President John A. Fry fielded questions from students Feb. 2 at a “town hall” meeting in the Papadakis Integrated Sciences Building organized by the Undergraduate Student Government Association. Though turnout was low, Fry spoke on several pertinent topics including the newly instated application fee, the future of the online education program, the controversial then-imminent demolition of the James E. Marks Intercultural Center and future plans for campus.

Excluding deans David Ruth and John Cooke, who apparently came to support Fry, about 15 students were in attendance — the bulk of them USGA representatives. USGA President Kevin Murray opened by asking Fry to address this year’s new application fee, which has caused a precipitous drop in applications.

“We’ve had an application process that I think over time was made too easy for students,” Fry said. He defended the end of what he called “robo-applications” by distancing himself from his predecessor, Constantine Papadakis.

Photo Courtesy: Drexel Office of Communications

Fry’s new appointees found that “a lot of those applications were frankly meaningless.” He hopes to see an increase in actual enrollment as a percentage of accepted students will make up the difference. “Our visits [by prospective students] are almost equal to last year, with half the applications. … I believe this is absolutely the right thing to do,” the president said.

From enrollment yield the topic shifted to student retention — the percentage of enrolled students who eventually graduate Drexel is around 70 percent. “That rate should be at least 80 percent,” Fry asserted. When asked how he would accomplish this, he pointed at recent projects, such as the creation of Drexel Central, an improvement in academic advising, better public safety and a large-scale project of construction and renovation on campus.

On the last item, he mentioned that the construction of new living space, like The Summit, will provide enough capacity to close older dorms down for renovation, and let slip that the University will soon announce a major renovation to the Korman Computing Center. Mention of the former library led to criticism of the W.W. Hagerty building. Fry said that constructing a new library, as Temple University is doing, would be ideal but cannot be paid for and the library’s structure makes phased closing and renovation impractical. Instead, he imagines incremental improvement and potentially the annexation of nearby buildings will provide improved facilities.

These plans are to be paid for with gains from successful University fundraising, which collected nearly $100 million, compared to around $30 million in earlier years, Fry reported. Much of this money will go toward endowment and be dedicated to increased financial aid, the third-largest University budget item, after faculty and staff, but a significant portion is earmarked for facilities improvement.

Questioned about Drexel University’s online education program, provided through for-profit subsidiary Drexel e-Learning Inc., Fry was defensive. “It is hardly a diploma mill,” he said, pointing to the fact that online classes are taught by regular Drexel faculty. However, he did announce that the subsidiary, founded in the 1990s, will convert to a non-profit status July 1 of this year. “Honestly, I thought the for-profit thing was a total bad idea.”

On Drexel’s ill-fated partnership with community colleges in the Delaware Valley area, which allowed community college students intending to transfer to Drexel to take classes on their home campus and obtain a Drexel degree at a reduced tuition rate, he said, “Unfortunately the enrollments were really low. … I think it was a very noble experiment.” The program’s termination was announced in December 2014, but Fry hopes that Drexel will still be accessible to community college transfers.

Continuing the topic of affordability, Fry was asked about co-op wages, for which an average value is advertised but which vary wildly in practice. He responded that transparency is important, but also mentioned that the University is trying to increase compensation for students in fields with few paid co-ops. In a step forward, a recent donation is to pay for co-ops at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Either way, Fry stood by the program’s value to students, and the University has stepped up advertising since he took over. “I thought we did a really lousy job of explaining what ‘co-op’ actually means,” he said of previous efforts.

Fry had an answer ready when asked about the demolition of the Intercultural Center, which drew protests in December 2014 when it appeared the student groups formerly occupying the building would not get a similar replacement space. “It’s a tiny site,” Fry said of the 19,000 square foot parcel, dismissing its use for a student-centered building. Additionally, the privately owned hotel that will be replacing the Intercultural Center is to pay the University a substantial ground rent. “It will cost us nothing to basically have a hotel that will serve all our constituencies,” he said. “We want [campus] to have a significant ability to entertain [guests].”

The official plan to replace the Intercultural Center is to start construction of a student union building in April 2016 on the site of the venerable Firestone tire store on Market Street. Drexel purchased the land in 2013 for a sum of $8,950,000, according to the City of Philadelphia’s Office of Property Assessment. However, Fry was under the impression that student groups had received equivalent space in the move — an assessment that left out the open space of the Intercultural Center basement, often used for student events. Dean Ruth suggested alternative of adapting the Van Rensselaer Hall ballroom. “I want to go over there and kind of look at this; I wasn’t aware of this at all,” Fry said.

