March 31, 2017 by The Oberlin Review

The Oberlin Review

MARCH 31, 2017 VOLUME 145, NUMBER 19

Local News Bulletin News briefs from the past week 2017 Class Trustee Elections to Begin The election for 2017 Class Trustee begins Monday. The ballots are to be distributed to the Class of 2017 and will remain open for entry until noon April 10. The two candidates who receive the most votes will continue to the final ballot for 2017 Class Trustee, which includes the participation of the classes of 2016, 2017 and 2018. The elected finalist will be one of three class trustees elected by recent graduating classes to serve on the Board of Trustees. Class trustees serve in three-year terms and organize forums for students to voice their concerns to the board. AMAM Hires New Curator The Allen Memorial Art Museum named Andrea Gyorody as the Ellen Johnson ’33 Assistant Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, in which she will oversee the museum’s 20th- and 21stcentury art. Gyorody joins the AMAM after two-and-a-half years as the assistant curator in the Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art . Gyorody begins working April 3. Oberlin to Host Festival of Fine Art & Fine Wine The city is hosting its 18th annual art auction and wine tasting event to benefit the Firelands Association for the Visual Arts. The Festival of Fine Art & Fine Wine features Lorain County wine expert and columnist Gary Twining to showcase nine types of wine for guests to sample. Over 100 pieces of artwork and art-related items will be auctioned throughout the event, held at the New Union Center for the Arts from 6:30– 9:30 p.m. Saturday, April 8.

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Administration Suspends Research Status Melissa Harris News editor A budgetary move intended to save Oberlin money has indefinitely eliminated funding for the faculty Research Status program. Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Tim Elgren and Dean of the Conservatory Andrea Kalyn announced the suspension in an email to faculty March 15, a decision they say could save the school approximately $600,000 annually. Research Status typically compensates five to ten College faculty and one to two Conser-

vatory faculty for a full year of paid sabbatical leave with extraneous stipends for items like travel expenses or research assistance. Though Elgren and Kalyn have already decided to cut the fund, the onus of determining whether to reinstate the program or maintain its discontinuation ultimately falls back on the faculty. The College and Conservatory faculty will meet next Wednesday and Tuesday, April 11, respectively, to discuss the program’s future. “We wanted to protect faculty from writing proposals, since [Research Status] could potentially get cut,” Elgren said of the announcement,

Politics Professor Chris Howell, one of several faculty members who earned Research Status for 2017–2018, works in his office in Rice Hall. Administrators announced before spring break that Research Status will be indefinitely suspended after next academic year as a cost-saving measure. Photo by Rick Yu, Photo editor

See Budget, page 4

Student Senate Selects Task-Force Representatives Sydney Allen Production editor Student Senate chose junior student senators Thobeka Mnisi and Josh Koller to join a five-member task force to investigate the merits of adding a student representative to the Board of Trustees. The task force will also include three board members, currently unnamed, and could begin meeting as early as next week. Mnisi and Koller will discuss the benefits and drawbacks of having a student on the board, hoping to convince trustees of its importance. By the end of the semester, the task force will make a recommendation to the board about whether they should accept students and what role student board members would play. The task force’s approval comes on the heels of Senate’s months-long push for the board to seriously consider student representation. “I don’t know very many things

that I’ve been as excited about for Senate to do than I am about this,” Mnisi said. “This is something that would have so much lasting power for students. This is a way we could institutionalize power for students going forward, so this is something I really, really strongly believe in.” Koller echoed Mnisi’s sentiments, adding that the long-term benefits of a student representative are invaluable. “I really see the lasting benefit in a student trustee, and I will fight for that really hard in whatever the most cogent way is,” Koller added. Senators selected task force members at their weekly plenary meeting Sunday, later passing on notice of the decision to the board’s Communication Liaison Sandhya Subramanian via email. Though seven senators were originally nominated for the position, sophomores Meg Parker, Elie Small and Kirsten Mojziszek and junior Jesse Docter all withdrew their

Student Senators Kirsten Mojziszek, sophomore, and Jesse Docter, junior, spoke at Senate’s weekly plenary meeting Sunday. Senate elected junior Senators Thobeka Mnisi and Josh Koller to a five-member task force to consider adding a student representative to the Board of Trustees. Photo by Pearse Anderson

nominations, leaving Mnisi, Koller and sophomore senator Cecilia Wallace to contend for the two open positions. Docter was also recently selected to replace College junior Monique Newton on the Presidential Search Committee since Newton had to step

Ventures Take Off Three businesses won a collective $45,000 at this month’s LaunchU competition to build their startups.

noting that proposals are usually due around this time of year and could ultimately prove moot if the program is officially cut. “The decision to make these kinds of significant budget changes will be done in consultation with the [General Faculty Council, College Faculty Council and Conservatory Faculty Council]. … It will be presented to the entire College faculty, so faculty members will know exactly what we’re talking about, and it will be their opportunity to have input in the prioritization.” Elgren said that if the faculty decides to reinstate Research Status, deadlines for proposals will be pushed back and administration and faculty will revisit other budget-saving measures. The cut is part of a string of penny-pinching measures taken by the administration this academic year in light of the school’s increasingly strained financial situation. Kalyn portrayed the suspension measure as not an attack on faculty scholarship, but rather an option among many to save money. “The idea is not to step away from research or not to support research,” Kalyn said. “We do that in a lot of different ways and it’s a huge priority for us. … We need to be looking at this within a larger frame, the ways in which things are interrelated, because if you look at things like this in isolation, this was in no way intended or conceived or considered to be that we aren’t serious about research on campus. But it gets seen as that in isolation, so we really need to be looking at the whole matrix of how we sustain the quality of education that we offer.” Once a professor earns tenure, they have the choice every six years to take leave with

Leading the Pack Track and Field’s Monique Newton and Lilah Drafts-Johnson take home titles.

Bernie Randers Acclaimed composer Bernard Rands visited Oberlin this week.

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INDEX:

Opinions 5

This Week in Oberlin 8

Arts 10

Sports 16

down because of athletics obligations. “I just felt that the other candidates were really qualified and deserving, and I’m really excited for the work that they can and will do this See Task, page 4

on the

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The Oberlin Review, March 31, 2017

LaunchU Awards Innovative Startups $45,000 Melissa Harris News editor Three business ventures won a combined $45,000 at this month’s LaunchU competition. Since receiving the awards, each venture has taken off and is starting to grow with its newfound funding. The winning startups were chosen from nine groups that presented ventures to a panel of judges at the March 4 pitch competition. First place was awarded to Kelsey Scult, OC ’14, and Mary Okoth, OC ’14, second to Conservatory junior Helen Fleischer and third to Sophie Mvurya, OC ’16, earning $20,000, $15,000 and $10,000 for their business startups, respectively. Scult and Okoth won the competition with their startup, BAR NONE, a multidisciplinary arts initiative for formerly incarcerated people in New Orleans. The two studied Studio Art at Oberlin and cultivated a passion for prison reform. While they initially looked at BAR NONE as what Scult called a “one-time, multidisciplinary theater production,” they said LaunchU helped them develop BAR NONE into a longterm sustainable business model. Through BAR NONE, Okoth said that formerly incarcerated people can take art classes, display and sell their work, host community art events and participate in paid arts internships. “In our first year, LaunchU is giving us the capacity to really develop a relationship with the formerly incarcerated community and with the arts community here,” Scult said. “Launching into this year, we will be able to do a number of popup workshops and collaborations with different re-entry organizations, museums and gallery spaces that will make us more eligible to apply for a bunch of different grants.” One of he projects they are working on is a collaboration with the Newcomb Art Museum at Tulane University to lead an art workshop that will coincide with an upcoming exhibition. Ultimately, Scult and Okoth said they aim to use BAR NONE to cultivate a sense of community for the formerly incarcerated, who could be at risk of isolation, and address additional issues like inaccessible mental-health care and financial instability.

“One in three prisoners in the U.S. is mentally ill, so, upon release many people have limited access to mental health resources,” Okoth said. “Art therapy has been proven to help people with their emotional regulation and well-being. … Another obstacle is financial stability. The lack of educational opportunities and career advisement in prisons leaves people unprepared for securing employment. Employers can be skeptical about hiring formerly incarcerated people. Given these conditions, many obtain minimum wage jobs which keep them trapped in the cycle of poverty and more likely to return to prison. We hope to give formerly incarcerated people the opportunity to sell their art as a means of supplemental income.” Fleischer, who landed second place in the LaunchU competition with her company IntimaQ, will use her newfound funding to provide comfortable and affordable daily underwear for trans and gender nonconforming people, as well as for other people who may prefer underwear “outside of a binary organizational system.” Fleischer said that her products will serve the transgender community through the “tucking and packing” functions of the underwear, which she said are shapewear designs used to help transgender people achieve “a desired visual and physical effect.” After serving two years as a residential assistant at Baldwin Cottage, the women and trans housing collective, Fleisher said that she became increasingly invested in LGBTQ rights. However, she noted that until recently, she had only focused on the larger issues of discrimination and justice, not realizing the day-to-day concerns that trans people face with limited resources, such as finding comfortable underwear. After researching the matter, she saw an opportunity to expand the limited underwear market for trans people as she found that existing companies often sell pricier products. “When I took a step closer to these issues, observing day-to-day problems that my friends, colleagues and residents were encountering, I kind of realized how absurd it is,” Fleischer said. “It kind of had to be right in my face for me to realize that this was a huge problem that was not being addressed.

Conservatory junior Helen Fleischer, Sophie Mvurya, OC ’16, Mary Okoth, OC ’14, and Kelsey Scult, OC ’14, receive the 2017 LaunchU awards. Their three startups earned a collective $45,000 after winning the March 4 LaunchU competition. Photo courtesy of Office of Communications

Once I realized that, I did a little research about the existing market and took consumer surveys to gauge demand, and I realized that this was not being addressed and that the demand was exceedingly high.” With the LaunchU money, Fleischer plans to hire a designer to help draft ideas for her products. She is also looking into different manufacturers to produce those designs. As a junior, Fleischer hopes to use her remaining time at Oberlin to test the waters with her business as it continues to develop, given Oberlin's prominent transgender community. “The trans population is underrepresented and under-researched in total, but even more so as a consumer segment,” she said. “It’s not been approached that way before. There are a few companies, and they’re growing more and more, gearing towards the trans community, but big data firms have not gone there yet. That makes progressing pretty difficult because you don’t know how big your market size is. … I’m hoping to use Oberlin to collect some of that data so the scaling process can be more informed.” LaunchU granted its final award to Mvurya for her and co-founder Tyrell Carter’s business From

The Block to The Booth. The startup is a mobile recording-studio service, which Mvurya hopes will provide clients with “cutting-edge sound quality equipment in an environment that inspires and nurtures their creativity while enhancing their productivity at their comfort,” calling it the “Uber of recording studios.” Mvurya said that the music industry’s current structures are decentralizing due to technological advances, making it possible for individual artists to control and own their own art. She wants to use FBB to uplift musicians who wish to produce and record music without having to sign with major record labels, expressing her excitement about her business’ potential in light of the evolving music industry. “The beauty of this venture is that you can morph it and spin it in any direction,” Mvurya wrote in an email to the Review. “Initially we would like to start with recording services and slowly get into branding and promotion, as we do have a mobile studio, then even start TV shows that picks up different artists and features them recording new music for their fans in cool, innovative ways to help them grow their brands and outreach.”

Local Petitions Challenge REC Choice Fund Options Jenna Gyimesi Local community members are pushing to overturn a recent initiative that would give city residents the option of donating revenue from renewable energy back to the city. A committee of city residents created two petitions that, if passed, would put the city’s Community Choice Fund back on next year’s ballot. The fund allows residents to donate their share of the city’s Renewable Energy Credits back to the City to invest in further sustainable energy projects. Last year, City Council decided that Oberlin would return 85 percent of the proceeds from the sale of RECs to city residents and give 15 percent of the proceeds to sustainability projects, which comes out to around $100 per year for each resident. Renewable Energy Credits are certificates given when a one megawatt-hour of electricity is produced with renewable energy. These certificates can be bought and sold on the open market and have garnered the city $2.6 million.

John Elder, a Kendal at Oberlin resident and leader of the committee that created the petitions, believes it is a better idea to direct all of the REC money back to renewable energy programs. “The benefit for the rate payers of Oberlin is much greater if we were to develop more programs like [Providing Oberlin With Efficiency Responsibility], that will save owners money in the long run and help save the environment,” Elder said. “The fund uses REC money for largescale, long-term conservation programs that benefit the whole community. This is money the city needs for projects to meet our Climate Action Plan goals.” Elder said another issue with the choice fund is that proceeds from the RECs are divvied up based on energy usage, meaning a greater portion of the proceeds would go to large facilities like the College, Kendal at Oberlin and Walmart, which could decide to simply not donate any of it back to the fund. However, city councilmembers viewed the

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March 31, 2017

Published by the students of Oberlin College every Friday during the fall and spring semesters, except holidays and examination periods. Advertising rates: $18 per column inch. Second-class postage paid at Oberlin, Ohio. Entered as second-class matter at the Oberlin, Ohio post office April 2, 1911. POSTMASTER SEND CHANGES TO: Wilder Box 90, Oberlin, Ohio 44074-1081. Office of Publication: Burton Basement, Oberlin, Ohio 44074. Phone: (440) 775-8123 Fax: (440) 775-6733 On theOn web: thehttp://www.oberlinreview.org web: oberlinreview.org

Choice Fund as a good way to appease both those that want to donate back or benefit from the additional revenue. “Our consumers must share the burden when costs go up, it seemed only fair that they share the benefit of these REC dollars,” Councilwoman Sharon Fairchild-Soucy said. “If [the petitions were] successful, the hard work and months of discussion that went into the compromise would be negated and all efforts to turn REC dollars into active programs would be stalled. I believe council’s compromise represents a sound, balanced and fair program for residents.” Finance Director Sal Talarico believes that community members may misunderstand what REC dollars can be used for. “The community may have the assumption that the dollars can be used for private homes, private businesses and private purposes,” Talarico said. “But it has to be related to the public utility. If that nexus isn’t there, it would be illegal to donate those dollars. That’s why we created the

Editors-in-Chief Editors-in-chief Tyler Liv Combe Sloan Allegra Oliver Kirkland Bok Managing editor Samantha Kiley Petersen Link News editors Rosemary LouisBoeglin Krauss Melissa Alex Howard Harris Opinions editor WillSami Rubenstein Mericle This Week Weekeditor editor Izzy ZoëRosenstein Strassman Arts editors Daniel KaraMarkus Brooks Victoria Georgia Garber Horn Sports editors Jackie McDermott Quinn Hull Madeleine Darren O’Meara Zazlau Layout editors Abigail Tiffany Carlstad Fung Amanda Ben Garfinkel Tennant Alanna TaliaSandoval Rodwin Photo editors Parker OliviaShatkin Gericke Photo editors Brannon Rockwell-Charland Bryan Rubin Online editor Alanna Bennett Rick Yu

Choice Fund as a compromise so that the dollars would go back to the ratepayers. If we keep the dollars, we have to make sure the dollars are spent in accordance with the law. If we give them back, we have more flexibility. I can work with either option.” Fairchild-Soucy added that part of the problem with forcing all RECs into the city’s fund is that not all city residents can afford to do away with what would be $10 per month if they received the funds. “It’s a little bit of a class issue since the people who want to keep it all, all have made the statement that $10 doesn’t make a difference in the lives of citizens,” Fairchild-Soucy said. “But others say, ‘Who are you to tell me that $10 a month won’t affect me? It’s my money, I want to have the right to make that choice.’” Talarico will send the petitions to the Lorain County Board of Elections for review, and if they are approved, the initiatives will be back on November’s ballot.

