The Tufts Daily - Thursday, February 14, 2019

Community expresses concerns on Tufts’ housing expansion see FEATURES / PAGE 4

EDITORIAL

Tufts should do more to counteract anti-Semitism

Women’s swimming and diving gears up for NESCAC championship see SPORTS / PAGE 10

SEE OPINION / PAGE 8

THE

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T HE T UFTS DAILY

VOLUME LXXVII, ISSUE 16

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Thursday, February 14, 2019

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, MASS.

Tufts lecturer resigns after arrest at Harvard swimming pool

VIA HARVARD.EDU

Harvard University’s pool is pictured.

by Alexander Thompson Assistant News Editor

Tufts Gordon Institute lecturer Kaiser Fung was arrested on Feb. 5 at Harvard University’s Blodgett Pool and charged with secretly photographing a nude person. Tufts terminated Fung’s employment after being informed of the arrest on Feb. 8, according to Patrick Collins, Tufts’ executive director of public relations.

Boston attorney Patrick Sheehan, who is representing Fung, confirmed to the Daily that Fung had pled not guilty in criminal proceedings, which have been filed with the Brighton District Court.

“This is a matter being handled in court.

That’s where it should be. There’s nothing further to add at this time,” Sheehan said.

Kevin Oye, the director of the Master’s of Science in Innovation and Management program at Tufts’ Gordon Institute, where Fung had been teaching two applied data science

seminars this semester, told the Daily in an email that Fung had stepped down from his position at Tufts and that a new instructor will teach in his place.

At 6:21 p.m., a Harvard pool monitor called police to report that one of the pool’s patrons claimed that someone had filmed him in the shower of the men’s locker room, according to a Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) incident report obtained by the Daily.

The victim told the officers that he had noticed a man “walking laps” around the shower area in the pool locker room; this man was later identified as Fung. The victim thought this was suspicious but removed his clothes and began showering in one of the stalls.

The incident report goes on to say that Fung then went to the shower two spots over from the victim, but it does not say he turned on the shower or removed his clothes. The victim saw Fung pointing a black phone at him while trying to obscure it with his arm.

The victim told the officers that, when the victim turned toward Fung, Fung quickly put his arms and the phone at his sides; in doing so, the victim told the officers, the victim saw that the camera feature was on the phone’s screen.

When police arrived, Fung was still in the men’s locker room, where the victim positively identified him.

While walking him out of the locker room, the officers asked Fung if he knew why they wanted to talk to him. Fung responded, “Because of my phone, I am sorry.” According to the report, he then told the officers that “he likes to take pictures,” but that he had not taken any that day.

According to the incident report, upon arriving in an office in the pool building and being read his Miranda rights, Fung told the officers under his breath that he “did not take any pictures in a while” before insisting that he promised to delete everything and would not do it again and repeating that he was sorry.

When officers asked if they could examine his phone, Fung refused. When asked his identity, Fung lied, telling officers his name was Kai Feng and that he had no affiliation with Harvard. Fung’s archived biography on Tufts’ Gordon Institute website confirms that he is an alum of Harvard Business School. Police confiscated his cell phone to save the evidence of Fung’s crime and obtain a search warrant, according to the report.

HUPD arrested Fung for “photographing, videotaping, or electronically surveilling a partially nude or nude person,” a violation of Chapter 272 Section 105 B of Massachusetts’ general laws.

HUPD also issued Fung a verbal trespass warning for all Harvard University properties before booking him at a Boston police station in District D-14. The Daily has ascertained that Fung is no longer in detention.

A hearing on Fung’s case will take place on March 28, according to the Harvard Crimson.

Collins told the Daily in an email that Fung had been hired last fall and had only begun teaching this spring.

All Tufts staff undergo a background screening, according to Collins. Although Tufts’ Department of Human Resources cannot give details on Fung’s screening due to privacy concerns, HUPD did run a search for open warrants on Fung turned up nothing, according to the HUPD public police log.

When asked if a complaint had ever been lodged against Fung at Tufts, the Office of Equal Opportunity (OEO) referred questions to Collins, who explained that Tufts does not release this information to preserve the confidentiality of reporting.

However, Collins did affirm that the Tufts University Police Department (TUPD) is working with HUPD while investigating internally and he urges any members of the community with additional information to contact TUPD or OEO. Before coming to Tufts, Fung was an accomplished statistician. His biography on the Gordon Institute’s website said that Fung had received degrees from Princeton University and Cambridge University in addition to Harvard Business School before going on to work in leadership positions at Vimeo and American Express, founding Columbia University’s masters program in applied analytics and creating his own data analytics company, Principal Analytics Prep.

In addition, Fung has written two books about visualization and analytics, and his articles on the subject have appeared in The Daily Beast, Slate, FiveThirtyEight and The Financial Times. He writes the blog JunkCharts and wrote the book “Numbersense: How to Use Big Data to Your Advantage” (2013).

School of Engineering to celebrate National Engineers Week

by Bella Maharaj

Contributing Writer

Tufts School of Engineering will recognize National Engineers Week (E-Week), a national event that celebrates engineering, next week. Events start on Feb. 15 and end on Feb. 22.

Chris Swan, the dean of undergraduate education for the School of Engineering, outlined the goal of the week-long initiative.

“The big goal is really to put an outward-looking face on engineering,” Swan said. “To have others who may be interested in engineering but also those who don’t know anything about engineering, or who know very little about engineering.”

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Thomas Coons, chair of the Engineering Student Council (ESC), explained that E-Week is intended for undergraduates, and many events are open to all. The ESC is an organization composed of representatives from various student engineering groups on campus, Coons explained.

According to Coons, Swan planned the event in collaboration with the ESC. “They want to make engineering more approachable for non-engineers,” Coons, a senior, said. “That’s a big goal for this E-Week in particular — to have events about design and a couple other events that are targeted specifically at non-engineers so they can come learn what the deal is about.”

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The week will begin with a Dean’s Lecture with Norman Fortenberry, the executive director of the American Society for Engineering Education, according to the School of Engineering’s E-Week schedule. The festivities really begin, however, on Monday, Feb. 18, with the Kick-Off Carnival, an event containing engineering-inspired carnival games and food.

