From the vice presidential debates to Sex Week, and everything in between, Student Life has allowed me to venture to events and meet people that have come to shape my time at Wash. U. I interviewed a dozen of my peers as they pitched tents and camped-out downtown for five days to rally the community against corporate power. I scribbled down notes while a student who I had only previously seen on my weekend nights out poignantly spoke at a city council meeting. And students in a newly established group aimed at exposing Wash. U. to the St. Louis art community encouraged me to explore a city with them that I knew embarrassingly little about. I became invigorated by causes that I never knew existed and imbued with a sense of admiration that there were people my age to effectively champion these now convincingly important causes.

I chose to be a college journalist, while others have dedicated their college years to social causes, art, innovative research in a lab or a creative fusion of all the above. I can confidently say that my interactions with professors, students and campus employees have made me a more well-rounded journalist than the actual process of writing any article has. There is such a diverse number of passionate and driven people on campus that collectively thread the fabric of the Wash. U. experience. But at times, the same fuel that drives our passions prevents us from truly recognizing the unique interests and accomplishments of those around us.

It is easy to become inundated by your own commitments, but make sure to take the time to listen to your peers. Listen to them and learn from them. Allow their perspectives to challenge and complicate your own as you work to pursue your interests. We will likely not have another opportunity to be surrounded by 6,000 other intelligent, interesting and ambitious people all in one confined place. So take advantage of it. As I start working in a newsroom full time next year, I look forward to working with people who share my excitement for journalism. But I am undoubtedly going to miss sitting next to that biology major in my literature class who just so happens to be in a band and works at a medical clinic.

This is not to say that it is not important to find your niche on campus. Student Life has given me a place to fully be myself, provided me with lasting friendships and prepared me for what I hope is a career of reporting. But it is important that our missions both on and off-campus don’t become insular and singular. Whether you are graduating next month or in the next few years, remember to enjoy what you do and allow the collective experiences of those around you to challenge and mature your approaches and outlooks.

Over the last four years, I have become invested in the stories of my peers, become friends with my sources and, within ethical limits, broken the cardinal rules of journalistic objectivity. To everyone who has helped me do this—my friends, my peers who have shared their stories with me and everyone else—thank you for a truly incredible and meaningful four years.

Genevieve Hay | Student Life

Students march on the Danforth Campus in solidarity with the women participating in Take Back the Night on Tuesday.

Rachel was not brutally attacked, gagged or assaulted by a stranger. She did not go out alone, walk home late at night, or get lost in an unfamiliar part of town. But Rachel is a rape survivor.

The staggering yet silent reality is that Rachel is just one of an estimated 750 undergraduate female students currently at Washington University that have been the victims of rape or attempted rape.

These are not the violent rapes that are plastered on newspaper headlines, but the unspoken acquaintance rapes that pervade this campus. These rapes have gone largely unnoticed with the rapists rarely being confronted or facing consequence for their crimes.

According to Kim Webb, assistant director for community health and sexual assault services, nearly all sexual assaults on campus are assaults that occur between students, with the victim typically knowing the perpetrator.

A national survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice concluded that one in four college-aged women encounter an experience that meets the legal definition of rape or attempted rape during their college years. A survey conducted at the University in 2004 confirms that the occurrence of rape at Washington University is consistent with the national rate.

The issue of sexual assault on campus catapulted to the forefront of the Washington University community nearly four years ago in the aftermath of the violent rape of a female student in Myers House on the South 40.

The case—which came to be known as “the Myers incident”—is the only case of stranger rape on campus grounds in recent memory. It occurred when a man tailgated into Myers House, forced his way into the room of a female student and raped her.

In April 2010, a female student was raped and robbed in the DeMun neighborhood as she walked home from campus in the early hours of the morning.

Despite the high-profile nature of these two rapes, these cases stand apart from almost every other sexual assault on campus in terms of their brutality, publicity and the involvement of non-student perpetrators.

“Before it happened to me, I thought it was something that happened to other people,” said Rachel, a senior. “It’s happening here. Not with some lacrosse team at some other school, but here.”

One student’s story

During the fall semester of her sophomore year, Rachel went out with some friends to Morgan Street Brewery, a bar in downtown St. Louis that is popular among Washington University students on Thursday nights.

She doesn’t remember consuming enough alcohol to blackout, but she has few memories of the night and and doesn’t know how she became seperated from her friends.

The next day, she woke up naked in a man’s bed—a man whose advances she had rejected the weekend prior.

She has a hazy recollection of being on her back in his bed and feeling pain in her vaginal region.

The male student—who was a senior at the University at the time—acted as if everything was normal. He was polite and drove her back to her dorm on the South 40.

Two days later, Rachel was diagnosed with a urinary tract infection (UTI), which erased any of her doubts of whether she had had sex.

