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Participants raise funds to support cancer patients.
The lacrosse program plans to stand with survivors.
Relay for Life fights cancer
Vol. 103, Iss. 48 | Tuesday, April 15, 2014
College supports survivors
The Flat Hat The Twice-Weekly Student Newspaper
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of The College of William and Mary
VIRGINIA
STUDENT LIFE
Bill ends ‘free speech zones’
William, Mary and
McAuliffe eliminates constraints BY WILL EMMONS FLAT HAT STAFF WRITER
At the College, the presence of drugs became apparent to students and faculty alike when, on Feb. 22, a freshman was arrested for dealing a psychedelic drug similar to LSD that led to the hospitalization of another student. The incident indicated a presence of drugs at the College that some may have been unaware of, highlighting that there are people who walk among them on campus that may purvey illicit drugs. Under conditions of anonymity, a junior at the College spoke about the drug culture as he sees it on campus. From his perspective, drugs are available in a far greater abundance than most would assume because of the demand generated by students. “You realize that the large majority of people you see have done something more than marijuana. The amount of people that have done molly, tried LSD … there’s quite a bit. [Because of] the fact that it’s illegal, you have to keep it under wraps,” he said. Beginning his freshman year, the student said
Until recently, some Virginia colleges had restricted student demonstrations to “free speech zones,” which limited the places where students can openly demonstrate on campus. Gov. Terry McAuliffe, D-VA, signed a law April 7 limiting the existence of free speech zones and enhancing free expression on Virginia’s public college campuses. The College does not use free speech zones and has been given a “green light” by Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, the highest rating for an institution’s promotion of free speech. The law, otherwise known as HB 258, passed unanimously in both houses McAuliffe of the Virginia General Assembly. It effectively increases the freedom with which students may openly express themselves on Virginia campuses. “Restricting student speech to tiny ‘free speech zones’ diminishes the quality of debate and discussion on campus by preventing expression from reaching its target audience,” the FIRE said in a statement. FIRE Legislative and Policy Director Joe Cohn said the new law marks a positive change. “One in six public colleges in the United States unjustly restricts student speech with free speech zones,” Cohn said. “Thanks to this new law, public institutions in Virginia will no longer be among them.” The law states that public institutions of higher education cannot impose restrictions on the time, place and manner of student speech that is protected by the First Amendment and that occurs in the institution’s outdoor area. The law does allow for restrictions that are “reasonable” or “narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest.” Marshall-Wythe School of Law Professor Timothy Zick said he believes that the new law is an important victory for students’ free speech rights. “Public colleges and universities are centers for learning and exchange. Free speech zones and other restrictive policies can stifle debate and chill expression on campus. … By ensuring that speech in outdoor areas of campus is subject only to reasonable limits, the Commonwealth has taken an important step toward upholding First Amendment rights and values,” Zick said. Zick said that the zones existed in the first place to give
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Drugs
ABBY BOYLE / THE FLAT HAT
The Flat Hat’s new series looks into the culture of drugs at the College BY AINE CAIN AND ROHAN DESAI FLAT HAT NEWS EDITORS
Over the past year, the College of William and Mary and the surrounding Williamsburg area have not been without drug-related controversies. These incidents have raised questions about the prevalence of drugs on campus and how different people perceive them. Before coming to the College of William and Mary in 2009, William and Mary Campus Police Department Chief Ed Schardein worked in the city of Portsmouth for 22 years. His tenure there was marked by frequent felony heroin and cocaine arrests. His career at the College, however, has taken a very different tone. “Overall, yes, [there are] drugs on campus, but it’s not near the problem that people would think of it as being on a college campus,” Schardein said. Major Greg Riley of the City of Williamsburg Police Department noted that his department does not distinguish between students and other residents when making drug arrests.