According to Coons, each student organization designed one carnival game.

In addition, there will be a “Meet Your Major” event on Wednesday, Feb. 20, aimed at first-years, who must declare their major within the engineering school by March 1.

E-Week will also offer events open to the greater community. On Wednesday,

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Feb. 20, a workshop will introduce prospective Tufts students and their families to the university’s engineering community. At another event on Friday, Feb. 22, targeted at younger students, this time for third through fifth graders, undergraduates and younger students will work on handson activities that provide a window into the different areas of engineering.

Swan outlined how the E-Week programming could help guide younger students towards engineering.

“Engineering is … kind of mysterious to both parents and to potential engineering students,” Swan explained. “So

NEWS............................................1 FEATURES.................................4 WEEKENDER..........................6

see E-WEEK, page 2

FUN & GAMES......................... 7 OPINION.....................................8 SPORTS............................ BACK

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THE TUFTS DAILY | News | Thursday, February 14, 2019

THE TUFTS DAILY Elie Levine Editor-in-Chief

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CoHo rolls out second phase of housing project

EDITORIAL

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22 Bellevue St. one of the houses designated for CoHo living, is pictured here on Feb. 11.

by Andres Borjas Contributing Writer

The start of the spring semester brought new developments in the Community Housing (CoHo) project amid controversy over on-campus housing shortages and off-campus renting difficulties.

Upperclassmen recently moved into new housing developments this semester as part of the second phase of the CoHo housing project. The administration made 20 beds available for upperclassmen, opening 19–21 University Ave. and 19 Bellevue Ave., which received a total of 14 residents between the two houses, according to Associate Dean of Student Affairs Christopher Rossi.

Given that Tufts can only house 63 percent of undergraduates, according to a Daily article, and housing is only guaranteed for first-years and sophomores, the expansion of CoHo serves as a continuation in a set of steps Tufts is taking to alleviate pressure on juniors and seniors to find off-campus housing amid rising home prices in the area.

For Rossi, who supervises the Office of Residential Life and Learning, the speed of completion is essential, as the administration hopes to make these spaces accessible to students as soon as possible.

“For CoHo, we are trying to bring the spaces on as soon as possible … rather than tying it to the start of an academic year, which allows some students to move in mid-year,” Rossi said.

He reiterated that opening the second phase is a continuation of the development the administration has in mind for CoHo. “Once they are all fully occupied starting next fall … the idea is that you have an integrated upperclassman community … [and a] neighborhood effect in that CoHo space … that brings a little vibrancy to that area of campus, increases bed capacity … so more students have the option to live on campus,” Rossi said.

Rossi noted the positive feedback he received from students living in CoHo and touted the many advantages he sees in the project. “[CoHo] provides many of the benefits of living off campus … [and] living more independently … but you have some of the benefits that Tufts provides for all the resident halls,” Rossi said, adding that the addition of the project into the university’s social scene could lead to the development of programming and themed housing.

The future of CoHo is still in the works, as the university is planning to complete the third and final phase of the project for fall 2019.

“We are still completing the infrastructure pieces,” Rossi said. “You still [have to] do that first before you move on to the larger pieces.”

To Kristen Wederski, the general residence director who oversees CoHo, the rollout has entailed a continuation of her role as a connection between the residents of the houses and the school as she waits for the finalizing of the project.

“Because CoHo is so new, we don’t have student staff in there right now,”

Wederski said.“Right now, it is me connecting on levels of move out, move in, if they need anything.”

Directly involved in programming at CoHo, Wederski noted its limited availability at the moment, but emphasized that CoHo continues to be a work in progress and that the rollout is just the next step towards completion.

“Programming is pretty limited right now, but it takes a little bit of time to get the ball rolling,” Wederski said.

Senior Ashley Alphonse moved into CoHo this spring from Latin Way. Her experience resonates with the administration’s view on the project as a promising way for upperclassmen to remain connected to campus while also sampling more independent living.

“Its a nice space and I enjoy it,” Alphonse said. “[CoHo] is not a dorm [but] it’s a clean space because it’s a new space.

There is also cleaning services which is [a] nice [offering] by the university.”

Despite the benefits of CoHo living, Alphonse understands how some of the aspects of the project can be seen as problematic.

“I do recognize some of the politics that come into play … Tufts is building out, not up. In a way, we are encroaching in the Somerville [and] Medford areas,” she said. “[ We need] to be mindful of that.”

Nevertheless, for Alphonse, CoHo is a place she can call home.

“I do think it’s a positive experience and I feel fortunate to live there,” she said.

E-Week will include Kick-Off Carnival on Monday E-WEEK

continued from page 1 the earlier the process is, in terms of recognizing what engineers do, the more the individual can think of [themselves] as being an engineer.

Putting that earlier in your mind is a way to increase the capacity and the interest of potential college students to pursue engineering.”

Other activities throughout the week include an alumni networking event on Tuesday, Feb. 19; a discussion with professionals in the industry on Wednesday, Feb. 20; a trivia night for graduate students and faculty on Thursday, Feb. 21; and a lunch with Professional in Residence Dylan Wilks, CTO at Orange Photonics, on Friday, Feb. 22.

Swan reiterated the event’s emphasis on being open to all students, even those not currently pursuing a major in engineering.

“We really would like to open this to all of the Tufts campus, not just engineers,” Swan said.

E-Week was designed with various groups in mind. The different organizations sponsoring events throughout the week include the Center for STEM Diversity, Society for Women Engineers, Center for Engineering Education and Outreach, Engineering Student Council, Graduate Student Council, Tufts Biomedical Engineering and Chemical Engineering Society and Tufts Design for Social Good.

In planning for the event, Coons explained that getting different perspectives was important.

“Basically everyone involved with engineering at Tufts had some representation, or at least we tried to have some representation,” Coons said.

Coons and Swan both emphasized their hopes for a large turnout, especially for the E-Week Kick-Off Carnival that falls on Presidents’ Day, a day without classes.

Josh Stone, an undergraduate student in the School of Engineering, displayed interest in attending the event.

