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Panel discusses free speech, discrimination in the context of BJL protests

Panel discusses free speech, discrimination in the context of BJL protests

Jessica Li

The relationship between the issue of free speech and the issue of combating discrimination is a complicated one, panelists said in a discussion hosted by The Daily Princetonian on Wednesday.The panel featured Joanna Anyanwu ’15 GS from the Black Justice League, Samantha Harris ’99 of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, Joshua Leifer ’17 from The Princeton Progressive and Peter Singer, professor in the Center for Human Values.Harris initiated the conversation by noting that increasing calls of censorship from students are detrimental to unlearning prejudice.“In many ways, the highly visible student protests around the country are a sign of the robustness of free speech around the country,” she said, adding that she is disappointed to see student protestors issue demands that undermined the same rights that made free speech possible.Singer said he agreed with Harris, and that if we prohibit alternative viewpoints, the truth will simply become a matter of dogma instead of a living truth that we constantly have to think about.“The danger that we face today is that we are all going to agree on something or won’t have contrary opinions expressed because they seem too politically incorrect to be expressed,” Singer said.Leifer, however, noted that controversies over the limits of “free speech” are not at the core of ongoing debates.

NEWS | 12/16/2015

Seniors Cen, Ude named Sachs Scholars

Paul Phillips

Sarah Cen ’16 andOgemdi Ude ’16 have been named the recipients of the Daniel M. Sachs Class of 1960 Graduating Scholarship.Cen, who is majoring in mechanical and aerospace engineering, will pursue a master’s in engineering science as a Sachs Scholar at Worcester College, Oxford, while Ude, who is majoring in English, will spend a year as a Sachs Global Scholar studying Indigenous Australian physical theater in Melbourne, Australia.Cen is a former staff writer and web editor for the Daily Princetonian.Matthew Stewart ’85, an adviser for the Sachs Scholarship, said that the Sachs Scholarship at Worcester College is intended for two years of graduate study and a degree at Worcester College, while the Global Scholarship was intended as an option for students to spend a year abroad and devise a learning project of their own that might not fit into formal categories of pursuing a degree.Stewart explained that former Sachs Scholars and friends of the association conduct the interviews and read the applications for the Sachs Scholarship.

NEWS | 12/16/2015

MASJID launches anti-Islamophobia campaign

Marcia Brown

A campus-wide anti-Islamophobia campaign by the student group Muslim Advocates for Social Justice and Individual Dignity will begin soon. MASJID, which formed last year in response to anti-Muslim sentiment at the University and across the country, announced the campaign at an open town hall meeting last Friday. Around 20 people attended the meeting, according to Farah Amjad ’16, one of the founders of MASJID.

NEWS | 12/16/2015

U. admits 18.6 percent of early applicants

Jessica Li

The University admitted 785 students from a pool of 4,229 candidates for the class of 2020 through the single-choice early action program, representing the largest number of early-admits in the University’s recent history, according to University Dean of Admissions Janet Rapelye. This figure represents an 18.6 percent acceptance rate.

NEWS | 12/16/2015

Cruz ’92, Christie debate terrorism, foreign policy at last Republican debate

Paul Phillips

President Barack Obama has done an inadequate job combating the ISIS terrorist threat and if they were to be elected president, they would be much more effective, both Texas Senator Ted Cruz ’92 and New Jersey governor Chris Christie argued in a Tuesday republican debate focused on the terrorist threat. “If I am President, we will hunt down and kill the terrorists,” Cruz said. Christie said that the basic responsibility of the President is to protect its people and that Obama has not been doing that. Christie is an ex officio trustee of the University. Cruz also said that Obama and Secretary of State and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton have not been sufficiently willing to fight against terrorism.

NEWS | 12/15/2015

U. task force holds discussions on distribution requirements

Maya Wesby

The University’s Task Force on General Education held three discussions with students last week about concerns regarding distribution requirements.Elizabeth Colagiuri, Deputy Dean of the College and member of the Task Force on General Education, saidthe discussions were centered on the goals of an undergraduate education at the University and what core values and lessons students should be equipped with by the time they graduate.Colagiuri noted that the Task Force hopes to give a report on its findings to the University administration by next fall.“At a high level, ideally, what should every Princeton student take away from their education?

NEWS | 12/15/2015

Number of low-income students at U. has increased since 2008

Andrew Brazer Drew

While the proportion of low-income high school graduates enrolling in two- and four-year institutions has experienced a significant drop since the economic downturn of 2008, the University’s low-income student enrollment has increased over the past seven years.According to U.S.

NEWS | 12/15/2015

U. psychology department creates 3 new labs

Myrial Holbrook

The psychology department at the University opened three new research laboratories in computational neuroscience, social neuroscience and developmental psychology in the past two years. Two of the labs, the Princeton Baby Lab and the Princeton Social Neuroscience Lab, were created at the beginning of this academic year. The Princeton Baby Lab is a joint initiative created by psychology professors Casey Lew-Williams and Lauren Emberson. “I primarily study language in the first years of life, and she primarily studies perception in the first years of life, but all with the focus on understanding how learning gets off the ground in the first place,” Lew-Williams explained. Lew-Williams noted an increasing desire in the psychology department to have the perspective of developmental researchers to better understand the origins of how adults process information in memory, attention and social interaction led the University to hire experts in the field. Psychology department chair Elizabeth Gould deferred comment to assistant chair Nicholas Turk-Browne.

