March 9, 2018

The Oberlin Review March 9, 2018

established 1874

Volume 146, Number 17

Student Activity Fee Proposed to Increase $63 More Per Semester Melissa Harris Editor-in-Chief

City Councilmembers discuss the NEXUS pipeline settlement prior to voting. Council voted unanimously against NEXUS, a shift from the previous vote of 4–3 in favor of the settlement last month.

Photo By Roman Broszkowski, News Editor

Final Pipeline Vote Rejects NEXUS Settlement Roman Broszkowski News Editor Oberlin City Council voted unanimously to reject a proposed settlement with NEXUS Gas Transmission Monday night. The council was previously split on accepting a deal with NEXUS, voting 4–3 for the deal at the previous meeting on Feb. 20.

The meeting contrasted with earlier hearings on the settlement. At the Feb. 20 meeting, students both picketed and directly addressed members of council, but on Monday those in attendance were silent and reserved. Students held signs and provided emotional testimony on the pipeline’s impacts, but were also conciliatory towards counselors.

College sophomore Rachael Hood read a short statement on behalf of Students for Energy Justice.

“We recognize that the chanting in the last meeting was perceived by some as disruptive and disrespectful towards the council,” she said. “We hope it is obvious that our intention is never to foster divisions within the Oberlin community or exacerbate tension between the College and town. … We regret how our actions may have been perceived by some members of the community.”

Relations between protesters and sitting counselors remained strained, however. Councilmember Ronnie Rimbert voiced his displeasure at what he described as unfair threats to those who had voted for the settlement.

“I resent the subsequent threats that not only proposed a referendum on council decisions, but also a recall of councilmembers with whom students

disagreed,” he said.

Rimbert continued by questioning whether students protesting the settlement knew about the work and positions held by the councilmembers they were criticizing.

“Where were [students] when we fought to establish an Indigenous People’s Day instead of Columbus Day, or raised the minimum wage for our lowest paid hourly workers?,” Rimbert said.

“My point is that I resent being characterized in such a limited fashion by those activists who came to our last meeting and labeled me and others with little knowledge of our work to improve and protect the quality of life in Oberlin.”

Councilmember Kristen Peterson also expressed disappointment with the February meeting’s protests. “I am saddened by the suggestions, either implicitly or explicitly, some by those who don’t know me and some by those who do, that I lack integrity or principles,” Peterson said.

After this week’s vote, as students approached councilmembers to thank them, Councilmember Kelley Singleton also refused to shake hands with College senior Christopher Kennedy, a student who had been leading protest chants a week before, even though Singleton shook other students’ hands.

Although protesters and energy activists took the unanimous vote against the settlement as a victory, councilmembers repeatedly said that they believe the pipeline is inevitable and fully expect tree removal crews from NEXUS within the month.

With NEXUS primed to take control of the contested land, the vote became

symbolic. “We had learned that afternoon that they had filed to take possession of the property,” Council President Bryan Burgess said, in The Morning Journal. “It kind of defeats the purpose of having an agreement if they jump the gun on it.”

“There is no doubt in my mind that we have lost our long battle with NEXUS and the Federal Regulatory Commission over the pipeline,” Rimbert said.

“The pipeline will go in.”

Peterson echoed Rimbert’s thoughts on the contruction’s inevitability. “However the vote goes tonight, this vote will not stop the pipeline,” she said.

Councilmembers explained at the public hearing before the vote that a major consideration for accepting NEXUS’ offer was the company’s promise to bury the pipeline 10 feet deep, thus allowing the city of Oberlin to construct a new water main three feet deep. The water pipeline would have provided greater access to adequate water pressure in East Oberlin and aid the area’s future urban development.

However, NEXUS changed its mind and proposed raising the pipeline to six feet, thereby blocking Oberlin’s muchneeded water pipe.

With the fate of NEXUS resolved, the question of how to facilitate further development in East Oberlin remains.

While protesters appeared to leave Monday’s meeting satisfied with Council’s vote, it is apparent, according to councilmembers, that the city has lost its fight with NEXUS. What remains to be seen is how the community will react when the pipeline actually arrives.

Student Senate presented the Office of the Student Treasurer’s proposed increase to the student activity fee by $63.16 per semester — totaling approximately $528 per academic year — to the Board of Trustees this afternoon. The proposal comes from trends of sustained or increased student organization budgeting demand with a smaller pool of money in the Student Activity Fund, which funds student organizations.

For Fiscal Year 2018, the Student Finance Committee chartered about $1.3 million to 191 student organizations. However, the money in the SAF comes from student tuition, and enrollment was 85 students under target this year.

Since the OST has not appealed to the board for an increase in the SAF the past three years, under-enrollment has strained the SFC’s ability to meet funding demand.

“Spending is up and allocations are up year after year,” Student Treasurer and College junior Elijah Aladin said. “We increase them year over year for groups that perform well, that put on good programming, and ask for more money.

You’re a group that existed for a while, you ask for more money, typically we don’t give you all the money, but we give you an increase of some sort. So costs have risen, but the student activity [fee] has not risen over the past three years.”

The SFC’s ad hoc pool — a fund of SFC’s extra money to allocate on a case-by-case basis to students — has shrunk significantly in part because of the smaller revenue generated from student activity fees. According to Aladin, the pool has ranged between $150,000 to $200,000 within the past few years, but this year the fund began at about $86,000; under-enrollment decreased the pool by about $43,000.

In addition to under-enrollment, Student Senator, Student Finance Committee Co-Chair, and College senior Josh Koller said that an uptick in student government pay has taken a toll on the fund. Since senators and SFC members are not guaranteed pay and are paid hourly, budgeting on an annual basis for student government salaries can be difficult to pinpoint.

“Every year, Senate and SFC have to have their pay reaffirmed by the student body,” Koller said. “Technically if the students say, ‘We don’t think student government needs to be a paid position,’ it wouldn’t; it would be volunteer. But in recent history, students have said, ‘No, these should be paid positions,’ and I think they have good reason for that; it’s mostly accessibility stuff. If it’s not paid, you’re going to have seven people who can afford to work for free, who are probably paying $70,000 a year to be here.”

Aladin said that the last time student government pay was not reaffirmed by students was in 2014, which left the SFC with $20,000 for student wage allocations, including set stipend positions rather than hourly pay. Student government pay has been reaffirmed since, and since they have worked longer hours in recent years, see Senate, page 4

CONTENTS NEWS

OPINIONS

THIS WEEK

ARTS & CULTURE

SPORTS

02 Oberlin Engages in Wider Conversations About Sexual Misconduct

05 Editorial: Closing Dascomb Dining Presents As Many Problems As It Solves

08–09 Anthropology Through Time

10 The Turn of the Screw Exemplifies Operatic Horror

15 Shaquem Griffin Deserves Serious Chance to Play In NFL

04 Off the Cuff with Kirsten Pai Buick, Art History Professor

07 Britton Cherrypicks Statistics, Presents Narrow View

12 Black Community Reclaims Its Fly At Sankofa Remix’d

16 Yeowomen Capture Second Straight NCAC Title

The Oberlin Review | March 9, 2018

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Trustees Return to Oberlin to Better Understand Student Life

Sydney Allen News Editor

This week, Oberlin administrators, faculty, trustees, and student senators convened for the Board of Trustees’ first 2018 meeting. The trustees participated in several events, including President Carmen Ambar’s proposed financial review and the first ever student organizations expo, as well as the traditional student-trustee forum and boardsponsored 5K run.

After a successful December trustee meeting, where board members learned about campus via student-led tours — tours that largely led to Wilder Hall’s renovation — Senate hopes to further its creative approaches in engaging students and

board members in dialogue.

“We identified that trustees were concerned about a lack of student interfacing,” College senior and Senator León Pescador said. “At the same time, we realized that students have been concerned with representation. We haven’t been doing enough to get student voices to the floor.”

The student organizations expo was meant to address both concerns and build a bridge between current students and trustees. Representatives of different student groups and clubs convened in Wilder Main yesterday night, setting up tables to present their work and organizational needs to trustees.

“The trustees loved the trustee tours in December, and they loved being able to engage with

students in a new format, and so we’re continuing that this semester by having [an] expo that organizations will be able to be present at, and [where] trustees can also engage with different student club,” College junior and Student Senate Chair Kameron Dunbar said. “[We’re] working to help trustees understand what student life looks like so that they can make more informed and contextualized decisions. I’m really excited about this because I think this shows Senate making material and concrete steps towards collaboration and really impactful engagement with the board.”

This will be the second semester that the board will also receive a letter from Student Senate in their board book — the binder

with all of the board’s documents and information for the weekend.

This book also typically contains letters from the president and chair of the board.

“That letter ... talks about what Student Senate is, it talks about what we’ve been working on for the semester, and then, most importantly, it gives a series of recommendations for the board from a student perspective,” Dunbar said, who wrote senate’s memo to the trustees. “We talked about the need to invest in both campus community spaces and campus housing options. In my presentation [to the board this weekend], I bring up making sure that we keep student perspectives at the forefront through the [Administrative and Academic Review] process. So one thing I’ll be nego-

tiating with President Ambar and her senior staff is what will the student role in the [AAR] process look like, and hopefully that will all be done through Senate.”

This weekend, President Carmen Ambar will present her financial powerpoint to the board — which all other constituencies have seen at this point — along with her proposal for an administrative and academic review, which would involve bringing in an outside firm, Steven’s Strategy, to analyze the financial and academic assets of the College.

Steven’s Strategy is a higher education consulting firm that specializes in analyzing and quantifying institutions’ financials. The board will then either vote to table or approve Ambar’s proposal.

Oberlin Engages In Wider Conversations About Sexual Misconduct Editor’s note: This article contains discussion of sexual assault and harassment.

Julia Peterson Arts & Culture Editor The #MeToo movement — started in 2006 by Tarana Burke to support women and girls of color who have survived sexualized violence — became a household phrase in the waning months of 2017 when a number of prominent men across multiple industries were accused of sexual harassment or assault, and the hashtag went viral on Twitter. During this time, people spoke up about sexual misconduct perpetrated by the likes of Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Larry Nassar, and Roy Moore, among many others. The #MeToo movement has also prompted difficult conversations about gendered power dynamics, the limits of acceptable sexual behavior, and whether art can or should be separated from the artist. The movement has proven itself to be as relevant on Oberlin’s campus as it has been everywhere else.

For Director of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion and Title IX Coordinator Rebecca Mosely, the #MeToo movement has coincided with a number of conversations and efforts that have already been in motion on campus for a number of years.

“I think Oberlin has been in a space on campus where the awareness has been here for a number of years now, and so I would say within the student population here, I think it has had less impact, though it brings support to the work that students were already doing,” Mosely said. “I would say the impact to me is supporting more [alumni] of the College as they become aware of the #MeToo movement outside of what we’re doing here, because they don’t have the same privilege to be part of what we’re already doing here on campus.

They’re not getting that education in their daily life. #MeToo, I think, has brought

awareness beyond our campus, and that has definitely had an impact for [alumni] to feel like they can finally speak up and speak their truth.”

The Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion has engaged in concrete efforts to reduce gender-based discrimination and violence on campus with the Preventing and Responding to Sexual Misconduct Program, a peer education program in which student trainers host workshops to teach students about issues including consent, intimate partner violence, bystander intervention, and supporting survivors.

“Our PRSM trainers … also created a number of other workshops to take it beyond [the mandatory trainings],” Mosely said. “Fall semester, an additional workshop that they did was Consent for Men, and they had over 50 men show up to that workshop, which I think just speaks to the interest of our students in making sure that people are trying to get it right.”

College junior and PRSM trainer Kira Findling said that PRSM navigates one of the many conflicts raised by the #MeToo movement — namely, that some people feel unwanted pressure to share their stories.

“One thing that we emphasize a lot in PRSM is supporting people who’ve been harmed, so that means telling people that it’s OK if they want to share their stories, and it’s also OK if they don’t want to share their stories,” Findling said. “It’s been really interesting hearing people talk about the #MeToo movement, some people feeling pressure to share things they don’t want to share and other people feeling really empowered by it. So I’m definitely happy to see that the larger world is reflecting conversations that we have all the time here.”

Within the #MeToo movement, people have been sharing stories of experiencing sexual misconduct and violence both as their own narratives and through artistic mediums, which can be an empowering but also a deeply challenging experience.

The Oberlin R eview March 9, 2018 Volume 146, Number 17 (ISSN 297–256) 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.

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Editors-in-Chief

Melissa Harris Christian Bolles Managing Editor Daniel Markus News Editors Sydney Allen

Roman Broszkowski Opinions Editors Jackie Brant

El Wilson This Week Editor Lucy Martin Arts Editors Julia Peterson

Ananya Gupta Sports Editors Alex McNicoll

Alexis Dill Layout Editors Hannah Robinson

Parker Shatkin Elena Hartley Photo Editors Bryan Rubin Hugh Newcomb Business Manager Monique Newton

“How do you as a performer, or a writer, but especially as a performer — as a survivor, personally — how do you work to be healthy in the way you go about exploring your character’s experiences and your past experiences?” asked College junior Chloe Falkenheim, who recently starred as Girl Angel in the Oberlin production of Angel’s Bone, an opera about human trafficking.

“That’s a main thing that performers will need to keep in mind, as I hope that there are more and more pieces that explore sexual violence in a sensitive way. Everyone will have to figure this out. How do we as actors work with that in a way that’s healthy for ourselves?”

For PRSM trainer and College senior India Wood, one of the most telling moments of the #MeToo movement was the conversation sparked by an article in Babe magazine about an anonymous woman, referred to as “Grace,” who accused Aziz Ansari of sexual misconduct while the two of them were on a date. In the article, Grace describes how Ansari repeatedly tried to initiate sex with her, despite her repeated indications that she did not want to — including repeatedly moving away and verbally telling him to “chill”. In response to the Babe article, Ansari released a statement saying that he viewed his encounter with Grace as “by all indications, completely consensual.”

“I think especially with the Aziz Ansari case, that really freaked people out because some people didn’t even know why what he did wasn’t OK,” Wood said. “That, in my opinion, goes to show the ways in which we completely misunderstand people’s cues, and the way that we misunderstand having open conversations about preferences and what we want and what we don’t want. Even on this campus, too, I really don’t think people have the language skills around sex and sexuality and love and romance to be able to talk about these things in ways that allow for completely consen-

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Corrections: The photo in “Taiko Drums Up Energy, Awe” (Mar. 2, 2018) was incorrectly attributed to Hugh Newcomb. It was taken

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sual and good interactions to occur.”

The Aziz Ansari story also resonated with College senior Sarah Blum, especially as it relates to sexual behavior at Oberlin.

“I think, for me, the story [from the #MeToo movement] that I found to be the most teachable was when Aziz Ansari’s interaction with a woman became viral,” Blum said. “I remember reading this, and I remember thinking that this is about many Oberlin men I’ve encountered — feminist on the outside, but in their interpersonal relationships, they really still have a long way to go.”

Blum, who noted that the #MeToo movement has led to important conversations and meaningful changes both large and small, also spoke about some of the ways in which it remains flawed.