“I’m excited for the food at the carnival and to be with other engineering students,” Stone, a sophomore, said.

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Features

Thursday, February 14, 2019

How the community houses Tufts Part 2: PILOTing the future of Tufts student housing Rice farmers, Part 1

Douglas Berger Ripple Effect

D

emocracy is not just about people.

Knowing the etymology of the word, this may seem a bizarre statement.

Democracy literally means “rule of people.” But democracy, in its most common form — the representative republic — is also spatial. Geography matters. And since many of the world’s richest and most powerful countries are representative democracies, the quirks of their political geography can have global implications. The overrepresentation of rural areas in most liberal democracies profoundly influences these nation’s policies and, in turn, the global economy itself.

Take the plight of Haiti’s rice farmers, for example. In 1995, under pressure from theWorld Bank and the IMF, Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, cut its import tariffs on rice from 50 percent to three percent. The result?

Disaster. The nation, once an exporter of the staple crop, soon became dependent on imports as cheap U.S. rice swamped the country. Haitian rice farmers could no longer compete. The collapse of the rice industry paired with the 2010 earthquake have left Haiti dangerously food-insecure. Despite rice making up about 25 percent of the average Haitian’s diet, it is no longer a significant crop there.

All this brings up something of a puzzle.

America is a developed nation, characterized by expensive labor, land and capital, while Haiti has cheap labor, land and capital. The economic story of the last four decades has, supposedly, been one of liberalization and globalization: industry shifting from expensive, developed nations, to cheap, developing ones. So how could American rice be cheaper than Haitian rice? Why has agriculture not gone the way of T-shirts? The answer: subsidies.

Every five years or so, the U.S. Congress passes a Farm Bill. This multibillion-dollar legislative juggernaut funds a surprisingly broad array of programs, from food stamps to farmer’s market advertising and agricultural subsidies. These subsidies make production cheaper for farmers and lead to more output than market logic would otherwise allow.

For example, even as cotton prices cratered in the late ’90s and early ’00s, massive subsidies allowed U.S. cotton growers to boost production by 42 percent. This dumping of agricultural commodities onto the global market at prices below the cost of production means that farmers without access to subsidies cannot compete.

In 2001, Burkina Faso lost an estimated one percent of its GDP and saw a 12 percent decrease in export earnings due to competition with U.S. subsidized cotton. This is a country where 85 percent of the population relies on the cotton industry directly or indirectly for survival.

It is much cheaper to produce cotton in Burkina Faso than in the U.S., but subsidies more than make up the difference.

Rich nations can afford lavish subsidies, but poorer nations, like Burkina Faso and Haiti, cannot. Globally, this means farmers in poor countries have remained poor because their exports cannot compete. Equally important, nearly all the world’s poorest countries are dependent on food imports, even though much larger percentages of their workforce are engaged in agriculture.

The subsidies that perpetuate this imbalance are not a direct result of skewed political geography — they would exist anyway. However, their outsized influence probably is. In just about every representative democracy, rural interests are overrepresented because of geography.

Douglas Berger is a senior studying international relations. Douglas can be reached at Douglas.Berger@tufts.edu.

BEN KIM / THE TUFTS DAILY ARCHIVES

Houses on Bellevue Street, which are being adopted for the CoHo project, are pictured on March 15, 2018.

by Fina Short

Features Editor

For five years, Somerville City Council President Katjana Ballantyne, frustrated by the university’s continued expansion into local neighborhoods and a lack of transparency in Tufts’ urban planning decisions, has advocated for Tufts to build an on-campus dorm.

“I’ve been trying to have a conversation with Tufts starting from the very beginning,” Ballantyne said. “I will say they have been less than forthright with me.”

After years of struggling to negotiate with the university, Ballantyne has turned to other measures. She is working to legislate an institutional master plan requirement that would facilitate dialogue between Tufts and the city of Somerville regarding Tufts’ major urban development projects.

“Five years ago, I was trying to figure out: What powers do municipalities and neighborhood residents [need to] have to have a dialogue [with Tufts]? What I determined is, the tool that’s out there for us is called an institutional master plan requirement,” Ballantyne said.

Ballantyne hopes that a legally mandated community dialogue would enable the city of Somerville to prevent Tufts from further expanding into the surrounding neighborhoods. According to Ballantyne, 2019 marks the third year she has attempted to run the bill through the Massachusetts state legislature.

“It seems like the university would be well served by getting out in front of this issue instead of waiting for legislation to pass and having to respond to it,” Assistant Professor of Social Policy and Community Development Shomon Shamsuddin said, regarding Ballantyne’s bill.

“If, then, instead, they were proactive about working with the Board of Aldermen to figure out what some of these issues are and what … the best way to approach [them would be], that would seem to be a more far-reaching approach,” Shamsuddin said.

Ballantyne’s campaign for an institutional master plan comes at a time when re-negotiations for the “Payment in Lieu of Taxes” (PILOT) contract between Tufts and the city of Somerville have just begun. The PILOT contract will establish requirements for payments Tufts allocates to the city of Somerville

in return for resources including access to police and firefighting services.

Ballantyne hopes that this year’s contract will include a commitment from Tufts to an institutional master plan, while other community organizers and Tufts students have banded together in hopes of negotiating a more democratic agreement than in years past.

“The last two PILOT agreements were … negotiated in private, in secret, between the mayor and Tufts University. This round, people were saying, we want more citizen input,” West Somerville Neighborhood Association Board Member and Co-Founder Edward Beuchert said.

Beuchert said that he will not consider the negotiations successful unless Tufts commits to addressing its on-campus housing crisis, ideally by building a new on-campus residence hall. “[Mayor Curtatone said], ‘Let’s just say that Tufts gives us everything that we want … but they do nothing to deal with the housing crisis. Would we call that agreement a success?’ I was like — no,” Beuchert said In hopes that the PILOT agreement will include a commitment from Tufts to building a new dorm, Tufts Housing League (THL) organizers Ann-Marie Lee and Mauri Trimmer, both juniors, have begun working with local organizing groups including the Medford and Somerville groups of Our Revolution.