NEWS | 12/15/2015

CPUC discusses faculty, graduate student diversification, entrepreneurship

Samvida Venkatesh

The Council of the Princeton University Community discussed diversifying the faculty and graduate student bodies through creation of new fellowship programs and better recruitment at its monthly meeting on Monday.Dean of the Faculty Deborah Prentice said that the solution to increasing diversity lies in understanding the “pipeline” problem, which means that while 17 percent of the undergraduate population is made up of underrepresented minorities, this number falls to 7 percent in the graduate student population and almost completely disappears at higher levels, including postdoctoral fellows, junior faculty and senior faculty.Increasing faculty diversity will require a broad-based approach that tackles all stages of the pipeline, she said.Citing the Report of the Trustee Ad Hoc Committee on Diversity in 2013, Prentice noted the University has overall become more diverse since 1980, but has very little growth in the percentage of certain underrepresented minorities — blacks and Hispanics.The report recommends faculty initiatives, which include refining the search process to yield more female and underrepresented minority candidates by creating watch-lists and tracking potential candidates, and improving recruitment and retention of women and underrepresented minorities by creating family-friendly initiatives and implementing cluster hiring, she added.“Historically, we have not paid much attention to [postdoctoral fellows] because they have been squirreled away in their labs across various parts of the campus, so much of the work lies in strengthening the sense of community amongst the post-docs,” Prentice said.Other initiatives include the development of a new competitive, honorific fellowship program to attract the top women and underrepresented minority candidates, she said.As for initiatives at the graduate student level, the work mainly lies in improving the selection process and creating bridge-year and summer programs to attract students who might not have otherwise considered graduate school, Prentice added.“The decision to hire a certain faculty finally lies with the academic department itself, so there needs to be strong leadership from faculty that are already in the department,” Prentice explained.She noted the molecular biology department of the University as a "best practice" case, where underrepresented minority populations in the graduate school went from 4 percent in 2008 to 24 percent in 2012, within the four years of the implementation of diversity programs.Prentice explained in the report's notes that the partnership between academic departments, administration and the Board of Trustees is key to setting up diversity and inclusion initiatives.

NEWS | 12/14/2015

Princeton one of 84 cities to sign amicus brief

Katherine Oh

Princeton is among 84 cities and counties nationwide to sign an amicus brief, put together by the Cities United for Immigration Action, that supports President Barack Obama’s Executive Order on immigration and opposes a Texas court decision that has put a hold on the executive action on a national level, Princeton Mayor Liz Lempert said.Obama’s executive order gives undocumented people, including people with children who are U.S.

NEWS | 12/14/2015

U. trustees commission committee to study Wilson's legacy

Abhiram Karuppur

The University Board of Trustees has commissioned a special committee to study the legacy of former University President Woodrow Wilson, Class of 1879, and determine whether or not the Wilson School and Wilson College should be renamed, in light of demonstrations by the Black Justice League, University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 said.Eisgruber explained that the committee has created a website to collect observations and opinions about Wilson, and to share these findings with the greater University community.

NEWS | 12/14/2015

CST StudioLab to open for the spring semester

Betty Liu

StudioLab, a new space developed by the University's Council on Science and Technology, will open in late December, according to Naomi Leonard, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering.The Council on Science and Technology supports intellectual exchange and interdisciplinary collaboration in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields, according to its website.The space is being createdin order to bring people together and broaden connections between the STEM fields and the arts, humanities and social sciences.The StudioLab will be located on the B level of Fine Hall.

NEWS | 12/14/2015

Speakers examine discrimination at U. in 'Reach in, Teach in' colloquium

Linda Song

While the University has come a long way since its beginning in terms of addressing issues of discrimination on campus, the initial bar was very low and it still has a long way to go, panelists and members of the community said in a public colloquium Saturday hosted by the Black Justice League.The event featured panels and presentations by African American studies professors Joshua Guild, Eddie Glaude, Ruha Benjamin, Tera Hunter and Cornel West GS '80.Guild and Wilglory Tanjong ’18 began with a joint presentation, titled “Why Here?

NEWS | 12/13/2015

Princeton files plan for 446 units of affordable housing

Hannah Waxman

Princeton filed a plan this week for affordable housing, after a New Jersey State Supreme Court ruling in March dictated that municipalities provide housing opportunities for people earning moderate to low incomes, according to the New Jersey State League of Municipalities.The ruling instructed that Princeton and other towns in New Jersey present their plans for approval by judges.

