SERIES OF SUCCESS After its ‘Band of Brothers’ success, HBO is bringing in the big guns for this fall. SCENE page 7
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MARCH 22, 2010 VOLUME 84 ISSUE 41 n
NEWS ELECTION COVERAGE The full story of the SG election, including timeline of controversies pages 2 and 4
EDITORIAL
SG ENDORSEMENTS The Eagle’s editorial board weighs in on the elections page 5
SPORTS VICTORY Three Eagles climb podium at wrestling championship page 6
LEADING THE TEAM Women’s lax wins first PL game behind Makoid’s four goals page 6
SCENE HUTCH IS CLUTCH Pop musician Eric Hutchinson ‘Rock and Rolls’ the Tavern
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NO NONSENSE— Protests bloomed across D.C. last weekend as AU students participated in two separate anti-war protests, an anti-health care protest and one for immigration reform. Here, two police officers survey the crowd during Saturday’s National March on Washington.
‘Weekend of activism’ in D.C. At least four separate protests over weekend
Two AU students jailed, released
By MEG FOWLER
By ASHLEY DEJEAN and MEG FOWLER
Eagle Staff Writer This weekend, the high was 73 degrees Fahrenheit, the sun was shining and thousands of people, including many AU students, turned out for at least four rallies that occurred across D.C. in what sophomore in the School of International Service Melissa Mahfouz called “the weekend of activism.” FRIDAY Friday afternoon, the sevenyear anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq War, a student-organized street party “Funk the War: Bad Romance” protested the War on Terror at Farragut Square on 17th and K Streets. The AU group Community Action and Social Justice helped organize the rally with other student groups from across the city. Howard University’s Political Equality Action Committee, the George Washington University’s Radical Student Union, University of Maryland’s chapter of Students for a Democratic Society and D.C. Students for a Democratic Soci-
ety all helped in coordinating the event, according to Geoff Ramsey, a member of CASJ and an AU graduate student. In a description sent out in a CASJ e-mail, Funk the War was described as a “roving youth and student power street party, bumping the phattest of beats and reclaiming the streets to stop the war and break off the love affair between our government and the corporate parasites who Obama’s been cheating with.” The rally involved Lady Gagathemed costumes and music playing on a mobile sound system. At least six arrests occurred, two of which were of AU students. See adjacent article for story. SATURDAY The National March on Washington, a protest against the Iraq and Afghanistan wars organized by the ANSWER Coalition, started at noon in front of the White House Saturday. Clusters of individual AU students turned out to participate. The ANSWER Coalition, which stands for Act Now to Stop War
and End Racism, holds an antiwar march bi-annually, according to Ramsey. Mahfouz went to the protest “out of curiosity,” and while she did not know the estimated total of people in the crowd, she was convinced that there were “thousands” gathered there, she said. Several people spoke to the crowd in front of the White House, including Ralph Nader and Cindy Sheehan, an anti-war activist whose son was killed in 2004 while on duty in Iraq. The crowd marched from the White House to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Halliburton, The Washington Post, the National Endowment for Democracy and the Mortgage Bankers Association of America before returning to the White House, according to the ANSWER Coalition’s Web site. While Mahfouz did not necessarily agree with the ideologies of the people at the protest, it was a thought-provoking experience, she said. “I felt like I was being transported into the 1960s,” she said. n
see PROTESTS on page 3
Eagle Staff Writers Michael Dranove and another AU undergraduate — who did not wish to be named — were arrested during the Funk the War: Bad Romance Street Party Friday afternoon. Dranove was released around 8 p.m. Friday, while the other AU student was released around 1 a.m. Saturday. According to Geoff Ramsey, an AU graduate student and Community Action and Social Justice member who helped organize the protest, Dranove, a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences, was nearby when someone vandalized the Armed Forces Recruiting Center. Exactly what happened is unclear, Ramsey said. Protesters were shouting, “Who do you protect? Who do you serve?” and started to go into another chant when the sound of shattering glass stopped them. A large yellow splatter of paint then appeared on one of the windows of the recruitment center.