“We started going to different Our Revolution Medford/Somerville meetings to really put onto the forefront our vision of a high-density dorm,” Lee said. “[We said], ‘You should get into the PILOT agreement a commitment from Tufts to build a high-density dorm, right now. Get them to commit so that this way they’re held accountable to Somerville and Medford.’”

After PILOT negotiations began, THL student organizers have intensified their advocacy efforts but have repeatedly experienced difficulties while scheduling meetings with university administrators.

“As the PILOT agreements are starting to kick off and the mayors are starting to go into discussions with Monaco, we’ve been trying to … amp up the pressure by continuing to talk to our community partners,” Lee said. “We were supposed to have a meeting with President Monaco, which got canceled because his schedule changed.”

Beuchert, who is also a member of the PILOT negotiating committee, stated that he has felt increasingly sympathetic toward Tufts students as the housing crisis has progressed.

“We as neighbors definitely feel like we are more allies in solidarity with students and the faculty and the workers,” Beuchert said. “We’re … seeing [much more that] it’s the administration … doing these things that … I’d say are fundamentally against Tufts values.”

After living alongside Tufts students on Conwell Avenue for over 20 years, Beuchert expressed hopes that housing conditions will improve for students both on and off campus.

“This idea of the forced triples?” he said, referring to Residential Life’s “bed optimization” strategy of converting double-occupancy rooms to triple-occupancy rooms. “Wow — what a horrible living experience that must be. I really see Tufts students as victims of this kind of thing.”

Beuchert said that Tufts has a responsibility to provide all of its students with housing options no matter their class year.

“All students who want to live on campus should be able to,” Beuchert said. “That’s what I’m really realizing right now. As long as we have to have a lottery, then there’s not enough on-campus housing. There are many students who want to live on campus.”

Similarly, Ballantyne stated that she believes Tufts has deprived students of a fundamental right in not providing students with options for on-campus housing during their junior or senior years.

“What I always say to students is, ‘With you as their customer, Tufts hasn’t provided you with what I think is sort of a basic right — shelter,’ she said. “They require students to take on that burden.”

She expressed skepticism at previous statements from Tufts stating that the university was financially unable to build a new on-campus dorm, especially when peer institutions such as Boston University and Brandeis University provide housing options for 75 percent of their students.

“They have the space to do it,” Ballantyne said. “Build it. Commit to it. Ultimately, I think all of their students should have an opportunity of housing. Every single one of them. Other colleges and universities go through the same thing.”

WEEKENDER Thursday, February 14, 2019

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Fawzia Mirza’s ‘Signature Move’ brings love and lesbian wrestling to Tufts

VIA IMDB

A promotional poster for ‘Signature Move’ (2017) is shown.

by Tommy Gillespie Arts Editor

Defining a genre for any film can be tricky, but actor-filmmaker Fawzia Mirza has a very specific one in mind for her 2017 feature-length debut “Signature Move,” which was screened at Tufts’ Annual Queer Studies Lecture last Friday. “It’s definitely, to this day, the only Muslim-Mexican-Pakistani-queerwrestling-rom-com-mom-com in the world,” Mirza, who co-wrote and starred in the film, said with a laugh in an interview with the Daily. Despite its apparent esotericism, “Signature Move” came as naturally to Mirza as life itself. “The film is deeply inspired by my relationship with a Mexican woman … That was my actual experience,” she said.

“Signature Move” premiered at South by Southwest (SXSW) in March 2017. Tufts was its latest stop on a long and decorated tour of

the festival circuit that has included a Grand Jury Prize at L.A. Outfest, a Best Director Award for Jennifer Reeder at FilmOut San Diego and a nomination for the SXSW Gamechanger Award.

The film follows Chicago lawyer Zaynab (Mirza), who strikes up a relationship with the effervescent Alma (Sari Sanchez) as she navigates a strained relationship with her recently widowed and live-in mother Parveen (Shabana Azmi). All the while she begins to dabble in the world of underground lesbian professional wrestling.

Women’s professional wrestling is a bold new frontier for queer filmmaking, and it is one that came to Mirza by happenstance.

“I was on this late-night comedy talk show in Chicago one night … the guest before me was Victoria from [World Wrestling Entertainment],” she recalled. “She performed her signature move on one of the hosts of the show.”

The sight of Victoria body-slamming a talk show host instantly caught Mirza’s interest.

“She was such a badass, and I thought, ‘How has feminism forgotten about these women? Why haven’t we told the story of these women?’” she explained.

From there, she snowballed: “It got me thinking of the lucha tradition in Mexican culture, and how fun it would be to incorporate that, and how unexpected for the Muslim character to be into that.”

Once the wrestling component of the film had been established, Mirza began to notice parallels between queer culture and the campy, pageant-like world of the sport.

“There’s so much drag in it,” she observed.

“Wrestling is so performative … and lucha, with the masks, and having your wrestler name is as important as your drag name.”

For Mirza, watching a professional wrestling match became akin to a uniquely queer experience: “It’s a place … [where you’re] free to express yourself … It felt like a gay dance party” she added. “You could go to the lucha-inspired wrestling night — that would definitely happen in Chicago.”

Setting “Signature Move” in Chicago was a no-brainer — it was the backdrop of the real-life relationship on which the film was based. During the production process, however, Mirza, who has since relocated to Los Angeles, found herself crafting a love letter to her first queer community in the city.

“I’m originally Canadian, from Nova Scotia, but Chicago is the city where I went to gay bars for the first time,” she explained. “It has one of the largest populations of South Asian people and Mexican people in the country, and I think it’s a city where different intersections find each other through the queer identity.”

The romance between Zaynab and Alma is certainly one born of a cosmopolitan existence, but just as Mirza previously discovered, their relationship quickly opens up parallels between their backgrounds.

“One of the things I had been aware of dating a Mexican woman was the connections across our cultures — across food and mothers and families,” she said.

It is precisely this complicated mother-daughter relationship that Mirza sought to use to open up a new avenue for queer storytelling. She aimed to expand queer narratives beyond a typical coming-out story by exploring the tension between Zaynab and Parveen, who scours their block with binoculars for potential husbands for Zaynab.

