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THE TUFTS DAILY
TUFTSDAILY.COM
Thursday, September 18, 2014
VOLUME LXVIII, NUMBER 8
Where You Read It First Est. 1980
Sexual assault activist nominated for degree
by Audrey Michael Daily Editorial Board Six years after she was expelled, Wagatwe Wanjuki, who identifies as a survivor of campus sexual assault, could receive an honorary Tufts degree at the 2015 commencement ceremony in May. Wanjuki, a former student of Tufts class of 2009, was nominated for the degree by senior John Kelly. When the university sent out its annual honorary degree submission request on Sept. 2, Kelly said he nominated Wanjuki as a recipient. He plans to launch a Change.org petition today to rally community support for the application. Kelly, who also identifies as a campus sexual assault survivor, met Wanjuki in Washington, D.C. last year in July during a protest outside the Department of Education (DOE). The two said they swapped similar stories of how particular Tufts
administrators treated them after reporting — four years apart — their respective abusive relationships. “Tufts has been unable to handle sexual violence claims for a long time, and the same administrators are still in place,” Kelly said. “Right now what’s thought of Tufts, when we think about Tufts and sexual violence, is a blundering institution that doesn’t know what it’s doing. This is a chance to show Tufts is an institution that recognizes its flaws and is contrite for its past actions.” In spring 2008, Wanjuki, who was then a junior, said she filed a report about the multiple incidents of domestic and sexual violence she had suffered, but the school did not investigate the case. Partnering with the organization Students Active for Ending Rape (SAFER), Wanjuki became an outspoken advocate at Tufts for student rights see HONORARY DEGREE, page 2
Second annual Fall Gala successful despite weather by Daniel Bottino Daily Editorial Board
TCU Elections The Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate held an election to fill openings on the freshman class council and the TCU Judiciary, and to select freshman members of the TCU Senate. Elections Commission Publicity Director Jamie Moore said that voter turnout was as expected for a fall election, with 51.11 percent of the class of 2018 voting and 16.38 percent of the total student body voting. For the elections open to members of the class of 2018, James Huesing was elected Class Council President, Samuel Usher was elected Class Council Vice President and
Annie levine / The Tufts Daily
Tufts Junior Class Council put together the second annual Fall Gala, held at Gantcher Center.
Marianna Athanssiou was elected Class Council Marketing Chair. The new TCU senators for the class of 2018 are Benya Kraus, Joshua Davis, Emily Tannenbaum, Anna Del Castillo, Jack Colelli, Max Hirsch and Rati Srinivasan. In the elections open to the entire student body, Sophia Gomez, a freshman, Arin Naidu, a sophomore, and Meghan Kenneally, a freshman, were elected as new members of the TCU Judiciary. —by Patrick McGrath
The second annual Fall Gala on Sept. 6 was a considerable success, according to Office for Campus Life (OCL) Assistant Director David McGraw. Despite the event's relocation from the Academic Quad to the Gantcher Center, McGraw said that both students and the administration were satisfied with the experience. “Students were impressed with the transformation of Gantcher, and administration [was] happy that we were able to keep the positive feeling of this event,” McGraw told the Daily in an email. Members of the Junior Class Council Jason Brillon and Julia
Turock noted that the success of this year’s event was built off the success of last year’s inaugural Fall Gala, which replaced Fall Ball. Brillon, a junior, explained that the Programming Board planned a more extended “Welcome Weekend" for this year. “For us, it was taking Fall Gala and creating a larger weekend-long programming out of it,” Brillon said. “Our first decision was to separate the fireworks from Fall Gala, so the gala could go later into the evening and also so that we would have multiple days of things going on.” In addition to the fireworks and the gala, Brillon noted that Welcome Weekend events included a free ice cream truck, a
hypnotist, free air-brush tattoos, a breakfast social and a series of college-themed movies. Turock, also a junior, admitted that there were worries that Fall Gala would become indistinguishable from Fall Ball because of its move to Gantcher, but every effort was made to recreate last year’s event. “We had the same band, same decor, same catering, everything was the same, just in a different location, and I personally believe it was much more like last year’s Fall Gala than previous years’ Fall Ball,” Turock said. McGraw agreed, emphasizing that Fall Gala is meant to usher in the new school year in a posisee GALA, page 2
National Dialogue on Race Day sparks critical discussion on racial inequality by Stephanie Haven Daily Editorial Board
Tufts' second annual National Dialogue on Race Day, which featured a five-person panel discussion on racial inequality and public policy in the United States, took place on Monday night in Cabot Auditorium. The event was sponsored by the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy (CSRD). This year’s event, which was titled “The Civil Rights Act: 50 Years Ago, 50 Years Later, 50 Years from Now,” examined the progress of the civil rights movement in the context of both the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as well as the recent events in Ferguson, Mo. The panel was led by Peniel Joseph, director of the CSRD and professor of history, who explained that the events in Ferguson echoed the racism and racial domestic policy of the 1960's.
“The events of the summer really transformed how we talk about race,” Joseph said. “Ferguson is a metaphor for how we think about the issues we will talk about tonight." Joseph posed a number of questions to the panel of scholars, authors and activists. When asked how far the United States has come since the Civil Rights Act and dreams of racial equality, Alan Solomont (A ’70), Dean of the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts, said that while a lot has changed since he first attended Tufts as a student in 1966, a lot of backsliding has occurred in the last decade. “The situation at the moment is sobering,” Solomont said. Associate Professor of Ethics, Political and Social Philosophy Lionel McPherson said it is important to dif-
Inside this issue
ferentiate between increased opportunities for individual black Americans and the conditions for black Americans on a macro level. McPherson also cited statistics indicating that black unemployment has been twice as high as white unemployment in the United States for the past 50 years, and that schools are more segregated today than they were in 1980. “These facts are sobering, and I don’t see a lot of basis for optimism in looking at them,” McPherson said. Many panelists brought up the issue of mass incarceration as an example of continued racial discrimination in U.S. policy. "More than sixty percent of American prisoners are people of color… in the U.S., 22 percent of the population are people of color,” Barbara Dougan, the Massachusetts Project Director
of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, said. “I don’t think that sounds like a postracial America,” she added. Paul Watanabe, associate professor of political science and director of the Institute for Asian American Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, emphasized the importance of taking action to fight for racial equality, especially considering the harsh realities many black Americans face. “If we spend all our time dreaming, we’re not going to confront [these realities],” he said. Joseph then steered the discussion to the recent events in Ferguson and asked whether Ferguson would lead to further discussions and actions to advance racial equality. see DIALOGUE, page 2
Today’s sections
‘Over Here’ looks at friendship after 9/11, conflict in Middle East
Field hockey remains undefeated through four games
see WEEKENDER, page 5
see SPORTS, page 12
News 1 Features 3 Weekender 5 Editorial | Op-Ed 8
Op-Ed 9 Comics 10 Classifieds 11 Sports Back