Mentioning other long-term construction plans, he later talked about the Innovation Neighborhood, and remarkably, a project to sell condominiums to professors at reduced rates in a building that would also house a daycare, but be closed to students.

“I thought the conversation went really well and showed that President Fry really cares about the student input. … We really covered a lot of ground,” USGA’s Murray wrote in an email. Fry will next be open for questions at an event for student organizations Feb. 19.

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An Oct. 20, 2014 article in Business Insider named Drexel University’s cost of room and board the fourth-most expensive in the country. That is hardly a surprise to Drexel students, of course — the more interesting question is, what do we get in return?

Not much, if you ask me. I need not repeat the horrors of the Drexel Campus Dining meal plan here, which are evident to anyone who has been forced to buy one. In terms of cost, the major and deeper-running problem lies with Drexel’s university housing policy — the way the school acts as our landlord for at least a year, and likely longer.

First, the obvious: it’s expensive. Prohibitively so. For someone living suite-style with a two-person bedroom, or a University Crossings apartment, four quarters of housing sum up to $13,360 a year or $1138 a month. As a friend suggested to me, you could split a one-bedroom in Center City for significantly less than that — and this is no Center City.

What about cheaper options? Drexel offers few — there are only some triple-occupancy bedrooms available per suite building, and “traditional” living, certainly the most economically efficient, is only available to freshmen.

What’s more, the cheapest option, living in a triple-occupancy traditional room in Towers Hall, is only available to freshmen in those years the dorms are overbooked. So much for planning your spending ahead.

The cost aspect is not helped at all by recent University construction efforts. The Summit, a partnership between Drexel and American Campus Communities, will take its place as one of the most expensive places to live yet. What the University doesn’t realize is that students don’t need luxury housing — students need efficient, traditional housing that is affordable.

Now, we don’t seem to realize it either, because federal loans allow the problem to be pushed off into the distant future of five years from now. My fellow students, why do you do it?

Sure, the location of on-campus is convenient. But just think about all the nonsense that you have to deal with living in a residence hall — you need an ID card to get into your own home, the University reserves the right to enter your room unannounced for maintenance purposes, the resident assistant inspects your room every quarter and there is a host of perfectly legal items Drexel has banned from the residence halls.

On top of all that, the walls are paper-thin and you might share a suite with as many as six other people.

Worse yet is the guest policy. The University advised students that they can have no more than three guests at a time, that the guests must be accompanied by the resident at all times and a guest can spend no more than three consecutive nights in the room.

The front desk also takes care to confiscate an ID card from each guest for the duration of their stay. Here’s something you didn’t know: the Drexel guest policy is illegal, in open defiance of Pennsylvania law.

The Landlord and Tenant Act clearly states: “The tenant also shall have right to invite to his apartment or dwelling unit, for a reasonable period of time, such social guest, family or visitors as he wishes so long as his obligations as a tenant under [Article 5] are observed.”

We can only wonder why Drexel does things like this to its students. They’re certainly not necessary for public safety, that favorite excuse of bad policymakers everywhere. After all, the public safety is just as secure if students could “buzz in” their guests like in regular apartment buildings, since the University does not actually restrict who can be a guest.

And as for the amount of guests — a policy which has made student events, family dinners and other important experiences difficult — surely the fact that students remain responsible for their guests allows those with troublesome guests to be held accountable. The guest policy serves no one.

One thing you won’t hear me repeat is that frequent accusation that Drexel doesn’t care. I think University Housing does care, especially resident assistants, who put a lot of work into making dorm life better, which is why I’m applying to be one myself.

But if the University wants more students to live on-campus, as it has been trying to attain aggressively, it will need to do more than run a mustache-themed advertising drive and offer students a better deal than the competition. The chief reason for low demand is that the University is simply a bad landlord.

Kim Post is a Co-Chief Copy Editor at The Triangle. He can be contacted at Kim.post@thetriangle.org.

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Keg parties are a staple of college life — in the movies if not necessarily in reality — but that may change if one bill passes the Pennsylvania General Assembly: Senate Bill 122 would require beer keg purchasers to leave their name and address with the distributor, a record that would be associated with a serial number on the keg.