“I’m conflicted about [the #MeToo movement], because I think it’s a really great thing to bring to the surface,” Blum said. “But I think that conversation needs to be moved to perpetrators. As someone who has been sexually assaulted myself, this movement brings nothing new to the table. Once I was sexually assaulted, it was very clear to me that almost nine out of ten of my friends had also been through something similar. I didn’t need a #MeToo movement to know that. As a woman, oftentimes, in positions of supporting other women, you know. The #MeToo movement seems to be calling out men, generally, who do this — and anyone else who finds themselves in that position — but I feel like it’s not enough.”

For Blum, another major issue with the movement is how it places the burden on the people who have been harmed without sufficient accountability for allies who claim to support them.

“Typing #MeToo is a really easy action to do,” Blum said. “And once again, putting that burden on the women that have been harassed and assaulted just perpetuates [a

To submit a corrrection, email managingeditor@ oberlinreview.org.

Oberlin Celebrates 19th Annual Dr. Seuss Day

Security Notebook Saturday, March 3, 2018 9:46 p.m. Staff reported a strong odor on the third floor of Barrows Hall. Officers responded and located the room in question. A green leafy substance, consistent with marijuana, was observed in plain view on a desktop. There was also a green leafy substance located in plain view on a second desk, along with a vapor pod and rolled cigar containing a substance consistent with marijuana. Photos were taken and items were confiscated and turned over to the Oberlin Police Department.

College and Conservatory students, as well as community members, convened at the 19th annual Dr. Seuss Day at the Oberlin Public Library last Sunday. The theme for this year’s event was “Our Many Colored Days.” The event was meant to engage young people in reading and included face painting, a free book giveaway, games, crafts, and a special guest reading by Oberlin College President Carmen Ambar. The event was co-hosted by the Oberlin Public Library and America Reads, a program based out of the Bonner Center for Service and Learning.

Text by Sydney Allen, News Editor

Photo by Hugh Newcomb, Photo Editor

#MeToo Movement Remains Relevant to Oberlin continued from page 2 system where] the people that have been hurt are usually the ones doing the work. ” Faculty members have responded to #MeToo in a variety of ways, from including supplementary material in classes to expressing interest in more trainings.

“In the past, we’ve offered Title IX trainings and workshops for faculty, and there’s been great interest in that,” Conservatory Associate Dean for Academic Support Chris Jenkins said. “That’s something we’re looking to do more of in the future, and making sure people have access not just to information, but also to new modes of thinking and interrogation about how they form their mentoring relationships as music educators.”

“We’re reading an article this week in my Chinese language class about the #MeToo movement in the context of Chinese women standing up to sexual harassment in academia,” College senior Eliza Edwards said. “It’s really powerful to watch #MeToo spread from Tarana Burke to Hollywood to Oberlin and beyond — it strikes me as pretty incredible that a movement can have such a swift impact not only on an intensely personal level, but also on a global stage.”

One of the most visible ways that the #MeToo movement has manifested on campus was when former Associate Professor of Creative Writing Bernard Matambo abruptly resigned last semester after multiple accusations of sexual misconduct toward students had been made against him (“Matambo Resigns Amid Sexual Misconduct Allegations,” The Oberlin Review, Dec. 1, 2017). As the accusations against Matambo came to light, Creative Writing students had to wrestle both with this information about a widely-liked and widely-trusted professor, and the logistical issues raised by losing a faculty member midway through the year.

“I know a lot of students who either had [Matambo] as first-years last semester or who have been working with him for many years,” said College sophomore Gillian Palsey, one of the newly-elected Creative Writing major representatives.

“It was pretty shocking and threw a big wrench in the academic year to have [this The Oberlin Review | March 9, 2018

person] who was once a beloved professor just leave very abruptly. I think there was a lot of confusion surrounding that.

At first people were like, ‘Did the school do something to wrong him?’ But then as news started to come out and rumors started to spread, it became more of a talk about sexual harassment on campus and from the faculty at large. And I feel like it makes sense that it came out during this time, because of the #MeToo movement. I think that probably had an effect, perhaps, on why the person who came forward decided to come forward when they did.”

As Jenkins noted, one of the places where the #MeToo movement may continue to be especially resonant on college campuses is in discussing and addressing the ways that potentially harmful power dynamics can manifest in mentorship relationships.

“Historically, we haven’t really talked about issues of sexual abuse and exploitation that sometimes have been a feature of music life and musical training,” Jenkins said. “So it’s especially important, I think — not just at Oberlin, but in general, and in all genres of music — that people grapple with these issues and have these discussions about the kind of exploitation that can go on. I don’t want to say it’s common, but I don’t know that it’s uncommon historically for this type of exploitation to occur in some of the mentoring relationships between musicians.” #MeToo has also manifested on campus in one of the current exhibitions at the Allen Memorial Art Museum: Handle with Care: Embracing Fragility, curated by Olivia Fountain, OC ’17, a curatorial assistant for Academic Programs. The exhibit features a number of works by contemporary artists, including a portrait by Chuck Close. In late December, shortly before the show was going to open, Close was accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women. Fountain chose to leave the work in the exhibition, but added an additional label that explained this new context to the work, as well as a comment book for people to leave their reactions.

“My original instinct was to remove the piece, and there were a number of reasons why I ultimately decided that

that wasn’t the best idea, one of them being purely logistical — the show was literally ready to be mounted,” Fountain said.

“But, after having this conversation [with other museum curators] and talking with a lot of my peers and doing a lot of soulsearching on my own, I decided that the most effective way to force this kind of conversation to happen in the Allen — the conversation being whether or not we can separate the art from the artists in a museum space — would be to definitely not shy away from what happened, but also to leave the work up. And so I decided to recontextualize it, to write an additional label being pretty explicit about what happened. The label says something to the effect of, ‘If this information had been available sooner, it would not have been included in the show,’ and that’s true. If I ever curate anything again, I will never include something by Chuck Close.”

For Fountain, her experience raises wider issues about the ways that museum curators and audiences can respond to the #MeToo movement.

“I don’t think a lot of museums are going to be taking works down,” she said.

“Maybe in the context of Chuck Close they will, but there are so many artists that this could apply to — the question becomes, once you start, how do you stop? Where do you draw the line? And I think that by instead recontextualizing these pieces and being very, very up-front in your label text or whatever literature you’re providing in the gallery about the artist’s background, especially as it relates to sexual harassment and abuse, I think that’s crucial. That’s a museum’s job, so by recontextualizing this Chuck Close piece, I wanted to demonstrate something that museums can do. If taking things down feels like a bad idea for a bunch of different reasons, we can put more stuff up. But I also think, moving forward — the thing I just said about when you start taking stuff down — where do you draw the line? That speaks to the fact that museum galleries are filled with art by men that have abused women, and that’s a problem. It’s something that we as museum professionals need to actively work to counter.”

10:49 p.m. Officers and members of the Oberlin Fire Department responded to a fire alarm at a Union Street Village Housing Unit. Debris in the stove burner began to smoke while water boiled in a pan, activating the alarm, which was reset. The area was cleared, and the occupants were instructed to clean the stove prior to using.

Sunday, March 4, 2018 2:21 a.m. Officers assisted a student, ill from alcohol consumption, in Langston Hall. Upon officers’ arrival, the student was found in the recovery position on the floor. Student was transported to Mercy Allen Hospital by ambulance.

6:00 p.m. A Conservatory officer requested assistance to remove several non-college juveniles from inside the Kohl Building. The individuals had been told before they were not permitted in the building. The juveniles were identified, warned not to enter the building again, and sent on their way.

Monday, March 5, 2018 7:15 p.m. A student reported the theft of approximately $80 to $100 from their backpack, which was left unattended on the second floor of Mudd library for a short period of time.

Tuesday, March 6, 2018 10:31 a.m. A student reported an individual going through their belongings on the second floor of Mudd library. Officers responded and conducted a check of the library, but the individual was not located. The incident is under investigation.

3:27 p.m. Officers assisted a individual who fell on the sidewalk outside of Hales Gym. The individual was transported to Mercy Allen Hospital for treatment of an injured ankle.

6:03 p.m. Officers were advised of a strong odor consistent with burnt marijuana on the second floor of Baldwin Cottage. The occupant of the respective room claimed that they were burning incense. The officers then observed a bagged smoke detector in plain view inside the room. The bag was removed, and the occupant was advised of the policies and seriousness of tampering with a life-safety device.

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Kirsten Pai Buick, Art History Professor Kirsten Pai Buick has been a professor of Art History at the University of New Mexico since 2001. She focuses on African-American art, western art, and representations of the human body. She has been researching Mary Edmonia Lewis, a sculptor who attended Oberlin College from 1859 to 1863, since 1991 and gave a talk last Thursday about the final years of Lewis’ life. At her talk, Buick discussed some of Oberlin’s historical figures such as Marianne Dascomb, John Mercer Langston, and the Keep family — all of whom had significant impacts on Lewis during her time at Oberlin.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Editors Note: This article contains mentions of kidnapping and rape.

Interview by Kameron Dunbar What sparked your interest in Edmonia Lewis specifically?

My interest was sparked because she didn’t — especially in 1991 — have much of a biography, and there’s a problem with biography for those who have ovaries or those who [are people of color]; their biography then becomes the explanation for their work. Particularly if they’ve had a troubled past, their pathologies become the explanation for their work. So if you withdraw biography from an artist [of ] color or an artist who has ovaries, then what are you left with? You’re left with the works of art that you then have to deal with on their own terms, much like you deal with a Picasso or a Warhol.

Could you talk a little bit about Edmonia Lewis’ history at Oberlin, and why it’s so important to understand her story today?

Well, when I first started researching Lewis, I was always taken in and kind of charmed by Oberlin’s liberalism in accepting students of color and accepting women. But as I began to dig more deeply into Oberlin’s history, I realized

that that liberalism came with conditions and it came with parameters. So women were educated for their sphere — they weren’t allowed to take higher mathematics or rhetoric or public speaking. Women were not supposed to do those things, and so even as they accepted women and even as they accepted people of color, the hierarchies of race and gender were still firmly kept in place.

Why is it important for people to give history to these buildings and to these names?

It’s important to know the history of your own institution. There’s a reason that students at Oberlin come out of the College and Conservatory better prepared than a lot of students coming out from other institutions. And you come out better prepared to present yourselves to the world and it has to do not just with the kind of limitations placed on the earliest students of Oberlin, but [because] institutions go through a learning process themselves. And so over time, the presence of women, the early presence of African Americans, has shaped this institution and been in conversation with the institution, and it’s what makes Oberlin such a gem to this day.

We have a dorm named after Mari-

anne Dascomb, but Dascomb — maybe not known to a lot of folks — doesn’t have a good history with Edmonia Lewis. Could you talk a little bit about her experience?

Right, Mary Dascomb really ... becomes the main antagonist for Edmonia Lewis in her final year here. Lewis was rejected from the skating club — and then Lewis was accused one year later of stealing art supplies, so Dascomb did not allow her to register for her final term. So because she could not register for her final term, she could not graduate. So Dascomb is really the reason Lewis [left] Oberlin under a full cloud.

We also have a building on campus named after John Mercer Langston.

Can you talk about Langston’s relationship with Edmonia Lewis?

John Mercer Langston — who’s the great uncle of Langston Hughes — was [a] lawyer. He was the lawyer whose brilliant defense exonerated Edmonia Lewis [after a poison scandal nearly sent her to prison]. He argued a case of corpus delicti because they hadn’t kept the stool or stomach samples from the white woman who had accused Lewis of poisoning her with wine laced with Spanish fly. And so, he is responsible for getting her off and getting her out of Oberlin.

Kirsten Pai Buick, Professor

Photo by Kameron Dunbar

Lastly, the last building [we] think is important to talk about is the Keep Cottage because the Keep family also had a relationship to Edmonia Lewis.

Can you tell us a little bit more about their relationship?

Yes. The Keeps boarded Edmonia Lewis and at the height of the scandal, they did everything in their power to protect her. Even as they were getting pressure from Cleveland and The Cleveland Plain Dealer, they were getting questions about — you know, why are you protecting her? Even from white students at Oberlin, the Keep family protected her for as long as they could and they finally offered her up for arrest in order to save her life. It [took] the authorities so long to move against Lewis that [she] was kidnapped and she was taken to a field and she was beaten and stripped of her clothing. But the mores of the time can’t accommodate reports of actual sexual assault, and so we don’t know if Lewis was raped, but we can assume that she was, even as she could not speak it. And so, the Keeps [offered] her up for arrest in order to save her life, but they were very protective.

Senate, Office of Student Treasurer, Propose Activity Fee Increase

Continued from page 1

Aladin said that the cost of student wages reached $60,000 last year. He added that because the student treasurers who were responsible for creating the overall student activity budget over the past three years did not appropriately allocate money for student pay, the SAF faced a $45,000 deficit.

“When I was looking through our budget versus our spending over the past couple years, I noticed we were $45,000 in the red, by an allocation standpoint,” Aladin said. “This does not mean that the Student Activity Fund was overdrawn or that it was mismanaged or that the funds weren’t there. It’s just that the particular amount was not assigned to the right [account].”

To address the deficit, the SFC requested $45,000 from the ad hoc budget, which the committee proposed to Student Senate. The proposal passed, removing the money from the $86,000 ad hoc pool to ensure that student wages could be met. SFC ad hoc sessions consequently ended two weeks earlier than anticipated this year.

Aladin said that he drafted the proposal

to increase the student activity fee in light of reviewing the smaller pools of money for the SAF and ad hoc fund.

“Due to the combined factors of inflation, enrollment and retention issues, and an overall increase in the demand for student programming, the current level of student activity fee is no longer sufficient to sustain nearly 190 active chartered student organizations,” the final Senate-composed proposal stated.

Student Senate Chair and College junior Kameron Dunbar — one of the Senators presenting at today’s Board of Trustees plenary — said that it is likely that the Board will pass the proposal and that the only reason he could see the Board hesitate is because it already decided upon tuition rates, a three percent increase from tuition this year, last fall.

“The only reason I could imagine them not accepting it, either at this meeting or their summer meeting or whenever they take up that cause, would be a procedural thing — the fact that we waited too long in the year and that it’s not feasible to do it at this point,” Dunbar said. “I can’t think of any

material rationale for why they wouldn’t accept it. I think the rationale submitted by the Student Treasurer is sound. It’s based off of knowledge of how we spend money and how we do things. I would think that the Board would respect that.”

Dunbar added that if the Board does not accept the proposal, student organizations could expect less money than they propose in their spring budget submissions.

“Organizations will get less money in the future because we’ll have less money to give, so students will sort of have to bear the consequences of that,” he said. “I think that areas to identify are that students are not absent from the effects of declining enrollment and financial constraint, particularly with our own resources.”

If the Board passes the student activity fee increase, Aladin said the SFC will be able to better meet the needs of students.

He said that Koller, who is a member of the Winter Term Committee, cited that the SFC could help fund more Winter Term opportunities for students, for example, if the proposal passes.