Business manager Maureen CurtisCoffey Cook Business manager Savi Sedlacek Ads manager Caley Watnick Ads manager Reshard el-Shair Online editor Hazel Galloway Production Bamert Production manager manager Sophia Ryanne Berry Production staff Stephanie Bonner Production staff Victoria Albacete Emma Eisenberg Sydney Taylor Allen Field Giselle Glaspie Katherine Hamilton Auden JuliaGranger Hubay Tracey Knott Courtney Loeb Noah Morris Emily Peterson Anna Julia Peckham Peterson Silvia Sheffield KendallDrew Mahavier Wise Distributors Bryan Rubin Distributors Joe Camper Ben Steger Joseph Dilworth Mason JamesBoutis Kuntz

Corrections

Corrections: The Review is not aware of any corrections week. The Review is not awarethis of any corrections this week. The Review strives to print all information as accurately asemail possible. To submt a correction, Ifmanagingeditor@oberlinreview.org. you feel the Review has made an error, please send an e-mail to managingeditor@oberlinreview.org.

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Off the Cuff: Juan Méndez, Professor and Human Rights Activist Juan Méndez is a professor of Human Rights Law at American University’s Washington College of Law who served as the United Nation’s Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment from 2010–2016. Méndez is originally from Argentina, where he defended political prisoners in the 1970s. Following his arrest and subsequent exile from Argentina, Méndez moved to the U.S., where he worked for the Human Rights Watch for 15 years. Méndez gave a talk Wednesday evening in Dye Lecture Hall discussing controversies surrounding the use and approval of torture in today’s world, specifically in the global war on terror. The talk was part of the “Challenging Borders: Migration, Rights and Security in the 21st Century” lecture series. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. How did starting out as a lawyer in Argentina lead to the rest of your career working for human rights? When I became a lawyer in 1970, the country was undergoing a very hectic and violent time. As a student I’d been interested in politics, and as a young professional I thought I’d use my skills to defend political prisoners. I did, and at that time older lawyers were very prominent, but some of them eventually had to leave the country because [the government] would put bombs in their cars and offices. Then when the military took over, many of them disappeared or went into exile because they were well known. Us younger lawyers were less known, so we could get away with doing work, but almost in a state of clandestinity. We would meet families of people who had been taken in bars and cafes to tell them what to do as opposed to appearing in court. Sooner or later, we were also targeted and I was arrested, tortured and then held without trial for a year and a half. I was lucky enough that the international treasurer convinced the government to let me go into exile, not released in Argentina. At first I was worried about the friends I had left behind, and I campaigned for them. When I eventually got accreditation in the United States, I was lucky to be offered full-time work. Do you think treatment of mi-

the media would make a big deal of it; the ACLU would go to court. That’s why I’m at least halfway optimistic that we can stop him even if Trump wants to do it. Are there any specific bad policies you worry he could be hoping to implement? If he thinks waterboarding is OK, he probably thinks that sleep deprivation [and] constrained postures are OK. The bad thing with these torture methods is that all these things happen simultaneously with the same person. Even if you think one technique isn’t that bad, you have to reckon with the fact that if you do these things repeatedly or in combination, it’s torture. What he will try to reinstate, I don’t know.

Juan Méndez, professor of Human Rights Law at American University’s Washington College of Law

grants has gotten better since you started your career in the 1970s? No, in fact, with the growth of migration flows, the situation has become worse. There are some governments with humane policies toward them. I wouldn’t say they’re welcoming of refugees, asylum seekers or migrants, but at least they organize their inner procedures to give them due process and more humane conditions of detention. For example, in Mexico, conditions are not certainly ideal. But I visited in 2001 and then in 2014, and in both cases I visited immigration detention centers. I found the conditions and treatment had gotten much better since 2001. Mexico has a lot of immigrants in transit. Lately, Mexico has done a big favor to the U.S. by trying to stop these people from coming. They have, for example, a relatively humane facility at the border in the city [of] Guatemala, [Mexico]. In the first few years I visited, that facility was horrible. It used to be really overcrowded, bad sanitation and food, in some cases relatively prolonged detention and very little fair opportunity for them to state a claim that they can stay. It’s by no means perfect, but it is improved, and from what I can tell, there is no torture. Migrants are subject to [really] cruel treatment when they are on their own because they are easy prey for organized crime that

has taken over illegal transfers between Mexico and the U.S.

In these war-prisoner situations, are there certain guidelines or preferred methods of interrogation you would be OK with? My latest thematic report is to propose a universal protocol for interviewing in criminal investiga-

tions. We deliberately don’t call it “protocol of interrogation” because I’ve learned that interrogation already has a bad connotation. It’s based on a model that some states have instituted already. Britain, Norway, Holland, Germany — they all have a model of interviewing suspects that doesn’t involve any coercion at all. Instead, it’s based on establishing a rapport with the person [and] investigating separately to be prepared for the interview, and there’s no torture whatsoever, not even coercion. There’s not even promising [or] good cop/bad cop, and the results are much better. They don’t have unsafe convictions that are overturned because the crime was not true, even if they obtain a confession, and also police bodies are a lot more respectable and respected by the population that supports them and cooperates with them. Interview by Louis Krauss, News editor Photo courtesy of Kristina Mani

Going back to international policies, what are the kind of policies Obama’s administration put in place that Trump could roll back? Some things he’s already rolled back, which is problematic. He’s authorized the use of secret detention centers again. He’s also issued an executive order that allows for the Pentagon to bring more prisoners to Guantanamo. There haven’t been any new prisoners until well before the Obama administration. They haven’t brought any more, but they’ve authorized it. Those things are bad signs. A worse sign is the things he said during the campaign — that he’d bring back waterboarding and worse, or that he wouldn’t let eggheads tell soldiers they can’t do some things in international war. But it’s difficult to know if this is all just bluster, irresponsible talk, or if it is going to be transferred into policy. My sense is that the military and CIA are so burned by the practice that they would be reluctant even if it was affordable. Now we have an executive order by Obama and Congress, that torture cannot happen. If Trump orders it, he has to go to Congress and get a new legislation, which I don’t think will happen; they won’t let him. He would have to do it clandestinely, but if he does, I’m sure we’ll know. If he does that,

Review Security Notebook Friday, March 24

Saturday, March 25

Sunday, March 26

6:30 p.m. A student reported the theft of two duffle bags, a purse and two pairs of shoes from their room at Firelands Apartments sometime between March 17 and March 24. Safety and Security officers and members of the Oberlin Police Department responded for a report. The theft is under investigation.

7:29 p.m. Officers and members of the Oberlin Fire Department responded to a fire alarm, set off by smoke from a dirty oven, at a Union Street housing unit. The smoke was cleared and the alarm reset. The residents were advised not to use the oven until it was cleaned.

11:05 p.m. Officers and members of the Oberlin Fire Department responded to a fire alarm on the first floor of Noah Hall. Shower steam set off the alarm, which was reset.

Tuesday, March 28 12:47 p.m. Officers assisted an ill

employee at Stevenson Dining Hall. An ambulance was requested, and the employee was transported to Mercy Allen Hospital for treatment.

Wednesday, March 29 3:48 a.m. Officers assisted an employee with a nosebleed at Knowlton Athletics Complex. The individual was transported to Mercy Allen Hospital for treatment.

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The Oberlin Review, March 31, 2017

Student Confesses to Filming Gym Showers Louis Krauss News editor

Just weeks after a separate case of voyeurism charges in Oberlin, a Conservatory first-year has been charged with filming undressed studentathletes in the Philips gym men’s locker room. In the two weeks before spring break, multiple male studentathletes, including members of the basketball and swimming teams, reported a student filming them while showering. College senior and basketball player Scott Miller, who was showering with teammate and College senior Zach Meyers on March 9 following a workout, noticed a student repeatedly passing by the showers while looking down at his phone. “We didn’t think anything of it then; obviously we weren’t expecting the worst,” Miller said. But after hearing a similar physical description from teammates who noticed odd behavior, Miller felt confident it was the same person. “When I got the message that he had been filming under the stalls, and the description matched ours of the guy we saw in the showers, all of my thoughts just kind of sunk. I felt so violated. We shower and walk around in that area, and it really felt like a safe space until this happened.” A week later on March 16, College first-year and basketball player Evan Suppa filed a report with Safety and

Security after suspecting a student of filming him showering through a crack in the bathroom stalls next to the showers. Safety and Security then posted numerous flyers, officially called a timely warning, in Philips gym and around campus informing people of the recurring incidents. Before working out the following day, College senior and basketball player Jack Poyle noticed a person in the locker room who fit the description, leading him and teammates to call Safety and Security. Upon arrival, Officer Violet Fisher confronted the suspect in a Philips gym hallway, followed soon after by Oberlin Police Officers Raymond Feuerstein and Bashshar Wiley. The suspect initially claimed to be at the gym for a workout, but officers pointed out that he was dressed in street clothes and was not sweating. After questioning him about this, the student admitted to filming people in the gym. “[The student] then admitted he was not at the gymnasium to exercise but that he ‘sometimes likes to look at people in the shower’ but he does not videotape them,” Wiley wrote in the report. “[He] then admitted his reason for going to [Philips gym] was to look at people in the shower instead of exercising, but [that] he’s ‘not proud of it.’ [The student] also admitted to recording individuals nude in the shower of the men’s locker room and further informed me there are

A student was charged with voyeurism for filming people showering through a crack in a bathroom stall in the Philips gym men’s locker room. His pretrial date is set for April 4 at the Oberlin Municipal Court. Photo by Rick Yu, Photo editor

video recordings from his cell phone which are not stored on the actual device but instead are in his Google Drive Cloud, which could be accessed from his cell phone or computer.” Officers then took the suspect to the police department, where they confiscated the cell phone and found four videos on it of “a white male completely nude in the shower area of the men’s locker room.” The student was then charged with voyeurism and given a pretrial court date of April 4 at the Oberlin Municipal

Court. According to Miller, officers contacted him and other teammates following the incident to explain that aside from their cases, there were “a handful” of similar reports filed by other students. Miller added that Title IX Coordinator Rebecca Mosley reached out via email to him and other students to offer support and advice. This incident occurs just weeks after a similar case where an Erie County man was arrested for filming

students undressing in off-campus houses. Safety and Security Assistant Director Cliff Barnes was also curious that two similar voyeurism cases have happened in the last month. “You never know what the next day’s going to bring, but it seemed unusual to me that the last one was the incident with a man filming campus houses,” Barnes said. “Now we have to go out and warn our community about something very similar happening.”

Budget Cuts Threaten Faculty Funds Task Force Ensues with Rep Picks Continued from page 1 either one semester of full pay or one year with five-ninths pay. Faculty members usually apply for Research Status when they intend on going on sabbatical leave, according to Politics Professor Chris Howell, who was granted Research Status for the 2017–2018 academic year. The administration still plans on honoring the 2017–2018 awards for five College professors, including Howell, and one Conservatory faculty member. “Each time I’ve had a Research Status leave, I’ve been able to produce a book,” said Howell, who will take his third Research Status leave this fall. “If you teach at a liberal arts college like Oberlin, when you’re teaching, when you’re not on leave, it’s very difficult to get research done because we’re very obviously dedicated to our students. … The result is that it’s very hard to work on a sustained research project.” Howell noted that conducting personal research also enhances teaching and classroom quality. “What we model at Oberlin is not just that we transmit knowledge that other people produce,” he said. “As faculty, we don’t just simply take books or articles that other people have written and give them to our students and say, ‘Here’s what’s in them.’ We model scholarship where we produce knowledge, as well as transmit it.” Chemistry Professor Matthew Elrod said his Research Status in 2010–2011 allowed him to work on two research projects and publish five articles with the help of four students, adding that the suspension could also make it difficult for students to engage in research. “I feel that Research Status is critical in helping faculty get current projects to publication (which benefits the past and current student co-authors) and in helping faculty launch new research directions (which leads to new opportunities for future students),” Elrod wrote in an email to the Review. Research Status has also been an important component in Oberlin’s ability to recruit top-tier faculty, according to Howell. “Our ability to recruit and retain the best faculty in the country, to have the kind of faculty we

have here at Oberlin, depends, in part, on our ability to assure those faculty that they can keep their research going,” Howell said. “This is like offering a decent wage or health plan, a sabbatical policy and things like Research Status, money that the College provides for faculty to go to conferences — all of that allows us to go out there and compete for the best young graduate students from the best graduate programs.” Japanese Professor Ann Sherif is one of the various faculty members concerned with the administration’s decision to suspend Research Status. She said that she has reached out to Elgren and Kalyn in hopes of organizing faculty conversations about addressing budget constraints. “The first step is to have a discussion among the faculty to determine what is the status of the particular Research Status grants that support faculty research and whether we as a group of faculty members believe that this is something that the College should protect and devote resources to,” she said. Sherif went on to suggest how faculty could contribute to discussions about cost-saving measures, citing alternatives to choosing between complete reinstatement and suspension. “The teaching staff as a group is eager to contribute to discussions about responsible financial planning and to efforts to ensure the financial sustainability of the College,” Sherif said. “For example, one cost-cutting idea that has been in the air for the past couple years is reducing the number of short-term replacement faculty positions, [such as] visiting professors, who teach while faculty go on sabbatical leave or Research Status. That might be one viable way to save money, but departments and faculty really need to be involved from the inception of such big plans.” Faculty members are not the only group on campus grappling with how budget cuts might affect them. Oberlin College Office and Professional Employees recently filed an unfair labor complaint with the National Labor Relations Board in light of recent negotiations, according to OCOPE, made with bad-faith bargaining. Campus dining facilities have also undergone closure or curtailed hours, as is the case with the Rathskellar and DeCafé.