Sen. Stewart Greenleaf, of Bucks and Montgomery counties, wrote in a memorandum to his colleagues that the “legislation will help police track down and prosecute adults who let minors drink beer at keg parties.” He reintroduced the bill Jan. 14 after it did not receive a vote in the previous Assembly session. A pet project, Greenleaf has been trying to get it passed since 1992 .  The measure has parallels in 31 states, the senator claimed, citing the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. It also has the support of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

Greenleaf, a senator since 1978, is the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Vice Chair of the Intergovernmental Operations Committee and a member of the Appropriations, Consumer Protection and Professional Licensure, Education and Finance committees.

A similar law was passed in Michigan in November 2011. A year later, beer distributors reported a sharp decrease in their keg sales, with one seller reporting a 95 percent drop in sales per week. According to the Ann Arbor News, college kids changed from the tagged beer kegs to simple packs of beer, which would roughly cost the same amount as beer kegs. There was also a slight decrease in citations from the
year prior.

Is Powelton Avenue and Spring Garden Street’s reputation in danger? Just as a new mobile app, appropriately named “Kegg,” is slated to enliven Drexel University’s party scene, it seems beer suppliers for illicit parties may have to be on the lookout for Philadelphia’s finest. The app, available for iOS, hopes to create an event aggregator to which people can submit their events on a stream for interested students to see. The creators, also Drexel students, hope to expand to other campuses. Other platforms for Drexel parties includes the Facebook group Events & Parties, which students post on quite frequently.

Campus is hardly excited about the bill either way — neither Inter-fraternity Council President Matt Morimoto nor Vice President of Public Safety Domenic Ceccanecchio responded to emails sent Jan. 16.

Despite the lack of success so far, Greenleaf seemed confident in his proposal’s merits. He quoted the Maine Bureau of Liquor Enforcement in saying that tagging reduced keg parties by as much as 80 percent . But perhaps that claim itself ought to be tagged — by a fact-checker — since the Bureau of Liquor Enforcement has not existed since 2003. Greenleaf’s office could not be reached for comment.

Other major legislation Greenleaf has been noted to be a part of was his determination to ban smoking indoors since 1993.  He supported a law passed in 1997 that allowed parents of a minor dependent on drugs or alcohol to commit the child to a rehabilitation facility without the child’s consent. He also helped pass a law that allowed the sale of alcoholic beverages on Election Day in 2000 .

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Happy Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The Pennsylvania House of Representatives will be considering proclaiming it when the General Assembly reconvenes Oct. 6 — along with 10 other resolutions to designate October “National [Something] Month.”

Yes, from becoming aware of muscular dystrophy and seeing our chiropractor to meeting the blind and honoring disabled workers, October may turn out to be a busy time indeed.

All this, while we’re barely nearing the end of National Hispanic Heritage Month, which must at least be given creative credit for running Sept. 15 to Oct. 15. Surely it is strange that we try to recognize October — and every other month — as so many vastly different things. Why do we, societally, participate in this folly?

To be clear, it is perfectly understandable from the perspective of the organizations that push for this recognition, and the lawmakers who intend to make them official. It is sensible for a civic organization, say, encouraging fire prevention, to focus its efforts around a particular time of year. For a representative, passing a resolution to keep a constituent happy is a vote cheaply earned, since a resolution designating a month as special has essentially no legal meaning.

No, the truly strange thing is that so many people actually care what the flavors of the month are. Water cooler talk, blog posts, and even the PECO Building rarely fail to discuss them. When the designation is racially charged, as with Black History Month, it becomes almost a social faux pas not to pay lip service to the establishment — no matter what one’s actual feelings may be. (If racial history were a meaningful category, separate from the great thread of history that connects us all, it would surely be interesting every day of the year just as ordinary history is — but yours truly, as a history major, is somewhat biased.)

Perhaps it can be ascribed to that innate fondness for national holidays that seems inherent to us Americans, but the phenomenon is not entirely unheard of among other nations. Whatever the origin, it is a practice that can easily get out of hand. Let me present a cautionary tale.

In the Roman Catholic Church we celebrate the lives of saints, individuals who lived their lives with a superior degree of Catholicity and whom can be called upon to intercede on behalf of us mere sinners. Every saint gets their own feast day, and they are collectively celebrated on All Saints’ Day — Nov. 1.

As you can imagine, over the course of a 2000-year tradition or even just the rough millennium in which they have been formally canonized, the amount of saints worshipped across the globe has grown to be uncountable.

Now, we Catholics have always been at the forefront of calendar reform, accounting for the precise time the earth takes to orbit the sun decades before arresting Galileo for professing such a heretical and utterly ridiculous belief—but even with the strict vetting process for holy men that exists nowadays, the Gregorian calendar still cannot contain a unique feast day for each saint.