“We had a program this year with Win-

ter Term that allowed the Winter Term Committee to allocate based on financial need,” Aladin said. “One of the things that Josh [Koller] told me is that if they had more money, they could’ve helped a lot more students. It wasn’t an abhorrent amount more money, but a significant amount of money that I feel like this increase could warrant, that could help a significant amount of students that need it or helped every student that applied and needed.”

Although tuition will increase next year, lower-income students will most likely not have to pay out of pocket for the student activity fee increase if the Board passes the hike.

“Three percent of 70,000 is $2,100,” Aladin said of the three-percent tuition hike. “We would have less than five percent of that increase, so while it is significant, I don’t think that that’s the most significant part. Also, the way that the Student Activity Fund works is that only those that can afford it pay for it. The way that it financially works here, most students won’t even be paying it, so it won’t even affect most students.”

Oberlin Community News Bulletin

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Gibson Lawsuit

Oberlin Women’s History Walk

French Clowning Workshop

The Oberlin College counsel has filed a motion to change the venue of the current lawsuit with Gibson’s Bakery to Cuyahoga County, claiming that the jury pool in Lorain County has been compromised due to the local media exposure the incident has received. A response from Gibson’s is due by the end of the month, while the trial is set to begin May 1, 2019.

The Oberlin Heritage Center will offer guided tours of downtown Oberlin to learn about women’s rights and the fight to secure them. The tours will start Saturday, March 24, at 1 p.m. and explore how women at Oberlin have dealt with issues of femininity over the last two centuries. Tickets are $6 for adults, while OHC members, children, and college students can attend for free free.

There will be a clowning workshop in Studio 3 at the Warner Center Sunday from 1–4 p.m., with a second session from 7–9 p.m. Ugo Gasiglia, a classically and contemporarily trained clown from France, will lead the workshop. Those interested should bring between five and 10 old pieces of clothing for various choices of costume. They should also come with an openness and desire to “faire les cons.”

OPINIONS March 9, 2018

Letter to the Editors

Britton’s Argument Collapses Under Scrutiny To the Editors:

Jacob Britton’s argument about the Founding Fathers and AR-15s is bold and contrarian, and I admire him for having the courage of his convictions. However, his argument does not stand up logically or empirically. At a time when American politics is infected from the top down by disdain for truth and reason, such deficiencies cannot go unanswered.

Britton writes: “The Supreme Court interprets original Constitutional amendments in the historical context of the Founders.” This statement conflates the two dominant modes of judicial interpretation: originalism and contextualism. According to the first, what matters is the intent the Founders. According to the second, interpretation is determined by and should change with historical context. Interpreting the Constitution today according to the “context” of the Founders is not contextualism. It is originalism by another name. Moreover, these judicial philosophies are in fundamental tension with one another. This tension is reflected on the Court itself. Some justices are originalists, while others are contextualists, and split decisions often turn in part on this tension.

Some of Britton’s empirical claims are also false or misleading. When he suggests that the Founding Fathers would have approved of the sale of AR-15s, he notes that “there were guns even more dangerous around in [their] times … such as the Belton Flintlock, which could fire nearly twenty bullets in five seconds.” However, the only evidence even for its existence is correspondence between its maker, Joseph Belton, and Congress. There is no evidence that it was ever supplied, much less used. Even if it had been, magazines on AR-15s can be changed in seconds. There is no evidence that this would have been possible with the Belton Flintlock.

Britton also repeats a favorite claim of the NRA that the solution to school massacres like the ones in Columbine, Parkland, and others is to increase the presence of armed guards in public schools. His specificity here is curious — if public schools, why not private ones? But more to the point, there is absolutely no good evidence to support this “good guy with a gun” argument. None. Its only “virtue” is that that it keeps the NRA and gun manufacturers in business.

Finally, Britton claims that the U.S. has lower homicide rates than countries with stricter gun laws. This is false. According to Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, in 2016, the US had a much higher rate of violent gun deaths (3.85/100,000 people) than Japan (0.4/100,000 people), a country with notoriously strict gun laws. Rates in the U.S. are regularly also much higher than in Australia, which has stricter laws as well.

I agree completely with Britton that laws are not enough to solve the problem of gun violence — or any other problem. That also reSee Letter, 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.

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.

The Oberlin Review | March 9, 2018

established 1874

Volume 146, Number 17

Editorial Board Editors-in-Chief

Melissa Harris

Christian Bolles

Managing Editor Daniel Markus

Opinions Editors

El Wilson

Jackie Brant

Closing Dascomb Dining Presents As Many Problems As It Solves

While the administration’s potential decision to shut down Dascomb Dining Hall may reduce costs during a time of financial stringency, the decision has far-reaching implications that jeopardize the already-delicate balance of Campus Dining Services. Despite President Carmen Ambar’s transparency in announcing the possible change at her recent budget presentation, there are numerous logistical concerns that the administration has yet to adequately answer.

First, Ambar did not sufficiently address how the school plans to disperse Dascomb diners to other dining facilities. To compensate for the closure of Dascomb, the administration plans to expand DeCafé and Lord-Saunders Dining Hall hours, as if Lord-Saunders and Decafé could handle the extra diners that would normally be eating in Dascomb. Dascomb serves about 500 people every day for lunch, while Stevenson dining hall serves 600–800 (“Students, CDS Workers Protest Bon Appétit, The Oberlin Review, May 5, 2015). The number of diners in both Lord-Saunders and Stevenson would increase by a minimum of 250, assuming half of Dascomb’s diners moved to each space. However, it is likely that a majority of the Dascomb diners, who are largely Conservatory students and residents of South Campus, would eat at Lord-Saunders because of its location. Lord-Saunders is a small dining area and it can barely handle the traffic that it gets on Sunday. The idea that Lord-Saunders could adequately accommodate potentially hundreds more people on any given day hardly seems practical. These logistical concerns are compounded when one considers that fire codes regulate the number of people that can be in a room at any given time. The administration would have to be extremely vigilant that the additional diners don’t exceed fire code regulations in Stevenson or Lord-Saunders and would have to renovate or expand dining spaces to accommodate students who typically eat at Dascomb.

Even if Stevenson and Lord-Saunders could seat and feed the additional diners, these changes will likely lead to a massive accessibility issue during peak dining hours. For some students with mobility-related disabilities, navigating extremely crowded places — especially while carrying food — is difficult, if not impossible. The more students are crowded into a space, the more likely it is for students to be bumped or tripped, which can be dangerous for those with mobility-related disabilities. Crowded spaces can also be difficult for students with sensory-processing disabilities, which are common among individuals on the autism spectrum and are characterized by more intense sensory input, which can be overwhelming for these inviduals. Sounds are louder. Lights are brighter. Smells are stronger. Dining halls at busy hours are already overwhelming for students without disabilities. Adding hundreds more students could make dining halls and DeCafé completely inaccessible to students with sensory-processing disabilities. The administration must take these issues into consideration when deciding how many students a dining hall can serve.

Additional questions arise if Lord-Saunders is to become the only dining hall on South Campus. Afrikan Heritage House is a safe space for Black students on campus, and during the Gibson’s protests last year, Lord-Saunders was temporarily reserved and used exclusively as a safe space for Black students. Having the Lord-Saunders Dining Hall become one of two major dining halls on campus jeopardizes the Black community’s safe space during times of need, while also crowding it every day with people who have no affiliation with the dorm. If the administration has solidified the decision to make Lord-Saunders the only major dining hall on South campus without consulting and reaching consensus with the residents of the dorm or ABUSUA, they are being disrespectful to Black students and their space.

Making Lord-Saunders and Stevenson the main dining halls on campus will also further the divide between North Campus and South Campus. Most athletes tend to live on North Campus and eat in Stevenson, while most non-athletes live on South Campus and prefer to eat at Dascomb. However, Dascomb’s location is more central than Stevenson’s and therefore attracts a more diverse group of students, including some who live on North campus. If Dascomb closes, it seems logical that many of those diners who live on South Campus would opt for Lord-Saunders instead of Stevenson, and those who live on North Campus would choose Stevenson. By closing Dascomb, the administration would effectively minimize the interaction between students who live on different sides of campus.

Dascomb also serves as a social hub for first-years. Because of its location in an all-first-year dorm, it is a key space that allows first -years to build community and friendships that can support them during their time at Oberlin.

Eliminating Dascomb takes away a major part of the first-year experience. If the administration wants to increase retention rates, giving first-years spaces to form relationships that could carry them through college is crucial.

Many Conservatory students also depend on Dascomb and have expressed dissatisfaction with this potential change to members of the editorial board. When they rush between class and practice, Dascomb is a convenient place to grab meals. None of the other options — Lord-Saunders, Stevenson, or DeCafé — are especially convenient for Conservatory students who are working with time crunches, sometimes carrying large instruments, and going back and forth to the Conservatory buildings.

Expanding the hours of existing dining options is not an adequate replacement for the hole that will be left by Dascomb Dining Hall. Something more must be done if the administration is serious about its closing.

One potential solution to the overcrowding problem is to separate DeCafé’s made-to-order from hot food options and its grocery options. The groceries that are sold in Decafé take up most of the space there, which often leads to overcrowding. If the groceries were moved to a different location that strictly sold groceries, this could allow for the expansion of lunch options. The new hot sandwich selections introduced this semester have been pretty successful, especially in offsetting increased sandwich and smoothie line traffic. If there was more space, pre-prepared and made-to-order food options could be further developed. For breakfast, they could serve pre-made breakfast burritos, have an oatmeal bar, offer more baked goods, and open the smoothie bar. Other options for lunch and dinner could include a wok station, quesadillas, a separate salad bar, and/or bringing back the old Rathskellar buffet and offering to-go containers. If Decafé offered more grab-and-go choices, it could alleviate the lunch and dinner rush at other dining halls. This would be a convenient option, as it is close to several main academic buildings, including King Building and the Science Center.

As the College faces difficult decisions regarding budget cuts, students will have to make sacrifices. We acknowledge that closing Dascomb may be a good option for alleviating the College’s financial burden and that in her financial presentations, Ambar said that all options are on the table. We want to stress that this also means that all consequences of major upcoming decisions — including the closure of Dascomb Dining Hall — must be on the table and must be open for further community input. Dascomb can close, but we want to ensure that the void its closure will leave will be filled to better meet student needs.

Editorials are the responsibility of the Review Editorial Board — the Editors-in-Chief, Managing Editor, and Opinions Editors — and do not necessarily reflect the views of the staff of the Review.

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Opi n ions

Current Gun Control Debates Give Inadequate, Ineffective Solutions Jonathan Karpatkin Contributing Writer

This op-ed is both a response to Jacob Britton’s letter disputing the constitutionality of a federal ban on AR-15s and similar weapons (“Founding Fathers Would Approve of AR-15 Sales,” The Oberlin Review, March 2, 2018), and an expansion of my own views. Throughout his letter, Mr. Britton misrepresents not only constitutional law but also the history of firearms. As someone with comparatively extensive knowledge of guns and gun control, I feel it’s my responsibility to, foremost, correct the record with regards to Mr. Britton’s letter, but also to present my take on the current gun regulation debate.

Mr. Britton first assumes that the Supreme Court’s review of amendments is restricted to interpreting the intent of the Framers, which is incorrect. The Supreme Court has never held that the Second Amendment, or any constitutional amendment, is beyond caveat or exception. A deprivation of constitutional rights relies on the demonstration of a “compelling state interest” and being narrowly tailored to address that interest. The Supreme Court has repeatedly maintained

the constitutionality of gun control statutes such as the National Firearms Act of 1934, which bans machine guns and tightly controls short-barreled rifles and shotguns. It surely can be argued that an AR-15 ban is sufficiently narrowly tailored to a sufficiently compelling state interest.

The constitutionality of a hypothetical AR-15 ban established, I’d like to address some of Mr. Britton’s amusing historical inaccuracies. In brief, there was no weapon in existence during the American Revolution or shortly after that compares to modern sporting rifles such as the AR-15 in form or function. The Belton flintlock that Mr. Britton mentions is a glorified shotgun, with musketballs stacked in the barrel and fired all at once like a Roman Candle, and is reloaded manually like all other 18th-century muskets. With an average musket taking around 20 seconds to reload a single shot and ball, I can only imagine how long it would take to load 20 times that. Furthermore, the Belton flintlock and all other weapons commonly cited by many Second Amendment advocates as examples of early “assault weapons” are either constitutionally banned under the aforementioned National Firearms Act

— such as the Gatling Gun and Puckle Gun — or were so unpopular that to compare them to the AR-15, the most popular rifle in America, is frankly insulting, and makes it unclear if Mr. Britton has any idea what he is talking about.

It is both predictable and disappointing that Mr. Britton’s recommendation for reducing school shootings is to increase police presence in schools. Without addressing the moral and ethical issues of patrolling schools with our increasingly militarized police force, such a recommendation is remarkably bad policy.

When police officers assigned to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School did not intervene in the shooting, all of America saw something members of minority communities have seen for decades: Police officers are just as capable of doing terrible things as anyone else.

With Mr. Britton’s cacata carta addressed, I would like nothing more than to end this on a positive note, but that would be disingenuous. As much as I hope there is a solution to our gun violence problem so straightforward, an assault weapons ban is not that solution. It won’t immediately affect the gun violence rate in a statistically significant way and

would reduce gun violence by, at the very most, a few percentage points over the course of decades.

We know this because of how few gun homicides are with any kind of rifle — around three percent according to FBI data from 2016.

Additionally, we have as historical examples the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban, which did not have a clear statistically significant effect on the gun violence rates, or even the assault weapon violence rates.

We also have the Australian gun ban. Since 1996, there has definitely been a reduction in violent crime and gun crime in Australia, but very gradual, very slight, and not at all clearly a result of the ban as violent crime and gun homicide rates drop year after year around the world. We can’t afford to wait decades for a three to fivee percent reduction in gun deaths.

That’s simply not enough and not fast enough.

More than half of all gun deaths in the United States are suicides, and the vast majority of the remainder are connected to gang violence and domestic violence.

Gun regulations and reforms are effective as barriers to suicide, but beyond that, we need to address mental healthcare accessibility and the stigmatization of mental health problems, as well as im-

proving our early recognition and intervention programs. We need to address the economic and social circumstances that drive gang violence in this country. We need to address the flaws in our judicial system that allow abusers the opportunity and ability to harm their partners. Across the board, we need to double-down our enforcement of laws and systems of intervention already in place, systems which would have prevented the violence in Florida if not for negligence by the authorities. None of these tasks are easy, and none are quick, but they are all tasks we as a nation should be working on, even if they weren’t tightly connected to gun violence.

No realistic proposal made so far by pro- or anti-gun camps would significantly affect America’s gun violence epidemic. There is, as far as I can understand, no simple fix for this complicated issue, but until both camps work harder to understand the nuance of this problem, we will remain in our never-ending cycle of tragedy, anger, and gridlock. We won’t see progress on gun violence until we can move past the red herring of assault weapons and AR-15s and demand that our government address the real sources of gun deaths.

Community Should Reflect Student-Athletes Should Not Skip Upon History of College Spaces Vital Gender Inclusivity Training

Kameron Dunbar Columnist

Editor’s Note: This article contains mentions of sexual assault.

