5October 9, 2014 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

OPINIONSConfl ict Kitchen faces unnecessary backlash

EDITORIALEDITORIAL

Confl ict Kitchen, a restaurant that exclusively serves the food of coun-tries with which the United States is in confl ict, is experiencing some turmoil of its own.

On Monday, the popular Schen-ley Plaza restaurant changed its menu from Venezuelan to Pales-tinian cuisine. Regardless of taste for Middle Eastern food, the cuisine isn’t the problem.

Before off ering its new menu, the restaurant hosted a discussion in Schenley Park last week regard-ing Palestine. These talks aren’t new — the Confl ict Kitchen often brings in speakers to talk about relevant topics. At this particular talk, Pitt’s Honors College sent 15 students and paid for their meals.

Last week, The Jewish Chronicle published an article titled “Univer-sity Honors College co-sponsors one-sided talk on Middle East.” Dr. Nael Aldweib, a Palestinian-born Pittsburgh internist, and Dr. Ken Boas, a Pitt professor and chair of the board of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions-USA, spoke at the event.

Based on speakers, the talk wasn’t representative of both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian confl ict, but is this really worth complaining about? Confl ict Kitchen is a private business. It has the right to serve any food and welcome any speaker to discuss ideas in a safe and civil manner.

There is no question that the Israeli-Palestinian confl ict is com-plex.

But fair political discourse should exist around the Pittsburgh

community and world. Our soci-ety allows us to select the food we eat and the speakers to whom we listen. If people don’t like certain ideas or beliefs, they neither have to listen to nor agree with them. Moreover, people can meet with speakers whom they wish to hear.

Regardless of political stance, people should respect the peace-ful political stances of other indi-viduals and businesses. The public, including students and administra-tors, should seek more tolerance and less hypersensitivity when dis-cussing cultural and political topics.

The reality, however, is that those who speak out carry a lot of weight. In response to negative coverage, Pitt’s Honors College has decided to no longer sponsor these events.

But despite the animosity that ensued, there’s value in students’ exposure to ideas — no matter how controversial they might seem.

It would have been refreshing for the Honors College to resist and defend its right to send students to intellectually stimulating discus-sions, no matter which side they might represent.

If, last week, the students heard pro-Palestine views, then the Uni-versity could sponsor student at-tendance of pro-Israel events, too.

If a University’s responsibility is to educate its students, then it should not placate critics but rather hold fi rm in defending its educa-tional choices. If another confl ict arises, hopefully the University will defend its students’ civic rights and its own.

The recent coming and pass-ing of Banned Books Week left an ongoing debate in its wake. Nationwide, confl ict continues between librarians, academics, book-lovers, writers and school administrators. And don’t for-get oversensitive parents: adults who prefer to have their chil-dren believing in talking, bow tie-wearing cats causing Dr. Suess-created havoc rather than be exposed to the real world of slavery, poverty and derogatory words.

Through the years, school districts have banned certain books they feel are inappropri-ate for students.

But some believe banning books is a violation of consti-tutional rights, while others, such as Kearney Hub writer Rick Brown , say books are “one of the most harmless objects in the universe. A bunch of paper wrapped up in a marketing pack-age .” Some argue that children need to be protected from the perils of the world. Some coun-

ter-argue and say the world is fi lled with sex, violence, drugs, discrimination and hatred. Isn’t it best to learn all that now rath-er than be shocked later?

As an avid reader, writer and book collector, I under-stand how words and ideas printed on 4x6 paper and uni-fi ed by glue and plastic can infl ict thought, provoke emotion and bring about change, whether it be in one person or millions of people. And, perhaps, a 10-year-old is not ready to think about the BDSM and sexual practices that fi ll the recently challenged — and recent bestseller, might I add — “Fifty Shades of Grey.” But challenging the book one week only to have it acclaimed by celebrities the next not only entirely defeats the purpose of banning a book, but makes banned books more accessible.

