Campus leaders say NUPD was out of line
Northwestern University Police should not be the enforcers of broken federal immigration policy.
NUPD are commissioned to protect Northwestern students from direct threats to their safety. The presence of an undocumented immigrant on campus does not qualify as one of these.
The City Council has mandated that local officials treat immigrants, a demographic frequently victimized by racism, "on a humane and just basis." Even though the University Police were not specifically targeted in this resolution, it is appalling that they would so blatantly disregard its protective precedent.
Northwestern is better than that.
The University Police's unnecessary and unwarranted cooperation with ICE is not what our tuition money or our endowment is for. It is not the mission or responsibility of Northwestern, or our campus police.
We implore University Police, as well as Northwestern as an institution, to apologize immediately to Evanston and Chicago's immigrant community and promise not to repeat this mistake.
WRITTEN BY: ADAM YALOWITZ, co-chair Undergraduate Lecture Series on Race, Poverty, and Inequality; JORDAN FEIN, president of NU College Democrats; and MICHAEL WAXMAN, executive board Northwestern Community Development Corps
SIGNED BY: MIKE MCGEE, Communication junior; MATT BELLASSAI, Weinberg freshman; ARIANNA HERMOSILLO, president of Alianza, MAX FLETCHER, outgoing co-chair, NCDC; SHARANYA JAIDEV, incoming co-chair, NCDC; KRISTEN CRAGWALL, incoming co-chair, NCDC; PARVATHI SANTHOSH-KUMAR, former co-president Organized Action by Students Invested in Society; EMILY WRIGHT, co-chair, Students for Ecological and Environmental Development; RYAN ERICKSON, former president of NU College Democrats; SAMANTHA REED, former co-chair of NU Students for Barack Obama; HUGH ROLAND, president of Northwestern Students Against War and Students for Justice in Palestine; SARA FLETCHER, executive board NCDC, MICHAEL ALPERIN, executive board of NCDC; STEPHANIE ARIAS, SESP sophomore
Anti-a cappella column ignorant, not witty
The authors of the April 29 Forum column "Drumroll, Please" proposed that student a cappella on campus is a waste of time and talent. They claimed nobody listens to a cappella because it's just a cheap imitation of real music played by real instruments. They even mused, however ironically, that a cappella might be complicit in the spread of a deadly disease.
In a pitiful attempt at humor, these philistines have only proven they have no regard for artistic innovation and absolutely no knowledge about the collegiate a cappella industry.
Their charge that an a cappella arrangement of a Maroon 5 song does not suit the style's Renaissance origins misrepresents both the character and purpose of contemporary college a cappella. Our arrangements use the diversity of vocal sounds and ranges to produce new textures and emotions in songs whose studio overproduction has often made them dry and monotonous.
We spend our time giving new life to songs that we and our friends like. And they show us how much they like our music every time we sing to a sold-out crowd that drowns out our own sound with their cheers. The 11 a cappella groups on campus earn thousands of dollars in revenue each year from their programming. Groups whose albums sell on the iTunes Music Store earn upwards of $1,000 each month. People are watching and listening, even if it involves the risk of getting spat on. But that's what you get for sitting in the front row.
It's precisely this kind of ignorant prejudice against artistic creativity that produces uncultured music snobs. I'm sure they could find someone to listen to their triangle- and kazoo-playing. That is, if they had any talent.
- MARK SHPIZNER Weinberg senior President, NU A Cappella Community Alliance, ASG Senator for A Cappella
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