I walk into North Hall every day. Most days, I forget that the official building name is “Langston Hall,” in honor of John Mercer Langston. That name may not be familiar to many, but this one may be: James Mercer Langston Hughes.

Yes, that Langston Hughes.

Langston Hughes was the grandson of Charles Henry Langston.

Charles Henry Langston and his brother Gideon were the first two Black students admitted to Oberlin College. Charles and Gideon were John’s older brothers. John Mercer Langston was Langston Hughes’ great uncle.

While John Mercer Langston’s name may not carry much global recognition, his life is a vital piece of Oberlin College’s story. His time at Oberlin and in Ohio was spent fighting for a better nation — particularly a nation stripped of slavery’s chains.

Langston served as the president of the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society — which was founded in part

by Charles Grandison Finney (Finney Chapel’s namesake). One of his most notable feats was his presence in the life of Edmonia Lewis, a Black student who faced frequent harassment on the basis of race and gender during her time at Oberlin. Lewis later became a famed sculptor.

Lewis lived in the home of Rev. John Keep — a member of the Keep family that the co-op is named after. One night, after being accused of poisoning her two white housemates, Lewis was abducted, beaten, and likely raped.

6

After that traumatic experience, Lewis was then charged with poisoning the two women by local authorities. It was John Mercer Langston who represented Edmonia Lewis during the trial that resulted in her acquittal.

Langston’s work didn’t stop in Oberlin. He went on to serve as the founder of the law school at Howard University, one of today’s most recognizable and prestigious historically-Black universities. President Rutherford B. Hayes appointed him as the U.S. Minister to Haiti. He was also a legislator, serving as the first Black person elected to Congress from Virginia.

I regret every time I walk into Langston Hall without taking just a second to acknowledge its history. Black History Month may be over, but it’s always timely to recognize, respect, and admire the sacrifices that Black Obies made during Oberlin’s earliest and most fragile periods. Like many Black students, I stand in the legacy and memory of John Mercer Langston, Mary Jane Patterson, Edmonia Lewis, George Vashon, and others like them. These Black visionaries willingly placed themselves in a community that was not ready to accept them for all of who and what they were.

Names matter. It would benefit all students to take a moment out of our busy lives to think about the names and stories written on the spaces we frequent.

Who were they, and what did they contribute to Oberlin? What stories are we missing?

Oberlin history is American history. Sometimes I wonder, what kind of history are we making today?

Katie Lucey Production Editor

Recently, there has been a lot of debate surrounding the athlete/non-athlete divide at Oberlin. I believe that one of the most preeminent ways students can bridge this so-called “divide” is by challenging themselves to enter new and possibly uncomfortable spaces. We should all be willing to put in the work to support other students’ interests and identities — whether this means going to a featured concert, attending a sports game, or taking a workshop on privilege and oppression. Bridging this so-called divide is contingent on how much each individual is willing to step outside of their own social circles and learn about others.

This past week, the Athletics department required all student-athletes to attend a presentation about gender inclusivity in sports given by Dr. Rachel McKinnon, an internationally competitive cyclist and Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the College of Charleston, focusing on issues related to gender and queer identities. Studentathletes who could not make the initial presentation last Sunday evening were required to attend a workshop the next day, led by Dr. McKinnon. This workshop, which was smaller in size and more interactive than the presentation, provided attendees with tangible information on how to navigate the many identities that fall under the trans umbrella, allyship, and how to be an active bystander. Dr. McKinnon runs workshops on all sorts of inclusion and allyship through

her organization “Diversity Fox Consulting” — this one was titled “Including Trans Women Athletes in Sports.”

To my dismay, however, many student-athletes simply signed themselves in, took one of the free “EQUALITY” t-shirts, and promptly left the venue before the presentation had even started. “Many” is perhaps an inaccurate term for the seriousness of this action — even just one student-athlete who denied themselves this learning opportunity is too many. Although I think the Athletics department should have given more than a six-day notice for this mandatory event, this failure on behalf of the student-athletes who decided that the event was “not for them” or that they had “more important things to do” is unacceptable.

Their selfishness reflects badly on themselves, their teams, and the Athletics department as a whole. Moreover, and most importantly, their decision to not show up and learn about a marginalized group in society — transgender and gender-nonconforming people — is one of privilege.

Occurrences like this exacerbate the divide between athletes and non-athletes on this campus.

Oberlin is a school with a multitude of identities, interests, and backgrounds, and not showing up to an event or workshop like Dr. McKinnon’s demonstrates that the athletics community as a whole is unwilling to operate in solidarity with those who need our support.

According to the Human Rights Campaign, trans and gender-nonconforming people

face some of the highest rates of sexual violence within the LGBTQ community. In order to combat this alarming statistic, we must be willing to understand this phenomenon and why it happens. We must also serve as active bystanders, even if inserting ourselves into the situation puts us at risk. As pointed out by several former Review articles, even the ones that involve lessthan-stellar takes on the athletics community here at Oberlin, “teams have a way of taking over a space” (“Athletics Encourage Toxic Belief Systems,” The Oberlin Review, Oct. 27, 2017). Rather than seeing this as a negative characteristic of varsity teams, perhaps we should see it as a tool for effective active bystandership. Student-athletes should use their looming physical presence as a way to protect marginalized groups, such as trans and gendernonconforming people. There is strength in numbers, and student-athletes at Oberlin have the ability to protect people at risk from instances of transphobia and sexual harm.

I implore the members of varsity athletic teams to hold their teammates accountable for their actions. If you’re willing to lay it all out for your teammate on the field, there is no reason why you should not be willing to do the same for a fellow Obie. To the student-athletes who decided that learning about the implicit privilege that permeates college athletics or about how to operate in solidarity with trans and gender-nonconforming people was not important enough for you, I call upon you to undertake this invaluable task: Be better.

Britton Cherrypicks Statistics, Presents Narrow View Roman Broszkowski News Editor Julia Peterson Arts & Culture Editor

Last week, the Review published a letter to the editors that raised a number of points about gun violence (“Founding Fathers Would Approve of AR-15 Sales,” The Oberlin Review, March 2, 2018). Given that several claims in this letter do not stand up under closer scrutiny, we felt compelled to respond and offer the evidence and context that Jacob Britton’s letter lacks.

In his article, Britton states, “The fact that the United States has significantly lower homicide rates than other countries with stricter gun laws should be enough for anyone to remember that safety is in the hands of those who are the most responsible.”

While it is true that El Salvador, the country with the highest rate of intentional homicides as of 2015, has restrictive gun laws, Britton ignored the context of the situation. In this specific case, El Salvador is not comparable to the United States at all. It is neither of similar size nor population, nor does it hold a similar relationship with guns. Furthermore, El Salvador is emerging from a deeply turbulent part of its history. Britton asking us to compare the U.S. and El Salvador is like asking to compare the U.S. and 2005 Iraq.

It is more reasonable to compare countries with similar development and population levels with the U.S. For example, Indonesia — the country whose population is most similar in size to the U.S. — has very strict gun control and had a murder rate of 0.5 per 100,000 in 2014 compared to the U.S.’ 4.88 per 100,000 in 2015. China, the largest country in the world, has much stricter gun laws than America, but had a murder rate of just 0.74 per 100,000 in 2014.

If you compare countries by development instead of population, you end up comparing the U.S. to countries like Japan, Chi-

na, France, the U.K., India, Brazil, Italy, Canada, South Korea, and Russia. Of these, only Brazil and Russia have higher murder rates, and both countries are deeply corrupt states rife with organized crime. More generally, Britton neglected to mention other contextualizing details about guns in the United States that show why regulation is needed. First, U.S. citizens own nearly half of the estimated number of civilianowned guns worldwide, while making up only 4.4 percent of the world’s population. Furthermore, between 1966 and 2012, the U.S. also had five times the number of mass shootings as the country with the next-highest rate. When examining the data in context, it becomes clear that the United States has a particularly serious problem with gun violence.

Rather than insinuating that enacting stricter gun laws is not worth trying, and thus that our current state of affairs is inevitable, we must consider the effects of legislation that other countries have enacted in context. If, rather than looking at the countries with high rates of violence, we turn instead to the countries with low rates of homicides, we might consider the case of Australia. After a mass shooting in 1996 that left 35 people dead, Australia’s parliament enacted strict gun laws and has not had a mass shooting since. Safety need not only be in the hands of those who are most responsible, as Britton argues. Safety can also be found in laws designed to keep people safe.

When all else fails, anti-gun control activists often claim that the Second Amendment is a fundamental part of the U.S. Constitution, therefore protecting gun ownership. Gun control proponents respond by saying that the Second Amendment does not apply to modern guns since the Founders couldn’t possibly have imagined their power. Britton preemptively counters by saying that semi-automatic weapons existed at the same time of the

Constitutional Convention and therefore the Second Amendment does include them. However, this lacks both internal and external logic.

First, saying that the Founding Fathers intended the Second Amendment to cover all arms present and future actively disregards 200 years of judicial precedent which established that the Second Amendment did not grant an individual right to guns.

If we accept the Supreme Court’s new, more expansive definition saying that an individual’s right to bear arms is constitutional, we arrive at the unfortunate extreme of Britton’s argument. If semiautomatic weapons are included under the Second Amendment by virtue of existing, then why aren’t grenades? These weapons existed and were used during the Revolutionary War, but are illegal to own under the Crime Control Act of 1968. Simply because something existed contemporaneously with the Second Amendment does not mean that the intention was to include it as part of some expansive right to arms.

Second, Britton’s argument fundamentally rests on the infallibility of constitutional intent.

This is both disingenuous and false. It is disingenuous because it implies that Britton’s problem with gun control is not its nature, but that the idea is unconstitutional. If that were true, then Britton should have no problem supporting a constitutional amendment allowing the government to restrict access to weapons. However, it is clear that he does not support such legislation, because he does not believe that such an ability should exist.

His problem is with gun restrictions, and he should not hide behind the thin argument of constitutionality. His argument is also false because it claims that constitutional intent is the correct way for our country to govern itself. The Constitution is full of contradictions, and was meant to provide full rights to only a fraction of the population. The

CARTOON OF THE WEEK Melissa Harris

intent behind the Constitution was to create an America where slavery was legal, voting rights were restricted, and power was kept within a landed elite. Britton may respond by saying that while all these problems existed in the original, it was clearly the intent of the framers that these be removed or changed later on through the amendment process — at which point Britton has nullified the importance of constitutional intent since it is no longer static, but rather fluid, changeable, and reflective of the contemporary United States.

As for Britton’s claim that increasing armed policing in public schools would protect students, there is no good evidence to suggest that this would have the intended effect. There is, however, plenty of evidence that it would be harmful. According to the Harvard School of Public Health’s Injury Control Research Center, communities with more guns have more gun deaths, even after controlling for variables including socioeconomic demographics and other crime.

Britton’s proposed solution adds more guns into the school community, and it is all too easy to see how a heated confrontation could quickly escalate into a fatal one with these weapons present.

Furthermore, increasing policing in schools has been shown to be detrimental to students, particularly students of color. According to the ACLU, in the 2013–2014 school year, many children were

Students Shouldn’t Bear All Cost of Incoming Financial Decisions

Duncan Reid Contributing Writer

After listening to President Ambar’s presentation and going over the notes, one thing kept repeating itself in my head: That just doesn’t add up.

President Ambar mentioned that our tuition is similar to our peer institutions, and thus a 3 percent increase is reasonable. While our tuition is roughly similar, what students pay, including fees, is not. The average net price that Obies pay, including financial and merit aid, is around $45,000 per year, according to College Factual. The average net price per student at Oberlin’s peer institutions is far less — anywhere from $21,841 at Amherst to $32,763 at Kenyon. That doesn’t add up.

A year ago, incoming first-years were told that they had to buy into a more expensive meal plan as a revenue-generating measure.

Even with all of that additional revenue, the administration is planning on closing a dining hall that typically serves 500 students for lunch and 350 for dinner. That doesn’t add up.

Students were told that the school could afford new Wilder renovations under the current Student Life Budget. Now we face cuts across The Oberlin Review | March 9, 2018

the board that will almost certainly take money out of that very fund, and students are told that we will have a review process where everything will be on the table. That doesn’t add up.

The administration has said that we need to improve our retention and yield. Yet the administration wants to increase the cost of attendance and cut services, while maintaining that yield and retention will rebound. That doesn’t add up.

The administration says that the blow of the 3 percent tuition increase will be softened by the elimination of the “costs of smaller things” — for example, laundry will be free. 3 percent of the current tuition is around $1,580. Unless students are planning on doing more than 632 rounds of washing and drying this coming year, that won’t add up either.

I understand that we need to rethink the way we finance. We are going to have to face some cuts. But we need solutions that add up.

I applaud President Ambar’s willingness to think outside the box. It’s a refreshing feeling that those in the Cox Administration Building know how to run a college, let alone balance a checkbook. I look forward to her office producing creative solutions that eliminate wasteful spending and unnecessary perks in the laby-

actually charged with “crimes” such as throwing a paper airplane or wearing saggy pants in school — charges that would likely never have been brought had there been no police on the premises. School policing remains concentrated in neighborhoods with more POC residents, and Black students are nearly four times more likely than white students to be charged with “disturbing schools,” a chillingly vague law that serves to perpetuate the school-to-prison pipeline for many students of color. Britton may argue that armed policing in schools would make students safer — and, again, there is no evidence to support that claim — but he cannot deny that the increased presence of police in schools also leads to more instances when students are bodyslammed, tased, pepper sprayed, choked, placed in handcuffs, or otherwise injured. These very real consequences are not an acceptable trade-off for whatever theoretical benefit having more armed policing on school premises might have.

We must continue to discuss the very real problem of gun violence in this country. But let us make sure that we are engaging in these discussions from an informed standpoint, rather than cherrypicking statistics out of context, taking an overly narrow view of the law, and blithely ignoring evidence of the harm of certain proposed measures.

rinth of the Oberlin bureaucracy.

However, these solutions must be ones that make sure that students are the last people who bear the costs of the past administrations’ financial folly. For too long, instead of thinking of alternative solutions, a simple increase in tuition has been the administration’s financial quick-fix of choice. In a pinch, an increase in tuition makes sense, but when the tuition goes up every year without fail, the problem becomes those implementing it, not the deficit.

For example, Oberlin pays almost twice as much for cleaning and maintenance because we pay staff a wage well above the minimum. If students are receiving a tuition hike, surely it’s only fair that staff take a slight cut in wages. If buildings are being closed down, surely it’s only fair that buildings used by the administration are consolidated as well. That would add up.

Last week, the Chair of Student Senate, Kameron Dunbar, said that if we, the students, don’t voice our opinions, “then in the words of President Ambar, ‘This is gonna be hella hard.’” (“Students Must Protect Entirety of Oberlin, Not Just Specific Parts” The Oberlin Review, March 2, 2018).

It’s going to be a hell of a lot harder if students have to bear all of the cost.

Letter (cont.)

Continued from page 5

quires the cultivation of a kind of civic virtue that is the essence of our republicanism. But that virtue cannot rest on false claims and unsound arguments. In a 1967 New Yorker article entitled “Truth and Politics,” the political theorist Hannah Arendt wrote that “No one has ever doubted that truth and politics are on rather bad terms with each other.”

