The Commonwealth Times; September 12, 2016

Page 1

September 12, 2016 • Vol. 58, No. 3

The independent press of Virginia Commonwealth University

NEWS Remembering 9-11 • 5

SPORTS Soccer recaps • 7

SPECTRUM Safer spaces • 9

OPINION Overcoming rape • 13

"THERE’S A BROCK TURNER IN ALL

OUR LIVES"

T o U

You don’t have to read far into Cecelia “CC” Carreras’ essay before she discloses that a University of Richmond administrator told her it was reasonable for her to be penetrated without her consent “for a few more minutes if he was going to finish.” The claim is just one of many similar allegations made by the U of R senior in two essays published by the Huffington Post last week. Shortly after Carreras’ essays went viral online, the Huffington Post posted junior Whitney Ralston’s separate account of the administration mishandling her own sexual assault. “The climate on campus is very tense,” said U of R junior Rennie Harrison, who is a member of the school’s Sexual Misconduct Student Advisory Board and one of 28 members on the national student committee for the Obama administration’s It’s On Us campaign. “Many students and faculty remain disgusted and angry at the university's mishandling of sexual assault cases.” In Carreras’ first HuffPo essay, published Sept. 6, she describes U of R’s mishandling of her own sexual assault complaint against a student-athlete she refers to as “Spider Athletics’ own Brock Turner.” The reference is to the Stanford University swimmer who was unanimously convicted of rape by a jury, but was sentenced to just three months in jail earlier this year. Carreras also states her alleged assailant still attends U of R despite a 10 hour-long hearing, 93-page appeal and documented violations of a no-contact order. Carreras also cited a survey published by The Collegian, the college’s student newspaper, in April 2015 stating 12.6 percent of the 649 female respondents said they had been sexually assaulted. Half said they had experienced some form of —continued on page 3

Freshmen dominate in Spider Alumni Open

INFOGRAPHIC BY DESIREE CHOE

FADEL ALLASSAN AND SARAH KING News Editor and Executive Editor

TITLE

IX

cases opened at Virginia Universities A College of William and Mary CASE OPENED: April 18, 2014 B James Madison University CASE OPENED: June 4, 2014 C University of Richmond CASE OPENED: June 12, 2014 D University of Virginia CASE 2 OPENED: July 22, 2016 CASE 1 OPENED: June 30. 2011 - Sep. 21. 2015

E Virginia Commonwealth University CASE 3 OPENED: Dec. 8. 2015 CASE 2 OPENED: July 14. 2015 CASE 1 OPENED: Feb. 9. 2011 - Sep. 30, 2011 F Virginia Military Institute CASE 2 OPENED: Sep. 15, 2014 - April 6, 2015 CASE 1 OPENED: Aug. 5, 2008-May 9, 2014 G Washington and Lee University CASE OPENED: Feb. 18, 2015

PHOTO BY JULIE TRIPP

JESSICA WETZLER Contributing Writer

Richmond native Ashley Brown placed 40th in her first meet wearing the Black and Gold.

ALL EYEZ ON ME ILLUSTRATION BY CARSON MCNAMARA

The VCU men and women’s cross-country teams placed fifth overall at the Spiders Alumni Open in Mechanicsville, Virginia on Sept. 3. The competition was presented by the Collegiate Running Association and races included the men’s 5,000 meter and women’s 2-mile run. During the men’s 5,000 meter, freshmen Bryce Catlett and Lucas Sidle made impressive debuts for VCU. Catlett clocked in at 15:48.5 to place 19th in his first collegiate race. The Manassas, Virginia native Catlett won seven conference titles during his career at Osburn Park High School. Sidle followed shortly behind Catlett to the line, placing 32nd with a time of 16:09.8. VCU's third-throughsixth finishers, senior Calvin Wood, junior Bismillah Alidost, freshman Brandon Wells and sophomore Michael Villagomaz placed 39th, 41st, 42nd and 43rd, respectively. They were all separated by just seven seconds. The Ram’s top five men posted an average time of 16:15.98 and a combined time of 1:21:19.90. In her her sixth year coaching the men and women’s teams, assistant coach Nicole Cook was more than pleased with the outcome of the meet last weekend. —continued on page 8

Why 2Pac Is The Most Influential HipHop Artist 20 Years After His Death MUKTARU JALLOH Staff Writer Every decade, an artist defines a generation and embodies the myriad of qualities that made the era unique. For the 1990’s, that was Tupac Shakur. The tattoos and the provocative lyrics, his love-hate relationship with the media and, most importantly, his music totalling four definitive solo albums over the course of his life that charted the course of Hip-Hop for decades. This Tuesday will mark 20 years since the legend’s drive-by shooting murder on the Las Vegas strip. Though Hip-Hop and pop culture still feel the effects of his absence, Tupac’s legacy and spirit certainly still live on.

While the JAY Z, Nas and Dr. Dre's of the world are still hitting their stride, none of them have been able to surpass Pac in terms of influence. In the two decades since his murder, Tupac has become one of the biggest selling artists of all time with more than 75 million records sold internationally and nearly 30 million in the U.S. alone. He's also the second highestselling rap artist in the U.S. and the world, just behind Eminem. In a 2015 Rolling Stone interview, Eminem praised the luminary for his dynamic abilities beyond the vocal booth. "He covered such a broad perspective and there were so many different sides to him, but the best part about him overall was that he was a human being," Eminem said.

"I used to be fascinated with his interviews like, 'Yo, what he's saying is so true.' He would also be able to trump people who were interviewing him when they would hit him with hard questions — it was incredible. He was a superstar in every aspect of the word." This quality is still present today when Kendrick Lamar dropped his critically acclaimed album “To Pimp A Butterfly” last year, which featured a never released interview from 1994. The Grammy-winning album ends with a powerfully crafted conversation between Lamar and Pac which tackles themes and topics relevant to today. In fact, when Lamar asks Pac what he thinks will be the future of today's generation, his answer proves puzzling. "I think that n---as is tired of

grabbing sh-t out the stores, and next time it’s a riot, it's gonna be bloodshed. For real. I don’t think America can know that. I think America think we was just playing, it’s gonna be some more playing. But it ain’t gonna be no playing. It’s gonna be murder," Tupac said. In the age of heightened police violence, the Black Lives Matter Movement and the Baltimore and Ferguson riots, it seems as though his vision proved true. Born to parents that were both active members of The Black Panther movement of the 1970s, Pac’s revolutionary spirit began years before he laid his first verse. His mother, Afeni, who just recently passed away, named him after the Peruvian revolutionary who was executed after an uprising. —continued on page 9


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