If St. Katharine Drexel must endure sharing a feast day with St. Cunigunde of Luxembourg (March 3) only for dire lack of days in the year and a need to continue a holy tradition, then why would we voluntarily cram a dozen different causes into every month and week of the year? If these causes are really important to us, we should celebrate them throughout the year — as, it should be noted, good Catholics do with saints.

Kim Post is the co-chief copy editor of The Triangle. He can be contacted at kim.post@thetriangle.org.

It was recently the anniversary of our nation’s Declaration of Independence, a date that has historically been an occasion for rousing speeches and patriotic pomp and circumstance. In 1852, former slave Frederick Douglass took the opportunity to bring up a pressing national issue, the wretched practice of slavery.

Following that tradition, Vice President Joe Biden and Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter railed against the continuing inequality of opportunity in education — a most fitting topic in the year of the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I too would like to follow that tradition to use the Independence Day holiday to achieve some public good, but on a more light-hearted matter: holidays themselves.

Think fast: when is George Washington’s birthday? If you said Feb. 22, you are right. If you said Feb. 11, you are more-or-less right, due to the transition from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar that happened in his lifetime. If you said, “The third Monday in February,” you are probably a U.S. congressman. Since the passing of the Uniform Monday Holiday Act in 1968, which moved several holidays to Mondays in the same month, the celebration of Washington’s Birthday (colloquially, President’s Day) has been calculated so perfectly that it will never fall on the actual birthday of the good general. This smacks of monarchical practices Washington would have despised, like the celebration of the Queen’s Official Birthday in the United Kingdom (on a Saturday in June).

The effect of this change may be hard to see for those born since, but it should have been obvious then: Monday holidays are not observed as fervently as they used to be, for three-day weekends encourage family outings and assorted social events. What is by now a time-honored tradition, the Memorial Day barbecue, is hardly a substitute for commemorating our dead. It is for this reason that Congress very wisely changed its mind about Veterans Day, moving it back to Nov. 11 — the end of World War I (the outbreak of which turns 100 this year).

Congress should move important holidays like Washington’s Birthday, Memorial Day and Labor Day back to proper calendar days. The Birthday of Martin Luther King Jr., established after the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, should be moved to Jan. 15. (The shifting celebration of Columbus Day, which I do not care for, I take no issue with.) The celebration of these days on a special date encourages their proper observation. That they always fall within the working week naturally places the focus on the day off, and away from the intended subject — beneficial projects like the Martin Luther King Day of Service notwithstanding.

That is not to say we should break up the opportunities for family outings or increase the burden on our laborers. If Congress wants to give people days off, it should do so through proper labor protections and not with phony holiday celebrations. Why not task every employer with giving their employees a minimum number of days off throughout the year, in addition to holidays?

Certainly, it is very characteristic of the United States to wholly ignore Labor Day, for our country has some of the worst labor laws in the developed world and many people are made to work on Labor Day — a day made, it seems, for retail sales. Monday holidays can never be a substitute for proper labor laws, but Congress could always create some as part of comprehensive reform — like some Canadian provinces’ “Family Day,” uniquely suited for three-day weekends.

Write a letter to your congressman! If you want a proper amount of days off, insist on labor reform. And when you thank a veteran this Nov. 11 and pay mind to the armistice that ended the greatest war the world had ever known, be mindful that Congress would have had you celebrate just another Monday.

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Hopefully, it will not have escaped you that the Pennsylvania primary elections were May 20. It did not receive much attention at Drexel except in the week leading up to it, perhaps because Rep. Chaka Fattah was unopposed, but nevertheless it was an important election: on the ballot were three proposals to amend the City of Philadelphia’s Home Rule Charter as well as the Democratic nominations for governor and lieutenant governor.

Though I took a keen interest in the election, I did not walk out of the Armory with the coveted red-and-blue sticker for one simple reason: I do not have the right to vote. Like many Americans — whether illegally present, the lucky few with a green card, or on a temporary visa as I am — I was born abroad and have yet been unable, not for lack of trying, to secure the blessings of liberty. As those who know me personally will attest, this does not diminish my patriotic spirit in the slightest. It is in this spirit that I did participate in the election, by volunteering for State Sen. Daylin Leach’s congressional campaign in the adjacent 13th District.

Since February, I donated 17 hours a week to Daylin — a half day during the week and all of the weekend. I was a foot soldier, fighting the good fight armed with only some pamphlets, a clipboard, and a telephone. Over the months I must have contacted thousands of voters — some fervent supporters, others staunch opponents, but most undecided voters interested in hearing my story. In February I slipped on ice and bled, in May I braved the midday sun and earned a sunburn. Though I did not cast a ballot on election day, I made sure my voice would be counted.

