AWOL - Issue 020

A M E R I C A N W AY O F L I F E FALL 2016 » ISSUE 020

TRYING TO CREATE MEANINGFUL INCLUSION + POISONING THE DISTRICT: Lead in D.C. Pipes

+ RACE IN THE KITCHEN:

The Devaluation of “Ethnic” Food

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+ BIRTH BEHIND BARS:

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Shackling Women During Labor

Dear Reader,

AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE » FALL 2016 » ISSUE 020

These past few months have been unparalleled in shittiness. We’ve normalized fascism; there were multiple racist attacks on campus; xenophobia and fear dominate international and domestic policy conversations; and students are hurting.

Where was AWOL?

MISSION AWOL magazine aims to continue pushing both

ourselves and American University to be more critical of issues that deserve to be understood with nuance; to work subversively when dismantling barriers that suppress certain voices; and to love irrepressibly when it comes to serving our community. We ignite campus discussions on social, cultural and political issues. We want to make our campus more inquiring, egalitarian and socially engaged.

Our stories have an angle, which is different from having an agenda. Our reporting is impartial and fair, but our analysis is critical and argumentative.

We were independently founded by American University students in 2008. While we are still student-run, today we are housed under AU’s Student Media board. AWOL is a member of the Associated Collegiate Press and Generation Progress Voices Network. This publication has won awards at the National College Media Convention, and its writers have won awards from the Society for Professional Journalists and the College Media Association.

EDITORS-IN-CHIEF: Casey Chiappetta & Jessica Wombles MANAGING EDITOR: Evie Lacroix CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Andrea Lin ART DIRECTOR: Gwynn Pollard WEB EDITOR: Rachel Falek MULTIMEDIA EDITOR: Paloma Losada

EDITORIAL STAFF EDITORS: Antoinette D'Addario, Will Fowler, Gwynn Pollard, Laura Saini, Shayna Vayser WRITERS: Laurel Clark, Miranda Cleland, Olivia Donohue, Caroline Garrison, Amanda Malloy, Alana Persson, Thomas Pool, Ashley Tejeda

ART ILLUSTRATION & PHOTOGRAPHY: Maria Carasco, Theodore Chaffman, Kate Kohn, Ashley Tejeda, Robin Weiner

LOVE A STORY? HATE A STORY?

AWOL was working to create a more inclusive, equitable and fair climate while acknowledging and giving attention the structural silencing of certain voices and groups. As journalists, we pride ourselves on holding those in power accountable and AWOL is not above that standard. As important as it is to facilitate ongoing dialogue surrounding these issues, it’s more important that we set an example through action.

Our rebranding this semester has been around this mission; we have a critical angle, not a political agenda. Our stories this issue bring us back to the original mission of this magazine –– to create a space for political, critical dialogue. Our cover story begins to discuss a group us students don’t normally like to focus on –– the faculty –– and how historically our campus climate has been exclusive and non-diverse. Other stories discuss how lead poisoning disproportionately affects immigrants in D.C., structural and social reasons for a lack of composting and care for the environment, why we devalue ‘ethnic’ food and human rights abuses of pregnant women in prisons.

We’ve brought different spokespeople together for our new podcast, The Death of Print Journalism, to discuss what AU is doing post-election and what needs to be done to make sure that students feel safe on our campus. Casey wrote a call to action from media and political organizations on campus and organized a workshop with the Center for Diversity & Inclusion about how we can use our platform to further discussions about issues of race on campus. This semester, we’re co-sponsoring an event with No Lost Generation to raise money for Syrian refugees. We’ve had discussions about the racial makeup of our editorial board and staff, how to improve our outreach to different organizations and our role on campus.

But by no means are we perfect and we continue to grow from our mistakes, so we ask to be held accountable. Our plans for next semester include using our newly launched multimedia department to bring together political organizations on campus to discuss relevant issues in our podcasts and mini-documentaries. We are planning workshops on media literacy and fair reporting. We are organizing a tour of D.C. to discuss gentrification and cultural tourism.

These steps and this magazine wouldn’t be possible without our dedicated editorial team and staff. We’d also like to thank Chris Young for his support with planning, editing and publishing. From late nights brought to you by Dav jet fuel and frantic FaceTime calls between Casey in D.C. and Jessica in Copenhagen, we bring to you the product of tears, hand cramps and love. We hope these pages and words further much needed campus discussion, but more importantly action, around race, discrimination, gender and meaningful, active and empathetic inclusion.

But we need your support and your involvement in AWOL. We all have a stake in these issues, but some more than others, and ask you to use AWOL as a platform for your voice to be heard and listened to. For suggestions, questions and critiques, we can be reached at awolau@gmail.com

Want to join AWOL? Write to us: awolau@gmail.com

FIND US ONLINE

With much love and thanks,

WEBSITE: www.awolau.org ISSUU: www.issuu.com/awol TWITTER: @awolAU FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/awolAU

COVER ILLUSTRATION by Andrea Lin BACK COVER PHOTO by Ted Chaffman

Casey Chiappetta and Jessica Wombles Editors-in-chief

3 RACE IN THE KITCHEN THE DEVALUATION OF “ETHNIC” FOOD

By Ashley Tejeda Why we don’t pay more.

6 FROM CULTURE TO COMMODITY WHITE THEFT IN FASHION

By Olivia Donohue The continuation of colonialism in fashion.

8 DALLAS’ OWN UNITED NATIONS GOING TO SCHOOL AS A REFUGEE

By Caroline Garrison The academic and social challenges of student refugees.

JUSTICE

PAGE 3: RACE IN THE KITCHEN

11 BIRTH BEHIND BARS SHACKLING WOMEN DURING LABOR

By Rachel Falek How pregnant women are restrained of their rights in prison.

15 NOT A GREEN EAGLE AU’S COMPOSTING PROBLEM

By Laurel Clark What we do with food waste.

CAMPUS LIFE

PAGE 15: NOT A GREEN EAGLE

17 THE 17% TRYING TO CREATE MEANINGFUL INCLUSION

By Casey Chiappetta and Evie Lacroix The Catch-22 of being a faculty member of color.

23 PHOTO ESSAY PROTESTING IN THE DISTRICT

By Theodore Chaffman Capturing tumultuous times.

27 PAINTING THE TOWN RED THE RISE OF LEFT-WING POPULISM

By Thomas Pool Understanding neoliberalism and social change.

30 SMOKING OUT BIG PHARMA WHY WE HAVEN’T LEGALIZED

By Amanda Molloy Big pharma’s role in marijuana legalization.

POLITICS

PAGE 23: PHOTO ESSAY

33 NAR(CAN) SAVE LIVES IT’S WORTH THE COST

By Alana Persson and Will Fowler Monetizing the opiod overdose reversal drug.

35 POISONING THE DISTRICT LEAD IN D.C. PIPES

By Miranda Cleland How lead affects D.C.’s immigrant children.

THE DISTRICT

PAGE 35: POISONING THE DISTRICT

37 DEFINING ‘CAPPUCCINO CITY’ PROFILE: DEREK HYRA

By Paloma Losada Empathetic urban development.

AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE MAGAZINE

Top photo: Mezcaleria before it opens. Second row, from left to right: Steamers in the back of Maketto; The floor of Maketto; Soup from Maketto. Bottom row, from left to right: Yellow radishes in Maketto; The expo of Maketto; Erik Bruner-Yang, executive chef of Maketto, preparing food.

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R AC E I N T H E KITCHEN The Devaluation of “Ethnic” Food

Written and photographed

by Ashley Tejeda D.C. is becoming the city for foodies. With over 2,000 restaurants, according to the National Restaurant Association, it comes as no surprise that Bon Appétit named the city the 2016 ‘Restaurant City of the Year.’ D.C. surpassed last year’s winner, San Francisco, and ahead of the infamously restaurant crazed New York City.

But for a city with so many dining options, D.C. does not feature many prominent ethnically diverse cuisines and restaurants.

The Washingtonian lists the best 100 restaurants in the D.C. Those featured in the list charge considerably less money than American and Western European restaurants.

In that list, 76 of the 100 restaurants are either European (specifically French and Italian) or American. Twenty-three identify are Latin cuisine, and 7 are Asian cuisine.

There are no African restaurants.

Now view the list from most to least expensive.

The restaurants listed as being $$$ to $$$$, or the more expensive restaurants, are overwhelmingly French and American. Only

8 out of those 51 in that category being Asian, none of which are Latin or African.

Comparing this to Time Out’s 100 Best Restaurants in NYC, about 20 percent of the listed restaurants were Asian. Additionally, there were only three Mexican restaurants, one soul food and one Afro-inspired restaurant listed; although they still were cheaper than their Western cuisine counterparts.

These statistics don’t match the demographics of the city. According to a report taken July 1, 2015 by the United States Census Bureau, D.C.’s population is 48.3 percent black, 44.1 percent white, 10.6 Latinx and 4.2 percent Asian. Immigrants, specified by the census as foreign-born persons, are 14.1 percent of the overall population. Why doesn’t our food match our city?

Alexis Samayoa, executive chef and creator of D.C.’s first Mezcaleria, Espita, says he has faced issues with restaurant-goers and their expectations of what his prices should be.

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AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE MAGAZINE “I’m buying the same product that any expensive steak house is buying [and] I’m pricing it accordingly, and unfortunately [Mexican food] has that stigma of if you read the word taco, it’s cheap,” Samayoa said. “[But] it’s not cheap because I’m buying the best quality … and then that becomes an eyesore to everyone.”

Take for example Italian shrimp scampi and Chinese shrimp lo mein. Both dishes contain somewhat equivalent ingredients — noodles and shrimp — and require the same amount of time to make. Yet one is vastly different to customers in terms of value.

