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.

Death joke culture is wrong, but it still persists

By NICOLA SUMI KIM | October 5, 2017

If you were to ask a random person to outline our generation’s defining characteristics, you would probably hear a string of descriptors fitting something along the lines of “entitled,” “lazy,” “technologically driven,” perhaps “misunderstood” or “thoroughly cheated.”

Our student body has an inferiority complex

By JACQUI NEBER | October 5, 2017

For a school full of academically accomplished people, Hopkins is a school with an inferiority complex. This is a strange complex to claim and an even stranger one to prove. There are no statistics that can speak to the crippling anxieties and tendencies toward comparison that run through our campus.

PUBLIC DOMAIN O’Donnell points to disruptions of free speech at UC Berkeley as evidence of silencing.

Conservative views are being unfairly silenced on campus

By JAMES O'DONNELL | October 5, 2017

Police in riot gear. Black-garbed teenagers throwing Molotov cocktails. Yelled slurs, angry chanting, camera crews everywhere. This may sound like an occurrence from 50 years ago and half a world away, but it’s in Berkeley, California, and it’s happening now.

PUBLIC DOMAIN Shua and Leff argue that Sarsour’s rhetoric and past actions make it impossible to endorse her appearance in the MSE lineup.

Linda Sarsour's discourse is divisive and troubling

By ARIELLA SHUA and Michael Leff | September 29, 2017

We applaud Ms. Sarsour’s stated commitment to mutual engagement and respect, a commitment that she has restated in many different ways, and numerous times on her Twitter feed. But all too often, politicians and communal leaders fail to live up to the bold promise of their words. We believe Ms. Sarsour to be no exception.

Screen Shot 2017-10-03 at 6.23.38 PM

Editorial: We must all take responsibility for hazing on campus

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD | February 7, 2018

This past week was Hazing Prevention Week, an annual week hosted by the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life, Office of Multicultural Affairs, Hopkins Athletics and the Office of Student Leadership and Involvement. This week of activities included events such as a midnight breakfast at The LaB, the men’s soccer game, a movie screening as well as a keynote speaker.

MSE panelists’ anti-Semitic views are disturbing

By AARON PULTMAN and SERENA FRECHTER | September 28, 2017

As leaders of the Jewish Students Association of Johns Hopkins, we are troubled by the opening event of the Milton S. Eisenhower (MSE) Symposium series this fall, a panel discussion featuring the organizers of the Women’s March. Bob Bland, Linda Sarsour, Carmen Perez and Tamika Mallory’s struggle for equal rights for all is an admirable campaign and one that we support.

FILE PHOTO
FILE PHOTO Students need to understand the complex makeup of Baltimore in order to best service it.

Baltimore is our home, not just a temporary residence

By ALICIA BADEA and ANTHONY BOUTROS | September 28, 2017

Like any city, Baltimore has a reputation outside of itself. Unlike the idealized perceptions of New York City and Los Angeles, Baltimore must contend with a number of misconceived assumptions. When Hopkins students subscribe to these assumptions, native Baltimoreans are “otherized” —  maintaining instead of challenging the social gap between “them” and “us.”

A look into last week’s German election

By RORY MCCLAIN | September 28, 2017

On Sunday, Sept. 24, the 2017 German federal elections took place. The significance of this process is obvious. Germany, as Europe’s largest economy and one of the EU’s lynchpins, is massively influential in European as well as global politics. How it handles inflows of refugees and migrants from the Middle East and Africa, climate change, and bellicose nations such as Russia — among many other issues — over the next four years will set the standard the world over.

Editorial: PIIAC’s recommendation to divest is only the beginning

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD | February 7, 2018

The Public Interest Investment Advisory Committee (PIIAC) released an official recommendation last Friday that the University should fully divest its endowment from fossil fuel companies. The Committee — comprised of undergraduates, graduate students, faculty and staff — not only recommended divestment but also outlined how the University can begin the process.

Divestment from fossil fuels is a first step but not enough

By EMELINE ARMITAGE | September 21, 2017

On September 15, the Public Interest Investment Advisory Committee (PIIAC) released their recommendations for fossil fuel divestment. Overall, the recommendation was a complete success for student activists (specifically the group Refuel Our Future), with PIIAC recommending full divestment of the University’s endowment from fossil fuel companies.

PUBLIC DOMAIN Armitage cites natural disasters such as Hurricane Harvey as evidence for climate change.
PUBLIC DOMAIN The PATRIOT Act gave the government unprecedented access to civilian electronic activity.

PATRIOT Act was the wrong response to 9/11

By SAMUEL SKLARIN | September 21, 2017

Last week marked the 16th anniversary of the tragic attacks on the World Trade Center in New York. These attacks caused a ripple effect of kindness around the world: The New York firefighters sprung to the scene immediately, neighbors were doing anything they could to lift each other up and people in countries all around the world were deeming themselves as “American” as a sign of solidarity.

FILE PHOTO Lyu argues that uncovering grades could have many consequences for freshmen.

Uncovering grades puts Class of 2021 at a disadvantage

By TIM LYU | September 14, 2017

The Class of 2021 is the first class since 1971 that is without the privilege of covered grades at Hopkins. In June 2016, the Homewood Academic Council announced that the University would discontinue its renowned policy under which first-semester freshmen receive only an S for satisfactory (a letter grade of C- or above) or a U for unsatisfactory instead of conventional letter grades.