But I do not seek your praise. Praise all the activists — uncredited and unpaid — that truly drive our democracy, of whom I was but one. Those of you who followed the race will know that State Rep. Brendan Boyle came out on top with a healthy margin. How did he do it? He had a veritable army of volunteers working the streets of Northeast Philadelphia. I carry no resentment toward the man, but as with all campaigns, it was his volunteers that carried him to victory.

Keep in mind Nov. 4, the day of the general election. If there is any candidate or issue that you care deeply about, find an opportunity to donate your time before then. It cannot be understated how much of an impact you can and shall have on your community if you are willing to pay the price in sweat. Do not despair if you are barred from voting or donating money. Instead, be a role model for your peers. If you know anyone who feels excluded from the political process, lead by example and let them know they have unlimited potential to bring about change. Our republic is not led by people with stickers that read “I Voted,” but by those whose stickers proclaim the all-important message: “VOTE!”

Kim Post is a copy editor at The Triangle. He can be contacted at kim.post@thetriangle.org.

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The April 22 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action revived the longstanding debate on the controversial topics of race and affirmative action. In particular, it brought about an article in the May 2 edition of The Triangle that argued in favor of affirmative action, going against the majority ruling. I believe Brie Powell erred in her analysis of the court’s decision.

She gave the impression that the Supreme Court ruled a constitutional ban on race-based admissions discrimination to be legal on the basis that it is not necessary. She wrote, “We can’t wish away racial inequality just because we’re sick of the topic,” a position she also attributes to Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

The idea of a “postracial society” that Powell criticized seems like a straw man argument, because in fact, the court under Chief Justice John G. Roberts is well aware of the racial problems in the U.S. and the implications of affirmative action.

As Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority, the court’s earlier decision in Grutter v. Bollinger “acknowledged the significance of a dialogue regarding this contested and complex policy question among and within States.” Indeed, earlier Supreme Court decisions have acknowledged the potential value of affirmative action policies. Diversity in universities has been established as a legitimate goal of government policy because it benefits all students, and under this reasoning, racial affirmative action policies that work toward this goal in a proper manner have been upheld.

So why did the majority of justices rule the way they did? It is not because the character of race in America has changed since they last addressed the matter of affirmative action. In fact, the merits of affirmative action are not truly relevant to the case.
Kennedy wrote, “The question here concerns not the permissibility of race-conscious admissions policies under the Constitution but whether, and in what manner, voters in the States may choose to prohibit the consideration of racial preferences in governmental decisions, in particular with respect to school admissions.”

Too often, discussions on Supreme Court decisions are tainted by politics, forgetting that the court’s task is to review legislation and not to prescribe it. This is the mistake Powell made in her article.

Sotomayor, in her dissent, instead built upon the precedent established in the 1982 case Washington v. Seattle School District. In that case, the court held that it violates the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause for a state to change its political process in such a way that it is harder for a racial minority than for others to seek political change.

Because Michigan’s constitutional amendment makes it harder for people in favor of affirmative action to effect change, Sotomayor argued, it uniquely harms the interests of minorities and is therefore unconstitutional. This was the same reasoning that the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals applied when it ruled against Michigan.

That seems like a reasonable case on the face of it. However, Kennedy made a powerful argument for doing away with this earlier precedent. Not only was the language used in the Seattle decision too broad, but it also “does not provide a proper guide for decisions and should not be deemed authoritative or controlling. The rule that the Court of Appeals elaborated and respondents seek to establish here would contradict central equal protection principles.”

Kennedy’s primary point is that applying the Seattle precedent requires making assumptions about minorities’ political views, which runs the risk of stereotyping based on race, and he questions the government’s ability to sort people reasonably into racial categories in the first place: “Were courts to embark upon this venture, not only would it be undertaken with no clear legal standards or accepted sources to guide judicial decision, but also it would result in, or at least impose a high risk of, inquiries and categories dependent upon demeaning stereotypes, classifications of questionable constitutionality on their own terms.”

In short, to equate a prohibition of race-based affirmative action with suppression of minority political influence, as Sotomayor did, requires stereotyping and other improper judicial actions. To me, this seems a logical conclusion because we do not call it discrimination when constitutional amendments ban any other practice — does the First Amendment discriminate against those in favor of censorship? Does the 13th Amendment discriminate against those in favor of slavery? Indeed, does the 14th Amendment discriminate against racists?