For many writers, dating from Mark Twain to the modern day, it has become a goal to have a book banned. Because, as dis-played by the banned children’s book “And Tango Makes Three,” having a book banned not only boosts sales — the whole “want-

ing what you can’t have” deal — but it may be the only indicator we have left of good writing.

Evoking any response other than the one-second-long “oh, that was interesting,” means the writer did something commend-able. He or she got somebody’s attention, challenged some ar-chaic notion of a contemporary social norm and, most impor-tantly, made readers think in a way that they never thought before.

For a moment, rather than considering entire books, think about columnists who write on political or social issues. Scroll through TIME Magazine’s web-site, The New York Times, Slate.com or The Washington Post. Each outlet has published ar-ticles and columns about the same exact thing — how the fi lm adaptation of “Gone Girl” diff ered from the book. This is OK because they all cover recent events in the nation and in the world.

But if you even just read the fi rst paragraph of the articles,

Banned books: Our best writing?Jess Craig Columnist

Cartoon by Fatima Kizilkaya

CRAIGCRAIG

Craig 6

@thepittnews

Vol. 105Issue 47

Thursday,October 9, 2014Pittnews.com

Early Wednesday morning the “Blood Moon” appeared over the Oakland skyline. Bobby Mizia | Senior Staff Photographer

What do Beyoncé, Jennifer Lawrence and growing groups of Pitt students have in common?

Hint: It’s not fame, celebrity or money. It’s their fi ght for women’s rights.

Merriam-Webster defi nes feminism as “the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities.” Yet, feminist — a follower of feminism — is a title that many are afraid to don, but is a comfortable fi t for more and more Pitt students.

As activists, actresses, academics and

Feminism’s reach extends

on campusKat Prosachik

Staff Writer

CAMPUS LIFECAMPUS LIFE

Already one for consuming large portions of controversy, Schenley Plaza takeout restaurant Confl ict Kitchen heard a mouthful of concerns from the Pittsburgh Jewish Federation of Pitts-burgh and suff ered the loss of a University Honors College sponsorship following its Pal-estinian discussion event.

Since opening two years ago, Confl ict Kitchen’s menu has refl ected the culture of

countries with which the U.S. government is in confl ict. The restaurant has hosted special event discussions on the region whose cuisine is its current menu theme.

By traveling to the to-be-showcased coun-try beforehand, the restaurant’s owners and employees are able to learn more about the food and strife within the area. Upon return-ing from the confl icted area, the restaurant provides information and interviews, in addi-tion to a meal. Confl ict Kitchen has previously served cuisine from Afghanistan, North Korea,

Cuba, Iran and Venezuela — new this month are the Palestinian Territories.

Preceding the Oct. 6 launch of its Palestin-ian menu, which includes falafel, musakhan and baqlawa, the restaurant’s panel discussion on Sept. 30 in Schenley Park was laden with controversy.

The University Honors College co-spono-sored this month’s panel, which was an infor-mal discussion about Palestine. The event drew

Confl ict Kitchen takes heat for discussion panelLauren Rosenblatt

Staff Writer

DININGDINING

Conflict 2

Feminism 3

Oakland turns 175Local musicians celebrate the mile-stone at Oakland Forever festival

2 October 9, 2014 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

35 attendees, including speakers Dr. Nael Al-thweib, a Palestinian from the West Bank, and Professor Ken Boas, chair of the board of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions-USA, as well as Dean Edward Stricker of the University’s Honor College.

“We’ve been getting pushback from mem-bers of the local Jewish community that aren’t in support of us presenting those types of view-points,” said Jon Rubin, co-director of Confl ict Kitchen.

According to Rubin, the Jewish Federation of Pittsburgh requested that an Israeli perspec-tive be represented at Confl ict Kitchen’s events discussing the Palestinian Territories.

Rubin made it clear that Confl ict Kitchen wouldn’t meet these demands.