This may be truer today than ever. It is incumbent upon us as citizens to defend truth against the forces arrayed against it. This is a battle we cannot afford to lose.

– Jade Schiff Assistant Professor of Politics

7

ANTHROPOLOGY THROUGH TIME

Colonialism

24,000 BCE–2012 CE French

Assistant Professor of Anthropology Jason Haugen researches the morphology and syntax of two languages in the UtoAztecan language family of Mexico and the southwestern U.S. He is also interested in linguistic theory; language endangerment, documentation, and revitalization; and the linguistic and cultural prehistory of the southwestern U.S. and northwestern Mexico.

Archaeology

6,000,000 BCE–2012 CE Central American Indian Languages Associate Professor of Anthropology Amy Margaris, OC ‘96, is an anthropological archaeologist. She combines collections analysis with ethnohistory and materials science in her skeletal technologies in order to understand how technological choices and raw material properties connect.

Linguistic Anthropology 2200 BCE–200 CE Spanish

Associate Professor and Chair of Anthropology Erika HoffmannDilloway’s research covers the linguistic anthropology of sign languages. She focuses on the existence of multiple modes of communication and how societies affect their flexibility.

Cultural Anthropology 1770 CE–1900 CE Quechua

Assistant Professor of Anthropology Crystal “Cal” Biruk researches the political and ethical implications of intervention in the global South. More specifically, they are interested in local social geographies in Sub-Saharan Africa and the effects of increasing amounts of humanitarian, developmental, and scientific projects.

Layout and text by Lucy Martin, This Week Editor Photos courtesy of the Oberlin College Anthropology Department

Race and Ethnicity Studies Pre-500 BCE Italian

Associate Professor of Anthropology and Latin American Studies Baron Pineda is a cultural anthropologist who focuses on human rights, indigenous peoples, and Latin America. Since 2002, he has been researching global indigenous politics at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

LEGEND: EVENTS March 9

College seniors Niko Thomashow and Rachel Ford present their senior dance concerts. They have worked with fellow dancers to create their pieces. Niko’s piece, Inahan Sa Perlas, explores their life through dance, music, and visual art. It features more than 30 artists — including dancers, musicians, and singers — as they explore embodied experiences of colonialism, gender binaries, and diaspora. Rachel’s piece, Marked As Void But Full, is a partner-based piece that uses movement to examine themes of tenderness, desperation, comfort, control, connection, helplessness, loss, and intersubjectivity through contact dance.

Warner Main Space Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m.

Tickets are $5; a portion of the proceeds will go to The National Alliance for Filipino Concerns.

Come dance with your friends at Merengue Madness, the annual Latin American dance night. There will be live music and a DJ set featuring salsa, merengue, bachata, and other Latin American music. This event is sponsored by the Office of the Dean of Students and La Casa Hispánica.

The ‘Sco 10 p.m.–1 a.m.

Tickets are $3 at Wilder Desk and $5 at the door. Funds will be donated to the Undocumented Student Scholarship Fund.

March 10

Learn more about Russian culture by joining Allencroft House in the tradition of Maslenitsa. Maslenitsa dates back to pagan times and celebrates the transition from winter to spring.

Allencroft “Russia” House 2 p.m.–5 p.m.

Standup comic Langston Kerman will be performing with student performers Daniel Cramer, Zoë Kushlefsky, Owen Harrington, Imke Hart, Jonah Fox, and PJ McCormick. Kerman was recently on the HBO series Insecure, starring Issa Rae. The ‘Sco 10 p.m.–12 a.m.

Tickets are $3 with an OCID and $5 without

March 12

Anthropology professor and curator at the Burke Museum Sven Haakanson Jr. will be giving the Fifth Annual Jack Glazier Endowed Anthropology Lecture. His topic will be “Repatriation of Knowledge: From Rare Museum Models to a Full Sized Angyaaq” and he will be sharing examples of how indigenous communities have engaged with museum collections.

Hallock Auditorium, AJLC 4:30 p.m.–6 p.m.

ANTHROPOLOGY THROUGH TIME

Colonialism

24,000 BCE–2012 CE French

Assistant Professor of Anthropology Jason Haugen researches the morphology and syntax of two languages in the UtoAztecan language family of Mexico and the southwestern U.S. He is also interested in linguistic theory; language endangerment, documentation, and revitalization; and the linguistic and cultural prehistory of the southwestern U.S. and northwestern Mexico.

Archaeology

6,000,000 BCE–2012 CE Central American Indian Languages Associate Professor of Anthropology Amy Margaris, OC ‘96, is an anthropological archaeologist. She combines collections analysis with ethnohistory and materials science in her skeletal technologies in order to understand how technological choices and raw material properties connect.

Linguistic Anthropology 2200 BCE–200 CE Spanish

Associate Professor and Chair of Anthropology Erika HoffmannDilloway’s research covers the linguistic anthropology of sign languages. She focuses on the existence of multiple modes of communication and how societies affect their flexibility.

Cultural Anthropology 1770 CE–1900 CE Quechua

Assistant Professor of Anthropology Crystal “Cal” Biruk researches the political and ethical implications of intervention in the global South. More specifically, they are interested in local social geographies in Sub-Saharan Africa and the effects of increasing amounts of humanitarian, developmental, and scientific projects.

Layout and text by Lucy Martin, This Week Editor Photos courtesy of the Oberlin College Anthropology Department

Race and Ethnicity Studies Pre-500 BCE Italian

Associate Professor of Anthropology and Latin American Studies Baron Pineda is a cultural anthropologist who focuses on human rights, indigenous peoples, and Latin America. Since 2002, he has been researching global indigenous politics at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

LEGEND: EVENTS March 9

College seniors Niko Thomashow and Rachel Ford present their senior dance concerts. They have worked with fellow dancers to create their pieces. Niko’s piece, Inahan Sa Perlas, explores their life through dance, music, and visual art. It features more than 30 artists — including dancers, musicians, and singers — as they explore embodied experiences of colonialism, gender binaries, and diaspora. Rachel’s piece, Marked As Void But Full, is a partner-based piece that uses movement to examine themes of tenderness, desperation, comfort, control, connection, helplessness, loss, and intersubjectivity through contact dance.

Warner Main Space Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m.

Tickets are $5; a portion of the proceeds will go to The National Alliance for Filipino Concerns.

Come dance with your friends at Merengue Madness, the annual Latin American dance night. There will be live music and a DJ set featuring salsa, merengue, bachata, and other Latin American music. This event is sponsored by the Office of the Dean of Students and La Casa Hispánica.

The ‘Sco 10 p.m.–1 a.m.

Tickets are $3 at Wilder Desk and $5 at the door. Funds will be donated to the Undocumented Student Scholarship Fund.

March 10

Learn more about Russian culture by joining Allencroft House in the tradition of Maslenitsa. Maslenitsa dates back to pagan times and celebrates the transition from winter to spring.

Allencroft “Russia” House 2 p.m.–5 p.m.

Standup comic Langston Kerman will be performing with student performers Daniel Cramer, Zoë Kushlefsky, Owen Harrington, Imke Hart, Jonah Fox, and PJ McCormick. Kerman was recently on the HBO series Insecure, starring Issa Rae. The ‘Sco 10 p.m.–12 a.m.

Tickets are $3 with an OCID and $5 without

March 12

Anthropology professor and curator at the Burke Museum Sven Haakanson Jr. will be giving the Fifth Annual Jack Glazier Endowed Anthropology Lecture. His topic will be “Repatriation of Knowledge: From Rare Museum Models to a Full Sized Angyaaq” and he will be sharing examples of how indigenous communities have engaged with museum collections.

Hallock Auditorium, AJLC 4:30 p.m.–6 p.m.

A r t s & C u lt u r e

ARTS & CULTURE March 9, 2018

established 1874

Volume 146, Number 17

The Turn Of The Screw Exemplifies Operatic Horror Kirsten Heuring Staff Writer Editor’s note: This article contains discussion of child sexual abuse.

“Beware of things that go bump in the night.”

According to Associate Professor of Opera Theater and Director Jonathon Field, this is the sentiment that audiences are likely to take away from Oberlin’s production of The Turn of the Screw. The chamber opera, Benjamin Britten and Myfanwy Piper’s chillingly creepy interpretation of the Henry James novella by the same name, opened Wednesday night in Hall Auditorium.

The Turn of the Screw is set at an English country house during the middle of the 19th century. A young governess has been hired to care for two young children, Miles and Flora.

Though the governess is charmed by the children at first, she soon discovers that the house is haunted by the ghosts of two former servants, Peter Quint and Mrs. Jessell, who recently died under mysterious circumstances. The governess’ quest to protect the children under her care drives the story through terrifying twists and dark turns until the very final note.

For many of the cast, crew, and creative team involved in this production, one of the great benefits of performing The Turn of the Screw is that it is fairly accessible to general audiences – not only is it performed in English, but it’s also an elegant marriage between opera and genre fiction.

“The point of every opera is that you want to communicate some form of a story, and I hope [that people] see the story that we’re telling,” said Conservatory senior Rachel Liss, who plays the governess in the Friday and Sunday casts. “That they see this story of this woman go[ing] through a change, and also the spookiness, the creepiness of little children doing what they’re doing. And I hope they

The cast of the Oberlin Opera Theater’s production of The Turn Of The Screw performs Benjamin Britten’s creepy, contemporary ghost story opera.

Photo by Yevhen Gulenko

get sufficiently creeped out [and] I hope that they kind of see the situation that’s going on and see the unravelling of it all. … I hope that they enjoy it.”

“My hope is always to get more people to come and see opera and not see it as something strange or foreign or unappealing,” Field agreed.

“So what we try to do is we try to make every production really very compelling to get people engaged with the art form.”

With intentionally sparse, claustrophobic set design by Laura Carlson-Tarantowski, the opera exudes eerie energy throughout.

And this production is especially ambitious, using live video elements to project the ghosts onstage along with the singers, lending them an especially surreal quality.

“It’s kind of spooky, and it’s atmospheric,” Carlson-Tarantowski said. “This production is very dark and spooky — I mean dimly-lit, dark, with this beautiful music and beautiful singing and very kind of layered. It’s a neat show.”

These projections are also used to highlight one of the recurring themes

of the opera that moves it beyond genre horror and into something much more sinister. It is heavily implied that the deceased former servants were abusing the children before their deaths, and that by haunting and possessing the children, they are continuing the abuse.

“They’re, like, live video-taping the ghosts and projecting them, so we see there’s this scene where they’re haunting the kids, and one of the ghosts is [doing an action with] her hands, and it looks like she’s like molesting the kid,” Liss said. “It’s really creepy. I hope that the audience sees how creepy that is.”

“This opera is a story of conflict or power, with Peter Quint wishing to possess Miles, the governess desiring the power to break up the relationship between Miles and Quint, and Miles wishing for his own power and autonomy,” added Conservatory first-year Caroline Wolfe, who plays Miles in the Friday and Sunday performances. “The most important message for the audience to take away is that of healthy versus unhealthy relationships, and both are seen among the relationships of these

three characters.”

Another main theme woven through the opera is how the governess’ own innocence works against her as she tries to save the children from the ghosts.

“One of the lines she says is, ‘Oh innocence, you have corrupted me,’” Field said. “And part of it is her character’s inability to deal with situations that are completely outside her understanding or control and sort of her relentless pursuit of trying to save these children.”

“I like to think [that] the opera, as a whole, is about a loss of innocence, but not of the children,” Liss agreed.

“It’s of [the governess] and her realizing that there are ghosts that are haunting children, and that she can’t save them in the way she wants to.”

One of the most fascinating aspects of The Turn of the Screw is the way that the piece is musically structured, highlighted in this production by the 13 members of the pit under the baton of acclaimed conductor Christopher Larkin.

The opera consists of eight scenes, interspersed with music, allowing the set to change onstage. During the musical interludes Britten explores themes beginning from the point of view of the children.

“The opera is going to be a unique experience — it really is kind of a masterpiece,” Field said. “Gradually, as each musical interlude goes by, he introduces new themes so by the beginning of act two, we actually have the ghosts’ themes. And then the ghosts’ themes through the rest of act two become what the orchestra takes up.”

The Turn of the Screw will be performed at 8 p.m. tonight and Saturday night, and 2 p.m. Sunday afternoon. Tickets are available through Central Ticketing Services.

Franz Directs Riveting, Dynamic Production of Ives’ Venus in Fur Liz Cooper

College sophomore Meg Franz made a landmark directorial debut Friday night with a lean, sharp, riveting production of Venus in Fur. The script, by contemporary playwright David Ives, features Thomas Novachek (College senior William Osborn), a working playwright trying to direct his own adaptation of Venus in Furs, the infamous 1870 sadomasochistic novel by Austrian author Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. As Novacheck begins staging his own piece, he enters into a strange and increasingly unsettling dynamic with Vanda Jordan (College sophomore Samantha Brooks), an actress on the opposite side of Novachek’s casting table. At first, Jordan appears to be the crystallization of Novachek’s impression of a modern actress: shallow, graceless, and emptyheaded. But as Jordan — uncannily, also named Vanda — proves to be an almost perfect fit for the part she begins to take a visceral power over Novachek, which she uses to push back both against the play-within-a-play and against its author. These strange and mesmerizing interactions are fueled

10

by the thematic content of the piece: lust, control, masculine and feminine dominance, and the possibilities of love. The play raises the question: Is the male novelist’s conception of love and sexuality, filtered through the lens of BDSM, an expression of pure human truth? Or is it a projected patriarchal power play?

Venus in Fur would be a challenge for any creative team, let alone one helmed by a first-time director operating on a bare-bones budget in a classroom space, but Oberlin’s production meets those challenges expertly, keeping the audience’s focus on Novachek’s and Jordan’s strange and spontaneous relationship. Throughout the play, Brooks played Jordan with fluidity, moving from ingratiation to seduction to domination to burning conflict at the drop of a hat. Osborn, on the other hand, played Novachek as frustrated, enraptured, lustful, and enraged in turn. This contrast flips well-worn scripts about gendered power dynamics — in this play, Jordan is the more active character, while Novachek is the more emotional one. Within the narrative of the play, Jordan must be the driving force of the production, even while presenting

outward passivity, and Novachek must ultimately be a receptacle for Jordan’s actions.

In this production, Brooks delivered a powerhouse performance as Vanda Jordan. While her background in dance and burlesque has clearly given her a strong bedrock of physical control — readily apparent on stage — it would be a grave understatement of her accomplishment in Venus in Fur to neglect the stage presence she’s built through her acting craft. Throughout most of the play, Jordan has to hold on to three or more layers of deception while following a strong internal drive, requiring a remarkable clarity of purpose and a subtle awareness of the play’s circumstances throughout. Brooks accomplished this consistently throughout the show’s 90-minute runtime. Even when she’s playing the fool, Jordan is clearly a powerful force and maybe a menace, and this fact is clear to the audience even while Novachek is fooled by Jordan’s feigned ignorance.