According to 2015 Zagat data for NYC, traditional Western cuisine (American, French, Continental, Italian, Spanish) averaged $60 a meal. Asian restaurants (Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Indian, Chinese, Thai) on the other hand, averaged $44 a meal.

Why is so-called ‘ethnic’ food cheaper than its ‘Western’ counterparts? “[Americans] don’t necessarily think that much about [food] having a meaning and yet all of the choices behind the foods we choose to eat has some meaning behind it, has some social context,” said Stephanie Hartman, a literature professor at American University who lectures about food.

One important factor to this is cultural prestige. Our food culture is a mixture of multiple countries: Italian, German and Irish

immigrants have given America pizza, hot dogs, burgers, pretzels. These dishes are now considered American, yet we don’t give the same title to a burrito or chop suey.

“It’s funny to think, when does something finally cross over and become ‘American’? Is it when you can get it at the Cheesecake Factory?”

Hartman said.

Maketto, a Zagat rated Cambodian and Taiwanese restaurant in D.C., has faced critiques of authenticity. Erik Bruner-Yang, the executive chef, says that drawing the link between what is American and Asian is not as easy as we think.

In August, Maketto received an anonymous review on Yelp. It reads, “This joint preys upon the ignorance of its mostly white hipster clientele and non-Asian staff who don’t actually know any better.”

Bruner-Yang responded on Facebook to this review writing: “Unfortunately many Asian Americans enter a new style Asian establishment with any already preconceived that the food will be a bastardization of their culinary roots than being open minded to new food experiences. … We should be celebrating Asian restaurants owned by Asian Americans trying to break the cycle of $5 lunches, dragon rolls, and businesses with no real understanding of our local food system and the impact your food philosophy has globally.”

Authenticity of a restaurant and its cuisine is political. Pricing, audience, and ethnic

composition of the restaurant staff play into food politics in D.C. “How we form our identity in relation to place and people, it all comes out rather organically in the food choices people make,” Hartman said.

Food, in an increasingly foodie city, is becoming reflective of these changing norms about what food is, who food is for, and how food should be priced. As D.C. continues to gentrify, demands about what food is legitimate and authentic has the potential to change.

Samayoa says that if we have these open conversations about what and why certain foods are desired, we can talk about food in a way that hasn’t been done before.

“D.C.’s becoming something, and it’s heading the right way,” Samayoa said.

Ashley Tejeda is a junior studying communication studies and graphic design.

“It’s funny to think, when does something finally cross over and become ‘American’? Is it when you can get it at the Cheesecake Factory?”

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FROM CULTURE TO COMMODITY White Theft in Fashion

OTHER: 5.3% MIDDLE EASTERN: 0.28% LATINX: 2.5% ASIAN: 7.5%

By Olivia Donohue Infographic by Andrea Lin

BLACK: 9.2%

Gigi Hadid and Kendall Jenner walked the Marc Jacobs runway during New York Fashion Week, sporting metallic jackets, colorful prints and rainbow dreadlocks. Arms wrapped around each other, smiling, cameras clicked: We had a new face of cultural appropriation.

rituals and practices from a culture “without attributing the design or the art piece to the culture from where it comes … [or] recognition to that culture and the history of that culture.” These signs and symbols are then used for another’s entertainment or profit.

It’s not just celebrities and high fashion designers that are guilty of cultural appropriation. Huge popular retailers have also been accused of using cultures that do not belong to them to make money.

While the fashion industry is seeing more diversity, this doesn’t necessarily translate to less cultural appropriation. According to the Fashion Spot, of the models at New York Fashion Week, 32 percent were people of color.

In comparison, during the 1990s, nearly all models were white.

But recently, with social awareness coming into vogue, more and more celebrities are advocating for change. Though the emergence of discourse on the topic has been beneficial, is dialogue all that’s needed?

“I think because we have a larger white population, they may not necessarily understand what cultural appropriation is,” said Anying Guo, a sophomore studying journalism. “I’ve heard a lot of misconceptions on campus, and I know that people just want to wear what they want and that’s fine and all, but I think that there’s a distinct lack of understanding about how much a piece of clothing can mean to a certain culture.”

Laura Jung, an anthropology doctoral candidate at American University and lecturer of cross cultural communications, defines cultural appropriation as taking symbols,

WHITE: 75.3%

While representation of people of color has slowly improved, instances of cultural appropriation among popular retailers are on the rise. However, with the help of social media, we are beginning to see a new dialogue and social criticism.

“I haven’t witnessed any conversations in public forums about cultural appropriation in fashion, but like all issues to be discussed on a predominantly white campus, there needs to be room for marginalized and affected people to speak,” said Shelby Moring, a sophomore studying women’s, gender and sexuality Studies in an email interview. “Thus, our white peers must respect this and use these conversations as learning experiences by not speaking over the communities affected by cultural appropriation in the fashion industry.”

WORLD FASHION WEEK FALL 2016:

MODELS BY RACE Source: The Fashion Spot Diversity Report (Mar. 16, 2016)

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AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE MAGAZINE While cultural appropriation is becoming more talked about in mainstream media, it’s importance is still overshadowed by popular, white celebrities’ brazen exploitation of people of color. For example, at the 2013 American Music Awards, Katy Perry opened the awards dressed as a Geisha.

“As a Japanese-American woman, I see cultural appropriation of my Japanese culture all the time,” said Naomi Tamura, a junior studying international studies. “Non-Japanese people putting chopsticks in their buns, or even wearing a kimono because ... they saw someone wearing one in Vogue.”

When Kylie Jenner wore cornrows in an Instagram post, Amandla Stenberg, a black actress, criticized Jenner’s appropriation of Black style, sparking a twitter feud between the two. In response, Stenberg uploaded a Youtube video, “Don’t Cash Crop On My Cornrows,” detailing a brief history of white appropriation of black hairstyles. The video has more than two million views and was spread around social media outlets for months.

“Dialogue is helpful, but ultimately I think action is needed,” Jung said.

Without action, the industry is going to continue to freely exploit non-white culture so long as it turns a profit.

This year, Valentino debuted cornrows on white models. Givenchy’s 2015 fall show used models with slicked down and styled baby hairs.

In 2011, the Navajo Nation sued Urban Outfitters for using “Navajo” to define several clothing items like the “Navajo hipster panty” and “Navajo print fabric wrapped flask.”

The Navajo Nation recently lost the suit.

Multiple attempts were made to reach out to all businesses and organizations listed in this article, but none responded.

“And I think a lot of problems within the fashion industry is taking what you like out of a culture and applying it and mixing it into a new hybrid,” Guo said. “It no longer becomes a symbol of respect to those various cultures and it becomes more of a tool to express your own aesthetic.”

Cultural appropriation is nothing new. Rock n’ roll music is saturated by white artists and is usually considered to be made by and for white people. This false history completely overlooks Sister Rosetta Tharpe and a long line of black

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artists who became the precursors to rock n’ roll by combining gospel with unique electric guitar sounds. Yet, white artists were (and are) are far more commercially successful than black artists.

This appropriation, Jung says, ties explicitly to colonialism and the legacy of slavery: it’s “the idea that black bodies and black features were meant as sources of income for nonblacks [and] –– particularly in the context of colonization –– for wealthy slave owners,” Jung said.

Cultural structures of our country that allow exploitation of black bodies have existed since it was first colonized.

In their article, “The Difference Between Cultural Exchange and Cultural Appropriation,” Everyday Feminism writer Jarune Uwujaren says that many Westerners are used to taking others’ cultures.

“We tend to think of this as cultural exchange when really, it’s no more an exchange than pressuring your neighbors to adopt your ideals while stealing their family heirlooms,” Uqujaren said. Uwujaren is a prominent progressive activist and writer and was unable to comment for this story.

Members of the fashion community are not immune to this mentality.

“Everything is an advancement of borrowing from another culture,” said Marketing Professor Michael Carberry. “Fashion designers are creative people. If you or I were a creative designer, we would look to examples, we try to be original, we try to be creative too. You’re trying to look forward; what’s hot, what’s not — you might look back thousands and thousands of years” This is where cultural appropriation is confused with cultural appreciation. In reality these things are very different. Cultural appreciation is more than attributing credit where credit is due; it is fully understanding the cultural significance while acknowledging the social impact of one’s actions.

minority culture for fashion without paying financial or symbolic credit to a trend’s cultural origin.

We all imagine that stereotype of fat cats sitting around the boardroom, planning which cultures they would like to exploit to sell t-shirts to 18-year-olds. Unfortunately, things aren’t that simple. In response to the question of what gets put on the clothing racks at Urban Outfitters, it’s entirely dependent on the consumers.

“If you don’t like what Urban Outfitters has or any other retailer you just at the end of the day don’t buy,” Carberry said.

It’s up to the people to decide whether or not culturally appropriative clothing becomes popular or not.

“There are trend setters that set the trends and, typically at colleges, they’re opinion leaders,” Carberry said. “There are guys and gals that are respected for their opinions, for their activities, for their interests and folks take a look at what they’re wearing and what they say and they’ll follow.”

Colleges also have an impact in responding to issues of cultural appropriation.

“You’re the ones who decide,” Carberry said.

“You and your friends and your peers and the people throughout the United States your age group, you’re the ones that pick.”

But does bringing awareness to cultural appropriation through outlets like social media or discussions among friends and family stop the normalization of this practice?

“How many times have social media users called out designers for mimicking cornrows or locs?” said Moring. “It’s not that the communities affected aren’t speaking out or doing their part. Our demands must be met and that starts with the people in power shutting up and listening.”

“Cultural appreciation is appreciating rock n’ roll, but understanding that Elvis didn’t invent rock n’ roll,” Jung said.

How, then, are we to combat this practice that has been normalized in this country for so long? The first place to think about is where the money goes. For years, retailers have monetized

Olivia Donohue is a sophomore studying journalism.

