Opinion

The opinions presented below are solely the views of the author and do not represent the views of The News-Letter. If you are a member of the Hopkins community looking to submit a piece or a letter to the editor, please email opinions@jhunewsletter.com.

We need to talk about our competitiveness

By PHILLIP YOON | November 7, 2019

I remember asking the student tour guide when I visited Hopkins as an accepted student: “Is Hopkins a competitive school?” The tour guide answered: “It is a common myth that Hopkins is competitive, but that’s not true! I know that a lot of people collaborate and cooperate....” After this, I started to wonder whether the University’s competitiveness is a myth or a reality. 

COURTESY OF ELAN MEDOFF Students are known to study day and night in the Milton S. Eisenhower Library and in Brody Learning Commons.
NEHA SANGANA/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR Members of Refuel Our Future at their first DivestFest event in September 2019.

There is a new fight for fossil fuel divestment at Hopkins

By LAIS SANTORO | November 11, 2019

Refuel Our Future, the University’s student-run divestment organization, is starting Fossil Free Fridays, a weekly strike on Fridays going off of the national Fridays For Future (FFF) climate strike movement. Instead of protesting for climate justice and a Green New Deal, which is the basis of the fight for the youth FFF movement, Refuel will protest for fossil fuel divestment, a fight that the organization has been trying to win for a few years. 

Elijah Cummings embraced country over party. Throughout the impeachment process, Congress must do the same.

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD | October 31, 2019

For many of us in Baltimore, Representative Elijah Cummings was a hero. Cummings, who’d lived in a West Baltimore row home for over three decades, was a tireless fighter for civil rights. During the Uprising, he walked among protesters and police, calling for peace. He advocated for the state to pool more resources into treating drug addicts in our city. Most recently, he spoke out against U.S. President Donald Trump after he called Baltimore a “rat and rodent infested mess.” 

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THE PUBLIC EDITOR: On crafting a more representative front page

By JACOB TOOK | October 31, 2019

After three and a half years at The News-Letter, I’m pretty confident that I’d ace a quiz on the parts of the paper’s front page. Even just above the fold — what we call the top half that’s visible when you see the paper around campus — there’s already a lot going on.

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THE PUBLIC EDITOR: On respectfully representing survivors of sexual violence

By JACOB TOOK | October 24, 2019

Four and a half years ago, the University shut down the Hopkins chapter of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon after reports of sexual assault at one of the fraternity’s parties. In an editorial headlined “SAE suspension wrong, requires reversal,” The News-Letter called the decision “draconian,” prompting understandable pushback from readers.

The argument for Pour Out Pepsi’s campaign

By LAIS SANTORO | October 24, 2019

I think it’s safe to say that we all know about how soda and other sugary drinks are extremely unhealthy and can increase our risk to certain diseases in the future. We also know that the largest corporations that contribute to these trends are PepsiCo and Coca-Cola. Unfortunately, Hopkins has an exclusive pouring rights contract with Pepsi. The Real Food Hopkins student group is trying to break that contract up. Here’s why. 

COURTESY OF KATY WILNER Santoro and Real Food Hopkins support the Pour Out Pepsi campaign, which urges the University to end its exclusivity contract with Pepsi. 
CC BY-SA 2.0/Gage Skidmore Wu thinks that Yang should seriously consider his influence an Asian-American leader.

The role of Andrew Yang as an Asian-American representative

By NATALIE WU | October 24, 2019

On Oct. 15, I attended the Milton S. Eisenhower Symposium sponsored talk featuring Kenan Thompson, the longest-running Saturday Night Live (SNL) cast member. Although the night was mostly filled with laughs, during the question-and-answer section, one student addressed the recent SNL controversy surrounding Shane Gillis. 

Hopkins has released this year’s statistics on sexual misconduct. How have they changed since last year?

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD | October 25, 2019

When the Office of Institutional Equity (OIE) issued its first annual report on sexual misconduct at Hopkins last year, we were upset but not surprised by the findings. The report indicated that there was a lack of awareness among students around OIE’s services, a doubling in sexual misconduct reports from 2016 to 2017 and a majority of cases taking eight months or longer to investigate. 

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THE PUBLIC EDITOR: Donuts, ad space and alumni: on sustaining print journalism

By JACOB TOOK | October 17, 2019

So last week’s editorial was titled “Does print journalism have a future?” Pretty dramatic. I bet the irony was especially tactile if you read that in the print issue. More likely, though, you were reading online. Maybe you were browsing our website or our Facebook page, and you raised your eyebrows and thought, this feels relevant to what I’m doing right at this very moment.

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Why I won’t be marching in the strikes for climate change

By SHUBHA VERMA | October 17, 2019

Since last March, Climate Strikes have been taking place about every other month. In every state, students skip school for the day, make posters and take to the trains to meet in the heart of the city. Their motive is clear and their voices are loud. They’re powerful, and I do believe that they will make a change.

Does print journalism have a future?

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD | October 10, 2019

On Monday, Sept. 30, The Diamondback — the University of Maryland’s independent, student-run newspaper — announced that it would exclusively publish content online starting in March 2020. The decision to discontinue The Diamondback’s print publications comes 110 years after the paper was first founded and just 47 years after it became financially independent in 1971. 

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SGA has the power to fix student organization culture. We need to start using it.

By NATHAN MUDRAK | October 11, 2019

I was troubled to read last week’s Opinions article “What I learned from student club rejections” by Keidai Lee. The article details Keidai’s difficult experience applying to student organizations here at Hopkins. His experience, and that of so many other incoming students who face rejection after rejection from on-campus student groups, is simply unacceptable. Your Student Government Association (SGA), of which I am a part, is entrusted with the power to regulate the majority of student organizations here on campus. We need to use it.

Opposing Viewpoints: Trump's impeachment inquiry should not be conducted

By ARMSTRONG GBESSAGEE | October 10, 2019

On September 24, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats announced the opening of an impeachment inquiry against President Donald J. Trump. The allegations claim  he unduly pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the business dealings of ex-Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter. Adam Schiff, the Speaker’s handpicked impeachment prosecutor, compared the President to a crime mob boss in an elaborate quid pro quo scheme involving military aid in return for dirt on a political opponent.

GAGE SKIDMORE/CC BY-SA 2.0 Gbessagee thinks that the allegations against Trump are false, while Park feels that impeachment was long deserved.