Osborn’s performance, while less flashy, was equally layered. The voyeurism and craving for See Venus, page 13

ON THE RECORD

Shelley Perlove, Professor Emerita of Art History

Dr. Shelley Perlove is a Professor Emerita of the History of Art at the University of MichiganDearborn. Her work has focused on 17th-century Italian and Dutch art — particularly on its incorporation of religious and material culture. She has published a number of scholarly works, including Bernini and the Idealization of Death and Rembrandt’s Faith: Church and Temple in the Dutch Golden Age, which won the Brown-Weill Newberry Library Award and the 2010 Roland H. Bainton Prize sponsored by the Sixteenth Century Society. She has been involved in the curation of a wide variety of exhibitions throughout the United States and the world. Professor Perlove came to Oberlin yesterday to give a talk called “Revelation in the Shadows: Rembrandt, the Jews, and Jesus,” in conjunction with the Allen Memorial Art Museum’s current exhibition Lines of Inquiry: Learning from Rembrandt’s Etchings, which was organized in conjunction with Cornell University’s Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Interview by Ellis Lane Staff Writer

What sparked your interest in the topic of your talk, “Rembrandt, the Jews, and Jesus”?

That’s a very interesting question, because I started out my career as an art historian. My first project, my dissertation, was on an Italian baroque sculptor and architect — Gian Lorenzo Bernini — and I wrote a book on him. I fell in love with him when I went to Rome, at the Borghese Gallery, and I saw his sculptures, and that was it. And I wrote on the Ludovica Albertoni [funerary monument], a late work by him. But then I got a job teaching. I started a museum studies program, and the basic idea was that you have to have little shows with the students, like a practicum, so they can learn what goes into the making of an exhibition.

And so I was looking around to see — what can I get to put a show together? I wasn’t very successful [with] Italian baroque, but I discovered that there were quite a number of Rembrandt prints in the neighborhood at the Detroit Institute of Arts, the University of Michigan Museum of Art had some, Toledo Museum of Art had some. And I put it together into a small exhibition. And when I started working on it with my class, I realized ... this is an amazing artist in the way he interprets texts and stages them. There are things that Rembrandt does with his art that no one else does. So I started doing research, and I said, “It’s not here.” So I wrote a small article on Abraham, images of Abraham. And then I got more and more into it.

I had my sabbatical coming up, and I said to myself, “You know, I really want to become a Rembrandt scholar.” And then I said, “Wait a minute, you don’t know Dutch!” So then I realized I had to study Dutch. But I did it on my own, because I didn’t have time to take a class. It was very challenging, but very wonderful, and I’ve been at it ever since.

I wrote a large book on Rembrandt’s faith, about his religious works. I did a number of exhibitions. I also worked on a show on The Oberlin Review | March 9, 2018

Rembrandt’s Faces of Jesus, and that opened at the Louvre, so that was very exciting. And then it went to Philadelphia, and then to the Detroit Institute of Arts. I discovered new things — there’s always new things to learn about Rembrandt. That’s why the title [of Oberlin’s current Rembrandt exhibition], Lines of Inquiry, is a perfect title for the show here. There’s always something new to discover, and I’ve been at it 20 years.

And now I decided that I need to move on, so I’m working on one of Rembrandt’s pupils, Ferdinand Bol. And I thought, “Oh, I’m going to hate this, because it’s not Rembrandt.

How could it be any good?” It turns out it’s really good. So I thought, “I’m on a mission.

I’m going to make Ferdinand Bol famous.” He’ll never be as famous as Rembrandt, but ... maybe more than he has been. He’s been neglected, Ferdinand Bol. So I’m excited about that.

As a professor, your career kind of moves from thing to thing. But I also worked at the Detroit Institute of Arts. I love museums, and at some point in my life I [had to choose between] teaching at a university or curating at a museum. So I became a professor at a university, and I continue to do exhibitions as a guest. But I love teaching, and I love students. I’m an Emerita, but I keep teaching because I care about the students.

Are the students what inspired this project for you, or was it something else?

You’re right, that’s the springboard for it. I would never think of working on Rembrandt if it weren’t for [the students.] I had to become, very quickly, a scholar of Rembrandt. So it was because of that. The necessity — they had to have a show to do. Now, this was many years ago, but some of them still write me about Rembrandt.

Did you have a teacher when you were in college who inspired you to take this path?

That’s what’s so funny.

I did take some courses in Dutch art. … Maybe it was the professor, but I didn’t like it.

I thought, “Oh, I love Italian art. This is not pretty enough.

It’s not beautiful enough.” But it was through really being forced to study, and then Rembrandt always offers new possibilities, different ways of looking at his work. I like that because for me, as a scholar, I have to have this element of curiosity. Everything cannot be answered. If everything’s answered, I’m finished with it. I did my book on Bernini, I’m done. I’m not saying it’s the last word, but for me it was. I felt like I said what I was going to say, and I really didn’t feel that there was more for me. So I force myself into these challenging situations, but those situations, because they’re challenging, inspire me and spur me on, and force me to look at things in a different way. So I didn’t have a mentor. [In this area, I was] self-taught. It’s a little crazy, but it’s exciting. That’s the excitement of learning and knowledge.

What’s your background in Baroque art?

I think I’m a 17th-century person. I’ve written articles and a book on Bernini. I’ve written a number of articles on il Guercino, and I’m working on an exhibition on Guercino, on his religious works, because that’s what they asked me to work on.

That’s what I’m known for. And then, of course, Rembrandt. I’ve done some work on Heemskerk, which you probably don’t know — he’s not really Baroque, he’s late Renaissance. And then, Ferdinand Bol. I’m on to the pupils now.

So what began your interest in the religious aspect of art?

I’ve always been interested in religious culture, especially because I don’t know anything about it. I didn’t grow up with any knowledge of religion. My parents were not very into religion at all, but I always had a great curiosity that came to me through the art. And so I would be saying, “Whoa, what is that? Why is it that? How was it used?” For

Dr. Shelley Perlove, author and Professor Emerita of the History of Art. Photo by Devin Cowan, Staff Photographer

Bernini, I worked on Baroque devotion, Catholic devotion.

But then with Rembrandt, it was all new, because it’s Calvinism, and Arminianism, all these Protestant sects. And then also, for the first time, the Jews came into this mix, which is kind of interesting too.

Was the way that Rembrandt incorporated Jews into his work new?

[Other artists did it] but not to the extent that he did.

The extent that he did was tremendous. Using Jewish models or Jews that he saw on the street, trying to give a sense of the ritual dress of Jews. They were there around him. There was no ghetto in Amsterdam. So he could really observe them, and he found it interesting, and he knew some. He saw ... the Jews as the inheritors, the ones who received the covenant, and that covenant then went on to the Christians. So it was a gift, and God gave it to the Jews, and then it came to the Christians. [There are] interesting connections there. Other artists might [depict Jews], and some of them had kind of caricatures of Jews — big nose, or a traditional hat that some Jews in Europe were forced to wear, distinguishing marks like a red hat, or a yellow hat, or yellow [badges] on their bodies to identify them as Jews. But there was lots of opportunity for Rembrandt to learn from them, and he saw it. I think for him, these Jews became an archaeological [goldmine, with] unbelievable riches to plumb, to learn. [And] I’ve done a lot of work on Jesus in the Temple, so, Jesus being brought up as a Jew, his early years in the Temple.

Would you say there is any particular moment that

sparked your interest in art history?

The story of my life! I was in college, and I was an English major, and I took an art history class, and I found it really difficult. I didn’t know anything about religion — so much was new. And actually, I didn’t do so well. But I loved it. I said, “I’ve got to learn more.” So I took another one, and then another one, and the young man I was going with at the time, he really liked art and he wanted me to take him to the museums and tell him about the art. So he said, “Why don’t you become an art history major?” You’re kidding me. Major in art history? And he said, “Yeah.

You love it.” That was the great part. I had to convince my parents, which was a little tough. But I really thank them — they really didn’t approve, and they made it clear, but they didn’t cut me off. They said “Shelley, if that’s what you want to do, do it. We’ll pay for it.” ... Some of my students will come to me in tears and say, “My parents will cut me off if I major in art history.”

[My parents] used to pile up my books on the coffee table.

They never read them, but they were proud.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

Please invite all the students on campus to come to see [Lines of Inquiry], and to allow a lot of time. You really have to look hard, I always say, but it rewards you every time. Every time you penetrate those shadows and you really look, it’s worth it.

It gives you something. And I think that is, for [Rembrandt], a way of experiencing art.

As he experiences it as a maker of art, he wants you to go through that. It’s like a discovery, a journey of discovery, of insight.

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A r t s & C u lt u r e

Black Community Reclaims Its Fly at Sankofa Remix’d

Creative director, producer, and College senior Kiela Nelson, designer Imani Kutti, and models pose at “Sankofa Remix’d: Reclaiming My Fly,” the Black History Month Fashion Show.

Photo by DaQuan Williams Ananya Gupta Arts & Culture Editor

Black History Month came to a beautiful end with the “Sankofa Remix’d: Reclaiming My Fly” fashion show last Saturday. The show featured Black models, designers, singers, rappers, and dancers from both Oberlin College and The Djapo Cultural Arts Institute in Cleveland.

College senior Kiela Nelson, the creative director of the show, attributed her vision for the cultural showcase to her semester abroad in Senegal.

“We came up with this title ‘Reclaiming My Fly,’ because sankofa means going back to your roots to gain that knowledge, that wisdom,” Nelson said. “I went to Senegal and came back with a whole new mindset.”

The show featured clothes by Black designers Sophie Umazi Mvurya, OC ’16, and Nelson’s high school friend Imani Kutti. Director and Faculty-inResidence of the Afrikan Heritage House and Black History Month chair Candice Raynor played a large role in the fashion show.

“It had the most moving parts, but most of the moving parts were at Oberlin, so that made it easier,” Raynor said. “Having someone like Kiela being the director, who is so connected on campus, is in the arts

community herself and really knows a lot of people, [made] it really easy … getting people together.”

Black beauty and talent were displayed with finesse and attention to detail. Dancers and models alike showcased a variety of hair, makeup, and clothing styles. In a wide array of colors, clothing ranged from swimwear to casual, business casual to formal, all either originating from or pointing towards their African heritage. “[We had] different aspects, like the fashion, dope hairstyles, bomb makeup, dancers, singers, rappers, emcees, DJs, drummers — every aspect of the Black culture that I could find,” Nelson said. “Even set design — I couldn’t do much, but I asked everybody to bring a tapestry. My grandmother [and] I grew up with tapestries [and] figurines. [I wanted] things that made them feel closer to home, closer to Africa, closer to the continent. Being in that room, I wanted people to feel like they were home.”

The models also advanced a body-positive message against the unrealistic and often unhealthy body-image issues created by the fashion industry in the U.S. and Europe. The fashion show modeled strength in tandem with beauty. Some performers continued to ride the Black Panther wave, often mimicking Wakandan poses and postures.

“Specifically [among] Black people, there are so many different body types,” Nelson said. “People have this stereotype of a Black body, but there’s not one.

There are so many different body types and if I’m going to have a fashion show I want everyone to be included.

It’s not just tall or thin — it’s everybody.”

The finale of the show was a performance of Djapo, an African community dance and drum performance led by Visiting Assistant Professor of Africana Studies and Dance Talise Campbell. Campbell is also the Artistic Director of the Djapo Cultural Arts Institute, and brought her performers to Oberlin for Black History Month, leaving the crowd absolutely astounded by the coordinated, energetic, and all around spectacular dance moves. Djapo is taught at Oberlin as an open-to-all class in Warner Dance Studio from 7–8:30 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays. “[Campbell is an] artist-in-residence in the Africana Studies Department,” Raynor said. “If you want to learn how to dance a little bit like the closing dancers that night, you have the opportunity to be taught by the woman who put all that together.”

It’s important to note that everything that has been taught to the community by the organizers and participants of Black History Month is to be carried forward in daily interactions and mindsets.

“In the Afrikan Heritage House, Africana Studies Department, and MRC, it’s Black History Month all year long,” Raynor added. “While we may not have events every week or on such a grand scale, there are similar events with similar energy. There are a lot of opportunities to learn and to enjoy and to celebrate our culture.”

The Oberlin College Black Musicians Guild was one of the main sponsors of the event, alongside several other student organizations around campus. It is only through the faith and support of these organizations, paired with the dedication of the performers, that this fashion show was able to reach the level of quality that it did.

“I’ve been part of many student organizations here,” Nelson said. “I was a member of And What?!, co-chair of [both] Umoja Steppers and the Soul Collective, which is an a capella group. I’ve been in a lot of different organizations so I know they have a budget each year and they can use it however they please. You can’t get anything unless you ask for it.”

The event epitomized Oberlin’s culture of supporting student initiatives, particularly those of students of color.

“I think that Oberlin’s culture informs our Black History Month celebration, its history, and its commitment to those things,” Raynor said. “I tried to make sure all those things were incorporated in to the celebration; I wanted it to reflect the culture of the school. It did.”

Annihilation Brings Weird Fiction to Big-Budget Filmmaking Christian Bolles Editor-in-Chief

Editor’s note: This article contains mentions of depression and self-harm.

“That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die.”

Among all of H.P. Lovecraft’s mind-bending prose, this sentence may come closest to a thesis statement for weird fiction, the genre his writing popularized. The word “weird” seems to exist in the uncanny periphery of our understanding of the world. Weird fiction, then, is gothic horror written to instill a terror that lingers far longer than any work of pure horror.

Toward the close of the first act of Alex Garland’s Annihilation, five women stand before a shifting wall, reminiscent of the polychrome texture of a bubble which may as well be an embodiment of the “weird.” This is the Shimmer, an unidentified force that has enveloped a modest section of the coast of Florida, expanding outward from

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a mysterious lighthouse. Although some have entered, only one stonefaced soldier named Kane (Oscar Isaac) has returned — the husband of biologist and soldier Lena (Natalie Portman), who now risks joining the ranks of the lost in a desperate bid for answers. Those answers are never simple, and over the course of the film’s runtime, viewers will find themselves by turns confused and terrified but not necessarily satisfied — this is all by design. Annihilation is an oddity among Hollywood book adaptations simply by virtue of its weird-fiction source material.

Besides a failed attempt by recent Oscar winner Guillermo del Toro to adapt Lovecraft’s opus “At the Mountains of Madness,” weird fiction has had trouble making it to the big screen by virtue of its inaccessibility.

In that case, the studio demanded the film be strangled by a PG-13 rating, while del Toro demanded the R rating it deserved. If anyone were poised to accomplish what del Toro could not, it would be Garland — fresh off his hard-R cult sci-fi hit Ex Machina, Paramount Pictures seemed willing

to let him do whatever he wanted.

And that is exactly what he did. When a top executive expressed concerns about the third act of the film after a test screening, Garland refused to take the notes and released precisely the movie he had in his head. The result is a fantastic achievement of weird-fiction filmmaking that caters to its genre with sparse but effective scenes of gut-wrenching horror before one-upping itself with parallels to struggles with mental health.

Annihilation is not for those with weak stomachs. Although only a couple of scenes break from the film’s generally nonviolent slow burn, they may offer some of the most disturbing imagery in non-exploitation cinema; one in particular is bound to disgust even the most jaded audiences.

