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.
How many of us have felt overwhelmed by undergraduate and graduate school today? I think we all have experienced the stress of being students. Universities have become a stressful atmosphere where students struggle to maintain their well-being while completing multiple tasks.
April 29 marked a year since the beginning of the Palestine Solidarity Encampment at Hopkins. The aim of the encampment was to spotlight the ongoing genocide in Gaza and demand that the University divest from and boycott companies and universities supporting genocide.
French economist Frédéric Bastiat's "Broken Window Fallacy" mocks the economic logic (or lack thereof) behind President Donald Trump's sweeping tariff policies. The theory behind Trump’s unprecedented tariffs across the board on all industries from certain countries is that they will increase manufacturing job numbers. As a whole, however, tariffs ultimately hurt American consumers.
Hopkins has long had an issue with student life. Some on forums like Reddit have said, “Why does it feel like everyone hates it here at Hopkins?” while others have noticed the complain culture present at the school. Hopkins is one of the most academically prestigious schools in the country, but it often lags behind its peers in student life.
Hopkins researchers are facing critical cuts to their funding, impeding life-saving work. International students are getting their F-1 visas revoked “without reason or warning.” The U.S. government is handing out increasingly unreasonable demands to universities that target the core academic mission of higher education.
How will Hopkins respond to the Trump administration’s assaults on our country’s laws, Constitution, and universities? So far, our administration has largely avoided the question. The time for silence, however, has run out.
My dad grew up in communist Cuba under Fidel Castro. During the Cuban Revolution, the people thought Castro would bring about positive change for society, but the opposite quickly became true. I notice parallels between Cubans choosing Castro and Americans choosing a demagogue who has instead enacted an authoritarian takeover of institutions.
With the destructive effects of climate change and numerous efforts by the current administration to hinder the work of the parks, such as by freezing funding and mass layoffs, I strongly believe that national parks are now in danger.
On March 26, 2024, Rümeysa Öztürk, a PhD student at Tufts University, co-authored an opinion editorial in The Tufts Daily. Almost exactly one year later, she was arrested near campus by plainclothes immigration officers, detained and sent nearly 1,500 miles away to a facility in Louisiana, where she is still being held. There are no charges filed against her.
Our international community is very important to Hopkins, and we are committed to supporting them as we support all our students, faculty and staff. We share the serious concerns arising from recent changes in federal immigration policies and enforcement activities and understand the anxiety these changes instill in our community members and their families, here and abroad.
We are Hopkins alumni who call on the University to step up and protect the most vulnerable members of our community. We are endorsing all activities that help protect international students, faculty, and staff during ICE raids.
The Student Government Association (SGA) elections are set for April 8, with the entire executive board, class senators, class programming councils and the Hopkins Organization for Programming President up for election.
Ultimately, the Board of Trustees is out of touch with Hopkins students and operates with little to no transparency of how it is using its power. As the Board transitions to new leadership, it must take steps to increase its transparency and restore confidence. It is unacceptable for any group, much less one as influential as the Board of Trustees, to wield their power shrouded in secrecy.
The transgender community has been significantly impacted by Donald Trump's executive orders, emphasizing the need to advocate for those facing injustices. Despite challenges, the LGBTQ+ community has shown resilience. Among the most vulnerable are disabled students, transgender individuals, and veterans, who have been particularly affected without consideration for their mental and physical health.
While the existence of liberal arts colleges may be a good intellectual activity for a small number of students, they are a terrible trade off for the United States as society and are the paragon of elitist institutions.
Baltimore is a city filled with rich culture, history and innovation. The city was the birthplace of “The Star-Spangled Banner”; the American railroad system; and Hopkins, the U.S.’s first research university, which has been a hub for research and invention for more than a century. But beyond its historical and intellectual contributions, Baltimore is also known for another, more troubling distinction: the opioid crisis.
Nowadays, there seem to be more epidemics than ever before: COVID-19, obesity, drug addiction and bird flu, among others. But another epidemic haunts the ivory towers and brick-lined paths of elite universities across the U.S.: the “sellout” epidemic.
Lady Liberty’s torch is dimming. Republicans insist that she is fatigued and her fire has been quenched by the caravan of migrants exploiting her generosity. They may seek to close the United States to asylum seekers but conservative politicians are opening up our borders to a century-old European ideology ready to invade our democratic union: fascism.
In the past decade, private equity investors have spent over $1 trillion in acquiring health care entities — ranging from hospitals and nursing homes to private physician practices. While it may be spun that these firms are infusing much-needed capital into struggling hospitals, the reality is that these investments are detrimental to patient care and are emblematic of the ills of the American health care system, not the cure.
On Feb. 10, President Ronald J. Daniels announced that Hopkins joined several universities and higher education groups in a federal lawsuit against the National Institutes of Health (NIH), in response to the NIH limiting indirect research costs to 15% of grant funding. Indirect costs are a percentage of grant money that is paid by the NIH to the institution conducting research (ie. Hopkins) for facilities, equipment, administrative support and IT infrastructure costs. As of 2023, Hopkins had negotiated an indirect cost rate of over 60% and such a dramatic reduction would have undoubtedly stalled the clinical trials and research at the University.
