Published by the Students of Johns Hopkins since 1896
December 16, 2025 December 16, 2025 | Published by the Students of Johns Hopkins since 1896

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.

Hopkins needs to act now for the health of students of color

By ALIZAY JALISI | March 8, 2018

On Feb. 22, 2018 the Task Force on Student Mental Health and Well-being released a report outlining the insufficiently met mental health needs of students and strategies to better meet those needs. Three major recommendations called on Hopkins to “promote a climate of awareness,” “to provide greater access to mental health services” and “offer, and in some cases require, training on mental health awareness and resources for faculty, staff, and students.” 

Courtesy of Gillian Lelchuk Lelchuk's bullet journal has helped improve many aspects of her life.

Creating a bullet journal can change your life

By GILLIAN LELCHUK | March 1, 2018

I started bullet journaling in May 2017. I started on the first day of May. I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t have a special bullet journal. I didn’t have any fun pens. I didn’t have a plan. Actually, that was the whole reason I started doing it — because I didn’t have any plans.

Let’s hold Hopkins accountable for mental health

By SAM MOLLIN | March 1, 2018

It’s a well-known fact that for many people, Hopkins is a stressful school. There’s probably only one place in the world where you’ll see students streaming directly into the library after their University holds a campus-wide ceremony and light show, and that’s Hopkins! 

Fabrice Florin/CC by SA-2.0 Students have started a movement of change in the aftermath of the Parkland shooting.

Armed teachers would create a culture of fear, not learning

By SAMUEL FARRAR | March 1, 2018

The Parkland school shooting two weeks ago proved to be the deadliest school shooting since Sandy Hook in 2012. Video surveillance footage revealed that the single armed guard at the school never made an attempt to confront the shooter and never even went into the school. 

Luu/CC By SA-4.0  Alina Zagitova has become a legitimate talent in the last few years.

Stop asking female athletes if they hate their competitors

By CATHERINE PALMER | February 22, 2018

Tonight marks the final figure skating event of the 2018 Winter Olympics: women’s long program. While the three Americans are likely out of contention for the podium, the gold medals favorites are Russian teens Evgenia Medvedeva and Alina Zagitova, both of whom hold world records.

PUBLIC DOMAIN Ko argues that we can reduce plastic use through smart shopping decisions.

We need to be mindful about our plastic use

By KELSEY KO | February 15, 2018

Every year, one billion toothbrushes (roughly 50 million pounds) are thrown out and added to landfills every year. That’s enough plastic to stretch around the world four times. The average American woman menstruates for 38 years and uses disposable feminine hygiene products. That’s roughly 250-300 pounds of garbage during your lifetime, just from your period. 

COURTESY OF JACQUI NEBER Jacqui did travel to Italy, but the trip involved more cooking than studying.

Studying abroad is great, but not essential

By JACQUI NEBER | February 15, 2018

I didn’t study abroad during my time at Hopkins. I stayed on campus for all four years and got to live vicariously through my friends posting on Instagram from cities across the globe: London, Buenos Aires, Rome, Sydney, Paris, Amsterdam, Hong Kong, the list goes on. Sometimes I wished I was with them. But at the end of it all, as a second-semester senior, I’m glad I’ve spent four whole years at Hopkins.

We must continue fighting for a two-state solution

By BENTLEY ADDISON | February 8, 2018

I first heard about the community of Susya this fall. I was horrified to learn about the ways in which the inhabitants of the village, by virtue of the circumstances of their birth, are forced to live with the constant fear that their homes could be taken away at any moment. Susya is a Palestinian village of about 350 people, located in Area C of the West Bank. 

FILE PHOTO

Be aware of where your drugs come from

By EMELINE ARMITAGE | February 8, 2018

There’s a pretty good chance that you, the Hopkins student reading this article, consumes drugs on the weekend. Or if not you, your friend or your roommate and certainly your classmates. 

Editorial: What we talked about this week

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD | February 8, 2018

In this week’s editorials, we would like to highlight two stories that we believe are not discussed on our campus as much as they should be. Both stories are grounded in historically rooted problems that carry very real implications today. Even though these stories may not always be in the headlines that we read, we hope that we can — at the very least — be aware of them and perhaps, do something about them.  —The Editorial Board

FILE PHOTO Leading PILOT groups helps students better understand their course material outside of class.

Hopkins cannot let PILOT become a casualty of cutbacks

By JOHN HUGHES | February 8, 2018

As they returned to campus this January, students working as leaders in the PILOT program were greeted with an email informing them that the program would be making cutbacks, including some leaders not being assigned a session for the semester. This is terrible news.

FIBONACCI BLUE / CC By 2.0 Twitter allowed for the misrepresentation of the #BLM movement.

You must support your hashtags with action

By NICOLA SUMI KIM | February 1, 2018

With the introduction of the internet, more specifically social media, activism has ceased to be the radical exercise it once was. Instead, it has become something accessible, something easy, something commonplace. Where marches and mass demonstrations used to be the main staples of activism and awareness, Twitter trends and Instagram hashtags now dominate.  

It's time for the University to reconsider tuition remission

By DING XUAN NG and SAMANTHA CARMEL | February 1, 2018

Although the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act signed by Donald Trump on Dec. 22, 2017 does not contain the repeal of tuition remissions for graduate students employed as research assistants (RAs) and teaching assistants (TAs), the occasion of this near-crisis has brought to light a number of important issues for graduate students at Hopkins.

Hopkins should divest from all fossil fuels

By SAM MOLLIN | February 1, 2018

At the end of the fall semester, our Board of Trustees finally released their decision on fossil fuel divestment. In an email to the Hopkins community, President Daniels lauded their decision to divest from companies that make more than 35 percent of their profits from coal, rather than follow the Public Interest Investment Advisory Committee (PIIAC)’s recommendations to divest from companies that profit from all types of fossil fuels.

Editorial: Continue investing in the humanities

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD | February 1, 2018

Renowned investor Bill Miller recently donated $75 million to the University’s Department of Philosophy. Not only is this donation the largest gift to any Hopkins humanities department, but it is also the largest donation to any philosophy department in the country.

Criticism of drug use in hip hop lacks empathy

By WILL KIRSCH | December 7, 2017

On November 15 of this year, 21-year-old rapper/singer Lil Peep died of an apparent overdose. Peep’s music career was inherently linked to the drugs that eventually killed him. He was at the forefront of a genre known as “emo hip hop,” a style which linked the suburban tragedy of bands like My Chemical Romance with contemporary SoundCloud rap. Lyrically, its content is steeped in drug abuse, mental illness and the intersection of the two.

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