“That concept, while, yes, we live in America, yes, it’s 2019, that’s true for some people in some spaces … that’s still a certain level of privilege,” she noted. “I think it’s still exceptionally important, even today, we still have to recognize … when we talk to people about coming out, if it’s safe for them to do so in their life, in their family, in their lived experience.”

This other relationship that Zaynab and Alma share in the film — both being first-generation and between immigrant mothers and

their American-born children — paints two very different pictures of the complex pushand-pull between homeland and adopted home. For her part, Parveen’s obsession with Pakistani soap operas acts as a nebulous tether to what she has lost.

“There is this very rich, robust TV drama culture in South Asia — similar to the way telenovelas are very popular in Hispanic communities,” Mirza explained. “For a lot of immigrants, when you come to the United States, especially if you’ve lost someone or you don’t feel connected to certain parts of the culture, you go inwards, and you’re seeking connection to where you came from.”

Fittingly, one scene in the film features Alma and Parveen bonding over the former’s beloved telenovelas. According to Mirza, moments like this are what make Parveen, who was partly inspired by her own mother, at once a specific and universal character.

“I think the greater narrative we’ve seen in America for Muslim women … is that these women need to be saved,” she said.

“The narrative I very intentionally wanted for this woman was that she doesn’t need to be saved; she’s just sad and grieving, feeling disconnected … which I think is deeply relatable across all cultures, all religions and all ages, really.”

The filmmakers of “Signature Move” have certainly inverted this narrative ascribed to Muslim women, though making a political film was never their intention.

“When I started writing the film, it wasn’t because Donald Trump had talked about Muslims and Mexicans in the same sentence … that was my actual life,” she explained. “It just so happened that suddenly, Muslims and Mexicans … we were hot-button groups.”

“Signature Move” was filmed before Trump was elected in 2016, but it did not premiere until after his inauguration. While this has given the film more topical heft, Mirza stressed that this relevance has been ascribed to the film externally: “It’s impossible for these groups not to be inherently politicized because of the climate of this country.” More important to Mirza is the journey to fully inhabiting one’s identity: “I am a Pakistani queer Muslim woman … I don’t say that because I am trying to be political — I am inherently politicized by virtue of just claiming my identity, and being unapologetic about living at those intersections.”

Mirroring Mirza’s own lived experience, “Signature Move” has much to say about navigating the various crossroads of one’s identity, but the film prefers not to be didactic about it. In lieu of heartfelt speeches, we are cued in through more organic moments like Parveen finding her way to one of Zaynab’s wrestling matches, or Alma reminiscing with her mother about the latter’s luchadora days.

It feels fitting for a filmmaker and actress who does not see anything inherently defiant about inhabiting her selfhood — to simply be, for Mirza or Zaynab or anyone else, seems to be enough and more.

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Ria Mazumdar Peripheries

The not-soworldly bank

T

he World Bank’s mission includes the laudable aims of ending extreme poverty and promoting shared global prosperity. Yet no international institution, despite the rhetoric of being globally representative, is insulated from geopolitics.

Both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) were founded as part of the post-World War II Bretton Woods system, which explicitly laid the foundations for an order based on American hegemony. During its seven decades of existence, the World Bank presidency has been reserved for a U.S. nominee. The U.S. wields enough voting power to maintain this policy, resulting in a continuous cycle of American dominance. Europeans have always chosen the managing director of the IMF, creating a totally Western monopoly over two major economic institutions.

In early January, then-World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim gave a shocking announcement that he would quit three years early in order to join the private sector, feeling that this was a better mechanism to enact change. Calls for his successor will be open until March, allowing Donald Trump to nominate the next president. Trump nominated David Malpass, former senior economic adviser of his campaign, raising more than a couple of eyebrows. Aside from the dubious credentials of heading Bear Stearns in 2007, Malpass has been a vocal critic of the bank and multilateralism in general. Many are concerned that Trump’s nomination of such a cynic will finally tip shareholders over the edge in voting out the American nominee.

Regardless of who ends up being chosen for the next presidency, Kim and Malpass’ critiques raise much broader concerns regarding the World Bank, which has been criticized by the left and right alike for decades. Critics of conditional aid note that the constraints placed upon governments in developing countries replicate imperialism. Discomfort with America’s primacy has triggered the formation of many regional banks over the years, undermining U.S. influence. Malpass argues that China should no longer be the bank’s largest borrower, and instead that we should “reduce the lending there and allow more lending to countries that need it.” William Easterly, a famed ex-World Bank economist, has written multiple books on the pitfalls of foreign aid and the top-down approaches of large organizations. Interestingly, Malpass’ comments regarding the bloated bureaucracy of the bank don’t seem too distant from this take.

Thus, not only is the rest of the world rejecting American dominance within the World Bank but also Americans from across the political spectrum are advocating for substantial shifts in the bank’s practices.

Proponents of liberalism and economic cooperation at the center are dismayed by Malpass’ open skepticism of the bank. If a non-American becomes president, it would be a long overdue outcome that would finally allow developing countries more power at the table, and could change the nature of some bank policies. However, regardless of this outcome, the world should be paying more attention to criticisms of the World Bank. Even if they come from Trump’s nominee, portions of Malpass’ concerns intersect with the complaints of World Bank veterans and advocates from developing countries alike.

Ria Mazumdar is a junior studying quantitative economics and international relations. Ria can be reached at Ria. Mazumdar@tufts.edu.

Opinion

Thursday, February 14, 2019

EDITORIAL

Hillel postering a blatant act of anti-Semitism Close to two dozen posters critical of American and Israeli policy were found at the Tufts Granoff Family Hillel Center on Feb. 12. We believe these posters are intended to distress Jewish students.

Anti-semitism is a racist ideology that sees Jewish people as ‘other’. This ideology often manifests as anti-Jewish imagery and propaganda, including medieval images that portrayed Jewish people suckling from pigs, later used by the Nazis in the 20th century. The posters at Hillel intentionally targeted a Jewish religious and cultural center with imagery of pigs that refer back to these historical tropes and dehumanize Jewish people.