“I blamed myself for getting too drunk,” Rachel said. “I told myself that my UTI was my punishment.”

Coming to terms with the rape

Like most rape survivors, Rachel didn’t think to classify her assault until a month later when she told her best friend from home what had happened. Her friend responded by saying that her encounter was an instance of rape.

“I said ‘no, I had drunk sex,’” Rachel said.

Rachel subsequently researched date rape and discovered that her story was more than just a case of regretful, drunk sex.

Still, Rachel did not label her experience as rape and struggled to reconcile the violent images she typically associated with rape with her own assault.

“I didn’t feel like I had a right to be upset,” she said. “I didn’t remember it—why should I be mad at something I don’t remember?”

According to Webb, this reaction is common. She says that rape on this campus is so underreported because students often don’t label their assaults as rape.

“People don’t label it for what it is. People oftentimes don’t label acquaintance rape as rape,” Webb said. “Their vision rape is somebody jumping out of the bushes—it’s always violent, and it’s always a stranger. But that’s not what we see on this campus.”

Rachel said the nonviolent nature of her assault coupled with the fact that her rapist was a Washington University student further complicated her ability to grapple with her assault.

“He was one of us. How could he be this bad person?” Rachel said. “If he was a big scary rapist, then I’d be the victim of a big scary rape.”

She tried to repress her tangled emotions about the rape she couldn’t remember, but seemingly innocuous signs triggered thoughts of the night and consistently left her in tears.

There were days when she struggled to go to class and wished she could tell her professors what happened so that they would understand why she wasn’t fully invested in school.

The stress of school, personal issues and the assault eventually took their toll, and Rachel was forced to confront the rape.

A year after the rape, she confided about her experience to her roommate, her best friend from home and her boyfriend at the time.

But still, Rachel didn’t fully understand her emotions, and while she was relieved that they knew of her assault, she tried to hide her pain and was frustrated when they didn’t recognize the extent of what she was going through.

“I was finally in a bad enough place where I couldn’t deal with it emotionally anymore,” she said. “I was hiding it, but angry that people didn’t see how hurt I was.”

Her roommate Katie said she initially did not know how to help her. She eventually found that the most effective way to help was to listen, to always watch out for her and to make sure she felt safe when she went out.

“She didn’t know it was okay to be upset,” Katie said. “All I can do is be there. There are times that she has to cry for seemingly no reason, and I am there.”

When Rachel came to Katie about possibly going to therapy at Student Health Services, Katie said she actively encouraged her to do so.

Therapy helped Rachel to realize that her emotions were justified, and that the fact that she wasn’t violently raped by a stranger didn’t mean that she wasn’t raped.

“My reaction wasn’t as extreme as some reactions you read about, but it didn’t mean I wasn’t going through the same emotions,” she said.

Reporting rape on campus

Like most rape victims on Washington University’s campus, Rachel opted not to report her rape to the police or the campus’ judicial system.

She said that by the time she contemplated reporting her rape, it was a year after the fact, and her assailant had already graduated.

Had she woken up naked in a stranger’s bed that morning, she said her immediate reaction would have been to call the police.

Although national and Washington University-wide surveys indicate that one in four undergraduate female students will experience rape or attempted rape during their college years, only a minute fraction of these rapes are actually reported to the authorities.

According to the latest statistics compiled by the U.S. Department of Education, of all the rapes thought to occur on Washington University’s campus in housing facilities in 2009, only five were reported to campus authorities.

The five incidents of reported forcible rape in 2009 represent a decrease from the six reported offenses in 2008.

This small number of reported rapes suggest that a larger problem exists within the campus culture, compounded by a lack of open discussion about assaults between students.

Both Webb and Washington University Chief of Police Don Strom said that many factors contribute to a person’s decision not to report a rape. These can include victims blaming themselves, a fear of not being taken seriously by authorities, and a lack of awareness of what constitutes as rape.

“[The numbers] misrepresent the problems and unfortunately that results in an ambivalence about the issue and the seriousness of it,” Strom said. “Sometimes people have this sense that we don’t really have a problem because the numbers are so small or even nonexistent.”

Strom added that sexual assaults reported on campus are rarely reported to law enforcement but rather to administrators or other programs on campus.

The often-ambiguous nature of acquaintance rape makes the cases difficult to process in court, according to senior Laura Jensen, president of the student group S.A.R.A.H. (Sexual Assault and Rape Anonymous Hotline). Jensen said S.A.R.A.H. has never heard of an acquaintance rape case in St. Louis County that has gone through the courts.

Rape is not only limited to females. According to Webb, one in six males experience some form of sexual assault by the time they are 16. Many of these males come to terms with, and address these assaults, in college.

As discussion and education on sexual assault increases, Webb said that she hopes there will be an increase in the number of reported assaults as students learn what constitutes rape and feel more comfortable reporting their experiences.