JUSTICE

DALLAS’ OWN UNITED NATIONS Going to School as a Refugee

By Caroline Garrison Illustrations by Kate Kohn Going to school in the U.S. can be hard: Students are expected to juggle classes, extracurricular activities, homework, and maintain an active social life. But for Burmese refugee SB, there’s a far greater learning curve.

“My first day of school, I did not know what to do,” SB said. “There are so many people and so many classrooms, and everyone was talking so fast. They all had so many books and things that I did not know I was supposed to have. I got lost in the school and I could not find my class, and I felt like everyone kept staring at me and laughing. It was one of the scariest things in my life.”

SB, whose name we cannot disclose because of his age and refugee status, came to the U.S. in the summer of 2016 and is currently in his freshman year in Dallas, Texas. His experience within the U.S. educational system has not been unique — refugee children face these challenges daily.

Almost 85,000 refugees have immigrated to the U.S. in the past fiscal year, and school districts throughout the country receive new refugee students daily. Due to the system of refugee resettlement within the U.S., certain cities and school districts yield disproportionately high numbers of refugees.

One such city is Dallas, Texas.

Refugees have settled in Dallas since the 1970s, mainly from Burma, and the numbers

have only increased due to political unrest.

The face of Dallas has evolved as a result of this continual influx of refugees, and this change is most evident when looking at the demographic breakdowns of schools. The Dallas Independent School District enrolls 1,200 refugee students.

Schools, teachers and staff have had to adjust the programs offered at the institutional level to account for the influx of refugees. The majority of students are unfamiliar with the structure of the U.S. education system and do not speak English at their grade level. Thus, a majority of them are enrolled in English Second Language (ESL) programs.

The schools in the U.S. are often bigger and more complex than those in other countries.

This leaves students feeling lost, like SB did on his first day and the weeks after.

“The other students knew where things are and how things work and what to do if they need something,” SB said. “But I did not.”

There is a noticeable difference between refugee students and their peers. In the Dallas school district, refugee graduation rates are about 35 percent, compared to 84 percent for the average student. Some of this stems from the fact that they experience barriers to learning “When I don’t know the language, how can I learn?” SB said. “It is so hard to have to always

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AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE MAGAZINE

“When I tried out for soccer, one boy told me that ‘my kind’ were not allowed to be on the team. All I wanted to do was play soccer.”

be thinking about the words and the school. I wanted to stop going to school after the first week. It was too hard.”

It’s not just academic challenges that cause the low graduation rates among refugee students; it’s the cultural differences as well.

“People would laugh at my accent, tell me to speak English better,” SB said. “Some of them would call me names and words that I didn’t understand, but I knew they were supposed to be mean. When I tried out for soccer, one boy told me that ‘my kind’ were not allowed to be on the team. All I wanted to do was play soccer. In Malaysia, Burmese kids couldn’t play for school soccer teams, and I wanted to play now that I was in America. But when he said those things to me, I left.”

When discriminatory comments like these are made, refugee students can become alienated

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from the rest of their classmates and eventually segregated from the general population.

Coupled with cultural differences — such as when Burmese girls wear white paste known as thanaka on their faces or when some Congolese children can’t hang out on Saturdays because of religious activities — these situations are exacerbated. It is easy to see how this leads to problems for refugee students.

Schools have tried to combat this alienation with programs like the Refugee School Impact Program in Dallas. The program coordinator, Zeljka Ravlija, provides educational support services for refugee students. This includes responsibilities ranging from home visits to keep refugee parents up to date on their childs’ progress, to ensuring that teachers can create culturally aware learning environments for refugee and non-refugee students. These projects range from maps showing where

everyone is from, to World History classes allowing students to present on their home country and culture.

Ravlija says the main goals of the program are to “enhance academic performance of the refugee students, to develop positive relationships with the parents, and integrate them into education of their kids, and into larger community, and also to inform and educate school personnel on the needs unique to the refugees.”

Programs that address the divide within the academic community are vital to creating an environment where refugee students can succeed. More ESL teachers have been hired and interpreters contracted for large school events and meetings, and all staff go through additional training to learn how to understand the needs their refugee students may have and challenges they may face. Despite these efforts,

JUSTICE

the administration is not always the greatest resource for integrating students.

“When I need help, I go to other refugees,” SB said. “They have been in the United States longer and they know what I am going through. They know that there are things the other kids know that I do not, and they tell me and help me out. … People tell me to ask teachers, but I don’t know if they can help or will just call my parents.”

“Someone in my gym class made fun of me for talking slowly,” SB said. “I was embarrassed and upset, and I did not want to go back to school the next day. Salomon came to my home and told me that if he could do it as a baby, I could do it as an adult. He took me to his Spanish class with him and showed me how slow everyone was talking. He told me ‘Look, they speak slowly too, you’re both learning. So don’t worry.’ It made me feel better, and I cared less that I speak so slowly.”

Refugees make their own support system.

It is not just Burmese helping Burmese or Congolese helping Congolese; the support crosses national identities and cultural barriers.

There is a common struggle in being a refugee that they all know. One of SB’s best friends, and the person he says gives the best advice, is a boy named Salomon, whose last name we cannot disclose. He came from the Democratic Republic of the Congo when he was 10.

Vickery Meadow, the neighborhood where the vast majority of Dallas refugees live, has been dubbed ‘Dallas’ Own United Nations’

by D Magazine, a Dallas-centric magazine. It’s not just because there are so many different countries represented, but because they all form one supportive, unified community. Refugees come from different backgrounds and cultures, but they all know what it’s like to be on the outside of the dominant society in Dallas.

In the face of budget cuts that limit the abilities of the Refugee School Impact Program, as well as increasingly fearful and hateful citizenry, communities like that in Vickery Meadow are important now more than ever.

“I have heard people tell me to be scared, because white people are hateful or because Donald Trump is popular,” SB said. “And I am worried a little. But people like Salomon and Ami and my friends from the neighborhood make me confident and make me know that I will be okay and I can succeed.”

Caroline Garrison is a junior studying international studies.

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AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE MAGAZINE

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HIND BARS

Shackling Women During Labor

By Rachel Falek Illustration by Robin Weiner and Andrea Lin Shawanna Nelson, a prisoner at a correctional facility in Newport, Arkansas, had been in labor for more than 12 hours when she arrived at a local hospital in 2003.

admission, according to the ACLU. There is no official data on how many women give birth behind bars, but Fettig estimated that the numbers are in the thousands.

Nelson shuffled in when she reached the delivery room with shackled legs. A guard chained her legs and hips to the bed while she gave birth. It was only after a doctor ordered her release during delivery that the guard removed the shackles. As soon as she had her baby, they shackled her again.

Eighteen states have laws that regulate and/ or prohibit shackling pregnant women, 24 states have laws which regulate and/or prohibit shackling pregnant women in the correctional facility, and eight have no laws, according to the International Human Rights Clinic. When Nelson gave birth in 2003, only three states –– California, Illinois and Vermont –– had anti-shackling laws.

“She was outraged that she or anyone else would be subjected to such an experience,” said Amy Fettig, deputy director of the National Prison Project at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Nelson is one of the estimated thousands who have given birth behind bars. The practice of shackling prisoners having babies has drawn increased scrutiny over the past decade of prompted legislators to pass bills to stop it.

Still, prisoner rights activists say many states aren’t following their laws.

There are now more than 200,000 women admitted to U.S. prisons or jails each year.

About 4 percent are pregnant at the time of

Nelson filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in 2004 against the Arkansas Department of Corrections. She lost: the court found that she could not prove the Correctional Medical Services policy of shackling was unconstitutional.

However, her case gained the attention of the ACLU. They helped her petition the circuit court to hear her case. She won in 2009, and the court found that shackling her while pregnant violated her Eighth Amendment rights: to be “free from cruel or unusual punishment.”

“That really raised the profile of the issue to be aware that this was a routine practice not just in Arkansas, but around the country,” Fettig said. “It made a huge difference. Activists around the country have risen to the challenge to pass laws that regulate the issue and prohibit the use of shackling on pregnant women.”

The Federal Bureau of Prisons and the American Correctional Association have created policies to restrict the use of restraints on pregnant inmates. The American Medical Association and the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) have also spoken out against the practice.

“We know that shackling pregnant women at any point is medically unsafe,” said Dr. Carolyn Sufrin, the ACOG representative to the National Commission on Correctional Health Care. “Labor is painful, so sometimes in response to pain, they need to be able to move their bodies around and shackles could interfere with that. It’s also a very degrading, demoralizing process and dehumanizing experience.”

Prison and jail policy was created with men in mind: male inmates have always been shackled

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AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE MAGAZINE

U.S. STATE REGULATION ON SHACKLING PREGNANT INMATES

LEVELS OF STATE REGULATION RESTRICTING USE OF RESTRAINTS LAWS AND POLICIES EXIST Source: “The Shackling of Incarcerated Pregnant Women: a Human Rights Violation Committed Regularly in the United States” (University of Chicago, CLAIM and ACLU; August, 2013)

NO LAWS OR POLICIES EXIST

when going to the hospital to ensure they are not safety threats. As a result, pregnant women are shackled in childbirth, Sufrin says.

unrestrained pregnant women could be potential threats to the public’s safety and themselves, Fettig says.

“Our system assumes that pregnant women should be treated like all prisoners, and so pregnant women are treated as an afterthought,” Sufrin said. “You have to tell people that pregnant women are not threats [and] that it is dangerous to apply restraints.”

“Though these are pregnant women, they are still convicted felons and sometimes violent in nature,” Dina Tyler, a spokeswoman for the Arkansas Department of Corrections, told the New York Times in 2006. “There have been instances when we’ve had a female inmate try to hurt hospital staff during delivery.” AWOL reached out to Tyler and the Arkansas Department of Corrections for comment, but they did not respond.