“The goal of our project is to represent the voices of the people that we are working with, [the Palestinians], so it does not make sense to have someone from Israel on every one of the panels,” Rubin said. “We may have an Israeli perspective at some point, and I understand their desire to have their narrative told, but

they have plenty of other formats to do that.”Gregg Roman, community relations council

director of JFP, said the organization disagrees with the lack of Israeli representation in Con-fl ict Kitchen’s latest event.

“The reason why I think it’s important that we have a place at the table is that [Confl ict Kitchen is] saying that this is about the U.S. being in confl ict with Palestine, but their justi-fi cation for that is that the U.S. supports Israel and, therefore, supports Palestine,” Roman said. “So, you would think there would be an Israeli perspective.”

Roman said the focus on Palestine’s per-spective created an unjust, unacademic “break-down between two diff erent camps.”

“The Jewish community as a whole has certain expectations of institutions that re-ceive public funding, like Confl ict Kitchen, to not carry out programs that may delve into the area of discrimination on national origin,” Roman said.

Rubin said the restaurant was just trying to create a spot that didn’t exist in Pittsburgh — a spot where the public could engage in culture they might be unfamiliar with.

“We all know that Palestine and Israel is a very sensitive subject, but we’re in America.

And if we can’t have an open, humane, civil conversation about culture here, then how do we ever expect it to happen over there?” Rubin said during the discussion, by way of introduc-tion. “We have to be a model.”

In light of the controversy, Stricker made the decision on Oct. 7 to no longer co-sponsor Confl ict Kitchen’s lunch hour discussions.

“We never should have been allowed to call [our involvement with Confl ict Kitchen] a spon-

sorship,” Stricker said. “[Sponsorship] means being involved in everything in the planning, you endorse the events, you select the speakers. We never wanted to do any of that.”

The Honors College began providing funds for students to attend the Confl ict Kitchen lunch hours in January and has had funded

CONFLICTFROM PAGE 1

Schenley Plaza restaurant Confl ict Kitchen hosted a controversial panel last week. Theo Schwarz | Visual Editor

Conflict 3

@thepittnews

Vol. 105Issue 68

Tuesday,November 11, 2014Pittnews.com

Greg Armstrong, a staff technician at Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute, plays Scrabble with a robot. Christine Lim | Staff Photographer

PLAY ON WORDS

Roughly 200 people surrounded Confl ict Kitchen Monday evening to show their support for the restaurant after it announced its closure after receiving death threats last week.

Confl ict Kitchen, a permanent food stand in Schenley Plaza that serves a rotating menu based on the cuisines of countries with which the U.S. is in confl ict, announced on its Facebook page Friday that it would be closing until further notice after receiving death threats in a letter.

Confl ict Kitchen served Palestinian food prior to closing — something many in Pittsburgh claimed was a one-sided take on the Palestine-Israel confl ict.

The owners of Confl ict Kitchen could not be reached for comment on the protest, and they declined to comment on the death threats on Saturday . They have expressed dis- content-ment with media coverage on their web- site and Facebook page.

Students for Justice in Palestine, a Pitt student group, organized the demonstration, w h i c h began at 5 p.m., and they hope to repeat e v e r y day at 5 p.m. until Confl ict Kitchen r e -opens.

“Closing Confl ict Kitchen is the perfect example of trying to silence [the] Palestinian voice,” Haley Murphy, a Pitt student, said.

Murphy, a junior major-ing in global management and marketing with a certifi cate

Confl ict at Confl ict: Students protest

restaurant closureJess Muslin Staff Writer

Chelsea Reyes may not come to Pitt. She’s worried it won’t prepare her for the real world.

Reyes, a high school senior from Mount Laurel, New Jersey, is currently applying to colleges and says that while she plans on applying to Pitt, she is leaning more towards New York Uni-versity partly because of the greater racial diversity there.

“I think college should prepare you

for the real world, and the real world means you need to be able to interact with diff erent kinds of people,” Reyes said. “I am looking to meet people who can challenge me and also for people to teach me diff erent things and show diff erent perspectives.”

For an urban school with more than 35,000 undergraduate and graduate students, Pitt is not as diverse as its competitors, such as New York University and Rutgers University.