“We need to work hard not to perpetuate the image of violent rape because that’s not what our students are experiencing,” Webb said. “I really think this campus is ready to address this issue.”

Defining rape

The University Student Judicial Code defines unacceptable sexual behavior as “sexual contact with any member of the University community or visitor to the University without that person’s consent, including but not limited to rape and other forms of sexual assault.”

Both the University judicial code and Missouri law clearly stipulate that a person under the influence of drugs or alcohol cannot give consent. Given the nature of alcohol on college campuses, this provision complicates many on-campus sexual encounters.

“My steadfast rule is that if you are drinking or having any drugs, you should not take or give consent because it is a hard line to define,” Webb said. “If alcohol is involved, typically consent is not, so it is rape.

While the relationship between alcohol and sex is not likely to fade away from college campuses in the near future, Jensen said the campus needs to focus on discussing what consent actually entails.

“I think we have got to be willing to talk about healthy sexual relationships on campus, and we have to be willing to talk about asking for consent and what consent means,” Jensen said.

In an effort to reduce sexual assault on campus, University administrators and students are currently finalizing the plans for the Green Dot Initiative—a strategy already implemented on many college campuses that is designed to promote social change by recognizing all members of the community as bystanders to violence and sexual assault. The program will train these bystanders how they can intervene during a potentially dangerous situation.

After years of controversy surrounding the hiring of a sexual assault prevention coordinator, this year marks the first academic year that Webb’s post as the sexual assault prevention coordinator has been filled.

Strom said that Webb’s position coupled with the Green Dot Initiative is a major step in confronting the misconceptions and myths surrounding sexual assault on campus.

“I think we are on the right track with having [Webb],” Strom said. “The Green Dot program reinforces what we are trying to do. Our community has to understand that it is a shared responsibility.”

Lessons for the future

Rachel and Katie’s experiences with rape changed the way they view sexual assault and how they make decisions when drinking and going out—they keep track of their friends in an effort to ensure that no one leaves alone.

“I never thought I would be so close to rape in this sense,” Katie said. “It’s shocking to realize that it’s not just happening in your community, but to someone that is close to you.”

Although Rachel is still coping with the rape, she is hoping to spread awareness of the prevalence and often nuanced nature of sexual assault.

“People don’t associate rape with a successful Wash. U. student. I feel like everyone is aware [of rape], but they don’t think it can happen,” Rachel said. “Getting through this and Wash. U. is something that I’m proud of.”

Matt Mitgang | Student Life

Students pack Wednesday night's Student Union Senate meeting to speak out against Bristol Palin's selection as the keynote speaker for Sexual Responsibility Week. Following student dissent, Palin and SU mutually decided that Palin would not speak on campus.

The proposed speaker that had Washington University students in an uproar for nearly two days is no longer scheduled to appear on campus.

Bristol Palin, 20, was expected to be the keynote speaker at this year’s Sexual Responsibility Week. But her $20,000 price tag led students to contest Student Union Treasury’s funding decision, arguing that she is unqualified to speak about the subject of abstinence on a college campus.

Palin, the daughter of 2008 Republican Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin, had a child when she was 18 and is now an ambassador to The Candie’s Foundation—a foundation that encourages abstinence as a way to prevent pregnancy among teenage girls.

Kathryn Plax, a pediatrician and the director of the Adolescent Center at the medical school is slated to take Palin’s place in the panel discussion on sexual abstinence. Hosted by the Student Health Advisory Committee, the panel discussion will still be in Graham Chapel on Feb. 7.

The four-person panel also includes representatives from the Catholic Student Center, Planned Parenthood and Student Health Services.

Scott Elman, president of SHAC, said that both SHAC and Palin agreed that the controversy surrounding her appearance would overshadow the event’s intended message of sexual responsibility. Palin had never signed a contract committing to her appearance.

“The decision was 100 percent mutual,” Elman said. “SHAC stands by our decision to extend an invitation to Bristol, but we understand that a lot of our original intentions for discussing abstinence on campus, as well as sexual responsibility, were going to be lost.”

Elman originally said that SHAC invited Palin because they thought a big name would spark discussion on campus. The group also wanted to address abstinence, a position that has scarcely been addressed in past Sex Weeks.

On Tuesday evening, Treasury voted to approve SHAC’s $20,000 appeal to bring in Palin and the three other members of the panel.

According to SU VP of Finance Eliot Walker, SHAC will now have to return the $20,000 and resubmit an appeal to fund the new panel. If the group’s new appeal is less than $1000, as Walker said is expected, SHAC can take its request straight to Walker for approval, as opposed to going through another round of a Treasury vote.

Junior Ryan McCombe said that the announcement that Palin would not be coming to campus was a victory for the student body. McCombe was one of many students who protested Treasury’s funding of Palin’s appearance at Wednesday’s Senate meeting.

