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In This Issue The California Tech Volume CXViii number 24 Pasadena, California [email protected] aPril 27, 2015 History professor Morgan Techers to visit Nepal for Engineers Kousser featured in The Without Borders conservation project New York Times editorial KATHERINE GUO organization Namsaling assessment trip, which I’d consider NEERA SHAH in-depth questions. A subsequent Page Editor Community Development Center to be the end of our “beginning Editor-in-Chief correspondence led up to the final (NCDC) in Ilam, Nepal, working on stage.” article at the end of the week. The Caltech juniors Jihoon Lee and a spring water source project. Our Essentially, we had to identify a On April 18, The New York editorial itself examined similar Webster Guan, the president and goal is to establish a spring water problem in the world and come up Times published an editorial, questions as Kousser’s study and secretary of Caltech’s Engineers source protection system that will with a solution. Once we decided “Voting Rights, by the Numbers,” referred to Kousser as a source of Without Borders chapter, help provide clean water for about we wanted to do spring protection which cited the research of “a fresh trove of empirical evidence respectively, tell all about their 300 households in the surrounding in Nepal, we had to partner with Caltech’s own Morgan Kousser, to refute [Chief Justice Roberts’] upcoming trip to Nepal and their regions of the Ilam District .As for NCDC to have a contact in the area the William R. Kenan Jr. professor assertion.” spring conservation to help us navigate the of history and social science. Upon Kousser’s report titled “Do the project. land and act as the seeing his research as part of the Facts of Voting Rights Support direct link between us lead editorial of the Sunday NYT, Chief Justice Roberts’s Opinion How did the and the community. Kousser was both “surprised and in Shelby County?” focuses on the Caltech chapter of Once we managed … delighted.” He has previously claims of the majority opinion of EWB get started, that, we got our feet been referenced in a few op-eds in Shelby County, which struck down and what is your on the ground and the Los Angeles Times, two articles the “most important provision of project exactly? collected data like for Reuters and briefly in a NYT the most successful civil rights It started in 2012 the topography of editorial, but, as Kousser put it, law in U.S. history,” according to with Sarah Wright the land, the water “nothing has been this big.” Kousser. The extensive study was (B.S. ’13), who had quality, just necessary After the 2013 Supreme Court conducted from 2009 to 2013 with the idea to start a information for the Case Shelby County v. Holder, the help of SURF students Adam chapter of Engineers engineering project. Kousser had the opportunity to Adler and Matthew Smalley and Without Borders The social aspect is publish a report in a special issue pre-frosh Judy Mou. According to here. She was the one equally important: we of a French journal of American Kousser, Mou and Smalley “turned who got everything had to understand the studies on the Voting Rights Act. [Kousser’s] somewhat vague vision started and made us community’s values, Engineering mentor Gordon Treweek and Webster Guan use a the- Although it has not been published into reality” by developing three- an official chapter odolite to gather surveying data during a previous trip to Nepal. and the community yet in the journal, Kousser was able dimensional maps to present data of EWB. She’s still Photo Courtesy of Webster Guan had to understand our to upload a pre-print to the Social on voting rights issues. These maps very involved as an alum, actually. how we decided to do a project in goals and that we wanted to help Science Research Network, where emphasize Kousser’s claims and Fantastic lady. Nepal, Justin Rolando, president of them. Of course, there wouldn’t it was posted on April 12. Within provide visual evidence that easily We’re currently partnered the University of Colorado Boulder be a point to our project if the one day, a NYT editorial writer shows that voting rights violations with the non-governmental chapter of EWB, informed us that community were unwilling, since contacted Kousser with several Continued on page 2 they were working on a spring the community’s satisfaction is protection source program in Ilam. what the focus is on here. The He thought it would be a good place community is really enthusiastic Just how serious is Caltech about for us to start, since we were a very about the improvements to the young chapter and it was easier to spring, so we’re happy about follow in their footsteps instead of that. We also have an education water conservation, anyway? coming up with a completely new component to our