Brown and White Vol. 133 no. 17

              The Brown and White Vol. 133 No. 17
Tuesday, November 7, 2017 ‘All the Lehigh News First’
Lehigh community responds to trustees’ decision
By EMMA DILLON
B&W Staff
Lehigh’s board of trustees
announced it would take “no
action” in response to the peti-tion
to rescind President Donald
Trump’s 1988 honorary degree,
despite it receiving more than
30,000 signatures.
The petition, created in August
by alumna Kelly McCoy, ’17, gen-erated
debate among students,
faculty and alumni.
A survey conducted by The
Brown and White found that 75
percent of respondents thought
the board should rescind Trump’s
honorary degree.
The discussion regarding
Trump’s honorary degree began
in spring 2016.
Nick Ungson, ’18G, the presi-dent
of Graduate Student Senate,
administered surveys throughout
the spring of 2016 and 2017 to
better understand how graduate
students felt about the topic.
Ungson said results from the
Sam Henry/B&W Staff
Nick Ungson, ’18G, speaks at the end of the Founder’s Day ceremony on Oct. 19 in Packer
Memorial Church. Ungson said the Graduate Student Senate’s executive board has yet to
consider if it will take any further steps in response to the board of trustees’ decision about
See TRUMP Page 4 President Trump’s honorary degree.
2017 survey indicated the pro-portion
of people in favor of keep-ing
Trump’s honorary degree
decreased since 2016, and the
proportion of people in favor of
rescinding it increased in that
time.
Ungson said members of
Graduate Student Senate’s exec-utive
board have yet to consider if
they will take any further steps in
regard to the board’s decision, but
if a group of graduate students
expresses interest in continuing
to pursue rescinding the degree,
they will be supportive.
Matthew O’Brien, ’20, the pres-ident
of College Republicans,
said he supports the board mem-bers’
decision because he believes
they have more important things
to work on, such as improving
Lehigh’s infrastructure, expand-ing
campus diversity and increas-ing
the number of applicants to
Lehigh.
O’Brien said it would not be
TWO SIDES OF BETHLEHEM
By ANNA SIMONEAU
Design Editor
The Lehigh River meanders
through the heart of Bethlehem.
The water, transportation and
resources that the river provides
inspired Bethlehem’s first settlers
to choose this location and offered
the perfect collection of assets for
Bethlehem Steel to become the
second largest U.S. steel producer
in its prime.
The river is the city’s lifeblood,
but it is also one of Bethlehem’s
major challenges, slashing the city
in half and creating a physical
barrier between the North and
South sides of the city.
The divide between the North
Side and the South Side goes far
beyond the physical characteris-tics
of the city. Often seen and rec-ognized
but rarely put into words,
the two sides of Bethlehem have
vastly different cultures and socio-economic
backgrounds that make
interaction and unity within the
city difficult.
“I think it’s not something that
anybody says directly, but it’s just
something that everybody kind
of knows,” North Side resident
Justina Uliana said.
The North Side is fairly homo-geneous.
According to City-Data.
com, out of approximately 50
Bethlehem districts north of the
Sam Henry/B&W Staff
The Lehigh River separates the North and South sides of Bethlehem. Historically, the North and South sides have been separated by
socioeconomic and cultural differences.
river, only four have a majority
non-white residential population.
All of these districts are located
along the border of Bethlehem’s
city limits, not in the heart of the
city.
Out of the 12 districts south of
the river, only three have a major-ity
white residential population,
with one of those three districts
encompassing Lehigh University.
The socioeconomic distribution
of Bethlehem tells a similar story.
Excluding Lehigh’s district,
which is an outlier in median
household income at $60,200, the
highest median household income
of a district south of the river is
$44,200, according to City Data.
Conversely, the highest median See DIVIDE Page 4
household income of a district
north of the river is over twice
that at $102,500.
The causes of this cultural and
socioeconomic divide are rooted in
Bethlehem’s history.
The North and South sides
of Bethlehem were originally
Cultural and socioeconomic conditions divide the city