Yet they are wielded with surgical precision, dripping with plot and tangible stakes that make it difficult to look away, no matter how strong the urge. It’s surprising that a director famous for a straightforward rogueAI film so deeply understands what it means to elicit fear — the terror

of Annihilation creeps like the mold infesting the Shimmer’s overgrown world.

Saturated in deep greens and vibrant oranges, that world is as richly realized as any other that’s hit the silver screen. Annihilation shares the biological fascination of its protagonist, taking glee in the sometimes-beautiful, sometimeshideous mutations caused by the phenomena emanating from the lighthouse. As Lena — joined by the grizzled Dr. Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh), iron-willed Anya Thorensen (Gina Rodriguez), composed Cass Sheppard (Tuva Novotny), and thoughtful Josie Radek (Tessa Thompson) — makes her way toward the fabled tower, the film’s imagery escalates to something out of an LSDinduced nightmare, culminating in a final act so feverishly strange as to leave viewers dazed for hours after the credits roll.

No matter how much Annihilation threatens to go off the rails — which it eventually does with brilliant, See Self-Destruction, page 13

Venus in Fur Addresses Gendered Power Dynamics, Challenges Norms

Self-Destruction Stars in Annihilation

Continued from page 10

Continued from page 12

control that drives Novachek needs to be almost opaquely obfuscated by his own professed literary values. Osborn’s performance strained credibility in the first scenes of the show, but quickly steadied the course, building a charming fortress of artistic propriety to be knocked down in the third act. If there was any significant weakness in his performance, it was one of texture, and the challenge of a young actor embodying a convincing suite of vocal and physical patterns for a working writer in his 30s or older. This is all, however, ancillary to Thomas’s character progression, and Osborn painted his drives and desires compellingly enough that problems of mannerism felt quite minor.

The net result of the collaboration between Franz, Osborn, and Brooks is entrancing. The show is thoughtful, laugh-out-loud funny, sexy, harrowing, and engrossing throughout. Bolstered by some deft lighting work done by Franz herself and a sparse but affecting soundscape of thunderclaps by sophomore Celeste Debardelaben, Venus in Fur is a tour de force, deserving of a more extensive production in a more flexible space — Warner Studio 2 is somewhat cramped, with support poles in a few awkward areas. The trio behind this production are absolutely worth following, and I’m excited to see what each of them produces next.

title-dropping aplomb — it remains grounded in its cast of well-realized characters, particularly its protagonist. Portman’s performance is excellent, fully embodying a character who undergoes dramatic transformations multiple times over the course of the film, and Isaac — Garland’s Ex Machina darling — is predictably endearing, boasting an implicit sense of trust which Garland uses against the audience to unsettling effect. Every performance here is top-notch, but special mention must be lent to the magnetic Leigh, whose turns in The Hateful Eight and Twin Peaks: The Return seem to portend a welcome Leigh-assaince. Every single one of these characters is, to some extent, broken — after all, Garland asserts, they’ve all entered the Shimmer seeking to be destroyed. “We’re all damaged goods here,” says Novotny’s Cass in a rare moment of exposition.

Though the title may indicate something apocalyptic, Annihilation is chiefly concerned with the destruction of the self. The pitch-perfect script seeks to show rather than tell, imbuing each character with clear motivations that all operate as means to a shared end — that is, the end of their lives. Viewers with a history of depression have reported feeling a heightened connection to both the film’s themes and imagery — Garland has created a powerful, stealthy metaphor. Although Garland began as a novelist, Annihilation proves that he was made to direct, capable of working on multiple layers without any of them feeling halfbaked or overwrought. These prismatic facets collide in the final confrontation, a bold, completely unforeseeable literalization of both struggles with mental illness and imposter syndrome that borders on performance art — made all the more effective by its near-wordlessness.

Annihilation’s commitment to gothic themes of self-destruction and the seductive power of the unknown suffuses its every frame and spoken line, resulting in a journey at once personal in its focus and sprawling in its implications. Paramount should receive notable credit for releasing it on a staggering 2,112 screens across the country, as the meager box office returns are proof of what that executive knew as soon as the credits rolled on that test screening. For all of audiences’ complaints about a lack of originality in big-budget releases, statistics show that other than broadly-marketed films like Get Out, wholly original offerings like Annihilation just don’t bring people to theaters. In a sad illustration of a growing trend, the film will be released internationally on Netflix March 12. While that may result in a cult following, online viewers will miss out on a stunning theatrical experience.

So catch it in theaters while you still can — and try not to look away.

CROSSWORD SOLUTIONS: Let’s Boogie

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THE UNFORTUNATE OWL: RAT Paddy McCabe

PADDY MCCABE

The Oberlin Review | March 9, 2018

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Sp ort s IN THE LOCKER ROOM

Anna Moore, Tyler Parlor, and Abby Andrews, Women’s Basketball Seniors College seniors Abby Andrews, Anna Moore, and Tyler Parlor helped the women’s basketball team earn their first North Coast Athletic Conference title and NCAA Tournament appearance in school history this winter.

All three have contributed extensively to the team’s success throughout their four years.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

From left: Anna Moore, Tyler Parlor, and Abby Andrews.

Photo by Hugh Newcomb, Photo Editor

Interview by Alex McNicoll and Alexis Dill, Sports Editors

This was the most successful season for any women’s basketball team in school history.

What made you so successful, aside from the obvious talent you all had as a whole?

Tyler Parlor: I think we really, as a team, were dedicated to the process. People were in the gym on their own, working, trying to get better, learning, growing. We were very dedicated to our end goal, which was to win a championship. We knew the potential that we had, and we knew how devastating it would be if we didn’t live up to that potential. This was the year to get it done. We had great leaders on the team throughout — not just us. Our junior class has great leaders, but even within the sophomore and first-year classes, everybody is very responsible. It was a total team effort — everybody just deciding that that was what we wanted to do.

Your head coach, Kerry Jenkins, always talks about the difference between believing that you believe that you can win, and actually believing you can win.

Anna Moore: I’ve heard that before — we all have. I do agree with Tye and with Coach that mentality is really important, and that this season, it was really impressive that everybody stayed engaged and focused on our long-term goal for the entire season. We know that the energy of each individual person affects the energy of every-

body else around them, and it’s wonderful to be a part of a team this year where each person was contributing productive, positive energy — then to be a part of a larger Oberlin community that shared their energy with us.

The women’s programs are on the rise at Oberlin. What do you have to say about the recognition female athletes at Oberlin are earning for themselves? How do you hope this progresses in the future?

Abby Andrews: I think that one of the reasons why we’ve been so successful and track [and field] has been so successful in particular is the focus on individual development that happens in both of those. Track is an individual sport, so of course you’re getting the individual development, and so the coaches are always trying to help you with your technique, and I think that’s something that is sort of unique for us as a team sport.

Our coach does that as well. I think that’s what helped us this year a lot, and I think that helps teams be successful. As for recognition, I think it’s really cool because Oberlin is such a liberal place and has so much feminism and our women’s sports are doing so well.

TP: I think it’s cool, just kind of going along with what Oberlin is and what it stands for — the history of Oberlin with women and [people of color] for that matter. [Our programs] have strong, confident athletes

who believe that they can get it done and go out there and do it.

It’s very inspirational. I’m really proud to be a part of this senior class [across all sports]. We have some really great athletes.

I hope that historically we’ve started something at Oberlin and classes behind us will recruit strong, powerful, confident athletes because that also works to shape the mindset on campus. It’s kind of like a ripple effect.

Jenkins was named the NCAC Coach of the Year for the second time. What has Coach Jenkins done for the program? How has he influenced you as student-athletes?

AA: He’s helped me a lot in aspects that aren’t just basketball-related but are through basketball. He’s made me a much more confident player, which led to me being a much more confident leader on and off the court. I literally will sit in his office for five hours at a time just talking to him. It’s really cool that we’re from such different backgrounds — he’s a male, I’m female, and he’s Black, I’m white — yet somehow he has taught me so much about my own privilege, basketball, leadership, and life after basketball.

It’s really cool that he’s able to have that relationship with people on the team.

AM: For the program, he’s always had very high expectations, and with this being his 10th year, he has persisted and

continued to try to find creative, new ways of coaching. In my four years of being here, I have seen him grow as a coach in ways that I’ve found astounding — just leading by example and being a model for us.

TP: I think the most significant role that he played in my life for four years here is definitely off the court. He’s really taught me life lessons and made me grow in ways I would not have had he not forced me to.

He very much made me come face-to-face with things. He’d say, “You can either back down, or you can break this wall down.

That’s the choice you have.” He always forced me to rise to that challenge, so I’m very appreciative of him for that.

What do you hope the younger team members take away from this season and from you three as leaders? What kind of legacy do you hope you will leave behind?

TP: A winning legacy. I told them there’s no turning back.

We’re champions now. I hope that we taught them how to be decent people, great teammates, and strong leaders. I hope that we taught them how to be committed to the game, how to put personal needs to the side, and do what needs to be done for the greater good for the team to succeed. It’s a team sport; it’s not an individual sport. While, yes, you may be able to fit in different roles, what role does the team need you to fit in? And do

you care enough about it to put yourself in that role? I just hope we left a legacy where people do care enough about that.

Our team was so different our first year from where it is now.

I’m very proud of not only the way we’ve turned the program on the court, [but also] off the court and the community we’ve helped to build. I hope that lasts and it never goes back to anything but where it is now, and keeps going up.

What is the most important lesson you’ve learned throughout your careers?

TP: I think the most important lesson I learned about myself is that I can. I can do whatever I decide to put my mind to.

The only thing in my way is me.

The only person who can stop me is me. I don’t need confirmation from outside people or even people who I may want confirmation from. If you just believe in yourself, that’s all you need. I really took that lesson from my four years here. I believe in myself. I can get it done.

AA: Along a similar line, I’ve learned how to be confident in myself, which is something I just never had before college.

That’s a really important lesson.

AM: I was thinking, for me personally, that things I used to think were impossible can actually be possible. I’d say the most important lesson I’ve learned is the importance of mentality — individual mentality and group mentality.

Yeowomen Softball Seeks to Improve on 12-Win Season Alex McNicoll Sports Editor

The Yeowomen softball team enters the spring 2018 season with both their largest-ever team and largest-ever firstyear class following a year in which they improved their record from 2–35 to 12–28.

With their lone All-NCAC Second Team select sophomore infielder Alexis Dill returning, along with junior center fielder Emma Downing — who led the team in batting average (.374), on-base percentage (.500), and runs scored (33) — the team will look to continue their development.

Head Coach Sara Schoenhoft, who enters her third year in the program and has seen to the rapid growth of the Yeowomen squad, said she wants to see their improvement carry over into North Coast Athletic Conference games.

“The goal was just to keep progressing last year,” Schoenhoft said. “We got a lot more recruits and nine more wins, and this year we’re just trying to keep things moving. Our goal this year is to really make a dent in winning conference games.

We only took two of those last year, and we really want to start competing there.”

Along with Dill and Downing, some

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key returning players will be senior outfielder Dana Rae Goldstein and senior pitcher Sandra Kibble. Goldstein was essential on offense last year, batting .368, and Kibble led the team in innings pitched (98.0) and strikeouts (25). As seniors, they have seen the softball team go through a complete overhaul under Schoenhoft. In their final season, Kibble hopes that they can try to match some of the success that Yeowomen sports programs have had recently, such as with track and field and basketball winning their respective NCAC Championships.

“We’re the youngest program at our school, so it kind of makes sense that we have the [worst] record still, which isn’t an excuse but it’s definitely a factor,” Kibble said. “We definitely get riled up knowing that there are all of these amazing women’s teams doing so well. They’re so dominant right now, but they also took a few years to really get going, so it gives us some motivation knowing that.”

Even with so much returning talent, the young Yeowomen roster still has a lot of work to do in determining their lineup.

While in previous years a player may have started because she was the only one at her position, or a small injury could derail

a season because there were no players on the bench, this team has had more position battles than any in recent memory. Junior Kat Ladouceur and first-year Sophia Musiak will both see time at first base. Junior Millie Cavicchio and sophomores Leandre Glendenning and Dalia Silverstein will all compete for second base. First-years Gianna Volonte and Emily Tucci will also vie for time, with both looking to secure a starting role in the outfield. With AllNCAC Honoree Grace Evans graduating last year, first-years Maddison Paladino and Jackie Bednar will both take turns behind the plate.

“One of the biggest improvements from last year was the overall intensity,” Schoenhoft said. “People were coming down to get extra reps, and we’re really committed to the program and the values.

That has definitely continued this year, and I think we’ve actually seen more improvement. The deal-breaker for us this year is just that we’re really young — we have no seniors in the infield — so we’ve been working on communication. It’s necessary that those players get experience.”

With such a young team, building chemistry is the primary concern going into the year. The Yeowomen will have

plenty of games to test out lineups and give players in-game experience before conference play kicks off March 31. In fact, the Yeowomen will spend spring break playing 12 teams from across the country when they travel down to Clermont, FL. While all but one of their key players are returning from last year, getting experience will be paramount for the budding program.

“Softball is a very team-oriented sport,” Downing said. “I could do amazing in center field, but if no one hits, we’re not going to win. Sandra [Kibble] could pitch the game of her life and only give up one hit, but if we don’t score, we’re not going to win. We had a lot of people in new positions last year — first-years in key positions — and getting those 40 games of experience is huge for our team’s development.”

The Yeowomen will kick off against the Washington and Jefferson College Presidents Sunday before traveling to Florida.

“I think we definitely feel ready to play,” Downing said. “We’ve been practicing for about five weeks now, so we’re ready to play games. Everyone on our team could play and even start, so I think we’re going to use our first games to experiment with different lineups and situations.”

Men’s Tennis Gains Momentum, Tops No. 35 Hobart

Sophomore Stephen Gruppuso played a major role in the Yeomen’s victory over No. 35 Hobart College Sunday. Gruppuso and fellow sophomore Camron Cohen won their doubles match in the No. 1 spot 7–5, which gave the team momentum going into singles play.

Photo courtesy of OC Athletics Owen Mittenthal Staff Writer

The men’s tennis team defeated the No. 35 nationally ranked Hobart Statesmen 6–3 Sunday to win their third match in a row, improving to 4–6 on the season. After a brutal opening slate that included four losses in five contests, the Yeomen are finding their rhythm going into spring break and conference play.

“Our doubles were as solid as we’ve had in any team I’ve coached here,” Head Coach Eric Ishida said. “It was just a great team effort. Camron [Cohen] and Stephen [Gruppuso] continued their solid play, and our

seniors really handled their matches well. They weren’t easy [matches] at all, and they were able to stay ahead the entire time.”

The Yeomen swept all three doubles matches in the win over Hobart. The battle at the top was hotly contested, as the sophomore duo of Camron Cohen and Stephen Gruppuso defeated Jonah Salita and Alan Dubrovsky 7–5 in a dramatic tiebreaker. The other matches featured identical 8–4 margins of victory, as seniors Michael Drougas and Manickam Manickam took care of business, followed by seniors Levi Kimmel and Robert Gittings. This doubles dominance made all the

difference for the Yeomen.