Further, these posters appropriated cartoons used by the Black Panther Party in the late sixties as part of their struggle against imperialism. Portraying American soldiers and the police who engaged in repression against the Panthers and war crimes in Vietnam as pigs is not in itself anti-Se-

mitic. Rather, it is connected to a long tradition of struggle against white supremacy and imperialism in the United States. The person responsible for the act has wrongly appropriated images from black and anti-imperialist struggles in the U.S. while targeting a Jewish community center and place of worship.

Moreover, not all Jewish people should be held accountable for the actions of Israel. The struggle for Palestinian rights and self-determination must not be associated with the dehumanization of Jewish people.

Putting posters up in the middle of the night, then refusing to take responsibility for this act and the hurt it caused, is cowardly. The person who did this is clearly afraid to take responsibility for their anti-Semitism.

Taken in combination with the “It’s Okay to Be White” posters found earlier this school year, the blackface fiasco and other well-publicized racist

incidents both on campus and in the nation at large, the targeting of Hillel shows that emails from the president condemning hate are not enough of a response. Whether through inability or unwillingness, Tufts has become a school where people think it’s okay to wear blackface or deliberately target places of worship for political intimidation. Both of these actions are manifestations of white supremacy, an ideology that links personal worth to race and religion.

Letters like Monaco’s are not action.

Monaco’s letter did not explicitly address the anti-Semitic nature of the act. In calling the posters simply “derogatory,” we feel Monaco’s letter created more confusion than it solved.

The ways Tufts’ past attempts have sought to address white supremacy and anti-Semitism in the past are not enough. These letters are the equivalent of ‘thoughts and prayers’ and are useless in changing campus culture.

The Tufts Daily is a nonprofit, independent newspaper, published Monday through Friday during the academic year, and distributed free to the Tufts community.

The content of letters, advertisements, signed columns, cartoons and graphics does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Tufts Daily editorial board.

EDITORIALS Editorials represent the position of The Tufts Daily. Individual editors are not necessarily responsible for, or in agreement with, the policies and editorials of The Tufts Daily.

OP-EDS The Op-Ed section of The Tufts Daily, an open forum for campus editorial commentary, is printed Monday through Thursday. The Daily welcomes submissions from all members of the Tufts community; the opinions expressed in the Op-Ed section do not necessarily represent the opinions of the Daily itself. Opinion articles on campus, national and international issues should be 600 to 1,200 words in length and submitted to opinion@tuftsdaily.com. The editors reserve the right to edit letters for clarity, space and length. All material is subject to editorial discretion and is not guaranteed to appear in the Daily. Authors must submit their telephone numbers and day-of availability for editing questions.

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THE TUFTS DAILY | Sports | Thursday, February 14, 2019

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Jumbos ride wave of confidence into championship season

COURTESY DAVE DECORTIN

Senior Alexandra Good competes for Tufts in a meet at Wheaton College on Jan. 21, 2017.

by Nate Hartnick Staff Writer

Following an inspiring performance at the Boston Winter Open at Boston University on Friday and Saturday, Tufts’ women’s swimming and diving team competes this coming weekend at the NESCAC Championships. The meet will be held at Wesleyan University, where the Jumbos will look to improve on their fourth-place finish from last season.

The Boston Winter Open provided a chance for Tufts to display its remarkable depth of talent. Despite being the only Div. III team in a field solely composed of Div. I programs, they compet-

ed fearlessly and put forward a number of personal best performances.

Senior Madeline Lee took part in the Jumbos’ winning performance in the 200-yard medley relay time trial, along with senior Caroline McCormick, sophomore Emma Seymour and firstyear Serena Derderian.

Lee was ecstatic about the results and the individual milestones achieved across the board.

“It was really remarkable to see people from freshmen to seniors swimming lifetime best times,” Lee said. “I think between the men’s and women’s teams there were over 90 lifetime best times, which is really amazing. I had a couple of my own, and I know that the

energy on deck was very high. It’s great to see spirits so high going into the championship meets.”

While some athletes will not be competing at the NESCAC Championships this week, just as some did not at the Boston Winter Open, they all remain a part of the same cohesive team. Individual accolades are also team accomplishments.

Coach Adam Hoyt also expressed this message, emphasizing the impact of the team’s strong chemistry on its success. He maintained the importance of the Boston Winter Open in boosting the team’s confidence and morale, and sending them into the championship season smoothly.

“We carry 24 women to our NESCAC championship, and we have 41 women on our team, and there’s a reason we carry that many,” he said. “It’s because, if we have 41 who really all come together and put together a great season everyone benefits and improves at a greater rate. So those women who competed this past weekend at BU really set the tone for our championship season, and have played a huge role in our success during the course of this season. It really is a team effort building throughout the entire season.”

The Jumbos see this weekend as a chance to build on their strong showing at last year’s NESCAC Championships.

They have never scored better than third at the annual meet and are now looking at an opportunity to make history should they match their improvement from last year.

Truslow displayed confidence in the team’s ability to top their marks from previous years.

“I think we all were really excited about improving from eighth to fourth last year, but I also think a lot of us weren’t really happy about our individual performances,” Truslow said. “I really believe that we’re a lot stronger and more confident in ourselves. I think just looking at this weekend, it showed that our taper and our rest and all of our hard work paid off. That’s really exciting and shows greater confidence in our training, so all of the rest of the girls are excited to carry that through this weekend.”

While Hoyt noted the team’s pride in last year’s result, he remained particularly enthusiastic about this year’s group.

“Last year we moved up quite a few places, so we were all really excited about the team’s performance,” Hoyt said. “I think everyone felt that they competed and performed well, but I know that there was a good portion of our team that felt like they wanted more from that meet last year, and I think it’s brought a lot of motivation into our group this year to stay focused and really committed to our training plan. I’m really excited about how that sets us up for this year. I think we’re totally prepared to perform well this weekend.”

It is clear that this team knows its full potential, and is coming into the championship season riding a wave of confidence. These championship meets represent an opportunity to put on display all of the hard work they have devoted over the course of this season.