Continued from page 1 module,” Parker said. “I felt that if I was going to put my support behind Thobeka and Josh anyways, that it wasn’t fair for me to also be in the running.” Koller has been a senator for three semesters, was a member of the studenttrustee engagement working group and is Student Financial Committee co-chair. During his candidate speech, he highlighted the vast research he has done around student trustees. “I was a member of the studenttrustee engagement working group, ... so I have already had some experience working with trustees,” Koller said. “I have put some time into doing some of this research that was presented to that working group — not really seen — but this is really the place where I think that research will be seen, discussed and need to be presented in a way that makes our best case.” Mnisi, who serves as Student Senate Chair, has also served on Senate for three semesters, is a member of the Strategic Plan Implementation Committee on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and was part of the advising task force that helped redesign Oberlin’s advising program. “When the trustees were here in December, I met a lot of people who gave me their contacts, and I’ve tried to keep in touch and have improved relationships with some of them,” Mnisi said. “I feel like I’m really good at doing that and trying to really build relationships with people so that I can communicate with them in a way that they can hear.” Dean of Students and Senate Advisor Meredith Raimondo voiced her support for the chosen candidates. “I am really excited that Thobeka and Josh will be serving as student reps to the task force,” Raimondo wrote in an email

to the Review. “Both have shown enormous leadership on Student Senate and demonstrated real ability in navigating institutional structures and collaborating with administrators while clearly and effectively representing student concerns. I feel very confident that they will be able to work effectively with the trustees on the task force, who I know have deep respect for Senate's recent efforts.” Although the proposal presented to the board indicated that the task force would be an eight-member group composed of representatives from the administration, faculty, student body and board, upon further discussion the board and student body were determined to be the primary constituencies that needed to be represented, downsizing the group to five members. “Jesse, Meg and I met with Sandhya last week … to discuss what the composition of the taskforce might look like,” Mnisi said. “Firstly, to discuss whether the trustees would be okay with the task force being just students and trustees because once we thought about it … it didn’t make much sense to have so many different constituencies involved, and the trustees really, really felt like it would be important to the success of the committee.” Mnisi added that although the taskforce ended up consisting of only trustees and students, she hoped that the group would have been represented by more people. “They suggested a five-member committee, which was much smaller than what I had expected, but also with only two students and three trustees, which I wasn’t very happy about,” she said. “I didn’t think it was worth us fighting that decision at this point because we don’t want to be giving them more than one thing to say no to and alienating them even before we start the negotiations.”

Opinions The Oberlin Review

March 31, 2017

Letters to the Editors

Citizens’ Climate Lobby Welcomes Students To the Editors:

Thank you for your story on the accomplishments of the Oberlin Project (“Oberlin Project Ends Eight-Year Run,” March 10, 2017). Executive Director Sean Hayes is quoted as saying the Oberlin Project “‘does not need to exist’ for Oberlin students to get involved in local environmental work.” Indeed, for students who wish to be involved in ongoing environmental work, one option to consider is Citizens’ Climate Lobby. A new Oberlin chapter of this international, nonpartisan, volunteer organization meets every second Saturday of the month at 1 p.m. at the Oberlin Public Library. Our next meeting is April 8. The organization aims to train volunteers to “create the political will for a livable world” through direct and indirect lobbying efforts. You can read more about the organization at citizensclimatelobby.org or contact us at oberlin@citizensclimatelobby.org. We would love to have you join us! – John Sabin Oberlin resident

Fundraiser Jazzes Up First Church To the Editors: Your readers will surely be interested in the Afternoon of Jazz event being offered on Sunday, April 2 at 3 p.m. at First Church in Oberlin, United Church of

Christ, located at the corner of Main Street and Lorain Street in Oberlin. Jazz professionals Bobby Ferrazza, guitar; Dan Wall, piano; and Paul Samuels, drums; all members of the Oberlin Conservatory Jazz department, will be joined by accomplished bassist Aidan Plank. All these musicians are highly regarded professionals, known throughout the Cleveland area and well beyond. Admission is free. Donations are strongly encouraged and needed for homeless families served by Family Promise of Lorain County. For more information, see familypromiselorainco. org. – Carol Longsworth – Nicki Memmott Concert Planning Committee

ALC Reconnects with Campus To the Editors: You guessed it right, all those eerily Obie-like older people walking around campus the weekend of March 3–5 were in fact Obies. The ALC — Alumni Leadership Council of the Oberlin Alumni Association — was here for its spring meetings. Reconnecting with life on campus to try to see what it’s really like beyond social media and news articles was one of our top goals. Dining with students at Pyle co-op, hearing the Obertones, chatting with students who helped cater our meetings and listening to professors was a great way to get a little taste of all that. But it’s never enough. We can’t help it — we love Oberlin!

Some key ALC discussion topics were how to build a relationship of trust and good communication with the incoming president of Oberlin, strengthening support for multicultural alumni interest groups, alumni interactions on social media and various governance topics. The Alumni Office updated us on the many activities they organize to engage alumni around the country and the world. Marvin’s presidency was toasted with a surprise party kept so well under the covers, he was almost upset at us until his gift showed up: a photo album of all our memories built together. We also dropped in on the LaunchU pitches and loved seeing how Oberlin ideals can become a reality in the business world! Wisr — you’ve likely heard about this tool that connects students and alumni to network and share ideas about work and life in general after you graduate. Does it feel a bit weird to ask strangers for job opportunities, how they got to what is actually your dream job and for help exploring whether to become a musician or a biologist, how to get the opportunity to live and work in Japan or run your own small outfit that will change the world? Many alumni have already signed up and would be happy to talk with you about how they accomplished those very same goals. To sign up, visit oberlin.wisr.io. We will be back on campus mid-July and are already bummed out that most of you will not be on campus. – Bálint Gergely, OC ’00 Secretary, Oberlin Alumni Association

Wealth Distribution Fails to Invigorate Economy Jacob Britton Contributing writer As Americans we hear all too often from talk radio hosts, comedians and politicians about how the U.S. is lagging behind other countries in terms of economic inequality. Perhaps most famously, Senator Bernie Sanders spoke on this issue during his 2016 presidential campaign, frequently mentioning that the top 1 percent in the U.S. owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent. This talking point became the main focus of his entire presidential platform and successfully gained him millions of supporters. However,

the idea that income inequality is the most significant issue facing the U.S. is illogical and morally bankrupt. There are two important questions to ask someone who believes income inequality is a major issue in the United States. First, what gives the government the moral authority to determine how wealth ought to be distributed? Such legislation is a violation of private property rights and should be viewed as theft. State socialist societies and social democracies that implement laws enforcing wealth redistribution can only operate through authoritarianism and force. A See Government, page 7

Submissions Policy The Oberlin Review appreciates and welcomes letters to the editors and op-ed submissions. All submissions are printed at the discretion of the Editorial Board. All submissions must be received by Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. at opinions@oberlinreview.org or Wilder Box 90 for inclusion in that week’s issue. Letters may not exceed 600 words and op-eds may not exceed 800 words, except with consent of the Editorial Board. All submissions must include contact information, with full names and any relevant titles, for all signers. All writers must individually confirm authorship on electronic submissions. Op-eds may not have more than two authors. The Review reserves the right to edit all submissions for clarity, length, grammar, accuracy, strength of argument and in consultation with Review style. Editors will work with contributors to edit pieces and will clear major edits with the authors prior to publication. Editors will contact authors of letters to the editors in the event of edits for anything other than style and grammar. Headlines are printed at the discretion of the Editorial Board. Opinions expressed in editorials, letters, op-eds, columns, cartoons or other Opinions pieces do not necessarily reflect those of the staff of the Review. The Review will not print advertisements on its Opinions pages. The Review defines an advertisement as any submission that has the main intent of bringing direct monetary gain to a contributor.

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The Oberlin Review Publication of Record for Oberlin College

Editors-in-Chief Tyler Sloan Oliver Bok Managing Editor Kiley Petersen Opinions Editor Sami Mericle

GOP Places Partisanship Over Protection Editor’s Note: This article discusses rape and sexual assault. Ohio is one of eight states that still includes marital exceptions to its felony rape laws, and it may very well stay that way. The state’s current policy creates a loophole that allows a lesser penalty to be imposed on a spouse who drugs and assaults their partner. In a repugnant display of partisanship, a Democratic bill that would eliminate this exemption has gained no support from the GOP. This is politics at its worst. Democratic Representatives Greta Johnson and Kristen Boggs introduced House Bill 97 last month in an effort to rephrase the current provision’s language, which requires that a person prove “force or threat of force” in marital rape cases. This is the second time that Johnson has attempted to move a bill addressing the issue through the state’s legislature, but it appears that just like in 2015, the proposal will fall short without Republican support. The bill also includes provisions about sexual imposition, gross sexual imposition and sexual battery. All hope is not lost, but it does not seem like any GOP members in Ohio will be attaching their name to the legislation any time soon. Though the bill has yet to be reviewed by the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association, some within the organization have expressed skepticism about the bill’s potential effects. OPAA member John Murphy told The Dayton Daily News that legislation eliminating marital exemptions could lead to false claims in custody battles or divorce cases. “The problems of proof was one concern,” Murphy said of Johnson’s 2015 push to eliminate the exception. “This happens between husband and wife in private — it’s one person’s word against another.” This logic flops on its face, though, because the alternative suggests there should be no laws regulating rape at all since these situations often boil down to contradictory narratives. Johnson demonstrates a much more nuanced understanding about the intricacies of intimate-partner violence, an issue that should easily allow politicians to reach across the aisle. Noting it still may be an uphill battle, Johnson remained positive about the bill’s future in an interview with The Dayton Daily News, but criticized the lack of Republican support for a bill that simply attempts to protect people against sexual assault — at the very least in the courtroom. “Women will say ‘I had sex with him so he wouldn’t hit me again,’” Johnson said in the same interview. “They aren’t even acknowledging that that’s rape or that is sexual violence. There is either consent or there is rape. Those are two very different things.” Partisanship plaguing progress is not a new story in politics, but it certainly crosses a line when it extends to such blatantly unnecessary blocks on bills of this nature. The marital exemption law is also far from an anomaly in the Ohio legislature. There are a number of other problematic sexual assault policies currently in place, including laws that only qualify domestic violence as an occurrence between spouses, those living together or family members, thus excluding dating couples and other partnerships. Georgia is the only other state that has such an exemption. When the House addresses this bill next month it should put partisanship aside, at least temporarily, for a common-sense reform. Johnson puts it best in an interview with The Independent. “Protecting victims of sexual assault and rape should have nothing to do with partisan affiliation,” she said. “We must modernise [sic] Ohio’s laws and eradicate unacceptable policy that allows someone to commit violence against their spouse. Women and men experiencing sexual violence at the hands of their spouses should not be denied the right to seek justice just because they happen to be married to the offender.” Editorials are the responsibility of the Review Editorial Board — the Editors-in-Chief, Managing editor and Opinions editor — and do not necessarily reflect the views of the staff of the Review.

Opinions

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The Oberlin Review, March 31, 2017

Health Care Requires Bipartisan Reform Johan Cavert Contributing writer In a stunning flop last week, Republicans failed to pass a replacement to the Affordable Care Act that was expected to sail through a Republican-controlled Congress. Such a remarkable loss provides a rare opportunity for bipartisan cooperation at a time when such action is sorely needed. Politicians on both sides of the aisle have acknowledged that the ACA needs to be repaired in order to reduce rising premiums and incentivize insurance companies to join the marketplace to increase competition. After a terribly divisive presidential campaign and six years of congressional gridlock, health care reform could be the first step to the bipartisan collaboration that is necessary for American democracy to function. As a first step, both parties must admit the failures and missteps they made in their attempts to address an immensely complicated and divisive social issue. After years of political argument, the American public now realizes how difficult health care reform is. They deserve a solid policy proposal, not some slapdash partisan mockup. Democracy is meant to be messy and difficult and is predicated on compromise. That requires a good faith effort and mutual cooperation. After making their opposition to Obamacare a central tenet of their party platform, Republicans’ astounding inability to replace the ACA should be humbling. Following weeks of discussion that began as soon as President Donald Trump was elected, leadership settled on a replacement bill, the American Health Care Act, in early March. Supporters lauded it for its estimated reduction of $337 billion from the national deficit in 10 years and its elimination of the ACA’s mandate that all individuals have health care. Despite some support, opposition to the bill was strong. A recent Quinnipiac poll indicated that only 17 percent of Americans held a favorable opinion of the law. It was harangued in the press and was subject to massive grassroots protests for failing to protect vulnerable populations and causing a predicted 24 million people to lose insurance by 2026. House Republicans, despite holding a significant majority, were unable to appease both the moderate members of their party and the far-right Freedom Caucus, causing House leadership to pull the bill from the floor without a vote after it became clear it could not pass. The defeat of the AHCA provides Congress with a unique opportunity. With both parties humiliated and divided by recent losses, compromise has become a more appealing — and necessary — option. Despite Trump’s assertions after the bill failed, Republicans never consulted Democrats on the legislation, going so far as to lock it in a private room in the Capitol in the weeks leading up to its introduction. Their assumption that they could rely on their caucus alone to repeal the ACA was drastically wrong. But the Trump presidency is still in its early stages. There is time for the president to salvage some of his image if he can broker a mature and meaningful political win, especially on such a central issue to the Republican electoral platform. Republican legislators lost because they promised a fantasy. No bill could possibly reduce premiums, increase the number of insured people, eliminate the individual mandate and allow consumers more choice in choosing their provider. Democrats, too, must acknowledge their past partisan mistakes and come to the table ready to compromise. The 2009 passage of the ACA was a legislative success, but it was rammed through Congress on a strict party-line vote. That gave Republicans the opportunity to oppose it unilaterally, demonizing it as dangerous and socialist. Republican opposition to the ACA was so rampant that support for the bill only became apparent when it looked like Republicans might cut it. The lesson from 2009 and 2017 is the same. Single-party support for major legislation only leads to partisan warfare. Both sides have signaled a desire to work together on health care. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has repeatedly expressed his willingness to work with Republicans to fix the ACA. After the collapse of the AHCA, Trump’s Chief of Staff Reince Priebus told reporters that Republicans would also be willing to work with moderate Democrats in the future. These statements show that bipartisanship is possible and has become even more likely after the recent Republican fiasco. Partisan ideology and grievances should be set aside in order to fix a flawed health care system and start the larger process of healing the divided world of American politics.