NEWS | 12/13/2015

National attention on BJL campus protests highlight controversial issues on race

Caroline Lippman

The protests of the University’s Black Justice League in late November have received national attention, including discussions of renaming campus buildings and speculation on the possibility that the protests may impact a future Supreme Court decision. Michael Dorf, law professor at Cornell University, noted that campus protests across the nation have sparked a conversation about race and rights. “To my mind, the protests are effective from the perspective of a university committed to the freedom of speech, even if the protestors don’t get what they want,” he said. He added that if people are chanting or occupying an office, that is free speech, but it is also a way of sparking free speech. Students on college campuses across the country have engaged in similar protests to remove the names of racist benefactors from school institutions,noted Evan Draim ’16, a member of the Princeton Open Campus Coalition. University of KentuckyPresident Eli Capilouto decided to cover a mural depicting scenes of African-American laborers working in a tobacco field, explaining that the mural inaccurately conveyed the nation’s past with respect to race and equality, andUniversity of OregonPresident Michael Schill ’80 agreed on Nov.

NEWS | 12/13/2015

U. acknowledges BJL demands, no set deadline for final decisions

Andie Ayala

Although several actions were taken by the administrators in order to address the agreement between University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 and the Black Justice League, there is no set deadline for final decisions regarding the demands of the BJL, Eisgruber said.According to Eisgruber, the modified demands of the BJL have been delegated to key administrators and departments who will ultimately assess the issues at hand and consult the greater University community to determine a concrete course of action.He added that the administration has established multiple platforms intended to facilitate conversation between University members representing different interests, including open meetings with the Task Force on General Education, a committee on the legacy of Woodrow Wilson, Class of 1879, and meetings between him and student groups.Members of the BJL declined or did not respond to requests for comment.Eisgruber explained that he wrote to Chair of the University Board of Trustees Katie Hall ’80, Head of Wilson College Eduardo Cadava and Dean of Faculty Deborah Prentice the evening that the protests ended.“What we have done in response to the protests is to take the requests and proposals that the BJL wanted to discuss and put them in processes where the community has the chance to deliberate about them and decide fairly, and that’s what we're going to do with these requests and requests coming from other groups,” Eisgruber said.According to Associate Dean and the Director of Programs for Access and Inclusion Khristina Gonzalez, the Office of the Dean of the College has invited members of the BJL, Latinx, the Princeton Open Campus Coalition and other student groups to participate in a Task Force on General Education meeting that discussed the value of a diversity requirement.She added that three different curricular conversations have been held in each of the residential colleges during which all students were invited to discuss the goals and values of the proposed diversity requirement and what the requirement would look like.Gonzalez noted that the three open conversations saw a full house of a diverse array of students, who appeared to be taking advantage of the provided resources to express their opinions.She explained that the Office of the Dean of the College will continue holding conversations on campus climate through the next semester.

NEWS | 12/13/2015

USG discusses ways to increase student voter turnout during elections

Katherine Oh

The Undergraduate Student Government will be implementing efforts to increase student turnout at USG elections, chief elections manager Sung Won Chang ’18 said at the senate meeting on Sunday.Chang said that he would be setting up tables before future elections to encourage students to vote and might also look into implementing a single transferable vote system which would eliminate the need for runoff elections.“We could do much better in increasing the turnout, including increasing publicity,” Chang added.

NEWS | 12/13/2015

Méndez discusses regulations for treatment of prisoners, calls for abolishment of death penalty

Myrial Holbrook

Torture does not provide safety and actually exacerbates societal problems, Juan Méndez, U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishmentand prominent human rights advocate, said in a lecture on Thursday. The lecture coincided with Méndez receiving the 2015 Adlai Stevenson Award for a “career of service to the global community,” according to the award’s website. Méndezexplained that even if one could say that torture provides intelligence and information, it also leads to a decrease in the citizens' trust and faith in their country. He added that citizens have fallen into a relativism about the moral condemnation of torture fueled by some state practice but also by our culture. “The culture in which we live is one that makes us feel that torture is ugly but it has to happen, that it’s inevitable, that somebody has to do it, that it keeps us safe — and if it keeps us safe, then we might as well look the other way and live with it,” he said. Mendez stressed the importance of understanding and upholding the international normative framework for human rights as essential to human rights advocacy and global accountability. He noted that the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which establishes such a framework of obligations, is ratified by many nations and includes obligations of the state to prevent torture, obligations which Méndez sees as the foremost concern. Mechanisms for prevention of torture include periodic review of police practices, allowance for civilian oversight of law enforcement bodies and re-training of law enforcement officials, Méndez said.

NEWS | 12/10/2015

Greenpeace alleges U. professor accepted monetary compensation for writing research papers

Shriya Sekhsaria

Physics professor William Happer GS ’64 has been accused of accepting bribes to write research papers that cast doubt on the reality of climate change, however he hasdenied these allegations. According to the details of the investigation published on Dec.

NEWS | 12/10/2015

Q&A: Juan Méndez, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture

Myrial Holbrook

Juan Méndez is the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment and a prominent leader in human rights advocacy.

NEWS | 12/10/2015

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