project. Children CASEY HANDMER suggesting students take shorter plants, provided the resource is project and getting it approved. So are the most vulnerable to water Contributing Writer showers, presumably on the off managed. we got into contact with NCDC, did disease and the least experienced, chance they were taking showers As a graduate student lacking any the paperwork and got the project so we’re going to go into elementary California has at least a decade in the first place. semblance of a work/life balance, approved. schools to teach kids about water of ground water but is consuming More seriously, one Caltech I often ride through Caltech late safety. water much faster than reserves crop can survive with much less at night when the sprinklers are operating. It is no exaggeration that I can meet personal hygiene standards passing between mis- aimed sprinkler heads that spray torrents of water on roads, paths, buildings, cars, pedestrians, stray cats — anywhere, it seems, except the grass. And where the water does hit plants, they are frequently drowned. Recalibrating the sprinklers and reducing the volume of flow is hardly beyond the technological capability of Caltech, yet since the waste occurs when no one sees (From left) Nauman Javed and Webster Guan visit members of the non-gov- it, it apparently does not exist. ernmental organization Namsaling Community Development Center (NCDC) in I’ve sent numerous emails to the Ilam, Nepal. Caltech Housing Maintenance Photo Courtesy of Webster Guan These sprinklers on Wilson Avenue are just one example of water misuse on the Office specifying particular What stage are you at in the Do you have a design for the Caltech campus. sprinkler areas that need project? spring protection system? Photo Courtesy of Casey Handmer addressing, mostly without even We actually have enough money Well, yeah. On our assessment acknowledgement. Caltech can to go to Nepal this summer for the trip, we met with engineers at the are replenished. National hand- water, namely concrete. According surely talk the talk when it comes beginning of our implementation NCDC headquarters, took trips out wringing manifests more locally to Sustainability at Caltech, to conservation and sustainability. phase. We’ll probably be taking to the rice fields with a translator, in almond-focused guilt-tripping around a third of Caltech’s water Now credibility demands it is time six students plus our engineering visited the spring sites and just and bizarrely self-unaware emails consumption is in irrigation, a fair to walk the walk. mentor, Gordon Treweek. The from the Caltech Housing Office trade for an environment of living previous summer, we went on an Continued on page 2 neWs | Page 2 OPInIOn | Page 3 FEATURe | Page 4 sPORts | Page 5 In thIs kOusseR FeatuRed PResIdentIal elec- thInk a lIttle mORe tRack team bReaks In the neW yORk tIOn camPaIgns abOut yOuR eveRy- mORe RecORds Issue tImes edItORIal alReady begInnIng day cOnveRsatIOns news 2 aPril 27, 2015 the calIFORnIa tech Y Column Kousser’s voting rights research cited in The New York Times Continued from page 1 existed at the time of the original to win, more cases were filed and in a series of cases which “crippled CALTECH Y enactment of the Voting Rights Act won; when the Court’s opinions and finally killed” the “brilliantly have not decreased as Roberts no longer exist today, but because made it harder to win, fewer cases successful” Voting Rights Act. He The Caltech Y Column serves to asserts they have. the Supreme Court has made it were filed, and many of them were recognized that “social change inform students of upcoming events The research for this project more difficult to win lawsuits on lost.” doesn’t happen all at once, and and volunteer opportunities. The began in 2009 after the Supreme voting rights violations. The Supreme Court majority once and for all.” Kousser added list is compiled by Neera Shah from Court decided Northwest Austin This data-driven approach is took advantage of the fact that that “perfection in any institution information given by the Caltech Y Municipal Utility District there were fewer Section is a dangerous myth; there is and its student leaders. No. 1 v. Holder, in which 5 objections by the only the repeated correction of Founded by students in 1916, “Chief Justice Roberts “According to Kousser, the Department of Justice to imperfections. As long as there is the Y was organized to provide openly threatened to 5-4 ruling in Shelby County claim that discrimination discrimination, there will always extracurricular activities planned declare Section 5 of had declined. Kousser be more work to do,” as shown by and implemented by students as the Voting Rights Act is but one in a series of cases recognized this and said that his latest study.
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