Brian Tom

Red Tent Chapter Reaches Beyond Name Jackie Brant Columnist Many students around the country are facing increased levels of political and social distress in the wake of the tumultuous presidential election and subsequent increase in hate crimes. In response to this, College juniors Hannah Cook and Caitlin McCuskey are seeking to build a safe space for women and nonbinary people on campus through their efforts to officially charter Oberlin’s Red Tent Foundation chapter at the College. The Red Tent Foundation is a national organization named for the tradition of requiring women to gather in red tents during menstruation in certain early Jewish customs. During these times of exclusion, women developed strong bonds of friendship, support and unity among themselves. The Red Tent Foundation’s goal is to create a space for women on college campuses to promote this same sort of support and unity, but Oberlin’s Red Tent chapter is unique. Because of Oberlin’s commitment to social education and activism, the president of the Red Tent Foundation, Sarah Rose Attman, has helped Cook and McCuskey adapt the foundation’s goals to Oberlin’s unique environment.

Rather than focusing on raising awareness of gender inequality on a national scale, Oberlin’s Red Tent chapter focuses more on creating a safe space for women and nonbinary individuals to share ways in which they have personally experienced gender inequality and techniques for educating others and combating gender prejudices. Each month, the foundation sends out discussion topics for all chapters to discuss at their monthly meetings. These topics are typically general questions about sexism meant to educate chapter members and raise awareness on these issues. Spaces like Red Tent, in which women and nonbinary people can freely and safely share their personal experiences with gender issues, are vital on college campuses. They give people a strong support system and can help them deal with emotional distress. Further, Red Tent strives to create an environment of support and community between its members to ensure that every voice is being heard, especially in a time when so many voices are being threatened. Though Oberlin’s Red Tent chapter has been officially chartered by the foundation, the founders are still in the process of trying to get the chapter chartered by the College. There have been some con-

cerns on campus about the inclusivity of the foundation because of the implications of the name. Some are concerned that the name “Red Tent” is only inclusive to cis women and excludes gender nonconforming students. Cook shared these concerns with Attman, who affirmed that the Red Tent Foundation, despite the connotations the name might have, is inclusive to all women and nonbinary people, regardless of whether they identify as cisgender, transgender or gender nonconforming. The official Oberlin charter uses the spelling “womyn” rather than “woman” to emphasize its deliberate effort to make Red Tent inclusive to all people who identify as a woman or nonbinary. The Red Tent Foundation welcomes and encourages people of all sexual orientations, cultural backgrounds and other perspectives to attend and participate in meetings. Red Tent is a place of support on campus for all women and nonbinary students to gather and connect through each person’s individual experiences. The focus should not be on the name of the foundation but on supporting its ultimate goal, which is to build an inclusive safe space for all women and nonbinary students in order to foster community and support for its members.

College Lacks Opportunities to Study Business Katie Lucey Contributing writer Oberlin describes itself as an institution with “longstanding commitments to access, diversity, and inclusion,” according to its website. However, for what Oberlin achieves in terms of commitment to social improvement, it lacks in academic paths for students who want to pursue a career in business or entrepreneurship. Though there are a few classes for students to explore their interests in business offered within the Economics department, such as Principles of Accounting, there is no official major in business or entrepreneurship. While Oberlin is a liberal arts school and should remain committed to offering a broad, comprehensive education, it can go a long way in providing course offerings that support students interested in these fields.

Students desiring to incubate their entrepreneurial ideas can do so in the first-module, co-curricular course Introduction to Entrepreneurship and Leadership, offered by the Creativity and Leadership Program. Taught by Entrepreneur-In-Residence Holley Murchison, the class connects students with a network of current business innovators each week while also helping to prepare students to apply to LaunchU, Oberlin’s startup accelerator and pitch competition that takes place over Winter Term. The Creativity and Leadership Program aims to create spaces for students to make their innovative ideas and solutions a reality by encouraging something that perhaps stirs up a fair amount of fear for the average student: failure. “I have a feeling that a lot of people at Oberlin aren’t See Oberlin, page 7

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The Oberlin Review, March 31, 2017

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Oberlin Should Embrace Entrepreneurship Continued from page 6 invested in failure,” said College senior Jaye Goldschneider, who took the class last semester. “It has been drilled in our heads to do well in high school so you can get into a good college, so you go to good grad schools, so you can get a good job, and then you can work for most of your life, retire for a few years … and then die.” Potentially, this fear of failure has manifested in the relative invisibility of the program compared to typical college course offerings and majors, as “no one wants to fail,” according to Goldschneider. Although Murchison is attempting to reverse this reluctance to risk failure — she hopes

to “bring more programming and events outside of the entrepreneurship class” — Creativity and Leadership remains limited. Rather than existing as an academic department, it remains a multidisciplinary effort that offers co-curricular experiences rather than full-fledged academic courses, according to its website. Additionally, programs like LaunchU, though invaluable in their mission to provide student ventures with funding, are small and lack student involvement. This year, most of the participants in the final pitch were alumni, with only two students making it to the final nine. “Being here has showed me that there’s a huge need for Creativity and Leadership to do

more,” Murchison said. “I see — and this an ongoing conversation with the dean — more speakers, more events, but more importantly, more labs to actually build and prototype ideas and fail and try again.” Students who took Introduction to Entrepreneurship and Leadership in the past have voiced a similar desire for the department to offer more classes and workshops. “I think that everyone should have to take an entrepreneurship class at Oberlin,” Clasby Chope, a College first-year enrolled in the class, said. “As humans, we are born to be entrepreneurs. … Knowing how to market and present our skills and abilities is crucial.”

Murchison agrees. “When I learned [the class] was co-curricular I was like, ‘This school could have one of the best Creativity and Leadership departments in the country because it’s a small school, because it’s liberal arts, because there’s just so much energy here,’” she said. “But it is lacking.” While the Creativity and Leadership program has been revamped over the past few years in order to expand its impact on the campus and community, the fact remains that the program is small and somewhat “isolated,” according to Kelly Jackson, a graduate student working in the department. In order to benefit more students, the program should enter

the vernacular of more students through increased advertising, more for-credit courses and the like. Ultimately, the Creativity and Leadership program at Oberlin needs to be expanded in order to provide opportunities for students looking to explore business or entrepreneurship both in and out of a traditional classroom setting. “I bet that every single person on this campus is an idea person. … Every single person has an idea that they like, has an idea that they can contribute to,” Jackson said. “Just being presented with the tools to make that happen — it’s critical and is what the department can do.”

Drop in International Applications Reflects Political Shift Nathan Carpenter Contributing Opinions editor One of the harsh realities faced by many people in the wake of President Donald Trump’s election is that the United States is not a friendly country. Until Election Day, political rhetoric about the U.S. being a country of immigrants, a cultural “melting pot” was common. Ostensibly, a lot of people — particularly white people — bought into that narrative of the U.S. as a welcoming place. Now, as national immigration and travel policy shifts drastically, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to argue that the U.S. is open to all. Xenophobia dominates political discourse in both Washington and in our local communities. Trump is moving to close our borders and increasingly isolate the U.S. from the rest of the world. Despite his travel bans being twice struck down in court so far, Trump’s rhetoric is already having a tangible impact. Last week, NBC News reported that 39 percent of colleges and universities that responded to its survey reported a drop in international applications. That’s a stag-

gering number and the motivation behind this drop in applications can be traced directly back to Trump and the current climate of divisiveness and fear that he has promoted. “Educators, recruiters and school officials report that the perception of America has changed for international students, and it just doesn’t seem to be as welcoming a place anymore. Officials point to the Trump administration’s rhetoric surrounding immigration and the issuing of a travel ban as having an effect,” the article states. It’s not just policy that is discouraging potential international applicants. The recent rash of violent speech and actions against immigrants and people of color in communities all across the U.S. has also increased anxiety. The NBC piece specifically cites a February incident in which two Indian men were killed in Kansas while the shooter said, “Get out of my country.” Such events have discouraged students from wanting to come to the U.S. That’s a big problem for a nation interested in being on the cutting edge of innovation and invention. In an increasingly globalized

world, technological and social advancement is going to be promoted by more collaboration with other countries and cultures, not less. The impact of international students avoiding U.S. colleges and universities is more significant than a simple loss of human capital, however. The loss of crosscultural interaction will be devastating for a country that is already veering back into the territory of overt white supremacy that many hoped we had left behind. My roommate last semester was an international student, and a couple of my closest friends are as well. I value them for their friendship, first and foremost. And, as with any other of my friends, I also value the dimensionality that they bring to my life. I appreciate that my worldview and global understanding are expanded by virtue of knowing and learning from them. Trump threatens to eliminate the potential for these important connections to be made. Of course, it is not the responsibility of international students to come to the U.S. to be ambassadors for their countries. However, if they do decide to study here, our colleges and universities — and,

Government Should Refuse to Redistribute Wealth Continued from page 5 common response to this is the idea that such use of force is justified, because a majority of the governed people have made a social contract with the state to operate through taxation. But taxation beyond essential government functions like national security and the justice system are inherently authoritarian. Thus, this response is merely a defense of rule of the majority. A recent Gallup poll found that two-thirds of Americans agree that economic inequality is a problem that the government should fix. Does this mean that the government has the right to coerce the minority out of their hard-earned money just to satisfy the subjective worldview of the majority? It is this concept of mob rule that makes wealth redistribution immoral. The second issue of wealth redistribution is the problem of defining economic equality. When is equality within the economic system achieved? Is it when the wage-earner receives 20 percent of the average salary of the CEO? 40 percent? Entirely equal? This question exemplifies the logical shortcomings of wealth redistribution. Unless everyone agrees exactly what constitutes an equal system, economic equality can never be achieved. This can be problematic not just for those striving toward legally implementing socialist policies but also for the government attempting to execute such decisions. Social democrats and state socialists who submit to the idea of wealth redistribution either lack a legitimate goal or believe in radical equality.

A final point to make is the sheer lack of logic rooted in the concept of wealth redistribution. Contrary to popular belief, redistribution of money does not help the economy. As Jeffrey Dorfman, professor of Agricultural and Applied Economics at the University of Georgia, rightfully pointed out in a column in Forbes, wealth redistribution only gives people the ability to spend by taking away that same ability from other taxpayers within the system. Many would respond to this by saying that wealthy people are more likely to hoard their money than spend it. But this is ignoring the fact that our economy is more supply-driven than demand-driven, and supply requires long-term investments of the sort that only wealthy individuals can provide. Wealth redistribution also does little to help the poor and working-class. For instance, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon earned about $19 million in the 2016 fiscal year. Many think that if McMillon’s wealth were evenly distributed among all of Walmart’s employees, it would surely benefit the workers and give them massive payraises. However, if the government forced McMillon to redistribute his wealth, every Walmart employee would only receive 9 dollars. This shows that even if redistribution of wealth were morally acceptable, it would do nothing to solve the problem of income inequality. And many of these CEOs, such as McMillon, began their careers unloading trucks for $4 an hour. Millions of workers in this country hold animosity toward the 1 percent, forgetting that many in the 1 percent started out in the same place as the rest of us.

by extension, our country as a whole — are made stronger by their presence. Ultimately, as time goes on and cooler heads hopefully prevail in the White House and elsewhere, applications from international students will likely rebound. However, if that does happen, U.S. citizens will still be left with some serious issues to address. We must critically evaluate how this country shifted so suddenly from the quiet, perhaps naïve complacency of the Obama years to the clear and present danger being presented by the Trump administration. Xenophobia and white nationalism in this country never disappeared. But it is alarming how quickly we allowed those dangerous ideologies to assume the driver’s seat in Washington and in our communities. In a matter of months, the United States became quantifiably and significantly less safe for many people, including those from other countries, and so, understandably, people from other countries no longer want to come here. Part of the process of making the U.S. welcoming will be to ensure that a similar descent into divisiveness and hate is never allowed to happen again.

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Spring Has Sprung The Arb This Oberlin staple is beautiful year-round and is an exceptional place to watch the sunset reflected on the pond. Take a stroll, make a picnic or sit by the water.

The flowers are blooming, birds are chirping and the walk from North Quad to Mudd library no longer makes us wonder whether we are going to catch hypothermia or lose a few fingers to frostbite. It is time to emerge from our overheated college housing cocoons and spend some time outside. Here are some beautiful outdoor places to unwind and soak up the sun.

Kohl Rooftop On top of the Kohl Jazz Building is a peaceful garden, complete with great views of Tappan Square. Leave your stress behind and chill here to the soft sounds of contemporary jazz.

Fields and Bowls There are open, landscaped spaces all over campus to do homework, make art or hang with friends. Some include South Bowl, Wilder Bowl, North Quad and North Fields. Look forward to outside For a conveniently located option, TGIFs in Wilder Bowl to decompress on take a study break and relax by the Fridays with friends and beer. soothing koi pond next to Bibbins Hall. In keeping with the season, don’t forget to bring your lover for a late-night date.

Lake Erie Cuyahoga Valley National Park

Koi Pond

CALENDAR: The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window Little Theater March 31–April 1, 8 p.m. April 2, 2 p.m. This play follows New Yorker Sidney, his wife Iris and their animated group of friends during a tumultuous political campaign. It is both funny, poignant and thought-provoking. Admission is $5.

Spirited Away Apollo Theatre Friday, March 31, 11:59 p.m. (subtitled) Saturday, April 1, 11 a.m. (dubbed) This Miyazaki classic follows a young girl through a magical world as she tries to save her family, encountering mysterious spirits and supernatural creatures on her way. Tickets are $5.

North Coast Inland Trail Head past Johnson House and turn right to get on this bike path, which connects Oberlin with the town of Kipton. It is shaded by many trees, with numerous benches bordering the trail for nature-watching breaks.