Like 63 percent of women in jail, Nelson was there for a nonviolent offense.

Despite Nelson’s win in Arkansas, the state still has yet to pass an anti-shackling law. However, many states justify restraints because

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ONLY POLICIES EXIST

States also shackle women because they worry these women could run away. However, there have been no cases of pregnant women escaping because they were not restrained, according to the ACLU.

JUSTICE “Women in labor are going through often a very painful process and the chances that the woman is going to be a threat or run away is really unlikely,” said Sufrin, who has delivered babies from shackled pregnant women.

Fettig says that shackling makes this painful process worse through all stages of pregnancy. Before childbirth, shackling a pregnant inmate on the legs, hands and around the belly can be extremely dangerous because it can increase their risk of falling and not being able to protect the fetus, according to the ACLU. Shackling also raises the risk of harm during labor and postpartum, and it can prevent the mother from holding her child, which is often taken from her one day after birth.

“During labor, when shackled to the bed, and having contractions, that just increases the pain and decreases the woman and doctor’s ability to alleviate that pain and engage in natural childbirth,” Fettig said. “Having a woman chained postpartum is very risky and dangerous because [she could] have a blood clot if she does not to get up and is shackled to the bed.”

said. “All of those cases should be documented by the facilities so they can be under review.”

Many states do not implement the laws and continue to illegally shackle women because of a lack of oversight, Fettig says. A report conducted in May 2016 by the Prison Birth Project and Prisoners’ Legal Services of Massachusetts found that Massachusetts prisons and jails violated their anti-shackling law by continuing to handcuff women during labor and shackle their ankles and waist postpartum.

Reports showed that California, Texas and New York also did not initially change their policies after the antishackling laws were passed. Since the reports, California and New York have passed new laws and stopped shackling pregnant inmates, Fettig said.

“Our system assumes that pregnant women should be treated like all prisoners, and so pregnant women are treated as an afterthought.”

Sufrin says that shackling could cause life-threatening complications when emergencies arise during labor and delivery. Sufrin’s colleague had to perform an emergency cesarean section because her baby’s heart rate was in distress, but the guard was out for lunch. The doctors had to wait thirty minutes for the guard to unlock the inmate’s shackles and perform the C-section. The child barely survived. A delay of five minutes in an emergency like this could cause brain damage to the baby, according to the ACLU. “There are risks of unpredictable pregnancies that can happen: bleeding, preterm labor, things happen without much notice sometimes,” Sufrin said. “And as a health care provider we need to take care of the patient, not negotiating with the guard to removing their restraints. That can be the difference between life or death.”

According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, even in severe cases, when delivering a baby or in postpartum recovery, restraints should never be used during labor and should be minimally restrictive.

Still, many states with anti-shackling laws do provide exceptions in extreme cases: when an inmate presents a threat to either herself or others or when there is an immediate risk of escape.

“When the public isn’t routinely looking at what’s happening in prisons and jails, they can easily ignore state laws and not implement them unless they have accountability like mandatory reporting to the state legislature,” Fettig said. “So that has been shackling 2.0 because states have to go back and pass better laws or do reports and expose the facts that these laws haven’t been implemented.”

The ACOG recommends mandatory reporting every time a woman is shackled throughout her pregnancy, and recommends training for correctional officers to ensure that states are implementing the laws.

Women are the fastest growing population in jails and prisons, increasing 153 percent between 1990 and 2009, according to ACOG. The number of women giving birth in prison also increases every year. With this increasing population, cases like Nelson’s help bring this issue to the forefront of correctional reforms.

Fettig says that they are slowly seeing inmates get the community standard of care they deserve.

“The more states that pass laws, the more we can go to the courts and can say this is cruel and unusual punishment,” Fettig said. “These women should be provided the same care and dignity given to any woman in this nation giving birth. A child should not be born to a woman in chains in this country.”

“With anything, you always have extreme circumstances, but that should never have to do with the health of the baby and the women,” Sufrin Rachel Falek is a junior studying print journalism.

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AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE MAGAZINE

NOT A GREEN EAGLE

AU’s Composting Problem

By Laurel Clark Illustration by Andrea Lin The thin white plate in her right hand is still half full, dotted with three cherry tomatoes, a handful of bright green lettuce and remnants of pasta.

Pesto sauce and forgotten noodles line the edges of her dish.

In her left hand she grasps a waxy paper cup of half drunk water and two lemons that bounce into one another as she walks toward the four colorful bins that line the edge of the wall. She drops the cup and foodfilled plate into the bin labeled in a thick white font “trash” with the clarification “landfill” underneath.

In 2016, the American University Organic Waste Department reported on the Zero Waste website that, “organic waste represents 45 percent of our campus waste.” American University’s composting capacity is limited because composting bins in academic and residential buildings are often contaminated by materials that cannot be safely broken down and composted. This contamination has to do more with student behavior than with the composting industry itself. It’s up to the students

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themselves to decide where they throw away their food scraps, not the facility to sort misplaced trash.

Organic waste is any type of waste that can decompose with or without oxygen. It is inclusive of food and garden waste, as well as paper and paperboard. Organic waste plays an integral role in creating healthy soil through composting.

In early 2016, AU renewed their composting contract with Prince George’s County yard waste composting facility. However, AU is now only able to compost organic waste that comes from Terrace Dining Room (TDR) and the Mary Graydon Center (MGC).

The Prince George’s County composting facility is currently the only facility available to AU as it is the only commercial organic composting center in the area. However, they cannot accept the contaminated organics that come from AU because they cannot afford to go through

CAMPUS LIFE the separation process (called sifting) to identify which waste must be thrown away or composted.

“This sifting process is costly, labor intensive, time consuming, unprofitable and [leads to] many safety concerns,” said Mark Feist, assistant director of grounds at AU. Students either may not know what is compostable or don’t care to carefully sort their trash.

Celeste Davis, professor of public health at AU and health advocate for Community Catalyst, says the lack of effort is due to people’s inability to connect with the issue of waste. This disconnect translates into carelessness, she says, and it’s the primary reason that AU is unable to compost the majority of their organic waste.

“We still talk about throwing something away like there is an ‘away’— there isn’t any ‘away,’ everything we throw away has consequences.” issues like climate change, ocean acidification and water shortages, and decide that composting is too small for their time or attention.

“I think the hindrance with composting is most people don’t understand what it does, what it means,” Davis said. “Most people are confused when they are throwing out their garbage.”

Recycling is better understood and thus more successful than composting. The market for recycling is much greater than the market for composting, making it an easier program to implement.

There are various organizations on campus that aim to educate people on how to effectively compost their organic waste. This past summer, students learned how to properly compost during orientation in an effort to accomplish AU’s goal of sending zero trash to landfills.

“With composting in particular, one of the ways it differs from recycling, is that recycling has an international market,” Davis said. “Food waste and yard waste break down and you can’t ship them around the world to process them, a big part of the problem is that composting hasn’t gotten to the level of recycling.”

The Student Zero Waste Club educates students and staff about reducing waste in every factor of life. They teach the public about composting through YouTube videos that explain how to use the composting bins on campus.

“I also think that a big part of why composting hasn’t caught on is that people don’t understand what the true benefits of composting are,” said Darby Hoover, senior resource specialist at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

This issue has been compounded by the fact that there are limited opportunities to compost at AU. Limited commercial composting facilities mean that organic composting is often overlooked in D.C. communities.

“The PG County Facility is currently operating at maximum capacity. It is difficult or operationally impossible to dedicate space for composting organics on site in urban campus settings such as AU,” Feist said.

When food decomposes in a landfill, it releases methane, a harmful greenhouse gas about 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide in trapping atmospheric heat. Composting organic waste instead of throwing it in a landfill can fortify our soil instead of adding to atmospheric methane.

With the 2010 Zero Waste Policy, AU made an effort to change perceptions around the significance of composting properly. Feist says that Facilities Management is taking the lead on setting up the infrastructure to reduce waste and working with the Office of Sustainability to raise awareness within AU.

Forty percent of food in the United States is not eaten, according to a 2012 issue paper published by the Natural Resources Defense Council.

This uneaten food is thrown away, wasting much of the world’s finite resources, namely water. The Water Footprint Network and USDA reported that the average american throws away 17 apples which equates to wasting 424 gallons of water.

The planet has been destroyed as a result of horrifyingly selfish human habits. In order for the environment to start the process of healing, there needs to be a sustained effort made by individuals to understand why composting is advantageous to environmental health. Each individual has a duty to respect and abide by the composting system so the wellbeing of the planet may be protected.

Hoover says there is a tendency to believe that all waste disappears with no environmental ramifications.

“I think it’s really important to convey that in fact it is exactly the actions of the individual to make a difference, that cumulatively all those actions add up,” Hoover said.

“[We] just put [it] in a big hole in the ground, which is ludicrous when looking at how far we’ve advanced technologically in other ways,” Hoover said. “But psychologically we are still throwing things away.”

People also may be overwhelmed by the sheer number of environmental

Laurel Clark is a first-year studying environmental studies and public health.

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AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE MAGAZINE

Trying to Create Meaningful Inclusion

By Casey Chiappetta and Evie Lacroix Illustrations by Andrea Lin In 2007, you could count the number of faculty of color in the School of Communication on one hand. Three black faculty members and two Asian American members.

When Angie Chuang, now an associate professor, accepted a role as an assistant professor in the journalism department, she singlehandedly doubled the full-time Asian American faculty of SOC. She became one of two people of color on the full-time faculty of the journalism department, others had retired or moved on from American University.

“It was sort of a celebration to have any diversity at all,” Chuang said.

For school administrators and faculty of color alike, any increase in the number of people of color was a success.

“That was the perception that we were just trying to get our numbers up,” Chuang

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said. “And I still remember the discussion of students: ‘Can we count international students as students of color? If we count the Asian American student population or the Latin American student population, can we count them?’ The question was less about how can we ensure that these new populations were treated equitably, and they were a true part of the community.”