“I am glad that in the aftermath of [Wednesday] night’s Senate meeting, SHAC was able to take a moment to listen to what all the students had to say, and to think about it critically,” McCombe said.

At the Senate meeting, two students held signs that read, “Can I get paid for an accident too?” The College Democrats and Republicans created a bipartisan petition in the hopes of securing enough signatures to get a referendum on Treasury’s initial approval.

“We are happy that SHAC, and Bristol Palin herself, responded to the student body’s concerns,” said sophomore Sherveen Mashayekhi, president of the College Democrats. “It’s a sad state of politics at Wash. U. when Bristol Palin is what required us to get politically active.”

The overwhelming disaproval of Palin as a speaker caused students to question the efficacy of Student Union and whether the student government actually represents students’ interests.

SU President Morgan DeBaun issued a statement in response to the criticism and said that SU is examining its procedures to allow for increased student input in SU decisions.

“We are receptive to student concerns and feedback and look forward to working closely with their constituency for the rest of the term,” DeBaun wrote in the release.

While Elman said he thinks that the main message of Palin and Sex Week got lost amid the protests, he hopes that students still show up in high numbers to the panel.

Matt Mitgang | Student Life

A Gateway Battalion cadet exits the North Campus garage to board a bus to Fort Leonard Wood for the fall field training exercise. With the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, LGBT cadets will now be allowed to serve openly.

Following the repeal, Harvard University and Yale University both announced that they are interested in reinstating ROTC programs on their campuses.

Columbia University appointed a student-faculty taskforce to take the first steps in deciding whether to permit ROTC back on campus, and Stanford University is also discussing the possible return of ROTC.

ROTC is a college-based officer commissioning program that was banned four decades ago at these universities amid protest of the Vietnam War.

Although Washington University has had an ROTC program for more than 90 years, the presence of military recruiters on campus has come under fire because the military’s treatment of gays and lesbians does not align with the University’s non-discrimination policies.

But because of the Solomon Act—a 1995 law that permits Congress to cut federal funding from any university that prohibits recruiters on campus—the University continues to allow recruitment on school grounds.

The Solomon Act was passed in response to many schools’ refusals to allow military recruiters on campus after the 1993 enactment of “don’t ask, don’t tell” under the Clinton Administration.

The School of Law prohibited recruiters until 2000, until an amendment to the Solomon Act was passed stating that the government would deny funding to an entire university even if just one school within that university refused to allow recruiters.

The law school could afford such a stance because it received nominal funding from the federal government compared to other schools.

The reintroduction of military recruiters at the law school was met with student protest.

David Dresner, who graduated from the University in 2010, spearheaded efforts last year to get the Olin Business School to send out letters to students notifying them of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy and stating that the University does not condone such discrimination.

The law school already had a similar practice in place to inform students about military recruiters on campus.

Dresner said he was overwhelmed when he heard that “don’t ask, don’t tell” was repealed.

“It was a really special moment,” Dresner said. “My straight friends and gay friends were excited, overjoyed; we felt that this was the beginning to quickly reform laws.”

Mark Brostoff, director of the business school’s Weston Career Center, said that the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” could lead to more opportunities for the military to recruit on campus.

Brostoff served in the U.S. Navy for 20 years and is now an openly gay man who speaks on college campuses about LGBT issues in the workplace.

“The opportunities in the armed forces for professional employment are very good, and it is an excellent way to start a career,” Brostoff said.

Brostoff said he never displayed military recruitment material around the business school before the law’s repeal. But now that the military has changed its discriminatory policy, he said he plans to do so.

“The recruiters that come in for military recruitment deserve an equal opportunity to compete for our students,” Brostoff said.

Mark Smith, director of the Career Center, applauded the law’s repeal, but said that he does not expect to see a significant increase in the small number of students who opt to join the military after college.

The Gateway Battalion program—a ROTC program hosted by the University that includes cadets from 10 other St. Louis colleges—currently enrolls 21 students from the Danforth Campus. The program has had consistent enrollment numbers in past years.

“Wash. U.’s Gateway Battalion is a model on how an elite school can effectively partner with an on-campus ROTC unit,” Lieutenant Colonel James Craig, commander of Gateway Battalion, wrote in an e-mail to Student Life. “We get great support from the administration, and the students who chose to join Gateway ROTC are consistently among the very best cadets in the country.”

While students celebrated the law’s repeal, many acknowledged that this is just one step in the road to full equality for America’s LGBT community.

“I don’t know if it will change the system as a whole or the environment within the military, but we’re on our way,” said junior Alex Terrano, president of Pride Alliance. “Everyone [in Pride Alliance] is really happy about it. This is a milestone in the LGBT movement.”