Bad Fanfic Night Cat in the Cream Tuesday, April 4, 7–9 p.m. Presented by the Harry Potter Alliance, this event will include Mad Libs, open mic fiction readings, word games and other activities. Admission is free, but any donations will go to Planned Parenthood.

Get lost! There are many trails to wander in this national park, about a 45-minute drive from campus. Listen to the natural soundtrack of diverse varieties of native fauna and flora, especially around this time of year.

About 12 miles away, Lake Erie is accessible via car, but also via an hourlong bike ride depending on your speed. Refresh yourself with an afternoon at the beach — it’s not the Gulf Coast, but take what you can get.

Layout and text by Izzy Rosenstein, This Week editor

¡Presente! and La Alianza Latinx Meet, Greet and Bowl College Lanes, Hales Annex

The Evolving Image of the Baiana and Black Female Identity in Brazil Art Building, Classroom 1

Wednesday, April 5, 5–7 p.m.

Wednesday, April 5, 4:30 p.m.

If you’re a member of the Latinx community, join other Latinx employees and students for this fun night of socializing, bowling and pizza.

Exploring different kinds of art, this lecture will discuss the intricate role of images of Black women from Brazil and the mixed impacts they have in different cultural contexts.

Spring Back

Warner Main Space April 6–8, 7 p.m. Dance at Oberlin presents Spring Back, an annual performance directed by Assistant Dance Professor Alysia Ramos and featuring student dancers. Tickets are $5, available at the Central Ticket Office.

Spring Has Sprung The Arb This Oberlin staple is beautiful year-round and is an exceptional place to watch the sunset reflected on the pond. Take a stroll, make a picnic or sit by the water.

Kohl Rooftop On top of the Kohl Jazz Building is a peaceful garden, complete with great views of Tappan Square. Leave your stress behind and chill here to the soft sounds of contemporary jazz.

Lake Erie Cuyahoga Valley National Park

Koi Pond

Layout and text by Izzy Rosenstein, This Week editor

¡Presente! and La Alianza Latinx Meet, Greet and Bowl College Lanes, Hales Annex

The Evolving Image of the Baiana and Black Female Identity in Brazil Art Building, Classroom 1

Wednesday, April 5, 5–7 p.m.

Wednesday, April 5, 4:30 p.m.

If you’re a member of the Latinx community, join other Latinx employees and students for this fun night of socializing, bowling and pizza.

Exploring different kinds of art, this lecture will discuss the intricate role of images of Black women from Brazil and the mixed impacts they have in different cultural contexts.

Spring Back

Arts The Oberlin Review

Page 10

March 31, 2017

On the Record with Ethnomusicologist Aaron Fox This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Aaron A. Fox, associate professor of ethnomusicology at Columbia University, visited Oberlin this week to discuss his work repatriating archived recordings of Native music. Photo courtesy of Aaron Fox

Aaron Fox is an associate professor of music and ethnomusicology and the director of the Center for Ethnomusicology at Columbia University. His educational background demonstrates the intersection of fields in which he works; he holds a bachelor’s degree in Music from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin. Fox collaborates with Oberlin Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Chie Sakakibara on repatriating recorded Native music and has

written extensively on the question of intellectual property. Fox visited Oberlin March 25 to deliver the keynote address for the Midwest chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology, “Ways of Hearing: Decolonizing the Ethnomusicological Archive,” in which he discussed his work repatriating recordings collected by Laura Boulton, an ethnomusicologist who traveled the world recording music and dance from many Native peoples in the mid-20th century.

Who was Laura Boulton and what is her legacy? In some ways, it’s remarkable how much she did accomplish, but with her whole generation [engaged in colonialism], she left behind a legacy that’s tainted by its relationship both directly to colonial power and indirectly to the promulgation of mythologies about indigenous people and traditional cultures that were rationalizations of their political subordination, assuming their disappearance or their need for paternalistic protection of their culture and their representation of a timeless and premodern past. The major point I try to make is that these encounters actually happened with fellow modern people, who were then constructed as primitive people for the benefit of the archivist’s or collector’s agenda. Professor Sakakibara and I work with the descendants of these same performers, and they’re filmmakers and rappers and educators and world travelers. The Alaskan songs that Boulton recorded in 1946 that I work on with Chie [Sakakibara] were … presented by her as rare and disappearing. When we came back in 2008 to repatriate those songs, the dance tradition was thriving. In archaeology and anthropology in general, when we talk about repatriation, we’re usually talking about physical objects. How do you repatriate something that isn’t an object? The major focus of work that Chie and I do involves reconstructing the histories that didn’t get collected with the recordings of ownership, of the traditional meaning and utility of songs, … and also

just the direct oral histories of the recordings and the performers on them. … Who were they? What was their place in the community? What did they do after Laura Boulton left? What happened to these songs in the interim? Rarely did they disappear; they’re often still in the repertoire. On the surface, reproducible cultural artifacts like recordings of songs, or photographs of artworks,or documentations of rituals and writing [seem like they] would be non-singular objects that can be copied any number of times. Therefore their physical location is not unique. For many Westerners, songs and dances don’t have the same status as either restricted knowledge, sacred ceremonial value, family property. Lots of people have trouble with the idea that there’s something unethical about a recording existing in two places, and most music repatriation has taken the form of … getting copies to interested parties, so either to tribal museums and archives, or directly to descendants of performers on the recordings, or very often to indigenous scholars, activists or musicians who want material to work with for their own cultural reclamation or survival projects. Why is the ownership of these songs so complicated? The first person to record or write something down acquires some sort of magic control or authorship over something that may have belonged to a family for generations in an oral tradition. That didn’t just happen with field recordings of indigenous music, that’s how American popular music was born. There’d be no record industry without stealing intellectual property from oral tradition. So

it’s broader than Native American music or field recording, but in the case of field recording there was a particular history of the formation of the archives as legal entities, the claims archives had to control. This is where it gets more complicated, because although you can reproduce that song millions of times, the right to say who can do that, the right to say who can use it, the right to say, “No, nobody can use it,” [is attributed to possession]. Possession conveys control. The other big thing is pushing the control of and location of archives out from the metropolitan university museum space to local control, so more and more tribes have their own museums and archives and archivists and oral historians. There’s no reason why the Tsimshian recordings Laura Boulton made in British Columbia in 1942 should be in New York. The Tsimshian are perfectly capable of keeping them in Lax Kw’alaams, British Columbia, and deciding on their own who should have access and whether they should be published and so forth. Most of the assertions to ownership of Indigenous intellectual property, including Columbia’s with Laura Boulton, would not survive litigation nor would anybody else’s claim. Laura Boulton licensed her recordings to Folkways for commercial release, she sold them to Columbia, Columbia gave them to the Library of Congress, then Laura Boulton left her copy to Indiana University, which acquired some rights by that. All three of the institutions now observe this complicated dance when somebody wants to transcribe or publish or work with [the material]. [That] Laura See On the Record, page 13

First Church, Family Promise Host 11th Annual Homelessness Benefit Quentin Nguyen-Duy Daniel Markus Arts editor Family Promise of Lorain County has partnered with the Conservatory for more than a decade to host annual classical music concerts to raise money for the county’s homeless population. This year, the series’ 11th installment, taking place this Sunday at the First Church in Oberlin, will feature a quartet of notable Oberlin jazz musicians instead of the typical classical ensemble. Lois Pozega, the organization’s executive director, said the shift was made as part of a concerted effort to revitalize the event. “Last year the attendance was down, so the [planning] committee got together [and] asked, ‘What can we do differently?’” The result was a decision to change the event’s typical program, which has previously always included classical music while juggling shifting lineups of College and Conservatory students, faculty, community members and even musicians from the Cleveland Orchestra. Pozega said she is excited about the change. “It is very different, and I think the community will really pull together to attend,” she said. “These benefit concerts can bring [the] community together and help the

homeless. Music soothes the soul and … it’s such a good [way] … to help Family Promise.” According to the organization’s website, Family Promise serves Lorain’s homeless population, which the Corporation for Supported Housing estimated at about 570 people in 2017, by providing a family center where people can go during the day for services including career and housing assistance, and by partnering families with religious congregations that provide meals and shelter. Paul Samuels, visiting teacher of Jazz Studies and drummer of the four-piece ensemble performing this Sunday, said that he volunteered to take part after hearing about the organization. “It’s an awesome cause, and I am happy to [be doing] this,” Samuels said. “If you have a different audience, you are going to bring awareness to people who didn’t know about it. It’s always a great idea that there are partnerships between the College and community, and this is also a learning experience for young people who have thought about what it might mean to be homeless. It might open up their hearts.” Aidan Plank, an Oberlin native and fixture in the Cleveland jazz scene, will be joining Samuels, Associate Professor of Jazz Piano

Dan Wall and Professor of Jazz Guitar Bobby Ferrazza in the ensemble. He echoed Samuels’ excitement about bringing people together from throughout the Oberlin community around the charity. “Growing up in Oberlin and being the son of a professor at the Conservatory, I could never personally separate aspects of my life that were influenced by both the College and ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

“If you have a different audience, you are going to bring awareness to people who didn’t know about it.” Paul Samuels –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– city,” Plank wrote in an email to the Review. “I learned how to play the bass in the Oberlin Public Schools and at the Conservatory of Music. My life has always been wrapped up in [this] relationship to both College and community. The great joy of my life is getting to create music with people that have different backgrounds and experiences from me and finding … common ground with them in the

mutual love of creating music. I think it’s quite wonderful to be given the opportunity to make music to try to raise money for Family Promise. It is very much in the spirit of what both the city of Oberlin and Oberlin College aspire to be, mainly a source of peace, compassion and wisdom in the world.” Samuels and the rest of the ensemble are hopeful that the concert will use people’s connection to music to facilitate a connection to Family Promise in addition to bringing people together. “It’s been a part of my life since day one, music in general and jazz later on, and it’s been an inspiration on so many levels, spiritually, education-wise and in terms of history of this continent,” Samuels said. “I look at all music as ministering to others. Hopefully, [the concert] can bring people together and give people something to think about. Hopefully, [they] find the music engaging enough to bring something away, [and] hopefully it will be uplifting enough in the end that people don’t only connect to the music but also [to] the cause.” The 11th annual benefit concert for Family Promise of Lorain County is on Sunday, April 2 at 3 p.m. at The First Church in Oberlin. Admission is free.

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The Oberlin Review, March 31, 2017

Page 11

Award-Winning Composer Assesses State of Contemporary Music

British-American composer Bernard Rands gives a talk on the current state of contemporary classical music Tuesday at The Birenbaum. Photo by Bryan Rubin, Photo editor

Ivan Aidun Staff writer The recently set concrete walls of the Birenbaum Innovation and Performance Space accommodated musicians and music enthusiasts Tuesday evening for a talk on contemporary classical music, given by British-American composer Bernard Rands. The room buzzed as people filed in, and quiet conversation pervaded the space as people eagerly waited for Rands to begin. Titled “State of the Art,” the event was a discussion and question-and-answer session that dove into the trends and trajectory of contemporary music written

in the Western Classical tradition, an area Rands knows well after having studied composition with such well-known artists as Pierre Boulez, Bruno Maderna, Luigi Dallapiccola and Luciano Berio. Rands spent his early life in Europe surrounded by the seminal figures of mid-20th century avant-garde music. He moved to the United States in 1975 and has lived and composed here ever since. He has been associated with conductors such as Zubin Mehta, who conducted Rands’ 1984 Pulitzer Prize-winning Canti del Sole, Daniel Barenboim and Christoph von Dohnányi. “The [avant-garde] is in the activ-

ity,” Rands said in response to a question from the audience regarding the term’s contemporary applicability, given that the upheavals of the 20th century are behind us. “The meaning is to destroy the status quo.” Rands implied that there is always a spirit of avant-garde, defined by its defiance more than by any particular technique. “Do I push myself to my limits all the time? Yes,” Rands said of his own work after the event. “So, for myself, I’m avant-garde.” Moreover, he dismissed the designation of avant-garde as being a particularly important one, saying that it was one of a

variety of techniques people use to try to impose their own views on music. “That’s the wonderful thing about music: Nobody can own it,” Rands said, emphasizing his dissatisfaction with what he called the dogmatic characteristic of certain schools of composition throughout the discussion. Conservatory first-year Kari Watson, who attended, said this sentiment struck her the most. “This connects to my own ideology of music, that it should be communal,” Watson said. Another audience member asked Rands about studying in Darmstadt, Germany, with composer Pierre Boulez, a place and person well known for this sort of dogmatism, and whether he ever felt that atmosphere was stifling creatively. Rands replied that Boulez could be very rigid, which could at times be frustrating, but that his particularism was what made his music most recognizable. However, he did use the 20th-century dismissal of Romanticism as an artifact of yesterday — an idea which Boulez, a dedicated adherent to serialism, subscribed to — as evidence that one can get caught up in one movement to the exclusion of all others. To Rands, there are things that romantics like Tchaikovsky captured that serialism and later movements just couldn’t, and vice versa. “There are times I hear the last movement of Tchaikovsky’s [sixth symphony] and I think, ‘Eat your heart out, Pierre,’” Rands said. Watson said she appreciated Rands’ frank anecdotes about his composition teachers. “Sometimes composers like that sit on such a pedestal, but hearing his anecdotes were really humanizing and a healthy reminder that they were just people See Rands, page 13