That year, according to the 2007-2008 Academic Data Reference Book, an annual report published by the Office of Institutional Research & Assessment, there were 97 faculty of color, not including international faculty, out of 559 total teaching faculty — just 17 percent.

Almost a decade later, the percentage is unchanged. While 49 people of color were hired into full-time faculty positions between 2007 and 2015, they still account for 17 percent of the faculty population.

This stagnation in growth affects faculty of color in many ways. Faculty of color not only deal with microaggressions, actions or statements of indirect, subtle or unintentional discrimination, from peers and students. They are tasked with the burden of invisible work and additional service burdens. Their behindthe-scenes work often goes uncompensated.

This usually takes the form of mentoring students, being called upon to perform additional service, serving on committees, speaking on panels and evaluating curricula.

While the administration tries to hire more faculty of color and engage in meaningful inclusion, how successful they may be is ultimately framed and largely determined by faculty compensation, retention and the culture of academia.

As a newly minted tenured professor, Theresa

CAMPUS LIFE

Runstedtler, associate professor in the Department of History, says she barely had a chance to breathe before she was asked by administrators to run the Critical Race, Gender and Cultural Studies Collaborative.

Launched in the spring of 2016, the collaborative unites AU’s interdisciplinary studies programs that tend to serve underrepresented students on campus: African American and African Diaspora Studies, Arab World Studies and Asian Studies among others.

The collaborative was built because each program was housed in separate departments and lacked dedicated administrative resources.

According to Runstedtler, the collective aims to bring more resources to the programs so more full-time and tenured faculty members are teaching classes allowing for “enough support to actually be a really coherent robust program.”

Runstedtler considers her role as

an example of the invisible work she participates in on campus.

“There’s not that many people who are tenured on this campus who are available to chair that type of unit,” Runstedtler said. “You kind of feel like, ‘Okay if this is something that I really want to see come into existence because this would make my life better at the institution and I think this would make students lives better at the institution.’ You’re caught in this Catch-22.”

This Catch-22 is trying to find the balance between working on papers, books and research –– the cornerstones of academia and the steps needed to raise your profile and earn promotions –– with creating an inclusive community within your department that not only attracts more faculty of color but creates safe spaces for them.

“That’s not to say it’s not important work,” Runstedtler said. “It’s just not really recognized.

You can certainly get a lot of personal satisfaction out of doing it, but what ends up happening is that people who don’t have to do those kinds of services, they have a lot more time to just unplug and do their own research to publish and publish and publish.”

In 2011, a study published by The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) found that faculty works an average of 64 hours per week. Within this, there is a gender gap: Women work slightly more than men on average but spend less time on research and more time on teaching and service. Men, on average, spend an additional 7.5 hours of research per week as compared to their female colleagues.

The untenured female faculty is then unable to publish at the same rate as their male peers, affecting their chance at tenure.

Elizabeth Suhay, assistant professor in the Department of Government, says that working

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AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE MAGAZINE

“What ends up happening is that people who don't have to do those kinds of services, they have a lot more time to just unplug and do their own research to publish and publish and publish.” with and mentoring students is a central component of her work. She estimates that she had close to 100 individual meetings with students in the fall semester, both after class and in office hours, typically ranging from 15 to 30 minutes each.

“We are not a huge state university, where you’re doing big lectures of 200-300 people,” Suhay said. “It’s a smaller, more teaching-oriented place. Students are paying a lot of money in part because they expect to get some degree of one-on-one time with their professors.”

In the wake of the election results in early November, Suhay says she saw a marked increase in the amount of time she was meeting with students. She says that she had a “steady stream” of students — predominantly women, and students of color — who wanted to meet with her after the election results.

“The negativity, and the prejudice, and sexism surrounding this election has been hard on students,” Suhay said. “Some students just really needed somebody to talk to and [to] process their feelings, and in some cases, have their worries calmed a little bit.”

Working with students is difficult to quantify and reward accordingly in comparison to

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teaching, publishing and formal service on committees. Untenured faculty are often counseled to not overburden themselves with service, avoiding formal service like being on many committees. But choosing to steer away from all committee service may affect tenure chances, even if it is the norm. Once faculty receives tenure, they often begin committing themselves to more formal service.

“Particularly with students of color or minorities, people that need safe space or somebody to talk to, some faculty takes that burden more than others,” said Ernesto Castañeda, assistant professor in the Department of Sociology. “Not always, but it tends to be people, particularly women, of color who take that informal mentoring role that doesn’t get quantified, doesn’t get rewarded by the department and a lot of times the administration isn’t even aware of it in the sense of how many hours we put into it.”

Mary Clark, the dean of academic affairs, says that if the university values faculty mentoring for students, it should be on the faculty assessment form (which is currently being considered) like it is on the student assessment form. It should further be considered in the annual review and compensation could be informed by whether someone is mentoring effectively or not.

The types of service performed are also gendered. Studies have shown that women’s service to their male peers is asymmetrical where they are asked to do less-prestigious service, such as being the director of undergraduate students over department chair or program director.

Outside of formal service, when sourcing faculty members to speak on panels, faculty of color and female faculty may be called upon to diversify panels. As there are more white males working at the university, certain individuals can be called upon disproportionately to their peers.

Clark realizes that these service burdens and invisible work are an obstacle to the retention and prosperity of faculty of color. She is working to make sure there are safeguards in place to aid those faculty members for whom the weight is too heavy. “[We have to] make sure that we are providing meaningful, positive opportunities for our faculty of color and that they’re receiving the mentorship that they need and that they’re not being unduly burdened with service,” Clark said. “It can be a real burden and disabling force to have greater service obligations and expectations.”

CAMPUS LIFE When Chuang started in 2007, diversity and inclusion meant getting numbers up –– figuring out a way to make those numbers look diverse. These numbers were solely based on self-identified race, ethnicity and sex, consistent with the federal government’s emphasis.

“There was no discussion about inclusion, which is different than increasing our numbers,” Chuang said. “We have to create an environment that reflects the most supportive environment for the demographic of the population.”

But it is impossible to have a healthy and diverse community without more meaningful inclusion.

initiative are two programs at AU that focus on meaningful inclusion and faculty relationships with students, respectively. The RISE initiative looks at how the faculty can better the student experience at AU. Derrick Jefferson, an assistant librarian, is the chair of the Diversity and Inclusion Working Group. He points to the importance of meaningful inclusion on campus.

“We’ve all been at that party, at that dinner party, that event, when everyone seems to know everybody and we’re that one outsider who’s not that familiar with people and it’s frankly, an awful feeling and place to be,” Jefferson said.

“So how do we subvert that feeling for people?”

This is in part made possible by formal recognition. Clark defines meaningful inclusion as when: “work produced by faculty of color is valued and celebrated and recognized with faculty awards. It means that having appointed a more diverse faculty we’re then mentoring all faculty, making sure that we’re mentoring faculty of color and that they’re being retained by the university.”

This experience can lead to feelings of tokenization, which Clark says can be addressed in part by more inclusive hires.

Chuang immediately felt this shift to thinking about diversity in tandem with meaningful inclusion.

By increasing the numbers and making sure that diverse and excellent faculty is not concentrated, Clark says this will help alleviate the feeling of feeling tokenized or marginalized within their department or the school.

It was seen in receptions and events AU put on for faculty and students of color. There were events for networking within every minority group. These events started out as awkward. A handful of faculty members who all knew each other huddled around a table chit chatting. But they grew.

Soon, events were taking up large conference spaces in the Mary Graydon Center. There were several events where dozens of faculty members and students networked. New faces Chuang had never encountered before.

“The fact that there was this event is a good example of meaningful inclusion, that there’s an attempt to say you know what we want you to be part of a larger community and we understand that you want to be able to network and find common ground with people who share this social identity,” Chuang said.

AU is currently conducting 35 faculty searches. When overseeing the searches and appointments, Clark makes clear to the different schools and colleges that their goal is to appoint “diverse, excellent faculty.”

“I think that our units are trying to do a better job and are being encouraged by the administration and hopefully with the new presidency, we will have even more initiatives and incentives to improve diversity and retain faculty at AU,” said Larry Engel, an associate professor in the School of Communication and member and former chair of the Diversity and Inclusion Working Group.

However, hiring a more diverse faculty is unsustainable if they do not stay. Campus climate, mentoring opportunities, and pay affect whether faculty stays at AU.

Creating inclusive spaces is largely tied to trying to retain the faculty of color already in the school so there are safe spaces that allow organic mentorship and networking.

“It’s not completely a matter of recruiting of faculty,” Jefferson said. “I think there’s no shortage of good people that are qualified and capable of being on the teaching faculty or other variations of the faculty on campus. It’s got to go deeper than that. Why aren’t people staying? What is the climate like here? What makes people feel that maybe this isn’t the place for me?”

The Diversity and Inclusion Working Group within the Faculty Senate and the RISE

AAUP data suggests that compensation is one of the most important variables for retention

rates of assistant and associate professors.

“What we did not recognize quickly enough was that creating a diverse, a more diverse, student body and trying to do the same with faculty, is harder than you think,” Engel said.

“It’s very hard with faculty mainly because people of color are really in demand and our university doesn’t pay top dollar and it’s honestly hard to compete.”

To establish competitive salaries, the administration uses data provided by the College and Universities Professional Associations to benchmark salaries against other college-centered research universities.

Peer institutions include Georgetown University, Tufts University and Tulane University. If a faculty member has received a competitive offer from another university, they will try to retain the member by meeting the offer.

Information on AU’s average salaries is published in Academic Data Reference Book.

The average salary of an untenured assistant professor is $82,224. Once they receive tenure, average salary increases to $103,842. Full professors have an average salary of $160,124.