According to Pitt’s 2014 Fact Book, of the 35,014 students enrolled in the

school in 2013, 16 percent were ra-cial minorities — African American, American Indian, Asian, Pacifi c Is-lander and Hispanic students.

At NYU, 61.5 percent of the stu-dent body, 44,599 undergraduate and graduate students, is non-white.

Rutgers, located in New Bruns-wick, New Jersey, has a 56 percent minority population, much higher than Pitt’s, according to its 2013 Fact Book. Rutgers-New Brunswick has

Pitt aims to change low diversity numbersMeagan Hart Staff Writer

Conflict 3Diversity 2Sopho-more Kara Kloss attended the protest. Nathan Smith | For The Pitt News

3November 11, 2014 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

in Arabic, is a member of SJP, and said she has always been a big fan of Confl ict Kitchen. She held a sign outside the restaurant that read “I Support Open Dialogue, Tolerance, & Deli-cious Food.”

Members of the crowd stepped forward one-by-one to say why they supported Con-fl ict Kitchen.

Two women engaged the crowd in a song, while others stated reasons such as “love, soli-darity and empathy makes the world make sense” and “over some good food enemies can become friends” as the reasons for why they support Confl ict Kitchen.

Supporters also held signs that read things like “CK Strong,” “We Support Confl ict Kitchen” and “Thank You Confl ict Kitchen, We Support You.”

Murphy said students deserve to experience other cultures and have a more diverse campus.

“I just want people to know that Confl ict Kitchen represents a very peaceful project. It’s not a message of hate,” Murphy said.

Hadeel Salameh, president of SJP, said people from diff erent backgrounds and with diff erent political views attended the demon-strations. According to Salameh, a senior major-ing in creative writing, the demonstration was about solidarity.

“But today’s not about politics. It’s about standing with the Confl ict Kitchen,” Salameh said.

Salameh said that Confl ict Kitchen has meant a lot to the Students for Justice in Pales-tine during its past projects but even more so since the food stand started serving Palestin-ian food.

“We don’t like to see that voice silenced, but fi rst and foremost it’s a recognition of their safety,” Salameh said.

Raghav Sharma, a sophomore majoring in politics, philosophy and economics, is the sec-retary of SJP and agreed with Salameh.

“We think violence has no place in rational political discourse,” Sharma said, referring to the death threats.

Sharma said that although interest in the demonstrations will probably eventually dwin-dle, the members of SJP will continue to show up each day to support what they believe in.

“We wanted to show the people who try to si-lence us through violence that we will not stand for that,” Sharma said. “We will raise our voice whenever we can to say what we believe in.”

CONFLICTFROM PAGE 1

ture.Gallagher said diversity enhances creativity

and attractiveness of Pitt, and it’s also critical to the region.

“In order to thrive economically, it must grow, and as it grows it must become more diverse. The numbers tell you what you would expect: that Pitt, like the Pittsburgh region, is less diverse than many other regions or institu-tions,” Gallagher said. “This is an opportunity

for us because it means we can do better.”But, according to Gallagher, Pitt’s diversity

problem is changing. This year, Gallagher said, Pitt has new stu-

dents from 46 diff erent states and 21 countries, due to eff orts in student recruiting. Gallagher also pointed to new programs such as the Glob-al Getaway, an integration program for interna-tional students and an international associates employer program, which off ers international students assistance with job hunting.

Every year, during resident assistant train-ing, Pitt trains student RAs on how to deal

with possible diversity issues within dorms. Pitt’s Offi ce of Cross-Cultural Leadership and Development holds the training, which takes place for about half a day preceding freshmen orientation week.

Abigail Tobin, an RA in Tower A, said she received training that prepared her to work with international students as well as students from diff erent racial and ethnic backgrounds.

“We had a talk from the offi ce for interna-tional students and we were able to talk to two diff erent international students and ask them questions,” Tobin, a sophomore, said.

DIVERSITYFROM PAGE 2

Read the rest online at Pittnews.com.