Drag Ball Goes to Hell and Back with New Theme, RuPaul Performances Julia Peterson Production editor Drag Ball has been one of Oberlin’s most iconic annual events since the 1980s. A celebration of the queer community and drag performance and culture, Drag Ball will take over the basement of Wilder Hall — encompassing the ’Sco, the Rathskellar and DeCafé — on April 22. This year, Drag Ball will feature a lineup of nationally recognized musicians and drag performers, along with local talent. Latrice Royale, of RuPaul’s Drag Race season four and RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars, will be performing. Rapper and drag queen Big Momma will be performing, as will M. Lamar, who, according to College senior and Drag Ball organizing committee Head Em Westheimer, is a “radical queer Black afrofuturist neo-goth singer, pianist [and] installation artist.” Local artists include DJ Zoë Lapin, former Head of the Drag Ball organizing committee Andrecia Patrón, OC ’14, and performer Sasha Mizrahe. At Drag Ball, performers are given a stage that showcases the history and culture of the performance art, while students can experiment with gender expression and performance in their own drag practice. College senior Jasper Clarkberg, also a member of the organizing committee, spoke about what he recalls of the atmosphere in preparing for the event his sophomore

year. “It was really fun, specifically because I was experimenting with my own drag practice — so, [things] like finding shoes that fit me and figuring out makeup,” Clarkberg said. “It was very educational, very useful life skills. We had some cool artists. … It’s cool seeing queer icons that I respect actually come to campus.” This year’s theme and event title is “Drag Me to Hell.” The posters and décor will reflect different visions of the afterlife, with DeCafé as heaven, the Rathskellar as a postapocalyptic vision of purgatory and the ’Sco as hell. The organizers are using the various spaces in Wilder to play with this theme and make the party more accessible for attendees who don’t want to spend the entire time in the ’Sco. As much as Drag Ball is meant to be a party and a celebration, it is in conversation with a larger history of queer art and oppression. “Drag has a history, and there are so many people who, regardless of whether they’re trans or gay or a drag performer or cross-dressing or whatever the situation is … [being] actively persecuted for leaving the house wearing gender nonconforming,” Westheimer said. “So for someone to treat that with flippancy is … offensive.” Students hoping to attend Drag Ball should plan in advance since tickets cannot be purchased at the door. Since 2012, when the event

was resurrected after a two-year hiatus, Drag Ball attendees have been required to attend at least one workshop approved by the Drag Ball planning committee in order to purchase a ticket. This year, the preliminary list of authorized events includes the Drag Ball Student Showcase taking place April 7 at 10 p.m. at the ’Sco — though only students who perform in this event will be eligible for a ticket, not audience members — the Drag Ball decoration committee meeting April 15 and Sex Talks April 19. The requirement of attending a workshop to become eligible for tickets is a reflection of the Drag Ball organizing committee’s commitment to creating a safe, supportive and fun space for marginalized students and performers whose art and culture are often tokenized or co-opted as the punchlines of jokes. “These mandatory workshops are ... meant to be more serious and educate folks about queer history and politics and culture so that they don’t come to Drag Ball and disrespect the space, disrespect the community and disrespect the performers,” Westheimer said. “I remember [in my first year], it was mostly white cis guys in bad drag, in ratty wigs, with balloon titties, disrespecting the culture. They were lucky enough to come to a college where there is brilliant marginalized talent, which is creative and out there and exciting and invigorating. … And then they made

the space unsafe for ... queer folks and marginalized folks who might or might not be queer.” Though Drag Ball is always intended to be a celebratory, fun event, a large part of the committee’s work is about making sure that the history and artistry of drag are front and center. “[Drag Ball] is bridging the gap between a lot of people who — queer or not queer — might not necessarily be exposed to the segment of queer performativity that is drag,” Westheimer said. “You can literally see things in drag performances — dance moves, songs, emotions, concepts — that have rooting in … a history of oppression, but also in a history of resilience and combating oppression and surviving oppression and thriving. Making something beautiful about something ugly.” “Part of the mission of Drag Ball is to be something more than just a big party,” College sophomore and Drag Ball Treasurer Marina Schwadron agreed. “We want to acknowledge that drag and other types of queer performance have played a huge role in the history and culture of the LGBT community and activism.” The event is by no means exclusive to people who are already experienced drag performers. Drag Ball is meant to be a space where people are free to experiment with how they present and perform gender.

“We want it to be a space that is, for that night, super welcoming and accepting of any person who is experimenting with their gender expression, so you can wear whatever you want and walk in and be respected,” Clarkberg said. The building excitement for “Drag Me to Hell” is palpable with only a few weeks remaining before this year’s event. With many key members of the organizing committee graduating at the end of the year, however, questions about Drag Ball’s future have also been looming large. Westheimer’s most urgent hope is that Drag Ball will continue after their graduation, but they are also hoping that the nature of the committee will change to reflect the impact that Drag Ball has on the many community members who participate in the event. While many enthusiastic cis people attend Drag Ball every year, Westheimer sees a lack of straight cis allies who are willing to step up to the plate when it comes to organizing the event. “What I’d like to see is a bigger committee, with not just queer people — obviously, queer folks should be pitching in and can be pitching in,” Westheimer said. “But also, allies, where the f--- are they? Start pitching in. You want to come to the show. It’s a 700-person capacity. A lot of people enjoy it every year. A lot of people get a lot out of it every year. Pitch in, damn it!”

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The Oberlin Review, March 31, 2017

Heroes Brings Pared Down Version of Classic Nintendo Title

Two heroes battle in Nintendo’s latest mobile game Fire Emblem Heroes, a stripped down and free-to-play adaptation of the Fire Emblem series developed by Intelligent Systems and released Feb. 2. Photo by Daniel Markus, Arts editor

Avi Vogel Columnist Nintendo released Fire Emblem Heroes, its second game for mobile devices after December’s lackluster Super Mario Run, on Feb. 2. The game is part of a series of five mobile apps created in a partnership with Japanese e-commerce company DeNA intended to help grow Nintendo’s core fan base, which has aged and waned in recent years. Much like Super Mario Run, Heroes is a simplified version of a major franchise, the Fire Emblem series, which has gained massive popularity

in recent years after releases for Wii and 3DS. As a series that has previously prided itself on massive fights, short but well-written character interaction, strategy and intricate battle mechanics, there was some question as to how the games would translate to a mobile device. Every previous iteration of the series in recent years has operated on a more robust gaming platform, whether a home console or a device in Nintendo’s Gameboy DS line. With this in mind, Intelligent Systems, the developer behind Heroes, successfully designed a game for simpler systems like iOS and Android devices.

Players control teams of four heroes in a number of turn-based battles with enemy units. Users must take into account the strengths and weaknesses of their own units, those of their enemies and the map to create and implement a winning strategy in battles and level up their heroes. The base game is fun, and the turn-based mechanic, somewhat akin to a more complex version of chess, will be familiar to diehard Fire Emblem fans. Beyond that, however, some of Intelligent Systems’ attempts to make the game more accessible to new players become apparent. Numerous features common to previous games, such as missed attacks, critical hits, healing potions and units’ ability to carry more than one weapon, have been cut. While devoted Fire Emblem players will likely miss such features, the game is much more intuitive and suitable to mobile platforms without them. What the gameplay lacks in nuance is partially compensated for with its central free-to-play mechanic: summoning. Players begin the game with a team of three heroes, and by playing levels with those characters, they can earn the game’s currency, orbs. Orbs can be used to summon new characters taken from the Fire Emblem universe, and users can construct new teams and engage in battles. The game also offers a few different modes of play. Players can follow the game’s main storyline, which is fairly uninteresting and somewhat childish, as it follows the player’s characters as they attempt to beat back a hostile takeover of the Kingdom of Askr and other nearby worlds by the Emblian Empire. They can also grind out levels in the training tower, making their heroes more powerful. Lastly, another type of in-game currency, dueling swords, can be cashed in to participate in the Arena, fighting against other players’ teams. This is the most rewarding section of the game. Crafting an effective team that covers as many weaknesses as possible is satisfying, and when heroes reach their max levels, the Arena really shines. Battles in this mode are difficult, but they don’t feel unfair, as they sometimes can later in story mode.

However, this only works if you summon powerful heroes, which is where the ugliness of Heroes’ free-to-play nature comes into play. To summon heroes you need orbs, which are obtained in a variety of ways. The most common way is by completing story missions, but completing every chapter will only yield 135 orbs, or between 30 and 40 heroes. Whether a hero is powerful or weak is entirely up to chance, and the odds are stacked against players — over 50 percent of the heroes are of the lowest-possible strength level. By contrast, the strongest only appear just over six percent of the time. This is where the game falls apart. In the beginning, it’s fun — orbs are easy to gain and it’s fun to see which heroes you get. But after investing 10 to 20 hours into the game, it becomes almost impossible without strong heroes. Getting them may just be a matter of buying more orbs, and though the prices aren’t terrible, it’s still disappointing that I don’t have a team that can consistently compete in the Arena despite having downloaded the game at launch, logged in every day and completed every mission for orbs. Given all of those flaws, Heroes is still one of the best games I’ve seen in the free-toplay market, as it remains fairly accessible for long periods of time. Usually, if you want to play a game like this, you’re more limited than paying players, or the game pushes its paid features earlier. One of the worst freeto-plays in this regard is Clash Royale, which has a similarly solid game system surrounded by deplorable marketing practices. Heroes doesn’t totally succeed in creating a fun free-to-play system, but I still play the game because I became engrossed in it early on, extensively researching characters and frequenting community forums to learn more about the optimal teams and heroes. Another reason I’ve continued playing is because of how well this game has maintained support. It’s been out now for a month and a half, and in that time the developer has added a dozen new units, created daily and monthly challenges for more players to get resources and added deep character customization options to create a game that is growing more robust with time.

Peele’s Triumphant Debut Get Out Interrogates Liberal Racism Christian Bolles Columnist Directorial debuts are often fragile. The vast majority of them display a promising but flawed proof of behind-the-camera skill, so for any new director, finding success in their first effort is difficult. When it comes to non-white directors, however, Hollywood’s prevailing whiteness and racism elevates that difficulty to nearly complete impenetrability. After years of building up his reputation via the famed sketch comedy show Key & Peele and contributing to the script for last year’s warmly received comedy Keanu, Jordan Peele finally took the chance to flex his directorial muscles, breaking into the Hollywood mainstream with the explosive, laser-focused Get Out. The film blows past the stigma that often accompanies a debut and feels much more like the boldest work of a seasoned director at the peak of their career. Get Out’s singular voice, bitingly original and intelligent in its interrogation of the role of race in today’s social landscape, is the fuel to the film’s unstoppable fire, one that has propelled it to the top of U.S. box offices and secured it an early designation as one of 2017’s

best new features. With its tight script, Peele’s fresh mixture of horror and comedy is a genre-defining work that will stay relevant for years to come. Get Out follows a woman named Rose (Allison Williams) bringing her boyfriend Chris (Daniel Kaluuya), a photographer, home to meet her parents for the first time. Chris is Black and understandably nervous about how he will be received in Rose’s white, upper-class family — as his best friend Rod admonishes, there is no way this is going to end well. But with some sweet words and a calm demeanor, Rose convinces Chris — and perhaps some of the audience — that her family isn’t racist at all, citing that her father would “vote for Obama a third time if he could.” And indeed, despite living on an isolated country estate, the Armitage family seems comfortable with Chris’ presence. But some of the film’s best writing comes from the casual racism offloaded by Rose’s dad, Dean (Bradley Whitford), as he tries at every turn to prove just how racist he isn’t. Peele, the film’s sole writer, sets out to expose and break down the barriers we place between subtle and overt racism with both cringe-worthy and deeply

emotional moments. Through Chris’ honed photographer’s eyes, we see the Armitage estate, fittingly, as a sort of haunted house, where Chris is constantly vulnerable and scares lurk around every corner. One of Get Out’s defining characteristics is its ability to address racism — especially its subtleties — in a format palatable to the white people whose intentions it questions. An upper-class white crowd will find plenty of cause for self-reflection, as the camera’s affection for Chris affords an unflinching look at whiteness and its unceasing profession of good intentions without any real consideration of the consequences. Rose is the quintessential embodiment of this, as she constantly apologizes for her family’s insensitivity while doing nothing about it. This is undoubtedly a film that will be shaped by the perspective of the viewer, and yet its message is universal: attempting to avoid culpability for the persistence of racism fetishizes Blackness. Beneath all the Armitages’ pandering, they see and exploit Chris as little more than a useful tool that allows them to feel morally upright. Close-ups of Chris’ face as he slowly begins to crack under the stress make for some of the film’s most compelling mo-

ments amidst otherwise standard cinematography. Kaluuya’s performance never falters, even as his character’s psychological state does. Fans of the now-famous Netflix series Black Mirror will recognize him from one of its best installments, which concluded with an unforgettable careermaking monologue. In Get Out, he brings the same power and charm. There is a reason most posters for the film consist solely of his stunned face, eyes wide, tears dripping down his cheeks: The intensity he brings to the role punctuates the story’s dramatic moments, just as his spoton timing and nuanced delivery elevates its superb comedy. The interplay between horror and comedy is balanced just as well by the film’s other actors as it is by Peele and Kaluuya. Williams’ portrayal of Rose maintains a steady balance between being genuine and mysterious, and Whitford as Dean is genial, bumbling and sinister all at once. The only real misfire comes with Lil Rel Howery’s late-film presence as Rod. While his earlier scenes are some of the film’s funniest, the character, who seems to have come straight out of one of Peele’s sketches, robs the story’s heaviest moments of some of their power.

The occasional imbalance of levity and direness doesn’t detract much, however, as Get Out’s plot points have power to spare. As the eerily stiff Black servants of the Armitage family, Walter (Marcus Henderson) and Georgina (Betty Gabriel), portend, this film has one hell of a twist up its sleeve, and when Peele finally shows his hand, viewers will find themselves repeating the movie’s title, desperately hoping that everything turns out all right. The climax is nothing short of exhilarating, defying expectations while fitting snugly within the structural confines of a good horror romp. Peele defends his bold thesis to the end, concluding with narrative grace notes that address the trivialization of Black bodies through stereotypical notions of desirability in no uncertain terms. The effects of Get Out linger long after the final notes of its opening and closing song, for while Peele may tie his whopper of a movie together with a neat bow, the themes it discusses remain. As long as racism remains so deeply embedded in American society, Get Out’s bite will continue to elicit myriad reactions from a mainstream audience: horror, sympathy and, perhaps with time, a newfound resolve to change.