Salaries also vary by school, with the School of Communication and College of Arts and Sciences having the lowest salaries and the Kogod School of Business and the Washington College of Law with the highest.

In 1989, AU was a party school. Students would hang out on the quad with t-shirts listing their first choices above AU. The number of students of color was so small that almost everyone knew each other.

For Caleen Sinnette Jennings, professor of theater and chair of the President’s Council on Diversity and Inclusion, reflecting on her first fall in 1989, AU has grown into a radically different school. There was a shift in the caliber of students and faculty. It has become a place where students seek out activist culture and have unique experiences different from high school.

“I’ve seen a growing understanding driven by the students saying ‘we want out of the box innovative thinking. We want interdisciplinary classes. Give me tools that I can use to make a change’,” Jennings said.

In her 27 years at AU, Jennings has seen

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AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE MAGAZINE university administration shift to make diversity and meaningful inclusion more of a priority. In her tenure, she served on three other diversity and inclusion committees.

Serving on her first committee, she reported to no one. The second reported to a dean. The third reported to the assistant to the president.

This new council was conceptualized by President Neil Kerwin, who reached out to Jennings in spring of 2016. Its intent is to serve in an advisory capacity to the President, not just in times of crisis but as a consistent presence. The Council reviews the strategic plan and goals, serves as a clearinghouse for issues on diversity and inclusion, monitors campus climate, and engages with faculty, staff and student constituencies across the campus.

A top priority for council members is to keep their ears to the ground for student and faculty concerns. In the wake of such a tumultuous national climate, campus climate is a big factor for many students and faculty of color.

Jennings and the other 11 members of the council are taking deliberate steps to talk to as many constituents as possible before making recommendations to President Kerwin. Big changes require money, and money requires thoughtful proposals and campus buy-in.

“I try to remind people to balance speed with thoughtful and measured deliberation,” Jennings said. “It’s the quiet, sustained and focused work that goes into the running of a university. It’s hard effecting change that is meaningful, that doesn’t exclude people that has the appropriate resources to support it. It’s hard and it takes time.”

A more immediate change the committee is looking into is creating a website that promotes resources and events across schools.

“So much of what the students are asking for is already here or in the process of getting here,” Jennings said. “We have to make sure that people get the information.”

The website becomes a simple way to create a sense of inclusion of the work students and faculty of color are doing on campus, and bring recognition to the multitude of projects, events and activities people across the school are hosting.

This idea of inclusion extends to the classroom.

Engel doesn’t read off the roster in the first few weeks of class, instead asking students their preferred names. Writing down whichever

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name the student prefers, he moves on. He is also intentional with pronouns, using the term ‘first-year’ and preferring ‘they’ for gender neutrality over ‘he/she’.

When a student makes a microaggression or aggression in class, he asks the student to think about what was just said and to reflect upon it because “it is a learning moment.”

Despite the progress AU has made, microaggressions still arise in the classroom.

She has experienced them less frequently than when she first started at AU. Jennings’ identity as a black woman in a predominantly white institution has shaped her personal and professional life, and that is reflected in her curriculum. “[In my classroom] we talk about cultures and how those cultures view the world,” Jennings said. “The motto I had was ‘not better, not worse, but different.’ [There are] different ways of seeing the world. I always try to turn that into learning moments. As a person of color, I’ve always felt that it was important for me to bring my color, my culture, and the idea of difference and diversity into the classroom to make it part of learning.”

In the beginning of the 2016 fall semester, the primary campus climate concerns had been issues of gender identities and Islamophobia, as a growing number of Muslim students raised concerns for their safety on campus.

However, in mid-September a banana was thrown at a black woman in Anderson Hall the same day another black woman on her floor found rotten bananas and graffiti on her door. These incidences, paired with the election results in November, refocused student concerns on ethnicity and immigration status.

“The most immediate need, I see, is working on issues of campus climate and working on really creating an environment in which we come together with shared commitment to respecting one another, to valuing one another, to being welcoming and engaging,” Clark said.

emphasis on in our own messages, what are we signaling as most important,” Clark said. “I think there is ongoing work to be done.”

That work lies largely in whether or not the university will hire more faculty of color.

In the 2015-2016 school year, every school had at least four faculty members of color, as represented by the School of Public Affairs which is the smallest number of faculty across the university. The largest number of faculty of color is in the largest school, the College of Arts and Science, with 77 faculty of color.

While the percent of faculty has consistently settled around 17 percent of the total faculty population for the past 10 years, the total number of students of color has risen, going from 19 percent of the population in the 20072008 academic school year to 28 percent in the 2015-2016 year, according to the Academic Data Reference Book.

On a national scale, AU is not on par with the national average of faculty of color.

According to the most recent National Center for Education Statistics, in 2013 people of color made up 20 percent of the total full-time faculty across all degree-granting postsecondary institutions.

“I think [diversity] is a term that [is] understood and interpreted differently by everybody and it tends to say that ‘oh we need to add on the under-represented populations’,” Chuang said. “Everything is going to be the same except that we’re just going to have this rainbow of people all present in the database.”

For Chuang, the group that is doing the including needs to change themselves. If meaningful diversity and inclusion is going to be sustainable, students, faculty and administration all have to work together and not cherry pick their way to a safer environment.

In order to ensure the safety of faculty and students of color, sustained changes need to be carefully considered.

“I prefer to talk about it in terms of equity and in terms of dismantling traditional exclusion and talking about examining and deconstructing injustice and historic inequities,” Chuang said. “And I think that focusing on race and ethnicity is important because it’s historically been a problem and a tough issue to talk about.

“We need to be forever thinking about not only who we are appointing as faculty and admitting [as] students, but who our senior administrators are, what are we placing

Casey Chiappetta is a senior studying sociology.

Evie Lacroix is a junior studying journalism and computer science.

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Fulltime Faculty Racial Breakdown by Schools in the DMV NATIONAL DEMOGRAPHICS, 2013 Source: 2013 National Center for Education Statistics

78%

6%

10% 4%

AMERICAN UNIVERSITY Source: 2015-2016 Academic Data Reference Book

75.5%

4.8% 7.5% 4.8% 6.6% .2%

CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA Source: 2015-2016 Common Data Set I: Instructional Faculty And Class Size

89%

11%

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY Source: 2015 Integrated Postsecondary Data System (IPEDS)

55.4% 3.7% 6.4% 2.7% 6.4%

24.8%

GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY Source: 2015-2016 Common Data Set I: Instructional Faculty And Class Size

83%

17%

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, COLLEGE PARK Source: 2015-2016 Programs of Cultural Diversity Report

58.1%

3.5% 7.2% 3.5%

WHITE

BLACK

ASIAN

HISPANIC/LATINX

NON-WHITE

UNKNOWN

INTERNATIONAL

OTHER

11.8%

15.9%

The data is not consistently shown because each school varies in how they choose to report their demographics.

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PHOTO ESSAY:

PROTESTING IN THE DISTRICT Photos and Captions by Theodore Chaffman

American University Student Protest Photos from a student protest at AU on Sept. 19, 2016. The administration’s response to racially-charged incidents on campus this month –– a majority of which targeted black female students –– was the motivation for this demonstration.

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Election: 2016 (Viewing in SIS; White House, D.C.) Photos from the evening of Nov. 8, 2016 during the final hours of the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. The photos shot in this series include a few images for the election party (“Red Bull”), and some scenes from outside the White House.

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Post-Election Student Protest Intense moments from an AU student-led rally that formed as a response to the election results. An estimated 750+ students showed up on the main quad on Nov. 9.

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Westboro Baptist Church Protest Photos from the Westboro Baptist Church's (WBC) protest near AU on Nov. 11, 2016. WBC protested AU’s offerings and resources for transgender and non-binary students on campus. Hundreds of AU students peacefully counter-protested the group. Several LGBT+ student groups offered and encouraged alternatives to active engagement with the WBC group such as safe spaces.

Theodore Chaffman is a first-year studying international studies.

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PAINTING THE

The Rise of Left-Wing

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POLITICS

E TOWN RED

g Populism

By Thomas Pool Illustration by Robin Weiner On both the left and the right, populists are revolting around the world.

Right-wing extremists have scored stunning victories with Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, but the left is looking to make a comeback.

Beginning with the rise of the Tea Party in 2009, we are entering a new phase of populist politics. While the media has primarily focused on the rise of the right, the left is also experiencing a surge in popularity.

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AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE MAGAZINE Capitalism no longer means what it used to for many people and the same can be said for socialism. The ever-globalizing world driven by neoliberal economics — the idea that the private sector should control the economy — has driven down the value of labor and exported jobs to nations which have little to no minimum wage. This has stoked populist anger on both the left and the right, which is why trade deals like NAFTA and the TPP were adamantly opposed by both Sanders and Trump during their presidential campaigns.

While millennials may feel more comfortable with socialism, this may not reflect the majority of the country. A Gallup poll last May found that 60 percent of Americans have a positive view of capitalism, while only 35 percent of Americans have a positive view on socialism. There are quite a few reasons why many Americans are still suspicious of the socialism.

“I think the promise of the past twenty years of [neoliberalism] has been proved [sic] to be pretty bankrupt,” said Christian Sweeney, a deputy director at American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the largest federation of unions in the U.S. “Look at the rise of student debt, the lower rates of homeownership, stagnant wages, it’s just not working, so people are dissatisfied and feel like they’ve been sold a bill of goods.”

Lauren Peressini, a junior studying international relations and sociology at American University and a member of left-leaning Fossil Free AU, dislikes the current capitalist system, she isn’t sold on traditional socialism as a viable alternative. Even so, she predicts that socialism, and discontent with capitalism, will continue to rise.

The American Left has revamped the conversation on the failures of the Washington Consensus, the issues with free trade policies and structural inequality both internationally and domestically.