University administrators opted to cancel the Target After Hours Shopping Event—a nationwide program in which Target keeps various stores open after hours and provides transportation for college freshmen to shop and receive prizes. This was to be part of the First 40 Days series of events at Wash. U. for the incoming freshmen class.

Target donated $150,000 to Minnesota Forward, a political action committee focused on creating private-sector jobs and economic growth. The PAC then purchased TV ads for Tom Emmer, a candidate who, according to his campaign website, believes that ‘marriage is the union between one man and one woman’ and has consistently supported legislation that aims to protect this union.

In statement to various news outlets, representatives from Target have said that their support for the LGBT—lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender—community is ‘unwavering’ and that they back Mr. Emmer’s economic stance, not his social values.

Best Buy also contributed money to Minnesota Forward.

Target’s donation rankled LGBT activist groups and garnered attention in media outlets throughout the nation. Jill Carnaghi, associate vice chancellor for student affairs, said that news of the controversial donation prompted her to look into the policies of Emmer and, after discussion with other administrators, ultimately led to the decision to cancel the event.

Campus Pride, a non-profit LGBT advocate organization that works with college campus nationwide, recently announced that Wash. U. was one of 19 campuses to receive five stars, the highest honors, for LGBT friendliness on campus. The ranking is based on a questionnaire fill-out by university administrators and takes into account LGBT- friendly policies and programs and practices on campus.

“We need to walk the walk as well as talk the talk,” Carnaghi said.

The Target controversy has become the poster-case for the potential backlash of the January Supreme Court decision known as Citizens United—a decision that enables corporations and unions to donate money to political campaigns. Prior to this decision, Target would not have been able to make the $150,000 donation to Minnesota Forward.

Minnesota Forward was established after the Citizens United decision to collect donations from corporations.

Despite the urging of activist groups, Target has decided not to make a political contribution of equal or greater value to a political campaign with liberal social views, according to a statement issued by the Human Rights Campaign, the largest civil rights group in the country working for LGBT equality.

The HRC subsequently dropped Target and Best Buy from their list of LGBT friendly companies and donated $150,000 to elect pro-LGBT equality candidates in Minnesota.

A Facebook group urging people to boycott Target currently has over 70,000 fans.

This is not the first time that a company Wash. U. has conducted business with has come under fire for its LGBT policies.

Last year The Laclede Group, a major gas and energy provider on campus, was ranked dead last in the Human Rights Campaign’s annual Corporate Equality Index of companies’ LGBT employment policies.

Though their policies did not protect LGBT employees, the University did not cut ties with the Laclede Group.

According to Carnaghi, who had no authority over the Laclede Group situation, the Target shopping event logistically was easy to cancel because it was an optional event set to occur on a Thursday night.

“We are hopeful that Target will get it together and that we will work together with them in the future,” Carnaghi said.

Correction: The original published version of this article reported that Wash. U. participated in the Target After Hours Shopping Event since 2007. The University has never participated in the Target After Hours Shopping Event. Student Life regrets the error.

Sam Guzik | Student Life

Seniors Wyatt Crane (left) and Andrew Weisberg (right) look on at a University City City Council meeting Monday after speaking about what the city’s zero-tolerance policy implies for students in the area.

On Monday night, senior Wyatt Crane spoke at a University City council meeting about the increasing frequency of the University City Police Department’s invocation of the newly enacted zero-tolerance policy.

Two days later, Crane was arrested outside of his Kingsbury Boulevard apartment after being issued a citation for noise from a gathering that he said he did not even attend.

Crane and fellow senior Andrew Weisberg mobilized dozens of students earlier this week in the hopes of making peace with residents and the city government. His arrest is symptomatic of an increasing number of student arrests that have come at the helm of the city’s zero-tolerance policy, which was enacted this March.

Under this policy, the University City Police Department issues a summons every time it responds to a reported noise disturbance.

Crane said he was walking home around midnight after doing his laundry at the nearby Greenway Apartments when he saw a police car in the back of his apartment and an officer standing on his third floor fire escape balcony.

The door to Crane’s apartment was locked, and no one answered when the officer knocked.

Crane approached the door and the officer asked him if he lived in that specific apartment. Crane confirmed that he did, but explained that neither he nor his two roommates had attended the gathering.

The neighbors across the hall—who are close friends of Crane—had used both of the apartments to host a gathering of approximately 20 people.

Since the noise was emanating from his apartment, Crane said he took responsibility and cooperated with the officer as he was issued a noise citation.

According to Crane’s account, the officer took out handcuffs after issuing the citation and asked him to put his hands behind his back.

When Crane asked why he was being arrested, the officer said that he was “carrying out the procedure under the zero-noise tolerance policy.“

Senior Micah Kroeze, who lives across the hall from Crane, said he watched as Crane was issued a citation and went back inside. Fifteen minutes later, he was shocked to learn that Crane had been arrested.

