free society. Extreme ideological stances only serve to rile up gun advocates and stoke the regressive fear that any restriction on gun ownership is the first step toward total illegalization. We should, instead, find some smaller uncontentious points in common and work up from there. This could mean banning semiautomatic weapons in schools federally or prohibiting the sale of assault weapons to people with a background of behavioral instability. Then, with time, it will likely become easier and easier to enact stricter gun laws until America eventually does become a gun-free society. It would be counterproductive, however, to publicize that long-term goal early on.
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2019
THE DARTMOUTH ARTS
PAGE 7
Q&A with Pass By Catastrophe musician Zach Plante ’18
B y Veronica Winham The Dartmouth Staff
Alumnus and musician Zach Plante ’18 has taken his passion for music coast to coast and is set to release his first extended play record with the band Pass By Catastrophe on Sept. 27. Plante, who plays bass, guitar and piano in Pass By Catastrophe, is accompanied by Dexter Simpson, Max Kilberg and Sam Silverman. The band produces rock, indie rock and pop rock that is, according to Plante, reminiscent of the past but with a new modern twist. Produced by Chris Marquez and recorded at the historic Hyde Street Studios in San Francisco, the three tracks on the EP draw on a variety of genres in addition to classic rock — such as indie rock and jazz — and use American and British elements. According to their press release, Pass By Catastrophe’s work “launches the listener stratospheric and then gently brings them down to earth, takes them on a paper route into the suburbs and through the emotional landscape of young people growing up today and yesterday.” In an interview with The Dartmouth, Plante described the band’s process and his personal relationship to music further. How did you join Pass By Catastrophe? ZP: This year, I’ve been working as a research assistant at Stanford, so I’ve been trying to find opportunities for me to play music with people. I texted a couple
undergrads I knew who were in the music scene looking for potential opportunities. One guy got back to me and said they needed someone to fill in for bass on an upcoming show, so I practiced with them a couple times. Their drummer was Sam Silverman and he pulled me aside at the end of the first practice and said, “Hey, I like your playing a lot. I’m starting this new project, are you in or are you out?” And I said, “I’m totally in,” and that’s how the four of us got together.
What is your EP about, if you had to describe it? ZP: There are a number of overarching themes in our EP. The most important overarching theme is coming from elsewhere to California. Our guitarist, Max, wrote all three of the tracks and we all collectively arranged them. He’s from New York originally and he’s always played around with idealism and stereotypes and geographic imaginations of coming to California for college, so those themes are prevalent. And as any rock band does, you have to write a couple sappy love songs, so that’s two of the tracks on the EP. So, I would say coming to California and love and unrequited love are fairly prevalent themes through the album.
arranging, a little bit of lyrical revisions, a lot of detail work. And then when we got into the studio, we had three full 10-to-12 hour days all back-to-back. We did a little bit of mixing in the studio and then our engineer, who we asked to be our producer, Chris Marquez, did a bunch of the mixing. And then we took it to be mastered and left a little room for mastering in the mixes.
the whole project together, that’s our indie rock anthem. I love how cohesive our project is. All the tracks sound very different, but after recording and mixing and mastering, they still sound like us.
What was a highlight of making the EP? ZP: I think one of the coolest experiences being in the studio for me was getting to the studio with our track “Pretty Lady” — being my least favorite of the three — and leaving the studio having taken it stratospheric. We shot that track straight into the stratosphere by the end and that was super cool to witness and be a part of. We were screaming the melody at the top of our lungs by the end. Fantastic experience.
Did you do anything music related at Dartmouth? ZP: I played bass and guitar for the campus band Winterhill for a little over two years at Dartmouth. We were very active on the live music scene on campus. It was a super fun and enjoyable experience and also enjoyable to share our music with the Dartmouth community in shows and our EP. We also got to collaborate with other artists on campus. During 17F, we played the Hard Rock in Boston. The morning of the show, I was in DHMC. My fever cleared, I was discharged and I drove down that night to play the show. That was one of the weirdest days at Dartmouth I ever had.
What is your favorite song on the EP? ZP: “Pretty Lady” is a bop but “Paperboys” is a rock anthem. They’re very different and I love them both in different ways. “What It Takes” just ties
Do you have any advice for current students that are trying to pursue music? ZP: Off the bat, there are a lot of musicians on campus of varying musical backgrounds and varying musical
interests, but it’s difficult to find them and find time to play together and form projects. So, a piece of advice would be to actively pursue connections with other musicians. And, you might have to put in a lot of effort. It’s ultimately very worth it. Also, when it comes to music on campus, especially live music, pay it forward. Go to your friends’ shows, go to other bands’ shows, get in the front row, jump up and down, show up and have fun. After the EP, what does the future hold for Pass By Catastrophe? ZP: In the immediate future, with our EP release, we have zero expectations on how it’s going to be received. We’re super excited to see what happens there, who shows interest, how our family and friends will react, how the music industry will respond. Our focus now is going be in songwriting and building live sets. We’re going to do a lot more writing in a group setting. Max and I wrote a track that we want to develop further this fall; it’s called “Broken Souls.” We have other originals we haven’t recorded and have only played live. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
What process does your band go through when making an EP? ZP: With this project specifically, we put a lot of prep work into the project before even getting to the studio. That involved a lot of practicing on my own time and a lot of practice as a group, workshopping,
COURTESY OF ZACH PLANTE
From left to right: Max Kilberg (guitar), Dexter Simpson (vox), Sam Silverman (drums), Zach Plante (bass, piano, guitar).