The perceived failures of neoliberalism has pushed Americans to both ends of the political spectrum, with a growing number of citizens, mostly young Americans, turning to socialism. A 2016 Harvard University survey found that 51 percent of millennials — young adults between ages 18 and 29 — do not support capitalism and 33 percent supported socialism.

“We have people joining [us] everyday,” said John Bachtell, National Chair of the Communist Party USA. “The politics of the country has shifted in a progressive direction.”

After decades of repression during the McCarthy-era politics of the Cold War, socialism is becoming more politically acceptable to the American public. Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, is now one of the most prominent figures in American politics and has helped redefine the term.

But Bachtell says that many people still hold lingering feelings of anticommunism from the Cold War, when socialism and communism were almost criminal. His party faces an uphill battle to re-engage older generations in mainstream American politics.

“Socialism [will be] an important political force in America going forward,” Bachtell said.

“When I hear things like ‘socialist,’ I think of white middle class men who read a lot,” Peressini said. “I don’t really associate it with meaningful work, I think of it as more theoretical.”

But not everyone is sold on the idea that capitalism is on the decline.

“Capitalism is the best system for generating more economic growth,” said David Lublin, a government professor in AU’s School of Public Affairs. “Most proponents of capitalism would argue that making [capitalism] work well actually requires regulation to have efficient and fair open markets.”

Overall, regardless of political party, Americans want to see equitable growth. Whether this means a pivot towards populist protectionism, increased government oversight in the economy, or a retrenchment of neoliberal economic policies. Americans want prosperity and their changing politics will reflect that.

“I think there is an increasing [want] to see government take action to ensure that people have a better standard of living and greater opportunities within the system, [like] raising the minimum wage and improving access to education,” Lublin said. “From my perspective, America doesn’t look so bad.”

Whether or not Americans’ views on socialism have changed, Trump’s election has caused many leftist groups to rally at protests against him. At the grand opening of Trump’s new hotel in D.C., left-wing organizations across the political spectrum attended in protest of Trump. The more radical Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER) Coalition, as well as the more moderate AFL-CIO both protested the President-elect’s campaign as well as his mistreatment of workers.

“It would be an enormous setback for the American people,” said Bachtell about a Trump presidency. “You have this collection of fascists and extreme rightists gathered around his campaign … you can only imagine what would happen with his cabinet with extreme rightists in the Justice Department. … It would be a tremendous setback for the American people and democracy. ... Unleashing this tendency towards violence, towards degrading women, towards scapegoating immigrants and Muslims, he would raise levels of misogyny and racism in the county. … It’s almost unimaginable to have him be president.”

Thomas Pool is a junior studying literature and communication studies.

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POLITICS

SMOKING OUT

BIG PHARMA Why We Haven’t Legalized

By Amanda Malloy Illustrations by Will Fowler and Jessica Wombles On Oct. 18, 2006, Matt and Paige Figi had twins named Chase and Charlotte. Born without any medical complications, Charlotte seemed to be a happy and healthy baby. But what the Figis didn’t know about their daughter would alter the course of their lives forever.

At three months old, Charlotte had her first seizure, an intense and unexpected episode that lasted 30 minutes. The Figis rushed her to the hospital, but doctors were unable to determine the cause of the seizure and sent them home.

Her family hoped this would be a one-time ordeal. It wasn’t. Two years of violent seizures, incessant hospital visits and persistent uncertainty finally led to a diagnosis: Charlotte had Dravet Syndrome, a form of childhood epilepsy as severe as it is rare.

By age two, Charlotte began to fall behind her twin brother in cognitive and social development. Taking seven drugs at once — most of them addictive pills, such as barbiturates and benzodiazepines — did nothing to help. She had almost 300 seizures per week when Matt Figi, exhausted and out of options, went on the internet and found that medical marijuana was being used to treat Dravet Syndrome.

According to Medical Marijuana Inc., an advocacy group for the marijuana product industry, cannabidiol — a cannabinoid found in marijuana — is an effective therapeutic treatment for epileptic seizures.

Her parents fought to treat their daughter using cannabidiol. They had reservations: it had never once been tested on a patient so young and was, in fact, illegal.

But when Charlotte received a small dose of cannabinoid oil, her seizures disappeared for seven days. Now with use of the oil, they occur once or twice a day.

Because the cannabis used to treat Charlotte was so successful, the strain named, “Charlotte’s Web,” is now used across the country treating children undergoing epileptic seizures.

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Despite the many benefits of medical marijuana, many states have not yet legalized it — leaving prescription medication as the only alternative. This may benefit pharmaceutical companies, who make large profits from selling their prescription medications.

According to Business Insider, marijuana use can ease the side effects of numerous disorders, boost treatment effectiveness and even halt cancer from spreading to other parts of the body.

Marijuana is not physically addictive and it has never caused a death by overdose. Furthermore, its medical benefits could aid the lives of other kids just like Charlotte, who suffer from diseases and disorders that severely impact their everyday experiences.

In the last few years, recreational and medical marijuana legalization have sparked national conversations and been part of political platforms. Since 2016, 28 states and D.C. have legalized medical marijuana.

The reason why cannabis is still illegal may be hiding in your medicine cabinet: medical marijuana legalization could clash with the interests of pharmaceutical companies and their prescription pills.

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Some of the drugs are physically addictive and, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, have accounted for approximately 165,000 deaths since 1999. They could be the reason why more children like Charlotte aren’t receiving the kind of treatment they could get from medical marijuana.

Studies show that prescription drug sales are notably lower in states that have legalized medical and recreational marijuana. According to a 2014 study led by the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, states that legalized marijuana experienced a 25 percent decline in prescription drug overdoses.

According to Students for Sensible Drug Policy Outreach Coordinator Jake Agliata, it’s understandable why the companies would oppose legalization.

“Medical marijuana poses a huge market competitor to many other regulated drugs out there, and instead of trying to compete, the pharmaceutical industry is putting a lot of money into lobbying Congress to prevent medical marijuana from happening,” Agliata said.

The Washington Post reports that approximately 60 percent of Americans use prescription drugs on a daily basis. Marijuana Policy Project Communications Manager, Morgan Fox, says that Insys Therapeutics Inc., a corporation that produces synthetic opioids more potent than heroin, recently made a halfmillion dollar contribution to Arizonans for Responsible Drug Policy.

The organization’s main aim was to defeat Proposition 205, a marijuana legalization bill that appeared on Arizona voters’ ballots in early November. Their efforts bore fruit and the bill was voted down, 52-48, according to the Phoenix New Times. This effort to halt legalization is just one of many examples of pharmaceutical companies pouring profits into their special interests.

Certain corporations have even lobbied against legal marijuana at a federal level. Makers of a synthetic cannabis halted pushes to reschedule the controlled substance on the Drug Enforcement Agency’s scale. Schedule I drugs are considered to have no medical purpose or use, a high potential for addiction, and severe safety concerns, while Schedule III drugs have accepted medical use and lower potential for abuse.

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“We’re just dealing with many, many years of misinformation about the substance.”

Since marijuana has proven medical benefits, the Department of Health and Human Services recommended marijuana be lifted from Schedule I to Schedule III, allowing the drug to be studied further in depth and acknowledging its medical use. However, it remains a Schedule I drug.

people driving under the influence.

“It’s very difficult to tell if someone is driving while impaired,” Engert said. “If you can’t prove that as an element in a criminal case, it concerns me that we’re going to have many people on the road driving while high.”

Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America — one of the country’s’ leading biopharmaceutical researchers — declined to comment when asked about their stance on marijuana legalization.

This is also a concern for Citizens Against Legalizing Marijuana (CALM), a political action committee based in California. It is specifically against Prop 64, which made it legal to grow and use marijuana for personal use on Nov. 9, 2016. The proposition did not include a standard that law enforcement could use to detect high drivers, like the .08 blood alcohol level used to detect drunk drivers.

Over 200 million prescriptions for opiates are written each year, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Over half of the states currently grant doctors the right to prescribe medical forms of cannabis, and according to The Atlantic, more states are likely to follow suit once they see the public health and economic benefits.

“What constitutes a drugged driver? How much THC is too much? That’s a huge problem now that we’re going to have to deal with,” said Carla Lowe, a representative from CALM. “You’re more likely to be hit by a drugged driver than a drunk driver now. We’re starting to see those stats, predictably, going higher in Colorado, Washington and now California.”

“We’re just dealing with many, many years of misinformation about the substance,” Fox said.

Despite medical benefits, there are repercussions that come with marijuana legalization. Michelle Engert, a professor who teaches drugs, crime and policy at American University, expressed her concern about more

So while medical marijuana has its benefits, there are drawbacks to its widespread legalization. Still, Proposition 64, is predicted to generate about $1.4 billion in the first year, according to legislative analysts. Some of the

money could go towards law enforcement to help create a standard for drugged drivers.

Today, Charlotte Figi is nine years old and, according to her mother, has an average of just two seizures a month: an improvement her family would have never imagined possible when their daughter was in hospital care just a few years prior.

After witnessing the effects of medical marijuana first hand, Charlotte’s family refuses to give up the fight for legalization. Paige Figi recently founded Coalition for Access Now, a non-profit organization which aims to educate the public and lawmakers on Capitol Hill alike about the therapeutic and medical benefits of cannabis.

Because of medical marijuana, Charlotte now lives contently, and Paige wants all parents with sick children to have access to the substance that reduced the frequency of her daughter’s seizures.

Amanda Molloy is a first-year studying print journalism.

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AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE MAGAZINE

NAR(CAN) SAVE LIVES It’s Worth the Cost

By Alana Persson and Will Fowler Illustration by Maria Carrasco Tim Gear, a first-year student at American University, knows the dangers of heroin. His father was a heroin addict who overdosed several years ago and owes his life to Narcan, an overdose reversal agent.

