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.
As students at Hopkins, we are all residents of Baltimore City. It is easy to forget this when we talk about mental health at Hopkins, an indisputably academically stressful environment, yet a privileged population. In some neighborhoods in Baltimore, mental health stems from deep-rooted issues of segregation, poverty and socioeconomic disparities.
As the Editorial Board, we usually dedicate each week to holding people in power accountable, to mourning lives lost, to demanding change. But as Thanksgiving approaches, we also want to reflect on what we have to be grateful for — on the strides we’ve made not only in our country, but also in this city that we love and at our University.
Last week’s midterm elections brought a series of historical firsts, such as the first Native-American congresswoman, the first Muslim congresswoman and the first openly gay governor, to name a few. However, one “first” candidate that we’ve left out of the spotlight is Young Kim, who may be the first Korean-American woman elected to Congress.
I’m not into Asian men.” I can attribute this quote to several friends and acquaintances, and the funny thing is, many of them were Asian. Which begs the question: why? I sometimes ask that aloud. Usually the response would be a non-answer: silence, a topic change or “I don’t know, I’m just not into them.”
The News-Letter editorial, “How can we fight the rising tide of hate in our country?” includes many useful thoughts, especially on the evils of anti-Semitism and its incubation on social-media platforms such as Gab. But it also relies on a misreading of the First Amendment’s fighting-words exemption to argue that “hate speech” is constitutionally “unprotected.”
We are optimistic that this increase in youth voter turnout signals a greater investment in American politics. But our civic engagement cannot begin and end with voting in elections. We must do our part to be consistently and regularly informed, not just when when we check off boxes on ballots every two years.
Last month, Hopkins announced the end of its “Rising to the Challenge” fundraising campaign, which solicited over $6 billion in donations over the past eight and a half years. It seems like this money is going to a lot of good causes like financial aid, hiring new professors and new research projects. The generosity of plutocrats and commoners alike made this possible.
Every second, the equivalent of one garbage truck of textiles is either burned or dumped into a landfill, with an estimated lost value of $500 billion per year. And at what cost? The industry is plagued with dangerous working conditions, as exemplified by the 2013 collapse of a Bangladesh garment factory, which killed 1134 workers and injured about 2500 more. It’s also harmful to the environment, with textile production emitting 1.2 billion tons of greenhouse gases annually.
At times, we may wonder if standing in solidarity is enough. How can we fight the hateful tide engulfing our country? Right now, it is what we must do in order to support each other and rebuild our society on a foundation of love and understanding.
I hate that these words need to be said. A massacre against Jewish people took place last weekend. An armed shooter entered the Tree of Life – Or L’Simcha synagogue, yelling that “all Jews must die” as he broke into the Saturday morning prayer service. Eleven members of the congregation were killed and six were injured, including three police officers who responded to the scene.
Shortly after the 2016 U.S. presidential elections, I was sitting in the FFC when I overheard someone confessing that she didn’t vote. She was unhappy with the election results, and she was registered to vote in a swing state.
In their efforts to inform the public, journalists often put their lives on the line and this past year has been particularly dangerous. A few weeks ago, Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi was tortured, dismembered and killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul after advocating for free expression in the Arab world in The Washington Post. U.S. President Donald Trump has meanwhile been reluctant to hold the Saudi government accountable in Khashoggi’s death.
In 1993, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was confirmed by a vote of 96 to three in the U.S. Senate. After the unprecedented nature of Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation, we can safely say that such a bipartisan equilibrium will never again exist with respect to the Supreme Court.
As college football and basketball make more money for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and universities, more people think the athletes playing in these sports should be compensated. While this seems like a nice, logical and fair idea, the execution could send everyone involved down a rabbit hole that they may never be able to fully climb out of.
In college football, University of Alabama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa — the Heisman Trophy frontrunner who has his eyes set on delivering the school its second straight national championship — won’t make anything. No contract, commercials, shoe deals. Nada. The same goes for Duke University’s Zion Williamson, a generational basketball talent whose talents will fill Cameron Indoor Stadium night after night this upcoming season. You won’t see them starring in shoe commercials, jerseys with their names being sold on store racks or their names and likenesses being used in video games.
After University officials failed to pass legislation that would have enabled them to create a private police force last semester, they announced that they would spend the next several months gathering student and community input to revise the bill.
When I was applying to college, my dad told me 山外有山,天外有天 which translates to “there will always be a taller mountain, there is always something higher than the sky.” In other words, there’s always something better out there.
The recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) makes it excruciatingly clear that it’s time for us to fully recognize the existential threat of climate change — a danger of our own making, maintained through our neglect to take effective action.
I agree: We should continue badgering the administration for the construction of a new student center. But while we’re at it, let’s also address the University’s isolation-inducing housing system.
If the values of “diversity” and “community engagement” are to be more than mere slogans — and if Hopkins is serious about its expressed commitment to equality — ending its contracts with ICE is non-negotiable.