Additionally, city police defer to campus police when drug crimes occur in the jurisdiction of the College campus. “The vast majority of [students at the College] are like any other college students — of course they want to have a good time when they’re not studying, but when it comes to their studies, they’re just tremendous in terms of the amount of work they’re putting into their studies and the things they’re doing,” Riley said. While he said he believes that most students do not use drugs to “escape” a stressful academic climate, Schardein noted that is dangerous to generalize about “stereotypical drug users.” “[Drug users] can be intellectuals,” Schardein said. “I’ve come from a varied background and some of the smartest people I know smoked marijuana. It’s just what they preferred to do. It’s not a level of intellectuality that creates for using or not using. It’s socializing, what happens in the social atmosphere. Do your friends at college use drugs? Do you want to be like your friends at college that use drugs? Do you use the drugs or do you say, ‘No, that’s not for me.’”
STUDENT LIFE
NATIONAL
Swem study rooms in high demand Law School to help veterans Group study rooms booked for 42,226 hours during 2012-13 school year
Focuses on pro bono veterans’ benefits claims assistance
BY ROHAN DESAI FLAT HAT NEWS EDITOR
BY AINE CAIN FLAT HAT NEWS EDITOR
Earl Gregg Swem Library study rooms were reserved March 29 for TribeHacks, the College of William and Mary’s 24-hour hackathon. The group study rooms were sectioned off to provide space for participants to code through the night. While TribeHacks may be only an annual occasion, late nights in Swem are not foreign to many students at the College. In fact, Swem’s 32 group study rooms are used with similiar popularity throughout the academic year as they were during TribeHacks. According to Swem officials, the group study rooms were booked 21,274 times for a total of 42,226 hours last year. Of these reservations, 880 room reservations were cancelled, resulting in
1,874 hours of cancelled room usage, indicating that group study room reservations are cancelled a mere four percent of the time. During the year, group study rooms are used most often from 2 p.m. to 11 p.m., according to Swem’s data. However, when Swem remains open all night during the final exam period, peak use of the study rooms occurs between 4 a.m. and 7 a.m. and from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. “Our group study rooms are always in higher demand immediately before and during final exams as students prepare for end-of-semester assignments,” Swem’s Associate Director of Strategic Communications and Outreach Tami Back said in an email. It was the popularity of the group study rooms during finals that prompted Swem to change its reservation system two years ago. “Two years ago we implemented a new reservation policy and electronic reservation system,” Back said. “Prior to that, group study rooms were first come, first served with no time limit on use. This led to students coming in early in the morning and camping out in a room all day or, in some cases, all week.” This process, which expanded student access to the group study rooms, was facilitated by the introduction of the Event Management System. The Event Management System allows students to book and manage room reservations in Swem online. Additionally, Swem implemented a new policy with the
COLLEEN TRUSKEY/ THE FLAT HAT
Group study rooms in Swem Library were booked 21,274 times last year.
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The Marshall-Wythe School of Law’s Lewis B. Puller, Jr. Veterans Benefits Clinic hosted its National Conference on Law Clinics Serving Veterans Thursday, April 3 in Washington, D.C. Law schools from around the country were represented at the event, which featured a keynote address from United States Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va. Approximately 125130 individuals attended during the free, two-day conference. Director of Roberts Clinical Programs at the law school Patricia Roberts explained that the conference was devoted to assisting veterans in claiming disabilities benefits. She noted that the conference featured proposed models of assistance for other law schools and firms to utilize. “We were hoping that not only other
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Inside SPORTS
Inside OPINIONS
A comfortable vulnerability
A junior prepares herself for her final year at the College. page 4 Thunderstorms High 76, Low 37
law schools, but other law firms, would be encouraged to provide legal services to veterans,” Robert said. “While we are providing … those services in order to obtain veteran disabilities benefits, we also highlighted several other clinic models so that the attendees could have choices to figure out what works best for them.” Law professor and managing attorney at the Puller Clinic Stacey-Rae Simcox said she believes that the major flaw in the veterans benefits claims system is its complexity. She also noted that lack of legal representation makes it incredibly difficult for veterans to navigate the process. “Veterans are not permitted (by law) to hire lawyers to help them until about a year into this process and by then the damage may have been done and take several years to unravel,” Simcox said in an email. “Having law students who understand this complicated process and think like lawyers help these veterans
Tribe plays Spring game
Offense surrenders five turnovers as defense controls annual scrimmage at Zable Stadium. page 7