Arts

The Oberlin Review, March 31, 2017

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On the Record with Ethnomusicologist Aaron Fox Continued from page 10 Boulton owned these is the founding statement, everything else depends on her initial assertion that these are [hers]. She stands for a whole generation of collectors who confidently asserted that and left us with a huge burden of unwinding, to the extent we can, the small injustice that stands for an entire regime of dispossession, of which the dispossession of their land and children is more significant, but this remains symbolic of that, this little thing. I always tell people to think of archives as war memorials, not just as neutral sites of cool things. The victor builds the archives and remembers the war in terms favorable to the victor. Except the war isn’t over. Native people are still here, and they’re increasingly asserting, as at Standing Rock [Reservation], that they’re legally entitled to sovereignty and recovery of treaty-bound lands and unwinding of broken promises and all the rest of it. If you think about how ethnomusicologists could contribute to that larger decolonial critique, … it’s primarily about indigenizing the process of archiving itself, making it responsive to Indigenous frameworks of understanding. And then that’s what we teach! It’s much more interesting to teach these as documents of the Native American Civil Rights movement, for example. Students find that so much

more compelling than “Inupiat music is characterized by a bare minimum of resources, a drum and a voice,” like, whatever descriptive apparatus we could use that primitivizes it. Just say, “Hey, these guys recording in 1946, they went on to be leaders of their community during a successful civil rights movement that was centered on dance.” It was the most prominent expression of Alaskan Native identity across all the tribes that had to unite to fight for the Alaska [Native Claims] Settlement Act in [1971]; they got together every year and danced at the Alaska Federation of Natives and traded songs, and that was where they formed common cause and figured out their political organization. Repatriation is clearly helpful for Native groups in terms of recovering agency. What does repatriation do for ethnomusicology and archival work? We know much more about these materials as traditional culture and in their historical frameworks because the repatriation work just filled in tons of context. When Chie and I got to Barrow in 2008, the last of the elders who were great experts in music and old enough to remember the music of 1946 were dying. We interviewed Martha Aiken and Warren Matumeak and numerous other elders who are now dead, who all appear in the photos that Boulton’s photographer took in ’46 as teenag-

ers in the church choir. It’s their parents whose music we’re talking about. If we had come three or four years later, they would have been gone and that memory would have been lost. The Iñupiaq view is “Hey, we share, it’s what we do, it’s the core of our culture.” You show up as a tourist, you’re going to be eating fermented whale blood within the hour. Someone will feed you. And it’s not fake, they’re a genuinely welcoming and hospitable community, which is their way because in their world, feeding strangers was the way you made sure you got fed. It’s not naïve, like “We share ‘cause we’re nice,” [it’s], “We share because it’s our way of building alliance and sociability and community.” The Iñupiaq [outlook is] that you’re welcome to take but you have to improve and return the improvement to the community. Laura Boulton was the recipient of a gift that obligated, if not her, then her successors, to a relationship, and we see that as more interesting in some ways than the fate of the recording of a song. It stands for a larger relationship of faith and trust between universities and academic disciplines and indigenous communities, where we have a sort of reciprocal responsibility that our ancestors incurred as a debt. The archive has deeply relied on the projection of American Indians as representing the primitive evolutionary path of music, which is wrong and denial

Rands Centers Avant Garde in Birenbaum Conversation Session Continued from page 11 like the rest of us,” Watson added. Rands also discussed how Boulez’s conducting showed the character of his music, noting that early in Boulez’s career he sought to separate himself musically from his French forebearers, Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. However, by the time of his death, Boulez was perhaps best known for his interpretations of Debussy and Ravel, alongside other early 20th-century composers such as Béla Bartók and Alban Berg. “When he conducted Debussy and Ravel, it was very penetrative,” Rands said, adding that one could see Boulez “gradually recognize his heritage.” The theme of recognizing one’s musical heritage pervaded the discussion. “I hope I’m wrong, but among young composers I’ve had the pleasure to be with and teach, there’s not a knowledge that goes back several centuries,” Rands said. He finds this distressing and to an extent symptomatic of the aforementioned musical dogmatism. Rands particularly warned young composers not to ignore any music. “Until an artist … becomes convinced that they are part of a lineage that is beautiful in all its stages, we cannot produce anything significant,” Rands emphasized. In parallel, Rands also discussed the importance of staying connected to “vernacular” music — that is, music outside of the Western Classical tradition, such as musical theater or pop music. He said that this sort of connection tends to be strong among composers in the United States. “There is fundamentally, I think, a desire

to be as good as Cole Porter,” Rands said of American music, specifically referring to the role of jazz within it. Rands said he will listen to pop music, though certain unnamed musicians chide him for it, as a way of remaining in touch. Rands said this sort of openness is important as a way to combat musical indoctrination. “The point of any creative activity is to discover who you are,” Rands elaborated. Pop melodies have a way of immediately making sense, and he seeks a similar directness of expression in his own music. “It’s trying to tap into an aspect of humanity that music represents better than any other phenomenon that I know,” Rands said. Tonight, the Oberlin Orchestra will present Rands’ English Horn Concerto, which premiered in 2015 by the Cleveland Orchestra. Oberlin Professor of Oboe and English Horn Robert Walters, for whom the piece was written, will play the solo part. “[The piece] enlarges the capacity for the instrument,” Walters said. “Usually English Horn is typecast into slow, mournful melodies. … My mother used to call it ‘the anguish horn.’” Walters also praised Rands’ use of the orchestra as a unified whole, a musical dynamic Rands had indicated was very important to him. Walters’ enthusiasm made Rands’ closing remarks from the discussion ring very true. “I have great faith that no matter what the avant-garde is doing, no matter what the retrograde is doing, music will continue to elevate the human spirit,” he said.

of their contemporaneity and their agency, but without it there would be no institutionalization of the field, there’d be no funding, there’d be no professorships, there’d be no

departments, so in a sense we owe them everything. Interview by Rachel Mead, Staff writer

Colors of Rhythm

Yesterday evening marked the 21st annual Colors of Rhythm showcase, conceived in 1997 to highlight certain cultural modes of performance notably absent from curricula and mainstream awareness. The event has persisted to this day as a platform for artists and performers of color to explore and celebrate cultural art forms. The primary objective for Colors of Rhythm is to provide “a forum for disenfranchised artists and performers of color” to express themselves through forms historically omitted from course offerings, and, in so doing, to “initiate constructive protest against issues of cultural appropriation and uncritical cultural assimilation by and within dominant cultures,” according to its mission statement. Presenting a variety of performances from Taiko drumming and dance forms like step to spoken word and vocal pieces, the showcase seeks to raise awareness about whitewashing and appropriation, as well as challenge the dynamic of decontextualization that can occur when such forms are coopted into dominant artistic movements.

Text by Victoria Garber, Arts editor Photo by Clover Linh Tran, Staff photographer

Sports

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In the Locker Room This week, the Review sat down with junior sprinter/jumper Lilah Drafts-Johnson and junior thrower Monique Newton to talk about the women’s team’s first outright conference championship in school history, the duo’s experiences competing at Nationals and their expectations for the outdoor season. In the NCAA Division III Indoor Championship, Newton shattered records across the board, placing first in the nation at shot put and becoming the first female NCAA champion in Oberlin College history. On the track, DraftsJohnson had a breakout season this winter, winning North Coast Athletic Conference Runner of the Year and breaking two school records. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. What did it mean to be on the first women’s team in Oberlin College history to outright win the indoor conference championship this season? Lilah Drafts-Johnson: This summer, Monique [Newton] sent me a Snapchat of the banner in the athletic doorway to Philips gym and she wrote, “2017 Conference Champions.” I saved it because I was like, “Yeah, we are going to do it.” Coming in as freshmen, we were always second to Ohio Wesleyan University, and that was the natural order. To beat them on our home turf was this huge display of force, talent and ability. Monique Newton: This was a goal we had set since the ending of last year. People in my year, we have come second to OWU every single season, indoor and outdoor. To get over the hump and actually do it was a really good feeling. I haven’t

Women’s Track and Field with my first race. It was a smooth transition, and that was the plan. MN: We had a great indoor season, and we are trying to carry the momentum outdoors. This is probably the best start to a season, distance-wise, that I’ve ever had, which is encouraging. At this time of year, it’s easy to burn out, which is something we are trying to not let happen.

Monique Newton (left) and Lilah Drafts-Johnson. really thought about it a lot, but I’m sure it’ll be something pretty cool 10 years from now. How was your experience competing at Nationals? LDJ: It’s really exciting to go to the track and see all of these other athletes competing and knowing that they have all gone through the same experience of working very hard to get to that point. For me, it was exciting because it was my first time going as an indoor qualifier. It’s also a really nice way to put a bookend on the season. What did it feel like to earn the national championship in the shot put? MN: It still hasn’t really sunken in. Winning indoor conference, that was the goal this year. Last year, I finished second and was close but not quite there. This year, trying

to figure out how to get over that hump, putting everything together at the right time and learning from the past to accomplish my goal was very special. I knew I was the first female in program history [to win an individual national championship]. I didn’t know I was the first female ever until after, so that was awesome. It was a great ending to a great season. How important was the support of your teammates and coaches in helping you to the national stage? LDJ: The support is really important. The best race that I ran indoors was my leg of the 4x400 [meter relay] for conference, and that’s the fastest time I split because everyone was cheering so hard. I feel like my nationals race I struggled because I didn’t have those same good vibes in the center. … My coach, Alisha Sam-

Men’s Tennis Heats Up in South Carolina Over Spring Break Continued from page 16 the Yeomen dominated spring break competition. Drougas’ success stood out, as the junior went unbeaten in both singles and doubles play. Playing primarily No. 3 singles, he earned five straight wins. The Yeomen also went 4–0 in doubles, playing with several different partners. “The goal is to win matches as a team, so I am happy that I have been able to help us do that,” Drougas said. “My teammates work really hard on a consistent basis and it is a good reminder that I need to continue to work hard just like them. Our team is really good, and that pushes me to improve as an individual.” Throughout the week, the team earned decisive 8–1 victories over Virginia Wesleyan College, Earlham College and Southwestern College. It also bested Union College 7–2. The closest bout was against Intercollegiate Tennis Association Central Region opponent University of St. Thomas. The Tommies came out strong, surprising the Yeomen by winning two of the three doubles matches. But Oberlin fought back on the singles court and was victorious in five of the six flights. Paik highlighted singles play at the top of the lineup by knocking off

The Oberlin Review, March 31, 2017

the region’s 25th-ranked singles player, Luke Elifson. First-year Stephen Gruppuso also notched his team-high 11th win against the Tommies. Ishida said he was pleased to see his team take on players of all levels while still managing to play their own games. “The main takeaway is we were able to play at our level regardless of the opponent while finishing matches with intensity, focus and determination,” he said. The Yeomen now face the most important part of the season with conference matches set to start in the next few weeks. After playing two more tune-up matches against Lewis & Clark College and the University of Rochester today and tomorrow, the Yeomen will travel to Granville, Ohio, next Sunday to take on conference rival Denison University. Manickam said spring break put the team in a good place heading into April. “Overall, spring break was really good for our team camaraderie,” he said in an email to the Review. “Everyone got to play some tennis and we improved a lot over the course of the week. We gained some confidence and upped the quality of our tennis. That will be important now as we come into the home stretch of our season.”

uel, has put so much energy into my training the past two years, I want her to get that recognition and get that respect. If my success can help in some way, I want to do that. MN: There’s not a moment when I ever feel it’s just me or when I’m alone. I feel like I’ll always have my teammates in my corner, and they are pushing me on days I might not be feeling well or days I might not be as motivated. That’s the stuff that people don’t really talk about, but it’s just as important as the individual accomplishments. You were both recently given NCAC of the Week honors for your first outdoor meet at Emory University. What does that accolade mean to you? LDJ: We had a really great training week at Emory University. The weather was great. The team was really supportive, and I was very happy

What are your personal and team goals for the outdoor season? LDJ: It would be really cool to be the second female champion in Oberlin’s history. At the very least, I know that I want to do better than I did at Nationals last year and I placed seventh. I just feel really good about this year and this season. I think our team is ready to get its first-ever outdoor championship. At the Nationals level, the outdoor squad that we can bring could really do some damage. We could probably finish in the top 15 at the very least. MN: The indoor season is a hard act to follow up, so we are going to try to win outdoor conference as a team. As Lilah said, as a team, we are going to try to do some damage at nationals. Individually, it would be really cool to win outdoor shot put. I think I’ll have a chance to do it in discus and be an All-American in the hammer throw. If I walk out with three All-American trophies, a couple of national titles, a conference title and we finish in the top three as a team at outdoor nationals, that would be pretty peachy. Darren Zaslau, Sports editor Photo courtesy of Lilah Drafts-Johnson

Sports

The Oberlin Review, March 31, 2017

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— Softball —

Yeowomen Show New Promise in Opening Games

Junior Dana Goldstein hits an incoming pitch in Oberlin’s home opener against the Wilmington College Fighting Quakers. The Yeowomen split the doubleheader against Wilmington, winning game one 6–2 before falling 6–5 in the second. Photo by Rick Yu, Photo editor

Alex McNicoll Contributing Sports editor Thriving in the Sunshine State, softball set a program record for spring break wins, going 6–6 in a week of non-conference games. The Yeowomen then returned from Florida for their home opener, splitting a doubleheader with the Wilmington College Fighting Quakers. Oberlin won game one 6–2 before dropping the

nightcap 6–5. After winning just eight games over the past two seasons, the Yeowomen have already racked up 7 wins and are 7–11 overall. Junior pitcher Sandra Kibble credits the team’s triumphs to their newly developed sense of competitiveness. “We no longer seem satisfied with just competing with a team, rather we yearn for the win and give it our all until the last inning,” Kibble said in an email to the Review. “This changes

how we practice and how we play, and I think we are all enjoying this newfound competitiveness from our team.” In Oberlin’s first game against Wilmington College Tuesday, sophomore centerfielder Emma Downing ignited the Yeowomen offense. Downing, who was named the NCAC Athlete of the Week after going 16 for 32 at the plate over spring break with 12 runs scored and a .750 slugging percentage, hit an RBI single to tie the game at one in the third inning. With the game still tied in the fifth frame, Downing drilled another RBI single to put Oberlin ahead 2–1. An RBI triple from junior Dana Goldstein helped the Yeowomen push across four more runs in the inning to take 6–1 advantage. On the mound, senior pitcher Tori Poplaski was dominant. The Waterloo, NY, native earned her third win of the season tossing a complete game, striking out five hitters while allowing just one earned run on six hits. Oberlin outhit Wilmington College 10–6 en route to their 6–2 victory. Downing led the charge, going 2 for 4 with two RBIs and a run, and sophomore Kat Ladouceur added two hits. As a team, the Yeowomen are currently batting .321, which Downing says has been a result of hard work during practice. “A lot of the time when we’re doing individual drills our team gives each other positive feedback on what we’re doing well, what we’re not doing well,” Downing said. “That, plus a lot of extra work, leads to good results.” In their second game, defense played a key

role in the final result. Kibble hurled five innings and allowed just two earned runs, but two critical errors led to four unearned runs in the first two innings. Down 5–0, the Yeowomen were quick to respond as an RBI groundout from Ladouceur and first-year Lexi Mitchell’s RBI double sparked the Oberlin offense for three runs in the second inning. After Mitchell stole home in the same inning, Oberlin had trimmed the lead to 5–3. However, Wilmington would push across an insurance run in the fifth to eventually win the game 6–5. Head Coach Sara Schoenhoft, now in her second year at the helm, said that games against teams like Wilmington College give her squad a sense of where they stand heading into league play. “I like playing teams in the OAC because it’s a good yardstick for us for where we are in the region and where we are in the conference,” she said. With 18 games already played, the Yeowomen open their NCAC schedule with a doubleheader tomorrow against the Kenyon College Ladies. After defeating the Ladies 4–0 in a scrimmage this fall and gaining confidence from their spring trip, the Yeowomen hope to continue their newfound success in conference play. “I think that the way our season went last year, we lost a lot of games, and that lent a new kind of intensity to how we came in to this year,” Downing said. “No one wanted to repeat that type of season.”