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THE DARTMOUTH ARTS
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2019
Review: ‘The Goldfinch’ fails to live up to novel’s standard B y Lauren Segal
The Dartmouth Senior Staff
When word broke that Donna Tartt’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “The Goldfinch” would be adapted into a movie last year, I sighed and dreaded the worst. There is something sacred that is destroyed when a muchbeloved novel makes its on-screen debut. Movie adaptations of novels rarely do their written counterparts justice. Instead, they bury them in piles of scathing reviews and Rotten Tomato ratings that sully not only the film’s reputation but also that of the novel (for example, “The Hunger Games”). Similarly, while “The Goldfinch” as a film failed miserably in recreating the vivid characters and atmosphere of Tartt’s imagination, it partly redeemed itself by creating a standalone experience that did not feel derivative of the novel and managed to preserve the novel’s enduring beauty. Based on a 962-page novel, “The Goldfinch” has a convoluted, twisted plot following the life of Theodore “Theo” Decker from his childhood, starting with his traumatic experience of losing his mother in a terrorist bombing at a New York museum, in which he obtained a painting titled “The Goldfinch.” The story follows Theo as he matures throughout a tumultuous, difficult life full of familial trauma, substance abuse and other complications, all while experiencing guilt and regret from stealing the priceless painting that he feels is too late to return. As much as the plot follows decades of a character’s life, the book is deliberately focused on being well-paced; it moves skillfully through various locations and takes the time needed to cultivate convincing relationships between Theo and other characters to avoid confusing the reader. The film, on the other hand, in its rush to fit a saga into a duration
that is palatable for a feature film, seemed to be operating under the feels disjointed, confused and overall assumption that these individual exhausting to watch. segments can be scrambled at will. The film begins with an older Theo, The three segments — Theo’s life played by Ansel Elgort, haunted by in New York City after the museum the memories of his childhood and its bombing, in Las Vegas with his father intertwining with the titular painting. and his father’s new girlfriend and He monologues in a disjointed and finally, in Amsterdam, wallowing in vague manner, cursing his own his own misery after discovering that actions that follow the aforementioned the painting was stolen by a close bombing, which friend — are all set his life down a “Movie adaptations of plotlines that are dark path, before complex enough the film cuts to novels rarely do their to be their own a younger Theo written counterparts films and should (portrayed by be preserved in justice. Instead, they Oakes Fegley) chronological sitting in the bury them in piles of order. But instead, living room of scathing reviews and they are spliced his temporary and jumbled caretakers whom Rotten Tomato ratings in a way that he stays with that sully not only the underplayed the after his mother’s plot’s strength film’s reputation but abrupt death due as a lifelike tale to the bombing. also that of the novel that closely If that sounds (for example, ‘The follows Theo confusing, it’s and over plays because it is. Hunger Games’).” its weakness as Pe r s o n a l l y, I a long-winded, understood this convoluted mess. sudden jump in chronology — it The movie flits between these three was written into the book, which I parts and disregards the importance of had read prior to watching the film, chronology — essential to memoir-like and it made sense since older Theo stories — which led me to be confused was flashbacking. But what I felt regardless of the fact that I had read was unnecessary and distasteful was the book. I imagine that the film was the excessive use of flashbacks and even harder to follow for those who vignettes that the film abused for the hadn’t. entirety of its running time. While the Perhaps the film’s disjointed novel does include an older Theo’s nature comes from a place of artistic voice looking back at the events inspiration in an attempt to distill the following the museum incident, the novel’s profound, luxurious storytelling. film skipped around to the extent that If anything can be said about the novel, I felt as if I was watching a series of it’s that it holds a powerful aura — a clips, not a grand, overarching story. quiet, reverent glow, if you will — in Theo’s life, as told by the film, clearly the way that Tartt discusses art, history splits into three separate segments and human destruction at the hands that should be paced so that there is of it. Tartt paints a story of stolen art time for each segment to fully and be and tragedy in a romanticized way comprehensive, but the filmmakers reminiscent of old European classics,
but translated on screen it comes off as stilted, not reverent. The film focuses a little too much on the aesthetic of the story, butchering and re-plating the novel to serve the eyes and not the mind. The film’s cinematographic and narrative choices act like a velvet rope in front of a painting; while watching, I felt held at a distance and prevented from breaching the story’s uptight, pretentious façade in order to truly comprehend Theo’s perspective and understanding of the adversities he experienced in the wake of the bombing. The two-and-a-half-hour runtime felt like a fever dream of mediocre acting and screenshots of what the filmmakers thought the book looked like. Indeed, the film also faces the inevitable problem all movie adaptations must as they attempt to condense a several-hundred-page book into 149 minutes. Massive amounts of the detail that made the book so special are lost in the process, raising
the question: How badly did this film butcher the novel? Surprisingly, the movie did not ruin the book for me. “The Goldfinch” onscreen, in its confusing vignettes and stilted storytelling so uncharacteristic of the legendary original, detaches itself from its originator and thus allows one to not enjoy it as its own entity. In other words, the film is so poorly constructed compared to the masterpiece that it tried to adapt, losing all features that made the book unique that I had no choice but to see the film as a subpar standalone product, and therefore it didn’t taint my love for the original novel. “The Goldfinch” perfectly demonstrates the errors filmmakers commit when executing novel adaptations. In fact, it fails in so many ways, deviating so far from the exemplary work the novel is, that it did not kill the wonder that is Tartt’s “The Goldfinch.” Perhaps it may even whet the viewer’s appetite, enticing them to pick up the book for the real experience.
GOODBYE, SUMMER
MICHAEL LIN/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
Summer scenes fade from campus as Fall term begins.