With the Seattle precedent removed, the 14th Amendment must be read more directly, namely that it simply prohibits government discrimination based on race. I must agree with six of our nation’s finest jurists, then, that it is unthinkable that Michigan’s own prohibition on racial discrimination could be illegal.

Kim Post is a copy editor at The Triangle. He can be contacted at op-ed@thetriangle.org.

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It is no secret that the Handschumacher Dining Center, Sodexo and the entire Drexel Campus Dining establishment are unpopular with students. Forgetting previous Triangle articles and the occasionally reported bout of food poisoning, it is clear to see from the increasingly defensive posture advertisements in the Hans have taken — “We ARE sustainably focused,” reads a passive-aggressive sign.
But this article is not about the problems with on-campus food vendors. Rather, it is about the root of why these problems persist — the fact that all freshman students chafe under the tyranny of the mandatory Meal Plan. The mandate forces students to add at least $5,685 to the cost of attendance, regardless of their actual food needs or desires. The requirement, along with the set-up of the Meal Plan, causes all sorts of perverse incentives in the campus economy.

Primarily, students are discouraged from making smart food choices. It is possible to eat at a much cheaper rate than $1,895 per term by buying groceries and preparing meals on your own, and this will tend to be healthier as well. It is what many upperclassmen do, but it makes no sense for freshmen, for whom any spending on groceries comes in addition to the fixed Meal Plan charge.

The distinction between “meals” and “Dining Dollars” is also problematic. Because of meals, which are provided in a system independent from Dining Dollars (which, with apologies to the Parker Brothers, I shall henceforth call “Monopoly Money”), the Hans is not economically held accountable. Because of this students cannot take business away from the Dining Center in response to poor service and give to Subway or Currito, because the currencies are not convertible to each other and meals are in larger supply even under the Blue Plan. This problem could be easily solved by abolishing “meals” as a unit, adding the appropriate amount of Monopoly Money, and charging students Monopoly Money for entry to the Hans at the same rate as people without a Meal Plan are charged in Real Money.

As you might be able to tell by the “Monopoly Money” sobriquet, Dining Dollars themselves require a redesign as well. With Monopoly Money, Drexel has invented a curious machine that converts legal tender to a currency which can be spent at only a handful of locations, is not available during term breaks, and which is confiscated at the end of the spring term. Surely no one would voluntarily put their money in such a plan.

Now, if these flaws appear as the deliberate designs of a malevolent institution that wishes to limit college attendance to students with healthy trust funds, I apologize. Though discussing them in frank terms may make them seem that way, I recognize that Drexel had some legitimate goals when instituting current policy, however misguided its eventual decision may have been.

For example, the transition between high school and college is difficult for many students, and a prepaid meal plan that guarantees availability of food makes this easier to manage for freshmen. Additionally, it is good for new students to explore all the options available to them on campus, so that they can make more informed choices as sophomores and beyond.

However, there are better ways to attain these goals. We might consider redesigning Monopoly Money so that it becomes a budgeting tool: simply money that is set aside for food. Students pay in Real Money and get equal credit in Monopoly Money, which can be spent at approved food vendors (including the Hans). At the end of the spring term, the remaining balance is converted to Dragon Dollars, which can actually be spent in a variety of useful ways and which can be converted to cash upon leaving the University. To achieve the previously stated goals, freshmen could be required to deposit at least a certain amount of money per term into the system.

Such a system would provide a means of guiding students’ food purchases while making college more affordable and giving each vendor on campus economic incentives to improve its service. Additionally, it is simpler than the current system and rewards smart spending with a refund, rather than highway robbery. Change is long overdue.

Kim Post is a copy editor at The Triangle. He can be contacted at Kim.post@thetriangle.org.

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Russian troops have established control over most of the Crimean peninsula, a sizable portion of eastern Ukraine that juts out into the Black Sea, since Feb. 27. They came primarily from Russia’s naval bases in Crimea, quickly seizing control. They were assisted by pro-Russia militiamen, who may have been directed from Moscow or who may be members of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea’s Russian ethnic majority.

The Russian military action is a response to political events in Ukraine. After months of unrest and protests over an attempt to move the country away from European Union membership and closer to trade compacts with neighboring Russia, President Viktor Yanukovych fled the capital city of Kiev. The rise of a pro-European administration aggravated ethnic Russian residents, who tend to live in eastern Ukraine (closer to Russia) and support closer ties to Russia. This provided a rationale for Russian intervention; President Vladimir Putin’s administration cited concern for the safety of Russian citizens due to Ukraine’s instability.