Cubs, Mets Split Focus on Pitchers, Hitters Editorial: USA Hockey DisJack Brewster Columnist With the Major League Baseball season less than a week away, fans and baseball experts are already trying to predict who will raise the World Series trophy in October. Two favorites are the Chicago Cubs, who won the crown last year, and the New York Mets, who went to the World Series two years ago and made a playoff appearance last year. Both teams’ front offices have assembled exciting teams stacked with talent, though they took opposite approaches in assembling their squads. The Mets’ success comes from their collection of young pitchers, the Cubs from their stockpile of hitting prospects. But while both rebuilding methods have proved fruitful in the past, the Cubs’ method seems more sustainable and less risky. Since Sandy Alderson took over as general manager in 2010, the Mets’ front office has pursued and developed young power arms. Along with Matt Harvey and Jacob DeGrom — star pitching prospects who were already in the Mets’ farm system when Alderson arrived — the Mets have drafted and traded for All Star pitchers Zack Wheeler, Noah Syndergaard and Steven Matz. Harvey, 2015 National League Comeback Player of the Year, DeGrom, 2014 National League Rookie of the Year, Matz and Syndergaard were all central to the Mets’ 2015 World Series run. In the 2016 season, prospects Seth Lugo and Robert Gsellman filled gaps in the rotation to carry the Mets to a Wild Card game berth, both boasting sub-three ERAs down the stretch. To complement the Mets’ stellar pitching, Alderson has mostly acquired older, more estab-

lished position players on shortterm deals. But while the Mets have made the playoffs on the backs of their pitchers the last two years, frequent injuries plaguing their young arms have stagnated the team’s progress. Matz, Harvey, Wheeler and DeGrom have all had Tommy John elbow surgery at some point in their career. Wheeler missed the entire 2016 season recovering from the injury, Harvey missed most of the season recovering from the second major surgery of his career and Matz landed on the 15-day disabled list with left shoulder tightness in August. Matz is currently day-to-day with a sore left elbow. Building an MLB team around young pitching might work out in the short term, but the risk is significant. A 2012–2013 survey discovered that 25 percent of active MLB players had undergone Tommy John surgery at some point in their careers, a procedure that often takes over a year to recover from and fails 20 percent of the time. Also, according to a study of all MLB players from 2002–2008, pitchers are 34 percent more likely to be injured than position players. Cubs President of Baseball Operations Theo Epstein has taken the opposite approach to Alderson, crafting his team around young hitters and pitchers on short-term deals. Since leaving the Boston Red Sox for the Cubs in 2011, Epstein has traded for youthful prospects such as Anthony Rizzo and Addison Russell and drafted Kyle Schwarber, Kris Bryant and Javier Baez. Rizzo, a three-time All Star, and Bryant, a two-time All Star and 2016 MVP, have turned into superstars while Schwarber, Russell and Baez look to be stars in the making. “You can never have enough pitching” is a phrase repeated ad

nauseam in baseball lore. There is undoubtedly some truth to the saying. Young, cheap, team-controlled pitching is hard to come by. A shutdown pitching staff like the Mets’ is devastating to opposing teams’ psyches. Sweeping a team during the regular season with a string of aces seems impossible to pull off consistently. An offense’s production waxes and wanes considerably while a pitching staff ’s production is much steadier. “If the injury risk increases or is at a very high level, I’m not sure why that suggests you should have less, rather than more, pitching,” Alderson has said about building teams around pitching. “From our standpoint, I think it validates the notion that you can never have too much. It’s been true forever in baseball, and I think it’s probably more true today.” But as Epstein has proven, a team built around young hitting can still have a quality pitching staff. Epstein has acquired veteran pitchers such as Jake Arrieta, Jon Lester and Aroldis Chapman through trades and the free-agent market. And because these pitchers are on shortterm deals, they do not carry as big a risk as the long-term investment of a young pitching prospect under team control for six years. Two years ago, the Mets and Cubs met in the National League Championship Series. The Cubs’ hitting was no match for the power arms of the Mets’ pitching staff as New York swept the Cubs in four games. Last season, the Mets won the season series matchup against the Cubs 5–2, but they did not meet in the playoffs. Perhaps 2017, a year when both teams are expected to excel again, will be the season the debate over how to best build a team is finally decided.

respects Women’s Game Continued from page 16

not compensated for any guests. Finally, the women wanted USA Hockey to provide them with more games — opportunities to practice for international competition and build their fanbase. With the team cleared to play in the 11th hour, the men in charge of USA Hockey took a smug victory lap. “Today reflects everyone coming together and compromising in order to reach a resolution for the betterment of the sport,” USA Hockey President Jim Smith said in a statement. “We’ll now move forward together knowing we’ll look back on this day as one of the most positive in the history of USA Hockey.” For USA Hockey to pretend that it has always walked hand in hand with its women’s players is a joke. When the team’s talk of a boycott neared dangerously close to the start of the tournament, USA Hockey reportedly began searching for replacements and threatened to field a team of alternates. That’s just one infraction in a long line of instances in which USA Hockey has outright neglected its women’s players. In a 2014 press conference just before the Sochi Olympics, the organization debuted sweaters that both the men’s and women’s teams would wear at the games. They featured patches commemorating the years 1960 and 1980, when the Americans won the gold medal. Conspicuously absent was the year 1998, when the women won the gold medal in the first ever Olympic women’s hockey tournament. Not only has USA Hockey neglected the successes of the Olympic women, it has also failed to develop the next generation of stars. The organization spends $3.5 million a year supporting the National Team Development Program for boys. No such program exists for girls, and the impact shows. While girls’ participation in lacrosse and soccer has risen in the past several decades, the number of girls playing hockey fell slightly in the 1980s and then flatlined. If USA Hockey expects American women to continue to dominate, it must support players not only at the top but also at the grassroots level. Aside from the deal struck Tuesday, the organization has failed to do both. But why should USA Hockey pay women’s players, when it does not pay men? Men’s players have their salaries taken care of by the NHL, where the minimum salary for the 2016–17 season is $575,000. In the National Women’s Hockey League, the salary cap for an entire team is $270,000 and most players make about $14,000 to $17,000 per season. In other sports like skating and even biathlon, in which professional competition does not provide a living wage, the governing body steps in and provides stipends or facilitates endorsement deals. U.S. Figure Skating pays its top athletes $50,000 a year, despite posting revenue of $17.9 million in 2014, much lower than the $41.9 million USA Hockey made in that same year. USA Hockey clearly has never done as much as it could to support its women athletes. Still, the defending champions will take their rightful place on the ice this weekend and give their governing body no choice but to respect them.

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Sports The Oberlin Review

March 31, 2017

— women’s Lacrosse —

Women’s Lacrosse Remains Undefeated Julie Schrieber Staff writer After a month of competition, women’s lacrosse stands alone as the only undefeated team in the North Coast Athletic Conference. The squad is ranked first in conference standings, and its 7–0 record includes a resounding 16–5 win over The College of Wooster, Oberlin’s first win over the Fighting Scots since 2000. “I’d attribute our strong start to our drive to win and our well-rounded team,” sophomore midfielder Hayley Drapkin said. “On this team, this year, every player can play every position.” Seven players contributed goals in an allaround effort against the Fighting Scots Saturday. In the first half, the Yeowomen scored 11 to the Scots’ 1, leaving the first half with a comfortable 10-point lead and maintained a lead of nine goals or more throughout the entire second half. Seven of those goals came from junior midfielder Natalie Rauchle, who was named NCAC Player of the Week for the second time this season on Monday. Rauchle also earned the nod several weeks prior after contributing five goals and two assists to the team’s win over Kalamazoo College March 4. Rauchle has already collected 41 points so far this season, with 34 goals and 28 draw controls. In the goal, time was split between senior cocaptain Alexa L’Insalata with five saves and sophomore Siena Marcelle with four saves. Head Coach Lynda McCandlish said the team’s performance was a season highlight. “Beating Wooster for the first time since 2000 was the best moment we’ve had so far this season,” she said. “This team has shown a lot of potential since preseason, and it was really exciting to see where it can take us.” Just four days earlier on March 21, the Yeowomen took home a dominating victory against the Baldwin Wallace University Yellow Jackets, posting a ten-goal differential of 14–4. Although the Yellow Jackets got the first point on the board, the Yeowomen were quick to rebound, leading the

Jackie McDermott Sports editor

Sophomore goalie Siena Marcelle runs through a tunnel of teammates onto the field in Oberlin’s home opener against Kalamazoo College March 4. The Yeowomen will continue conference play when they travel to take on Ohio Wesleyan University at 1 p.m. tomorrow. Photo Courtesy of OC Athletics

game 4–2 by the half. McCandlish attributed the turnaround to solid preparation. “We prepared for this game the same way we prepare for every game,” she said. “We visualized, worked hard in practice, learned the scouting report and lived in the moment.” Drapkin and Rauchle led the Yeowomen in points. Drapkin racked up five from her three goals and two assists, while Rauchle added four goals. Senior co-captain Sara Phister and sophomore Jenna Butler also found the back of the net, scoring a pair of goals each. On the defensive side, senior co-captain Sloane Garelick and first-year Emily Berner earned three and four ground balls respectively. Drapkin said the game was a defining moment in terms of team chemistry. “We really had to come together as a team to make this win against Baldwin Wallace happen,” Drapkin said. “It was the first moment that I realized what incredible things can happen this season if we work together.” Conference play is just heating up, and the

Yeowomen hope to continue to ride the wave of their win streak. But Coach McCandlish said she is wary of the 7–0 record causing the team to underestimate the gravity of its goals for the rest of the season. “We aren’t getting hung up on the fact that we are currently undefeated,” she said. “In order to succeed, our team is still staying focused on one game at a time.” Upcoming conference matchups include games against the Ohio Wesleyan University Battling Bishops and the Denison University Big Red, the latter of which has dealt Oberlin some of its toughest competition in recent years. Last season, Denison dealt Oberlin a 11–10 overtime loss, just keeping the Yeowomen out of the post season. “I’m so excited to play Denison again,” said junior midfielder Sydney Garvis. “We’ve suffered two hard losses to them in the past two years, and I’m so ready to beat them this year.”

— Men’s Tennis —

Yeomen Kick off Conference Play, Besting OWU

Senior Paul Farah eyes a forehand. The Yeomen finished their spring break trip to Hilton Head, SC with a perfect 5–0 record. Photo Courtesy of OC Athletics

Jackie McDermott Sports editor Sam Harris Riding an eight-match win streak, men’s tennis earned its first North Coast Athletic Conference victory with an 8–1 win over the Ohio Wesleyan University Battling Bishops Saturday. The Yeomen posted five non-conference victories during their spring break trip in the beachfront town of Hilton

Sexism Plagues Hockey

Head, SC, moving their overall record to 10–5. Junior Michael Drougas said the team is motivated to maintain that momentum as it looks ahead to the rest of conference play. “I think and hope our expectations are to continue winning matches like we have been doing,” he said. “We know that in order to do that, we must continue to improve because the competition will only get tougher.” OWU presented a challenge for Oberlin in dou-

bles, as No. 1 and No. 3 doubles were both tight battles. But Oberlin staved off the pressure and swept doubles play. The first flight senior duo of Ian Paik and Jeremy Lichtmacher pushed past their OWU opponents 8–6. At the second and third spots, Head Coach Eric Ishida paired youth and experience to find success. Junior Michael Drougas and first-year Stephen Gruppuso handled their OWU opponents 8–4 at No. 2, while first-year Camron Cohen and senior Abraham Davis edged out a 9–7 win at No. 3. “Doubles was intense on all courts,” Davis said in an email to the Review. “After that, they were really discouraged and tanked a lot of singles matches, so our ferocious and fiery start was the key to success.” The Yeomen won five of the six singles matches. Paik, Drougas and Grupposo earned convincing straight-set victories at the first, third and fourth flights, respectively. Senior Paul Farah also notably pulled out a third-set tiebreaker against his OWU opponent at No. 6, winning 7–5, 4–6, 10–3. Oberlin’s sole loss came in the second flight when Davis dropped the first set and was unable to pull out a second-set tiebreak, falling 6–3, 7–6 (2). Junior Manickam Manickam said he was proud of the way his team handled an improved OWU squad. “They were stronger this year than they’ve been in the past,” Manickam said in an email to the Review. “With it being the end of our spring break, we knew we had to come in focused and we did that.” In the week leading up to the OWU match, See Men’s page 14

Most American sports fans are aware of our country’s dominance in women’s sports like basketball and gymnastics. But there is another sport in which American women have collected numerous Olympic medals and won seven of the last nine world championships — ice hockey. Despite being wildly successful on the world stage, American women’s ice hockey has been repeatedly degraded at home by its own governing body. USA Hockey recently took a long-awaited positive step toward improving the conditions for women’s play, but the organization’s shameful past must not be forgotten. USA Hockey must be held accountable for its disrespect and underdevelopment of the women’s game. On Tuesday, the begrudging leaders of USA Hockey and members of the women’s national team finally struck a deal that will cover the next four years. The breakthrough came on the eve of the International Ice Hockey Federation Women’s World Championships, which begin today in Plymouth, MI. The women’s team had threatened to boycott the world championships if USA Hockey was not willing to meet some of its demands. It’s hard to know which, if any, of the players’ demands were met, as the financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. John Smallwood of the Daily News reported that the women had demanded $68,000 for their annual salaries, as well as child care and maternity leave. However, no players confirmed that figure, and team captain Meghan Duggan said in a statement that the women simply sought a “living wage.” The women’s team also sought travel accommodations equal to those enjoyed by the men’s players, who travel business class and are compensated to bring one guest each, while the women travel coach and are See Editorial, page 14