The Jumbos starts their championship season on Thursday at Wesleyan and will finish on Sunday.

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Sports

Thursday, February 14, 2019 | Sports | THE TUFTS DAILY

Berube prepares her squad to face well-coached Williams team in post-season

YUAN JUN CHEE / THE TUFTS DAILY

Junior guard/forward and co-captain Erica DeCandido looks for an open pass in Tufts’ 65–49 victory over Worcester State on Jan. 16.

WOMEN'S BASKETBALL

continued from back page because anybody can step up at any time. So it’s really, really focusing on a team defense approach where we’re just sort of working off each other and make sure we’re communicating at every place.”

Both coaches also recognized the difficulty of going up against the other team and demonstrated their respect for the opposing coach’s experience.

Manning acknowledged that Berube’s ability to prepare her teams defensively will be the biggest challenge for her Williams team.

“They really deny hard and their goal is to not allow you to run your offense and to take away your first looks on offense,” Manning said. “We have to be patient, you have to not rush things and just really kind of work the ball around and take what they’re giving us. I mean the greatest defense can’t stop everything, but I

think sometimes we don’t always read what we do have. So I think that’s got to be a goal against any of Carla’s teams is that you are prepared for the intensity of their defense and that you keep your cool, keep your composure and continue to work the ball.”

Manning recently recorded her 500th victory as a Div. III women’s basketball head coach with her team’s 58–34 victory over Colby on Feb. 1.

While Williams suffered losses against Bowdoin and Amherst, it closed out the season by winning at Hamilton 64–59. With 29 years of coaching experience, it is safe to say that the Jumbos are up against a well-coached team on Saturday.

Berube spoke to the legacy that Manning has left behind for both the conference and Div. III women’s basketball. Berube explained that Manning led the charge to establish a Div. III women’s basketball all-star game, something their male counterparts have had for three years now.

“She’s accomplished so much in her career. She’s someone that I’ve always … looked up to and turned to for advice for the NESCAC and just a really important person in the WBCA [ Womens’ Basketball Coaches Association],” Berube said. “Every time we play against them, I want to be at my best because you know Williams will be very well prepared and so I’m excited to always see her.

Yeah, I’m expecting her team’s very best on Saturday.”

Berube and the Jumbos hope to keep Manning from picking up win number 502 on Saturday.

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Arjun Balaraman Off the crossbar

Manchester City has the swagger of champions

G

reat teams can often have that aura of invincibility — the feeling that no matter what, they will come out in front. They give their fans a sense of inevitability. It’s the feeling you get when Steph Curry starts to hit a couple of 3-pointers in quick succession to light up the crowd in Oakland.

Or when Tom Brady is driving down the field in the fourth quarter of a big game at Gillette Stadium. And, as they have started to strut their stuff in the last few weeks, it’s the feeling you get every time Manchester City kicks off at the Etihad Stadium.

When Liverpool raced ahead to a seven-point lead at the start of the year before their Jan. 3 clash with Premier League champions City, there was talk that a win could signal the end of the title race a full four months before the end of the season.

Even Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola repeatedly said that he believed if his side dropped points the race would be over.

Fast forward just over a month and City is back at the top of the league on goal difference ahead of Liverpool (albeit with an additional game played). More importantly, the club looks to be back playing their best soccer.

City has now won six of their past seven and has been thoroughly dominating its their opponents in these victories. They have looked like the Guardiola teams of old, swiftly moving the ball around and lulling opponents to sleep before launching their deadly attacks.

With the creativity of midfielders David and Bernardo Silva, City can conjure up scoring chances out of nothing. And it doesn’t hurt that they have Sergio Aguero, the hottest player in the Premier League right now, finishing those chances off.

Aguero has been a man on a mission in 2019, notching nine goals in his past seven league games, including two consecutive hat-tricks — taking him to the top of the Premier League scoring charts.

City’s excellence was exemplified in the 6–0 trouncing of Chelsea this past weekend. They were utterly dominant, up 4–0 in the first 25 minutes. Aguero and Raheem Sterling were hot from the start and pounced early on some terrible Chelsea defending. It was an effort worthy of champions.

These performances have come despite the fact that for most of this season City has been without Kevin de Bruyne, its star player and last year’s Professional Footballers Association Player of the Year runner-up. The Belgian is the heart of City’s attack, and it is a testament to the work of the two Silvas that City’s production hasn’t suffered in his absence. De Bruyne is being eased back into the lineup by Guardiola, and while he may take some more time to fully get back into it, his return seems to be well-timed for the closing stretch of the title race.

As a Manchester United fan, the cynic in me hopes that Liverpool won’t manage to capture that elusive Premier League title its fans has been so desperately craving. But I just can’t help but think that City has enough to hold off the Reds and defend its title.

Arjun Balaraman is a sophomore studying quantitative economics. Arjun can be reached at arjun.balaraman@tufts.edu

12 tuftsdaily.com

Sports

Thursday, February 14, 2019

Women’s squash turn in top-5 performance at NESCAC Championships by henrymolot

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After losing 6–3 to Amherst in the quarterfinal of the NESCAC Championship on Saturday, the Jumbos wrapped up NESCAC tournament play with a 9–0 win over Trinity in the consolation round and 5–4 win over Bates in the fifth-place match.

In Sunday’s fifth-place match against the Bobcats, sophomore Julie Young defeated senior Kristyna Alexova (8–11, 11–4, 11–9, 11–2) in the second position, while senior Zarena Jafry took down sophomore Katie Manternach (15–13, 12–10, 6–11, 11–8) in the fourth position.

These four-game tilts proved vital for the Jumbos, who got wins at the seventh, eighth and ninth spots as well. The bottom third of the Jumbos lineup dominated against the Bobcats, with sophomore Chloe Kantor grinding out a five-game victory in the eighth position.

The Bobcats were one of the Jumbos’ most competitive opponents of the season, hanging in for a 6–3 loss in the regular season and pushing the Jumbos to their only 5–4 match of the season, both of which featured tightly contested battles across the board.