This intervention is highly suspect, because there is little evidence Russian citizens in Crimea were in danger. The traditional American response to such actions is clear: we historically voice strong opposition, a policy that originated with the Stimson Doctrine. In the ‘30s, then-Secretary of State Henry Stimson declared that the United States would not recognize Imperial Japan’s occupation of the Chinese region of Manchuria nor any other country’s acquisition of territory through force. This principle would be incorporated in the United Nations Charter, and has occasionally been used to justify a forceful response, as in the Gulf War liberation of occupied Kuwait.

Foreign policy, though, tends not to be guided by tradition but by the interests of the United States and its allies. Happily, that frequently aligns with what is morally right, as it tends to be anti-American states that oppress their people and commit international crimes. (Though, as we saw during the Cold War, this is not necessarily the case.) To formulate a wise American response, let us look beyond the outrage of the violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and see what’s in it for us.

On foreign policy, the modern rule of thumb is that what is bad for Russia is good for the United States. Russia is a barely democratic state, labeled “not free” by watchdog organization Freedom House. There are significant restrictions on freedom of the press and the right to peaceful political protest. That is the model it aims to export to countries it draws into its sphere of influence. American foreign expeditions that have sought to “spread democracy,” however ill-advised some of them may have been, at least aimed to spread a successful and beneficial form of government.

Letting Russia take political control of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, directly or indirectly, will subject Crimeans to an authoritarian government — a large price to pay for self-determination by ethnic Russians there. The same goes for Ukraine as a whole, whose fragile democracy might crumble under economic pressure from Moscow if it sought closer ties to Russia. Already, Russia has used its control of natural gas lines to threaten Ukrainians with high energy costs and, inevitably, death from lack of heating. If Russia had its way, trade with the United States would be restricted, not to mention the exchange of people and ideas.

Consider the opposite scenario. A swing to the West offers Ukraine an opportunity to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union. That means protection from Russia via military aid, access to a large common market, and safeguards for democracy and the rights of minorities. Ethnic Russians who feel threatened should particularly take note of that last requirement of EU membership. The United States would benefit if Ukraine followed the same trade policy as the rest of the EU, which is generally amicable, and would be able to count on Ukraine as an ally in future defensive wars (e.g. if NATO member Turkey were to come under serious threat from Syria).

It is tempting for contrarian pundits to characterize this as a conflict due to Western imperialism, rather than Russian. Under that perspective, one could say the expansion of the EU and NATO eastward into Russia’s backyard rightfully upsets them, and this is a typical standoff between great powers wishing to expand their sphere of influence at the expense of lesser powers.

This idea is not entirely without merit, but it lacks context. This can be seen as a standoff between East and West, but remember what those factions represent: on the Eastern side, we have Russia casting a long authoritarian shadow over Eastern Europe. On the Western side, there is the promise of security, democracy and economic growth for Ukraine. Even if this conflict is framed in terms of great power politics, the West is on the side of righteousness.

To be sure, the people of Crimea do have a right to self-determination. But any referendum on the future of the peninsula must be free and fair. Unfree Russia cannot provide this, especially not as an occupying power. The European Union or United Nations would be a better supervisor for such a referendum, which ought to take place in an unoccupied (i.e. unpressured) Crimea. Only then can the result have any sense of legitimacy.

From an American perspective, it seems clear that Ukraine needs to be supported against Russia’s invasion of Crimea, and furthermore that it must be supported in joining Western institutions like NATO and the EU. It offers us an ally and a trade partner and a blow against an authoritarian rival that seems to have nostalgia for Soviet-era imperialism.

How can the liberation of Crimea be accomplished? Economic leverage is the easiest step; the U.S. must act unilaterally to restrict trade with Russia as soon as possible and coordinate with other countries to bring about a comprehensive embargo. Militarily, leverage must be applied with more caution, but at the very least a line in the sand can be drawn: for the sake of European security, NATO ought to guarantee that Ukraine will be defended if any Russian troops advance beyond Crimea.

War in Ukraine is obviously undesirable, so it will be Russia’s choice to retreat or not. What the West can do is contain further Russian aggression and stack up incentives for Russia to make the right choice: that is, to withdraw all Russian forces back to their bases and to denounce the militias flouting law and order. Withdrawal from Crimea would be the condition for starting diplomacy, the aim of which should be to establish a framework in which Ukraine can choose its path free of Russian pressure and which outlines a peaceful and democratic solution to the Crimean Question.