Reflecting on his performance, Cohen credited the intensity and energy that he and Gruppuso were able to bring.

“We stayed focused and aggressive the whole match, and in a lot of the important points, the pressure we’ve been working on at the net really helps carry us through,” Cohen said.

“We’ve adjusted our game to include more service formations and more aggressive poaching, which has been a huge factor.”

Following doubles play, the Yeomen earned a 3–3 split in the singles competition, clinching the overall victory. Drougas, Cohen, and Gittings all won their matchups over Dubrovsky, David Reinharz, and Joe Mallon respectively. Clutch performances were once again key for the Yeomen, as Drougas and Cohen’s matchups each came down to tiebreakers after both athletes split their first two sets. Cohen’s stellar play in particular did not go unnoticed, as the North Coast Athletic Conference office named him the conference athlete of the week for his efforts against both Hobart and the University of Rochester.

The Yeomen got off to a slow start against tough competition, losing to Division I Cleveland State and DIII schools Kalamazoo College, No. 15 Case Western Reserve University, and No. 9 University of Chicago. However, the team was able to right the ship after collecting wins over Centre and Rochester, before earning their most impressive victory yet on Sunday.

While the easing of the schedule was bound to result in more wins, the team has also been strengthened by these challenges and is gaining confidence with each week.

“I think we learned a lot about our weaknesses and where we need to improve,” Ishida said. “In tennis, you definitely raise your level based on who you’re playing. If you’re overmatched for two weeks in a row, your level of play will rise. It wasn’t immediate, and it took a bit of time to soak in, but we learned how to handle ourselves on the court much better.”

The Yeomen will enjoy next week off from competition before traveling to Orlando, FL, over spring break to face Hamilton College, Washburn University, Grinnell College, and Hamline University over a four-day period. This change of pace will be a prime opportunity for the team to further its growth.

“I’d like to see more team tennis all around,” Ishida said. “Just sticking together and battling — being a cohesive team is very important. Even though the matches are individual, it’s all about really pulling for your teammates and winning for the team.

I think that’s the main goal for the spring break trip.”

Once they return to Oberlin, the Yeomen will begin NCAC play in earnest, where the team looks to build on its historic third-place finish from a year ago. The first conference matchup will take place April 7 as the Yeomen travel to The College of Wooster to take on the Fighting Scots.

Shaquem Griffin Deserves Serious Chance to Play in NFL Alexis Dill Sports Editor

A couple hundred of college football’s most talented players travel to Indianapolis each offseason to dazzle scouts and spectators with their athleticism and skills at the NFL Scouting Combine. This year, future franchise quarterbacks Sam Darnold and Josh Rosen, former Heisman winners Baker Mayfield and Lamar Jackson, and Penn State standout Saquon Barkley — recently touted as the best running back prospect since Adrian Peterson — all impressed, but none of them were the focus of attention. Instead, University of Central Florida linebacker Shaquem Griffin dominated the headlines.

The 6-foot-1-inch, 227-pound 22-year-old, who was a late invite to the combine, ran the 40-yard dash in 4.38 seconds Sunday, the best time for a linebacker since 2003. To put into perspective how fast that is, recall that wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. ran the 40-yard dash in 4.43 seconds in 2014, and electrifying running back Ezekiel Elliott ran it in 4.47 seconds in 2016. The day before, Griffin bench pressed 225 pounds for 20 repetitions.

Prior to the combine, Griffin said his goal was six reps, and his previous personal best was 11.

Based on Griffin’s performance at the combine, one might rightfully question why his invitation didn’t come until Jan. 30. He was named the American Athletic Conference Defensive Player of the Year in 2016 and selected to the All-America Second Team in 2017 — a season in which the Knights earned a perfect 13–0 record. It’s fair — even logical — to say that the only reason Griffin isn’t one of the most sought-after prospects among NFL general managers is because he is missing his left hand.

Griffin was born with amniotic band syndrome, a rare condition caused by strands of the amniotic sac that separate and entangle digits, limbs, or other parts of the fetus, according to the University of California, San Francisco’s Fetal Treatment Center.

The condition prevented the fingers on Griffin’s left hand from growing properly, which, as a toddler, kept him up most nights in severe pain. At the age of four, Griffin had his hand amputated.

The Oberlin Review | March 9, 2018

In a powerful letter that Griffin penned to general managers through The Players’ Tribune, Griffin made his case for why he shouldn’t be overlooked.

He credits his past successes and attitude to the way he, his twin brother, Shaquill — a cornerback for the Seattle Seahawks — and their older brother, Andre, were raised by their father, Terry Griffin. Terry used to set up obstacles throughout the backyard for the trio to dodge as they ran routes and caught a bullet throw from their father. If they dropped the football, Terry would say, “Nothing comes easy. You’ll thank me one day.”

Griffin also recalled some of the most painful experiences of his life when his resilience was tested the most. While Shaquill was out on the football field the twins’ first couple of years in college, making plays and a name for himself, Griffin sat in his dorm room, alone, living vicariously through Shaquill. He wasn’t asked to travel with the team until his junior season at UCF. Griffin really saw the field when Scott Frost took over the football program in 2015, after a season in which the Knights went 0–12.

“I started playing football because I loved it,” Griffin wrote in his article. “And yeah, just like anybody else, my view of the game has definitely changed as I’ve gotten older. But it hasn’t turned into a job or an obligation. It’s developed into a purpose.”

Griffin claims people have doubted him his entire life. As he has continually shown, however, they have only encouraged him to work harder to prove himself. More importantly, his situation has made him a real role model for kids like him, who may themselves be victims of ableism — feeling like they don’t belong in a certain sport because of negative attention they’ve received. Griffin is just as talented as many other players in the draft, if not more talented. He has just had to work a lot harder.

If Griffin wasn’t missing a body part, how much higher would his stock be?

According to Sports Illustrated, a number of scouts predict that Griffin will be drafted somewhere in between the fourth and sixth rounds.

Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman would like to see the linebacker drafted sooner, tweeting, “If [Shaquem Griffin] doesn’t get drafted in the first two days, the system is broken.” The Seahawks were the only team out of 32 to officially interview Griffin at the seven-day event.

Griffin has been one of the best stories to come from the combine in years, but he has also shed light on some truths that we must all remember before we judge a book by its cover. What an athlete looks like does not determine what they are capable of on the field. Griffin has proved he has the mental grit, dedication, and heart to make it at the next level.

If given the chance, I believe Griffin will make the most of it. Former Major League Baseball pitcher Jim Abbott was born without a right hand, and he spent 10 seasons performing at the highest level. Abbott would rest his glove on the end of his right forearm, then quickly transfer it onto his left hand after delivering a pitch. If hit to him, Abbott would slide his mitt off, take the ball out, and throw it to first, usually beating out the runner.

In 1993, while sporting the pinstripes in Yankee Stadium, Abbott threw a no-hitter against a dominant Cleveland offense that featured Kenny Lofton, Carlos Baerga, Albert Belle, and Jim Thome.

Professional surfer Bethany Hamilton lost her left arm when she was 13 years old in a shark attack. Just one month after the incident, Hamilton returned to the water, determined to teach herself how to surf with one arm. Two years later, she won the Explorer Women’s division at the National Scholastic Surfing Association National Championships.

The character of these remarkable athletes overshadowed what they lacked physically, and I have no reason to believe that Griffin’s legacy will be left out when people talk about Abbott and Hamilton a decade or two from now. His presence in an NFL stadium will encourage athletes all over the country with disabilities to stay in sports and keep dreaming, because anything is possible.

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SPORTS March 9, 2018

established 1874

Volume 146, Number 17

Liberal Stereotyping Undercuts Sportsmanship Jackie McDermott Staff Writer

The women’s indoor track and field team secured their second consecutive NCAC championship Saturday, edging out secondplace Ohio Wesleyan 197.5–177.5.

Photo courtesy of OC Athletics

Yeowomen Capture Second Straight NCAC Title Jane Agler

Staff Writer The women’s indoor track and field team captured their second straight North Coast Athletic Conference Championship last Saturday, continuing their historic streak of success that has included multiple NCAC, regional, and national honors for players and coaches alike. The Yeomen also came out strong, finishing sixth overall with 60 points.

“The team competed with a sense of joy and a sense of purpose all weekend long,” Head Track and Field Coach Ray Appenheimer wrote in an email to the Review. “Personally, I was grateful that the rest of the conference got to see what makes this team so special. We really all were our best selves this weekend. I couldn’t be prouder.”

For the past three years, the Yeowomen have been buoyed by their sensational shot-put and weight throw events; this year, they placed six of the team’s members in the top eight both Friday and Saturday. Highlighting both days of the meet were seniors Ana Richardson and Monique Newton, with Newton winning the shot-put event Friday with a season-best toss of 48’02.75 and Richardson winning the weight throw event with an NCAC record toss of 60’05.00 Saturday.

Newton — who has won the NCAC shot-put event three times now, and entered Friday as the sixth-ranked shot-putter in the nation — had a performance now ranked second-best in the country, while Richardson’s throw is just one of four to have reached over 60 feet this year.

“Ana and Mo are ranked amongst the best in the nation,” Appenheimer said. “All they need to do is believe in their preparation and be present in the moment they are given. If they do those two things, their success is assured.”

The Yeowomen runners also dominated the event, as senior Lilah Drafts-Johnson, juniors Imani Cook-Gist and Ify Ezimora, and sophomore Jillian Doane clinched a 4x200 season-best time of 1:46.38, earning a second-place spot. During Friday’s 400-meter dash preliminaries, DraftsJohnson clocked in her personal best and a record-breaking NCAC time with a 56.87 finish, only to win the NCAC Sprints/Hurdles Runner of the Year title the following day when she came in first place in the 400-meter dash finals

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with a time of 58.67. Later in the day, DraftsJohnson continued to win the 200-meter dash with a 25.78 finish, closely followed by the 26.56 time of fellow teammate Cook-Gist.

“Our preseason was not as smooth as we had hoped,” Drafts-Johnson said. “But the meet was really incredible, [and] I’ve never seen my teammates compete the way they did. I felt a bit of anxiety because I was coming back from a hamstring injury, … so I was definitely really nervous [about that]. But everyone did a really good job of using their nerves as fuel instead of crumbling under [them].”

With the regular season at its end, multiple Yeowomen performers will enjoy postseason play as well as regional awards and honors. In addition to NCAC honors, Newton won the Great Lakes Region Field Athlete of the Year award for the second consecutive season, Appenheimer won Great Lakes Region Head Coach of the Year, and Throwing Coach John Hepp won Assistant Coach of the Year. Cook-Gist and junior Linnea Halsten also earned All-Region honors.

For the Yeomen, senior James Tanford and junior Jahkeem Wheatley highlighted Oberlin’s performance in very different events. Tanford stood out in Friday’s competition with a seasonbest and third-place finish in the triple-jump at the 44-04.75 mark. He also clinched a fourthplace and lifetime-best jump of 21-07.50 in the long jump. Meanwhile, Wheatley shone in the pole vault event on Saturday, effectively clearing 14-05.50 in just one attempt and earning the conference champion title. Ending the meet were Tanford, first-year Malachi Clemons, junior John Olsen, and sophomore Dylan Rogers in the 4x400 with a second-place finish of 3:25.77.

Wheatley said he is excited about his performance and what is in store for the future of the team.

“It feels amazing just to win a conference title,” he said. “I feel like [people should] watch out for Oberlin College’s men’s and women’s track and field teams. I feel like this year is just the start of what is going to be a pretty dominant men’s and women’s teams next year.”

Newton, Richardson, and Drafts-Johnson will compete in the NCAA National Championships in Birmingham, AL, today and tomorrow.

A tennis court is 78 feet long. A block of blue space striped with white lines stretches between each player as we wage an intense, individual war. Pumping adrenaline and high stakes combined with a questionable line call can make things personal, causing us to label an opponent as “cheater,” or worse, “bitch.” Sometimes, in the heat of battle, we think only of our differences from the person on the other side of the net.

My differences with my opponent from Centre College revealed themselves off-court, after our singles match, when she pulled on a light blue t-shirt that read “TRUMP: MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN” in block letters colored with the American flag.

“Wow, look.” I tapped my dad’s arm and tried to subtly point at my opponent’s new layer of clothing, pulled over her “Colonel Tennis” sweats.

My mom noticed too and immediately shook her head, insisting, “You know she’s just doing that because she’s at Oberlin.” Oberlin’s leftist reputation caused my mom to immediately attribute the gesture to a desire to provoke. “It’s a middle finger to the liberals.”

Another parent commented, “It’s just disrespectful.”

My teammates showed similar disdain, and one ardently anti-Trump teammate met her eyes with a glare across the court.

Several moments later, the opponent snapped back, “I thought this was a safe space.” The liberal buzzword jokes continued, as we overheard another Centre player watching the number 6 singles match laughingly comment, “I can’t believe she won that point. I’m triggered. Where’s the trigger warning?”

78 feet. 24 meters. It’s really a negligible distance, especially because we often close the gap. We dash to the net to retrieve a drop shot. We exhale compliments like “great point.” We ask each other about the score, the format, the location of the third ball, and even slip in some small talk about last year’s season or the matches that lie ahead. Implicit in those conversations is the sense that the two of us have just shared a unique, hours-long mental and physical battle. That cultivates a sense of respect unlike any other.

I considered sitting down next to my former opponent and just opening a dialogue, like the ones we had shared on court. I had so many questions. What statement was she trying to make?

Did she even support Trump? If so, why? What bothered her about safe spaces and trigger warnings? Would she have done the same thing if she had won? Why did she decide to wear that shirt, at Oberlin, over her uniform? Did her political identity supersede her team identity? Hadn’t Trump already won?

Instead, I said nothing. While teammates, parents, and friends labeled her “rude” and “deplorable,” I couldn’t help feel uneasy as they employed the stereotype of the irrationally angry, rural white person from “Trump country.” As a West Virginian myself, I know that those cliches are misleading. But just because my opponent represented Centre College and showed support for our controversial president, those around me jumped to the conclusion that she was uninformed at best, spiteful and racist at worst.

At the same time, the Centre players sitting behind us in the bleachers likely harbored similar, converse thoughts. They probably believed Oberlin was a hub of reactionary liberals, a school that silences the other side. Maybe they jeered that we were “snowflakes,” too scared of confrontation and too politically correct to say anything about the shirt.

Such stereotyping, personal attacks, and pettiness keep us thinking only of what divides us. We drift ever further apart — picking neighborhoods, schools, social circles that surround us with those who reinforce our political beliefs. We continue to curate our social media feeds to serve as glorified echo chambers.

We turn to the same media outlets and eschew all others. We wage wars over any and every policy area — immigration, gun laws, healthcare, foreign policy, the environment, the budget — and find no common ground. When it comes to politics, no one is willing to extend a hand and meet in the middle.

Sports are supposed to unite people. But that Saturday evening, we packed up our tennis bags with the same assumptions that we had carried in and returned to separate lives, separate sides.

78 feet felt further than ever.