The day before, during the consolation match, the Jumbos took care of business against the No. 8 Wesleyan Cardinals in a 9–0 thrashing.

Tufts ended up playing in that consolation match after falling in their quarterfinal matchup to No. 4 Amherst 6–3, a repeated score of their regular season match-up. Junior and co-captain Claire Davidson and sophomore Julie Yeung got wins in the first and second positions with three-game victories, while sophomore Rachel Windreich won a tightly contested five-game battle in the sixth position, defeating senior Priya Sinha (9–11, 11–4, 6–11, 11–5, 11–1).

The Greenwich, Conn. native had lost her regular season match against Amherst at the five spot, but was able to make an impact playing sixth in the postseason.

Amherst, tied with Tufts as the No. 16 ranked team in the country, still stands in the way of Tufts’ goal of making the B divi-

sion for the College Squash Association (CSA) Nationals. Second-year coach Joseph Raho sees Amherst as the team’s top challenge for next season, but with the CSA meet just weeks away, the team is focusing more on defending their No. 1 seeding in the C division. Tufts will look to flip the script on their perennial rival Bates, who beat Tufts three times in the 2017–2018 season.

“Every spot that you go up is hard to get, totally earned, and our goal is to win the C flight at nationals,” Raho said. “We’re probably going to play Bates in the finals if we get there, and it’s tough to beat a team three times, but we’re going to try.”

Davidson also agreed that Bates poses a challenge every year.

“Bates has been a huge rival with us, and we always have a close match with them,” Davidson said. “Chances are we’re going to see them in a few weeks at nationals.”

Davidson, along with senior co-captain Christa Irani, have seen Tufts make huge strides as a program, moving up from a No. 23 national ranking in the 2015–2016 season to the team’s current ranking at No. 16.

“Every year we’ve been getting better so year to year our rivalries have been changing, but Bates has been a constant,” Davidson said. “But two years ago we didn’t have a close match with Amherst, so it’s awesome to see that progress.”

Raho has been the major architect of the program’s improvement over the last two years, and he feels that the team is knocking on the door of Amherst and the B division. Their 6–3 loss on Saturday featured four fourgame matches, with the Jumbos falling in all of them. Raho and the team hope to crack the top four in the NESCAC, which has been dominated by Amherst, Williams, Middlebury and Trinity with its 13 NESCAC championships.

“We’re not there yet, but we’re moving towards that level,” Raho said. “Against Amherst, it wasn’t enough that day — they’re just a little deeper than us.”

In the coming years, Raho feels confident about their ability to make that push into the top four, which will most likely

ALLISON CULBERT / THE TUFTS DAILY ARCHIVES

Senior Sahana Karthik prepares to return the ball during the College Women’s National Team Championship on Feb 18, 2018. spring the team into the B flight at the CSA meet as well.

“We have an amazing group, super tight-knit, very talented and we’re bring[ing] in three good recruits next season, and hope to take another step forward,” he said.

A balanced roster that combines strong senior leadership with a good core of underclassmen is something that promises good results in the years to come. The Jumbos are going to need their whole lineup, top to bottom, to be at

their best at the CSA Nationals in hopes of setting up a third rematch with Bates.

First-year Diya Sanghi was a strong contributor at the seventh spot, and relished in the spirit of the team.

“It was nice being part of a team,” Sanghi said. “NESCAC was definitely more intense than the regular season, and being there with the team made it super fun.”

The Jumbos opens play at the CSA Nationals on Feb. 22 against the eighth seed in the C division as they look to earn the first Walker Cup in program history.

Women’s basketball prepares for NESCAC quarter-final against Williams

by Yuan Jun Chee Sports Editor

The Jumbos will face the Williams Ephs this season for the third time, but on this occasion, the fate of both teams’ seasons on the line.

Given the familiarity that both teams now have with each other, senior guard and co-captain Jac Knapp recognized that Tufts will have to be at the top of its game.

Earlier in the season, Tufts defeated Williams 67–41 at the Williams tournament that predated the official start of the NESCAC season. Knapp led the way with 18 points in that game.

When conference play came around, Tufts recorded a 60–39 victory in Williamstown, Mass. Tufts’ victory was fueled by three 10-plus point scorers: junior guard Cailin Harrington (16),

junior forward/guard and co-captain Erica DeCandido (13) and first-year guard Sofia Rosa (12).

This time, however, the Jumbos host the Ephs at home, with Knapp and coach Carla Berube hoping that home advantage will once again propel the Jumbos to victory.

“We’re happy that it’s a home game,” Berube said. “We put ourselves in a really good position to play in our house and … not having to go on the road to Williams for a third time. I think it’s in this time of the year, teams should be peaking so I’m sure we’re gonna get their very best because they’re fighting for their season.”

Knapp echoed her coach’s sentiments.

“This is the third time we’re playing them, so I think they probably know us pretty well and we know them pretty well,” Knapp said. “Saturday’s going

to be a good game. It’s [at] home, so hopefully everyone comes out and supports us.”

Tufts will be wary of the play-making abilities of Williams’ sophomore guard Maggie Meehan. Meehan was Williams’ leading scorer in the regular season, with her 12.5 points-pergame good enough for ninth in the conference. The Jumbos will also have to watch out for junior guard Emily Chang, who is shooting 41.3 percent from downtown.

“They have some really good shooters and they have a really good post player, so we need to make sure we’re ready for that,” Knapp said. “We’ve got to make sure on defense we’re talking, we’re just communicating everything and making sure we’re working hard on the boards so that they don’t get any second-chance opportunities.

On the other side, Williams’ coach Pat Manning believes her team needs to perform strongly on the defensive front. Manning said that she felt Tufts’ offense had many weapons, including Knapp and DeCandido.

“Jac Knapp’s done a great job running the show for them and she’s had a great senior year and stays very composed and the floor and leads the way,” Manning said. “I also think Erica DiCandido is a dangerous weapon for them because she can score in a lot of ways. Overall we’re not highlighting necessarily one or two to stop because they do have a very balanced team, but knowing that we just have to play really good team defense and communicate on the floor and not become so consumed with one player see WOMEN'S BASKETBALL, page 11