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 is one of the most powerful institutions in Baltimore. It is the city’s largest employer: over 17,000 of its 37,000 employees are Baltimore residents. As a world-renowned university with an endowment of over $4 billion, Hopkins has the means and the responsibility of creating a more equitable economy for our city’s residents.
Though necessary, the University’s decision to send students home and transition to online courses after spring break due to the coronavirus had students scrambling. We were forced to quickly rethink travel and living arrangements, pack our bags and say our goodbyes, without even knowing when we’d return to our friends and community.
Readers have recently seen some of the paper’s first coverage of the protests in Hong Kong, a clash between demonstrators and state forces over China’s executive authority in the city. Though these protests having been happening since last June, they didn’t reach Homewood Campus until Joshua Wong and Nathan Law, two activist leaders of the Hong Kong movement, spoke at Shriver Hall on an invitation from the Foreign Affairs Symposium (FAS).
The coronavirus (COVID-19) officially became a pandemic on Wed, March 11. Yet just last week, Hopkins was mostly operating as usual. Classes proceeded as planned, clubs held their meetings, sports teams practiced and performing arts groups planned their spring productions.
One of The News-Letter editors wrote last week to express her disappointment at the current Democratic presidential candidates. What was the most diverse field of presidential candidates in a primary essentially winnowed down to a field of three, of which two were white men in their late seventies. Since then, Senator Elizabeth Warren, the last major standing female candidate, has suspended her campaign.
There’s a lot of talk about low turnout among young voters, especially in the wake of Super Tuesday. Bernie Sanders’ campaign counted on a wave of new young voters heading to the polls and carrying him to victory — a wave that failed to appear, even though Sanders did overwhelmingly win among young voters.
In an attempt to increase voter turnout and streamline the voting process, the student body will vote for candidates on the Student Government Association’s (SGA) class councils and executive boards at the same time this year.
I don’t know how best to start this. With the Student Government Association (SGA) elections suddenly moved up with such short notice to the student body and beginning on Friday, I find that this may be the most, if not only, appropriate time to air these opinions. Having been a senator for almost a year and a half, I wanted to share some personal thoughts that have stuck with me since last semester about SGA. The views reflected in this piece are mine alone.
I didn’t expect to witness a death threat upon entering the auditorium at the Foreign Affairs Symposium (FAS) event featuring the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement activists, Nathan Law and Joshua Wong.
Two weeks ago, Hopkins hosted two leaders from the Hong Kong riots, Nathan Law and Joshua Wong. Ever since event promotion began, it sparked anger among Hopkins Chinese students. A petition on Change.org was launched, raising awareness that Law and Wong’s movement fueled “brutal violence, massive vandalism, threats and actions of terrorism, as well as far-right-winged nativist and racist hatred toward Chinese Mainlanders.” Despite the petition efforts and support from over 2000 signatures, the Foreign Affairs Symposium (FAS) event was held as planned.
With Tom Steyer, former Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Senator Amy Klobuchar and former Mayor Mike Bloomberg dropping out of the race for the Democratic nomination, the field now has even less diversity than it did last week. Now that my preferred candidate is no longer in the running, I’m tasked with selecting a new candidate.
For decades, Harvey Weinstein preyed on women in the film industry. And for decades, he got away with it. As a wealthy Oscar-winning producer and co-founder of Miramax and The Weinstein Company, Weinstein was one of the most powerful men in Hollywood, and he seemed invincible.
Two years ago, I wrote an article reacting to the Me Too movement. My thoughts reflected the disgust I felt at the many figures in Hollywood and the public sphere who got away with sexual assault for so many years.
In February of 1936, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was at the height of his popularity and was running high with ambitious plans to implement more revolutionary New Deal programs. He had just won his first re-election by a margin that hadn’t been seen since James Monroe, and the Democratic majority in Congress was overwhelming.
If you even casually flipped through last week’s paper, you probably noticed the stunningly striking photo essay, “Frozen land: scenes from the Swedish mountaintops.” What you may not have noticed, though, was that the photographer’s name appeared elsewhere in the issue alongside photos assigned to articles. Yes, please join me in extending a warmest welcome to the paper’s newest contributing photographer.
Since 2012, college students across the U.S. have been calling on their universities to divest from fossil fuel companies. At Hopkins, student group Refuel Our Future (Refuel) has been leading the fight for divestment. In November 2019, student protesters at Harvard and Yale disrupted the Harvard-Yale football game to call on their universities to divest. At over 50 universities, Hopkins included, students held events to recognize Fossil Fuel Divestment Day.
Around two months ago, the magazine Christianity Today made national headlines by writing an editorial arguing in favor of removing President Donald Trump from office. This article was significant for many reasons, but perhaps the reason that it was so relevant was because of how thoroughly unexpected it seemed. The editorial wasn’t just interesting — it was surprising.
We are two months into 2020, and it’s not an exaggeration to say that civilization itself hangs in the balance. All around us, Trumpian forces of authoritarianism and corruption operate with impunity in our federal government, the international order continues to crack under its own weight and the climate crisis marches on unabated.
You’re a Hopkins student. You wake up, and if you’re not already on campus you’re probably no more than a few minutes away. You grab coffee and a croissant from Brody Cafe before class. You catch the JHMI, which ferries you across Baltimore to the Hospital’s doorstep. You’re in the lab, head bent, back aching for hours. You head back to campus, hit up the library and then the rec center. You grab dinner at the FFC or, if you’re feeling adventurous, somewhere along St. Paul, on your way home.