“I just remember cops coming into the crowd, grabbing me, throwing me on the ground, cuffing me, and I had to kneel down for awhile while they yelled at me,” Dranove said upon release. Dranove has been charged with allegedly defacing government property — a felony — and will appeal in court on April 6. “I was arrested. They took me into [jail], told me I wasn’t going to be released until Monday, sitting in a cold jail cell all by myself,” Dranove said. “I was kind of freaked out because [I thought] 72 hours in this jail cell is not going to be fun.” Dravone is currently working on getting a lawyer from Public Defenders or The National Lawyers Guild, but expects the felony will be reduced to a fine. “Most likely the felony will be reduced to a misdemeanor,” Dravone said. “At that point, if it goes to trial, they’ll probably just reduce it to a fine because they don’t want to take it to trial.” The second student was trying to leave the march when he got arrested, according to Melinda Fielder, a CASJ member. n
see JAILED on page 3
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HI 64° LO 48° Showers, thunderstorms in the afternoon. TUESDAY HI 57° n LO 45°
WEDNESDAY HI 67° n LO 40°
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Greek community tries to resuscitate faltering tradition By SARAH RUDNICK Eagle Staff Writer AU’s Greek Week will be held as a philanthropic event for the first time, according to Inter-fraternity Council Vice President Carter Gibson. The goal of Greek Week — occurring from Thursday until Sunday next week — is “[t]o promote unity among all fraternities and sororities on campus, to improve the image of Greek Life at American University, to raise money for charity and to celebrate the collective efforts and successes of Greek Life’s continued philanthropic efforts,” according to Gibson’s written Greek Week proposal to the Residence Hall Association. By making the event philanthropic, Greek Week will be a more legitimate event on campus, said National PanHellenic Council Greek Liaison Alana
Rudkin. Fraternities and sororities will merge into teams and compete in events to earn points. The team with the most points will win $1,000 to donate to their preferred charities. As of Sunday evening, colony Zeta Psi was in the lead with 124 points, and fraternity Phi Sigma Kappa was at the bottom with zero points, according to Gibson and the Greek Week Facebook page. Greek Week, usually a series of events held over seven days, was trimmed down to four days this year. Gibson and Rudkin thought they would get a better turnout if the majority of the events were held over the weekend. “We thought that one week can be too long and dragged out,” Rudkin said. “The weekend is better; more n
see GREEK WEEK on page 3
I never thought I’d go greek, but... By SARAH RUDNICK Eagle Staff Writer Fraternity expansion is thriving on campus with the arrival of three colonies over the last few years: Zeta Psi, Sigma Alpha Mu and Tau Kappa Epsilon. What is it about the experience that’s appealing to people? It seems that the majority of people in a fraternity or sorority at AU preface the explanation of their greek experience with, “I never came to college thinking I’d go greek, but...” Like everything else in life, going greek has its positives and negatives. For example, living in a fraternity or sorority house is the strongest indicator of binge drinking in college, according to a study done by the Harvard School of Public Health. However, almost half of all U.S. presidents have been greek, as well as 40 percent of Supreme Court justices and 30 percent of Fortune 500 executives, according to Cornell University’s Web site.
Collegeprowler.com — a Web site written by students about their colleges — says AU has an active greek community, but that students can be unaffiliated without social consequences. “Frats and sororities [at AU] are a good choice for people who feel overwhelmed and want a surefire way to make friends,” the site says. “Students who don’t care about greek life need not worry, as it is entirely possible to ignore.” For spring 2010, AU’s fraternities and colonies took a total of 136 pledges. Including brothers, AU has a total membership of 524 students belonging to or pledging a fraternity, accounting for 6 percent of AU’s total undergraduate population, according to IFC Public Relations Chair Adam Tager. So why do AU students decide to go greek? What’s the rush? For Robert Goodley-Espinosa, a freshman in the School of Public Affairs, the concept of brotherhood won him over. He realized he missed the camaraderie he experienced at his all-boys high school,
and after spending time with some brothers, decided to rush Pi Kappa Phi and TKE. Joining a fraternity would be meaningful to him, he said, and even though he wasn’t overly stressed out over the rushing process, he was still a little nervous about the possibility of not receiving a bid. “You want to look interested, but at the same time you don’t want to look desperate or aloof,” he said. “You also don’t want to be publicly over-confident about it, because word gets around.” He said rushing really starts in August. During “Welcome Week”the week before classes known for its abundance of greek parties — brothers already begin to seek out potential recruits. “By the time you rush, by the time you go out there, they know a kind of scary amount of stuff about you,” Espinosa said. The next step after open rush — where everyone is welcome to attend — is closed rush, which is invite only. This is an opportunity n
see RUSH on page 3