A lack of action on the United States’ part is not an option. It would mean legitimizing the use of force for territorial expansion and halting the spread of democracy and free trade in Eastern Europe. That is neither morally acceptable nor in the national interest.

Kim Post is a copy editor at The Triangle. He can be contacted at kim.post@thetriangle.org.

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Nearly 250,000 Americans contacted their congresspeople Feb. 11 about ending the mass surveillance programs run by the National Security Agency, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The EFF, a major organizer of “The Day We Fight Back,” as the event was dubbed, was supported by such companies as Google and Mozilla. The day is a response to the secret privacy-invasive surveillance projects started by the U.S. government in the wake of 9/11, against which evidence has been building up for years and which have received such dramatic attention since Edward Snowden’s leak of classified details on them in 2013. Clearly, the cat is out of the bag.

Yet amid this conflagration of public disapproval, some on Capitol Hill (or in Fort Meade, Md.) are trying to salvage the spying operations. Congress has successfully done so before: in Hepting v. AT&T, the EFF helped an AT&T customer sue the telecommunications conglomerate for collaborating with the NSA to intercept its customers’ Internet traffic. The 2006 case dragged on, and in 2008, Congress amended the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to give companies like AT&T retroactive immunity from being sued for their collaboration. The case was dismissed in 2009.

Today, congresspeople like Sen. Dianne Feinstein (a California Democrat) are trying to pull a similar move. Her FISA Improvements Act (S. 1631) purports to reform the surveillance system, yet expressly authorizes bulk communication record collection programs. True, the government still needs a warrant to listen in on your phone calls, but now and under the FISA Improvements Act it can still know precisely who you call, for how long, when and where. It does so through a secret approval after a secret application to the FISA Court, which can only be challenged in secret. Not only that, the data is collected for future reference without any specific approval. Hardly the Fourth Amendment’s requirement of a search warrant “upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Now, do not think that this is a uniquely American problem. The category our country so shamefully finds itself in naturally includes the traditionally authoritarian states of China and Russia. But Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United Kingdom (together with the United States, the “Five Eyes”) are also members of the mass surveillance club. One suspects that many more countries — Iran, Belarus, Ukraine — would like to conduct mass surveillance, if only they had the means.

Nor is it a uniquely 21st-century problem. In the 1970s, it increasingly came to light that the executive branch was overstepping its constitutional boundaries. In particular, the Central Intelligence Agency had been illicitly opening citizens’ mail. Congress formed the Church Committee, led by Sen. Frank Church, to rein in presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. The Church Committee published many damning reports, which led to an increase in oversight legislation. In 1975, Church himself said, “If this government ever became a tyrant, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny. … Such is the capability of this technology.”

Unfortunately, today’s Fourth Amendment violations are not a matter of Congress opposing the president. Indeed, the executive overreach is supported by a large bipartisan effort in the legislature. There are some promising efforts, such as the USA Freedom Act, sponsored by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) in their respective houses. But ultimately, we must look to the third branch of government, our judiciary, to rule on this matter.

Legislative efforts are not a strong enough indictment of the abusive practices of the past decade and a half. What is changed by one Congress can be undone by the next. If we are to learn our lesson from this debacle, a significant portion of the warrantless surveillance must be skewered in our nation’s highest court and ruled unconstitutional.

Today, lawyers and judges still cite Katz v. United States, a 1967 ruling involving telephone booth monitoring that greatly expanded Fourth Amendment protections. The best-case scenario is that, 47 years from now, judges still base privacy protection law off the great rulings of those wise men and women in the 2010s.

Progress is already being made. In the ongoing case Jewel v. NSA, the District Court of the Northern District of California has prevented the government from having the case dismissed based on the much-maligned “state secrets” privilege. In Klayman v. Obama, D.C. District Judge Richard Leon has indicated he will likely rule the NSA’s phone record collection unconstitutional. Granted, another district judge came to the opposite conclusion in a separate case, but either way the issue is working its way up to the Supreme Court for a final judgment.

As more and more information is revealed about the extraordinarily broad collection of information by the U.S. government, at home and abroad, and by other governments around the world, the bleaker the situation seems to look. But there is a strong and growing opposition movement, as shown by the Feb. 11 turnout. With increased pressure on Congress, we will hopefully see beneficial reforms pass, and even the Supreme Court may soon feel ready to close this dark chapter in the history of American civil rights. We have a long way to go, but the tide is turning.

Kim Post is a copy editor at The Triangle. He can be contacted at kim.post@thetriangle.org.

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