@thepittnews

Vol. 105Issue 69

Wednesday, November 12, 2014Pittnews.com

Meghan Sunners | Staff Photographer

Oakland restaurant Conflict Kitchen will reopen today at its normal opening time, 11 a.m., after closing on Nov. 7 because of death threats received in a letter.

The restaurant announced on its Facebook page Tuesday morning that “after consulta-tion with local law enforce-ment agencies,” it would re-open on Nov. 12 and remain open during normal hours, seven days a week.

Pittsburgh Police spokes-woman Sonya Toler said “the investigation remains open,” regarding the person who sent Conflict Kitchen the death threats.

The owners of Conflict Kitchen could not be reached for comment regarding the Facebook post via email or by phone on Tuesday.

“We greatly appreciate all of the incredible support that we have received during our closure, and we are eager to reopen our Palestinian itera-tion,” the Facebook post said.

Cristina Holtzer News Editor

End of regulationEnd of regulationMen’s soccer beat writer Mark Men’s soccer beat writer Mark Powell refl ects on the seasonPowell refl ects on the season

page 8page 8 Talk about a drum roll. Pitt’s African Music and Dance

Ensemble heightened the drama last night in Nordy’s Place before Elections Committee Chair Lau-ren Barney announced the results of the 2015 Student Government Board election.

Pitt students elected Graeme Meyer as the new Student Gov-

ernment Board president and eight new Board members to the 2015 Student Government Board after the vote on Tuesday.. Voters elected the entire 87’s slate and select members from other slates.

The new Board will take offi ce in January and serve until the end of the spring 2016 semester. The current Board passed a referen-dum in early October to change the SGB term from a calendar year to an academic year, so the newly elected Board will serve for a year

and a half to transition between the two term lengths.

Barney said 4,127 students voted, compared to 2,520 stu-dents the previous year — a 63.7 percent increase in voter turnout. About 24 percent of Pitt’s non-College of General Studies under-graduates voted.

Barney said 48 percent of vot-ers selected Meyer to be the new president.

Confl ict Kitchen reopens following death threats

Cristina Holtzer, Abbey Reighard & Danielle Fox

The Pitt News Staff

Bobby Mizia | Senior Staff PhotographerElections 3

Graeme Meyer Graeme Meyer wins SGB Presidential wins SGB Presidential electionelection

AND THE WINNER IS...AND THE WINNER IS...

4 November 12, 2014 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

OPINIONSConfl ict Kitchen dishes

out awareness

EDITORIALEDITORIAL

After four days of closure, Schenley Plaza’s Conflict Kitchen is set to re-open to-day.

Conflict Kitchen is a per-manent food stand that ro-tates a menu of food from nations with which the United States is in conflict — cur-rently, it’s serving Palestin-ian food. The restaurant was forced to close last week upon receiving a death threat, ac-cording to its website.

The closing was coupled with the recent controversy that Conflict Kitchen dis-played “anti-Israeli” mes-sages on its food wrappers, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

In response to this con-troversy, Conflict Kitchen clarified on its website that the wrappers “contain inter-views on food, culture, the Palestinian Authority, settle-ments, dating, resistance olive trees, Nakba, movement and travel and food customs.”

Conflict Kitchen has had similar wrappers along with the other foods it has served — including cuisine from Iran, North Korea and Cuba. All of these wrappers con-tained perspectives of the peo-ple and cultures from which these foods came — in fact, before the restaurant changes the food it is serving, the own-ers and employees travel to the featured areas to learn more about the food and strife within these areas.

Palestine was no different.

Conflict Kitchen representa-tives traveled to Palestine to interview locals about their way of life and culture and then brought the Palestinian people’s perspective to Oak-land to share with us.

Yet, people in opposition to the restaurant punished it with controversy and fear-mongering. When Conflict Kitchen reopens today, it’s important to note, despite our political dispositions, just how valuable this service is and why it is such a shame that the restaurant closed in the first place.