“For the first 15 minutes that I was there, the officer was not arresting him at all, he was just taking down his information,” Kroeze said. “An arrest was never mentioned. There was no way in my mind that he was being arrested.”

Both Kroeze and Crane said that the officer never read Crane his Miranda rights—as all police officers are required to do under federal law.

Sam Guzik | Student Life

Emily Dunn, Wash. U.

“We have felt intimidated and restricted from enjoying our own properties, enjoying any social activities with friends outdoors for fear of police presence and possible citations based on previous experiences.”

Sam Guzik | Student Life

Mondi Ghasedi, U. City

“My yard is not their toilet, our streets are not their bar, our yards are not their dumpster. We are not campus, we are a residential area.”

Nearly 50 students attended a University City City Council meeting on Monday night to express frustration over the increasing frequency of University City Police Department’s enforcement of noise violations.

The students were responding to a rapid rise in citations and arrests of Wash. U. students in recent months as a result of a newly enacted zero-tolerance policy for noise complaints—a policy under which University City police issue a summons whenever they respond to a reported disturbance.

The majority of the noise violations are concentrated in the area north of campus on Kingsbury Boulevard, Washington Avenue and Kingsland Avenue. These streets are shared with University City residents who are not affiliated with the University.

According to Joseph von Kaenel, a resident of the Ames Place neighborhood since 1972, student disruptions have always been a problem in the neighborhood but the issue has come to a head in recent years because student behavior has become increasingly disruptive.

“The situation has gotten worse because there has not been sufficiently rigorous law enforcement,” von Kaenel said.

At the council meeting, seven students presented personal testimony describing occasions when they felt their rights were violated by the police department since the policy was enacted in March. Neighbors countered these stories with their own anecdotes of how they are constantly kept up by noise at all hours of the night.

Seniors Wyatt Crane and Andrew Weisberg decided to mobilize students to make their voices heard and to strike a compromise with the city over what they feel is an extreme zero-tolerance policy.

The students asked the city to appoint a committee of permanent residents and students to review the policy and deal with ongoing relations.

Prior to the meeting, Crane and Weisberg stressed to students in attendance that their stance was not to attack the positions or responsibilities of the mayor’s office, the police department or residents.

“Our position is simply that the zero-tolerance policy bound these officers’ hands and didn’t let them use the discretion they should have been able to use,” Weisberg said. “This is not about bashing UCPD, this is not about bashing the mayor’s office. This is simply showing that we are an organized group, and we should be respected as such, and we should have a voice at the table.”

The students said that while they should be held accountable for unruly and disruptive behavior, they have been issued citations for behavior that was not disorderly.

Emily Dunn, a junior, spoke at the meeting and said that she and her friends were playing Wiffle ball in the lawn of a Washington Avenue apartment at 2 p.m. when the police came and asked them to stop playing because of noise. The police officers searched for suspicious behavior for half an hour before recommending that the group of students disband.

“Although they did acknowledge that there was no illegal behavior going on, [the police] did encourage us to disperse from the area and perhaps relocate indoors silently somewhere,” Dunn said. “We obliged, and as a result, in the past few weeks with beautiful weather outside, we have felt intimidated and restricted from enjoying our own properties, enjoying any social activities with friends outdoors for fear of police presence and possible citations based on previous experiences.”

Dunn added that the zero-tolerance policy has impacted not only students’ social lives but also their “personal privacy.”

Senior Aaron Bodansky said that he and two friends were stopped by a detective on the way to the Delmar Loop for “laughing too loudly” on Melville Avenue at 10 p.m. on a Friday. The detective, according to Bodansky, asked the students to put their hands behind their backs and sit on the sidewalk. The detective then called in two backup police cars and performed full background checks on all of the students.

“I felt threatened. It was scary, I wasn’t able to talk, I was detained for an excessive amount of time,” Bodansky said at the council meeting. “I just wanted to share this with you because I didn’t feel like I had done anything out of line and I felt that the police response due to this new policy has made it very uncomfortable for me to be walking my neighborhood at night.”

But Kingsbury resident Mondi Ghasedi said at the meeting that even laughing and talking on cell phones echo, and disturb her and other residents.

“Walking up the street laughing might not seem like anything to you, but our entire subdivision is composed of brick buildings,” Ghasedi said. “It echoes. You might as well be in my bedroom screaming next to my bed.”

Since its implementation, Ghasedi said, the zero-tolerance policy has been effective in reducing the noise in the area.

“For the first time ever on a warm night I have actually slept through a night on Thursday, Friday or Saturday,” Ghasedi said. “The only thing our police officers are doing is enforcing the law.”

Ghasedi said that when she moved into her home 10 years ago, graduate students filled most of the neighboring occupancies. Now, she says, students urinate on her lawn and vandalize her property.