By providing food and per-spectives from nations that the United States is in conflict with, Conflict Kitchen gives us an opportunity to better understand the people from various countries. Their voic-es are often underrepresented within mainstream media, as the people in these countries are often overlooked by the conflicts that surround them.

This type of exposure is es-sential to open discourse on a college campus. Students need these perspectives to gain a better understanding of the world. This is why roughly 200 people surrounded Con-flict Kitchen Monday in a dem-onstration organized by Stu-dents for Justice in Palestine, a Pitt student group.

As it reopens, let’s continue to recognize the restaurant’s value in a neighborhood that values diversity and under-standing.

COLUMNCOLUMN

One day last semester, I was sitting at Hillman Library with some friends, looking over the requirements to apply for the Graduate Research Fellowship Program through the National Science Foundation (NSF).

While I was at the table, one of the people sitting with me asked me what I was working on. As an ecomomics major, I informed her that I was apply-ing for a NSF grant to pursue graduate study in economics. She replied, “but it’s the Nation-al ‘Science’ Foundation.”

Unfortunately, the attitude that the social sciences don’t constitute legitimate scientifi c work is widespread, even in an academic setting. This disdain has manifested itself in aca-demia through the usage of the term “hard science,” to describe the natural sciences, whereas the social sciences are merely referred to as “soft sciences.”

Social science departments are really not helping the mat-ter. At Pitt, students can pursue a Bachelor of Arts in Anthro-pology, Economics, Linguistics, Political Science and Sociology — all of which are considered social sciences, broadly con-strued.

Additionally, the claim that social sciences are somehow “less scientifi c” than their nat-ural counterparts is naive and misguided. In particular, I will examine and refute two senti-ments regarding the social sci-ences.

First, many students and

academics believe that natural scientists have a much better understanding of the underly-ing mechanisms in their fi eld of study. This is particularly pro-nounced in economics — follow-ing the fi nancial crisis in 2007, even prominent economists were wondering how confi dent they should be in the fi eld’s pre-dictions.

Nevertheless, this attitude confl ates macroeconomics with the discipline as a whole, which is understandable, as the news is usually dominated with cov-erage of macroeconomic fl uc-tuations. However, this false identifi cation misses the large strides made in other subfi elds of economics, such as applied microeconomics and behavioral economics.

Further, in addition to over-stating the problems in the social sciences, this belief un-derstates the problems in the natural sciences.

Take physics for example. Academics and intellectuals hold physics as the purest of the sci-ences, having a rich history of successfully explaining physi-cal phenomena. Yet, quantum mechanics — a well-known subfi eld of the discipline — has incredibly important problems that have remained open for the last half-century.

Additionally, the mathemati-cal development of chaos theory in the 1960s and 1970s exposed our shallow understanding of seemingly simple phenomena in the natural world — such as turbulence in water fl ow or even weather patterns.

Second, the results in the nat-

ural sciences are generally seen as more defi nite than those in the social sciences, as confl icting evidence seems to appear more often in the latter.

This is especially prominent in psychological research, as many of the fi ndings from the fi eld over the past couple de-cades are, in light of replica-tion problems, being called into question by modern research-ers. Take, for example, the open letter written by psychologist Daniel Kahneman warning of a “train wreck looming” over the “robustness of priming re-sults,” referring to recent work on social priming. As the journal Nature reports, “this skepticism has been fed by failed attempts to replicate classic priming stud-ies, increasing concerns about replicability in psychology more broadly.”

However, this “replication crisis” has been taking place throughout the sciences, in-cluding medical and biological science. In fact, the 2005 article “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False,” argues from a probabilistic standpoint that the push for novel results and lack of replication has grave im-plications for scientifi c work.

Further, it is actually the case that the social sciences are in a better position to tackle such statistical challenges. This stems from an increased emphasis on learning the intricacies of sta-tistical tools.

This emphasis is immediately evident following an examina-tion of the requirements for ma-

Who’s soft?Social sciences are, in fact, sciences

Thomas Helgerman Columnist

Helgerman 5