“My yard is not their toilet, our streets are not their bar, our yards are not their dumpster,” she said. “We are not a campus; we are a residential area.”

It is unclear whether the police incidents that students shared at the meeting were the intentions of the zero-tolerance policy or if these represent aberrant, extreme instances. During the meeting, neither city officials nor Ames Place residents addressed the incidents raised by students, but noted that the police should be commended for doing their job.

After the meeting, however, University City Mayor Joe Adams said that college students are targeted because they fit a profile of individuals with whom problems have been reported in the past. To convey this point, Adams relayed an anecdote of President Barack Obama being stopped by airport security and extensively searched before he was president “just by looking different.”

“It doesn’t make it right or wrong, I’m not saying that,” Adams said. “But that’s just the nature of the beast.”

Cheryl Adelstein, director of community relations at the University, said that although disorderly behavior has been on the increase this year, the perpetrators actually represent only a small portion of the student body. She said she receives two to 10 complaints from neighborhood residents every weekend.

“The levels of vandalism and disrespect seem to be increasing, and I think the residents couldn’t tolerate it anymore,” Adelstein said. “Ultimately I think dialogue needs to happen between the students, police department and the citizens of the neighborhood.”

Although there was no clear resolution by the end of the meeting, the city government expressed openness to dialogue with the students and to the idea of the proposed council. But they stood firm in their position to ensure peace and quiet for the residents.

“I want to thank the police force, police chief and Washington University for enforcing the policy,” Councilman Terry Crow said. “I still believe that the residents have the right to enjoy the peace and quiet of their homes, to raise their kids and to enjoy you as neighbors and to enjoy peace and quiet.”

With additional reporting by Sam Guzik

Sam Guzik | Student Life

Senior Micah Kroeze addresses the University City council Monday night.

Christopher Lo

Common speaks in Graham Chapel on Monday as a part of the Martin Luther King, Jr. symposium hosted by the Association of Black Students.

It’s not common for a hip-hop sensation to address the Wash. U. student body.

But on Monday afternoon, Grammy Award-winning rapper Common spoke to a packed Graham Chapel as part of the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Symposium hosted by the Association of Black Students.

Common opened with a rap tailored for Wash. U.: “Yeah, you know what? Yo, I came to rock you. I’m looking at my people out here at Wash. U.”

The rest of his time, however, he strayed from his performing roots as he delivered a speech focused on the universal human purpose to aspire to and achieve greatness.

“I believe that to be great you have to first find your path, find what would make you great. The next step to greatness is to believe in your path,” Common said. “The third step of greatness, which we all have in us, is to live it. Live your path.”

The speech highlighted Common’s positive image in the often-plagued hip-hop industry—an image cemented by his philanthropic work and lyrics that speak to social issues.

Common, or Lonnie Rashid Lynn Jr., is from the South Side of Chicago and is most widely known for Billboard hits such as “Be,” “Testify” and “Go.”

He has also written numerous books geared toward a younger audience, including “The Mirror and Me” and “I Like You but I Love Me,” aimed at raising self-esteem. Common’s acting career includes “Date Night,” “Just Wright,” “American Gangster,” “Street Kings” and “Terminator Salvation.”

After the rap, Common started his speech and discussed the profound effect that the story of Emmitt Till had on him as a middle school student.

Emmitt Till, an African-American from Chicago, was 14 years old when he was beaten to death by a group of white men for whistling at a white woman in Mississippi in 1955.

Common said that Till’s story inspired him to find a purpose in life and have an impact on society.

“I felt the ghost of Emmitt Till saying that you have to do something in life, you have to have a purpose,” Common said. “It was like Emmitt Till was a representation of all the people that had worked and had paid dues and lost their lives and made sacrifices for me and for us. So I knew at that point that I had a deeper purpose, and all of us in here have a deeper purpose.”

His reaction to the story of Emmitt Till was the only explicit reference he made to race throughout his talk.

Instead, he spoke to human experience in general and encouraged the audience to have a voice, contribute to society and learn from their experiences to achieve greatness.

I think [the speech] very much resonated with Dr. King’s legacy,” ABS President Tiffany Johnson said. “Dr. King was really about creating a better human experience, and not just creating a better black experience.”

Common drew from the challenges he faced trying to make it as a hip-hop artist and how he stayed true to himself amid pressure to do otherwise.

“We’re allowed to make mistakes, we’re allowed to do some things. We’re human beings,” Common said. “But once you get the lesson and once you learn what the lesson is, don’t repeat the performance. If you repeat the performance, it’s on you the second time.”

Students reacted positively to Common’s message.

“It was really meaningful and enlightening how he spoke on a lot of different subjects from homophobia to religion and showed how music can be helpful in culture,” junior Brittany Miles said.

Senior Jeff Nelson, the outgoing student body president, who raps as a solo artist, said that Common is one of his favorite MCs and that the themes in his speech resonated with him.

“I like how he talked about his personal experiences and how when he didn’t get a Grammy, when his career wasn’t where he wanted it to be and when he wasn’t getting the acting roles he wanted to get, how he got more confidence and stuck with it through the adversity,” Nelson said. “I think that is a good message for us to hear and one that will stay with me for a while.”

After the speech, Common met with students afterwards at a reception in the Women’s Building.

Johnson said that Common took the time to speak with every student at the reception and was gracious and professional.

He truly is not just talking about Dr. King’s legacy, but is living proof that Dr. King’s dreams could come to fruition and could come true,” Johnson said.

Matt Mitgang | Student Life

The People’s Settlement is a five-day event in which participants camp out at Poelker Park at night and participate in demonstrations during the day on issues ranging from LBGT rights to environmental ethics.

This series of demonstrations draws from a variety of local activism groups and fosters a collaborative effort to combat what participants identify as “frustrations with corporate control of politics.”

Around 20 organizations are involved in the demonstrations, and hundreds of people are expected to attend throughout the five days.

Some of the participating activist groups include Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment (MORE), Climate Action St. Louis, Washington University Co-Op and the Catholic Action Network.

Matt Mitgang | Student Life

Students and community members camp out at Poelker Park as a part of a five-day event filled with protests targeted at corporate power and influence.

Junior Harry Alper, who plans to stay at the settlement all five nights, said the environment at the settlement is equally important to the event’s mission as are the demonstrations.

There will be free food and some forms of entertainment each night.

“I am really excited about the settlement itself, the bonding opportunity and the knowledge-sharing opportunity, and learning how a settlement like this operates,” Alper said.

Sophomore Deanna Parrish said she decided to attend the nightly planning meeting on Wednesday because she was interested in activism in the St. Louis community.

“I am interested as to how the few mobilizers on campus have been interested in expanding outward into the city and city movements and what [activism] is like outside of campus,” Parrish said.

Sophomore Mariana Oliver had never participated in an activism event before and was encouraged by Naomi Klein—an activist known for her criticism of corporate globalization who spoke on campus Wednesday afternoon—to become involved.

“I have never been part of an activism movement before, this is my first time and I figured it’s an awesome way to start it,” Oliver said.

The People’s Settlement started with a sit-in at Bank of America to protest the recent foreclosures. Protesters chanted in the lobby and demanded that an executive come down and speak with two customers whose homes were being foreclosed.

MORE Organizer Hannah Allison said the event was successful and the bank’s national office agreed to send someone from Washington, D.C., to St. Louis to meet with people and explain their practices.

“We were able to secure at least the beginning of our demands—the beginning of our process of how to meet these demands,” Allison said.

On Thursday morning approximately 35 people protested outside Laclede Gas Company’s office on Olive Street to speak out against the company’s LGBT policies.

According to a survey conducted by the Human Rights Campaign, Laclede Gas tied with Exxon Mobile in 2009 as the worst company in the nation for gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender people to work for.

On Friday the demonstrations will continue with a protest against Peabody Coal—the world’s largest private-sector coal company.

According to participants, it is important for people to be engaged with the community because St. Louis is the home to many major corporations. Demonstrators said that these companies feel they can get away with unethical practices because there is not yet a strong movement in St. Louis that will stand up against them.

“[Students] are in this city and we are purchasing customers of these companies in this city,” sophomore Arielle Klagsbrun said. “A lot of people don’t know that St. Louis is the hub of corporations who do a lot of not-so-awesome things.”

The People’s Settlement schedule of events:

All demonstrations start at Poelker Park at 13th and Market streets
FRIDAY, MARCH 26
11 a.m.-1 p.m. • Peabody Coal Action
3:30-5 p.m. • Anti-War Action

SATURDAY, MARCH 27
11 a.m.-1 p.m. • Race to the Top and the Privatization of Public Education Teach In
1-3 p.m. • Privatization of Education Bake Sale

SUNDAY, MARCH 28
1-3 p.m. • Faith-Based Action Catholic Action Network
3:30-5:30 p.m. • Labor History Tour

Sophomore Morgan DeBaun will be the next SU president and Eliot Walker, John Harrison York, Kirsten Miller and Cody Katz will be the next VP Finance, VP Programming, VP Administration and VP Public Relations respectively.

“We’re really ready to hit the ground running,” DeBaun said. ““We ran as a team and I’m happy that we won as a team.”

No members of junior Nate Ferguson’s competing Bold slate were elected to executive office.

Of the ten proposed SU constitutional amendments on the ballot, five passed.

Among those that passed was the amendment to create the Diversity Affairs Council.
Additionally four of junior Trevor Mattea’s proposed amendments passed including an amendment that would allow individual students to appeal to treasury.

Check back soon for more information