“I know a lot of my dad’s friends who also were saved because of Narcan, and since they got that second chance they have gone on to live a clean and sober life,” Gear said. “If it wasn’t for the administration of Narcan, then I wouldn’t be here.”

Gear’s dad was almost one of nearly 13,000 Americans in 2016 who died from heroin overdoses, according to the American Society of Addiction Medicine.

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), heroin use has doubled within the last decade and heroin-related deaths have tripled. The use of heroin and other opioids is not concentrated to any single socioeconomic group.

While policy makers are having conversations about how many people are dying, who is being affected and how the nation is suffering, they are remaining silent on Narcan. And when they do talk about Narcan, the conversation is focused on the cost.

Benjamin Miles, a Board Certified Pharmacotherapy Specialist who holds a doctorate in Pharmacy, works in the Emergency Department at Sibley Hospital.

He has seen a steady increase in the number of overdoses in the last seven years.

Though some say Narcan enables addiction by providing a safety net for addicts, he argues

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that there should be more public funding for Narcan distribution.

program. The organization receives Narcan kits from the government.

“Narcan is important because it’s the only way to treat an overdose,” Miles said. “What enables the addiction, a lot of the time, is overprescribing of opioids.”

All HIPS staff and volunteers are trained to administer Narcan, and can train others.

Confidential workshops are available to the public during their office hours.

Narcan, also known as naloxone, has been produced since 1971. It was originally used in hospitals to prevent overdoses on prescription opioids like morphine. In recent years, Narcan’s use has shifted: It has passed from the hand of doctors to the general public.

“Anyone can come in at any time to get Narcan,” said a HIPS volunteer who wished to remain anonymous because they had received services from the organization. “All you have to do is a quick course in a private room where we use a tester kit to show how to administer the drug, and then you can sign off to receive a kit for free.”

According to a 2015 CDC report, opioid overdoses can be reversed if Narcan is administered immediately. While first responders are often successful in reviving an overdose victim, sometimes they arrive too late.

If family members and friends had Narcan and knew how to administer it, more overdoses could be reversed.

As the debate over the public and private costs of healthcare rages across the country, conversations about Narcan are mostly centered around the cost. Narcan kits can cost up to $50, but reversing an overdose often requires multiple kits.

Last September, D.C. lawmakers passed a bill to allow pharmacists and physicians to prescribe Narcan to those at risk of overdosing and permitted community based organizations to dispense it, according to the Washington City Paper. This law also protects medical professionals from legal ramifications when dispensing Narcan.

In order to purchase these kits, first responders in D.C. have access to hundreds of thousands of dollars in public funds. Private citizens, however, typically pay out-of-pocket. Further, Miles says that when overdose patients can’t pay their hospital bill, the hospital ends up losing money and resources. Sibley writes unpaid overdose bills into its budget.

Several organizations, like Helping Individual Prostitutes Survive (HIPS), support the supplying of Narcan kits. HIPS gives free Narcan kits to anyone who requests one. When the CDC launched a pilot program in D.C., using federal funding to purchase and distribute Narcan to nonprofits in the area, HIPS participated in this pilot

While pharmacies do offer Narcan, it can only be purchased with a prescription from a doctor in most states, and is rarely covered by insurance companies. Medicaid, a government insurance company that provides healthcare coverage for low-income people, covers the medication in certain states.

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Despite multiple attempts to reach out to Public Safety for a comment, their officers were not able to speak on the record about AUs policy on drug overdoses and the use of Narcan. It is not known at this time whether Narcan is purchased or carried by the school.

If it is not available to Public Safety officers, there could be additional lag time between the discovery of an overdosed student and Narcan being provided, which could cost student lives.

Gear hopes the uncertainty over Public Safety’s ability to use Narcan will be addressed.

“Narcan can save lives and I hope that if it [an overdose] happened on campus, someone would be able to act fast enough to save [the] student,” Gear said.

It’s difficult to quantify the cost of human life, but making Narcan accessible to the public is a move that could save both money and lives — a hospital visit is almost certainly more expensive than a Narcan kit.

Ultimately, the question is, on whom the burden of paying for Narcan should fall: the taxpayers, or patients and their families, who may be unable to afford it. After all, an addict can’t get clean if they aren’t alive.

“It’s only fair to give them a second chance,” Gear said.

Alana Persson is a first-year studying communication, legal institutions, economics and government (CLEG).

Will Fowler is a sophomore studying broadcast journalism.

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AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE MAGAZINE

POISONING THE DISTRICT

Lead in D.C. Pipes

By Miranda Cleland Illustration by Kate Kohn Visions of D.C. typically include clean water. From the Tidal Basin to the Georgetown waterfront, pristine water is vital to Washington’s image. But underground, its pipes tell another story: D.C. has a lead problem.

Last April, the Washington Post reported three D.C. public schools had elevated levels of lead.

While any amount of lead in drinking water is problematic, it’s especially harmful to young children — and immigrant children of color are at the highest risk.

Claudia Barragan, longtime D.C. resident and community urban planner who works with D.C.’s Latinx immigrant population in Columbia Heights, has seen firsthand the struggles D.C.’s immigrant communities face.

“Immigrant parents working long hours might not have time to think about the quality of their children’s drinking water,” Barragan said, speaking from experience as the child of Bolivian immigrants.

She also says that reports are often not translated into Spanish, and this language barrier puts immigrants at an even higher risk.

While little data is available for D.C. specifically, a 2013 report from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) reads, “Refugee [and

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immigrant] children are at above-average risk for lead poisoning from ongoing exposure once in the United States since they often settle into high-risk areas with older housing.”

Low-income families often can’t afford water filters, bottled water or the replacement of private water lines in their homes.

“Immigrants are always the last ones invited to the conversation [about policy],” Barragan said. “Local lawmakers don’t seek the input of the rest of the city. They have this really bad habit of only including who the government sees as stakeholders –– people with money and well-established networks. We don’t have a seat at the table.”

Young children are more susceptible to lead poisoning and absorb 4-5 times more lead than adults, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The health effects of lead exposure to children include “damage to the central and peripheral nervous system, learning disabilities, shorter stature, impaired hearing, and impaired formation and function of blood cells,” according to the CDC. WHO also reports that lead exposure in adults increases the risk of heart disease and stroke.

In pregnant women, the exposure damages the developing fetus and can cause miscarriages.

“My friends and I are concerned about 3ug/L lead levels in our area. It’s below the 15ug/L threshold, but it still isn’t great,” said Taylor Hooks, a resident in Columbia Heights. “We take special care to use only bottled water or filtered water everyday.”

Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time D.C. has faced this issue. D.C. dealt with scares in the 1980s and 1990s when elevated levels of lead contaminated drinking water.

But it wasn’t until 2004 that D.C. — and the nation — became aware of the magnitude of the situation.

“People don’t realize this — the extent of the problem in Washington D.C. [in 2004] was about 20 to 30 times larger than Flint [in 2016],” said Virginia Tech Civil Engineering Professor Marc Edwards in an interview with the broadcast radio station, WTOP. Edwards investigated the District’s water after doubting a CDC report claiming that lead levels at the time were not damaging to children. He tested blood samples of D.C. children and found high lead levels indicating long-term exposure to lead contaminated drinking water.

Edwards’ research showed the incidence of elevated blood lead concentrations for children under the age of 16 months increased four times during the peak of the D.C. lead crisis in the early 2000s. He determined that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), District of Columbia Water and Sewage Authority (WASA), and the CDC committed a series of scientific and ethical wrongdoings in reporting lead levels by understating the gravity of the situation.

As a result, the gravity of the District’s lead problem was seriously understated and may have lead the public to a false sense of security.

Long-term lead exposure was and is poisoning an unknown number of children in the District.

“D.C. needs to invest in its infrastructure,” Barragan said. “If you invest in a community’s health, it benefits a city’s economics and development. Now is the time for D.C. to take ownership of the issue.”

Since Edwards’ groundbreaking research, WASA has committed to replacing seven percent of public lead service lines per year.

homeowners. A cost, Barragan says, entirely out of reach for most Latinx immigrant families in D.C. D.C.’s local government has taken action to the high levels of lead. The Washington Aqueduct began treating its water with orthophosphate, a chemical which helps prevent led from poisoning drinking water, in 2004, according to a WASA newsletter of the same year. Edwards and other experts generally regard the addition of orthophosphate as a success.

In addition to orthophosphate treatments, WASA prioritizes public education efforts. It published an online interactive map that allows D.C. residents to check the status of their water pipes, both public and private. While WASA admits not all of the data is up to date and accurate, the map gives a general picture of the prevalence of lead around the city. The picture is not a pretty one: lead pipes are sprinkled all throughout the city, from Southeast to Northwest. Mason says this interactive map is part of an effort to be more transparent.

“Overall, the response has been very good,” Mason said. “[WASA] has received over 1,000 requests for free-lead test kits, a huge number.”

However, 12 years after the water crisis, Barragan is not impressed with WASA’s efforts to heighten community awareness. “[WASA] has not done a good job of informing [residents] or addressing the issue,” Barragan said. “The city has to be doing more outreach.

They don’t want to heighten the urgency because of what is happening in Flint.”

“Unfortunately, the law limits D.C.’s funding to replacing public lines [only],” said WASA Water Communications Coordinator Melanie Mason.

The cost of replacing private lines falls on

Miranda Cleland is a senior studying Arabic studies and international studies.

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PROFESSOR PROFILE:

DEREK HYRA

Defining the ‘Cappuccino City’

By Paloma Losada Photo provided by Derek Hyra Derek Hyra is an associate professor in the Department of Public Administration and Policy at American University and the author of The New Urban Renewal: The Economic Transformation of Harlem and Bronzeville and Race, Class, and Politics in the Cappuccino City. He has worked in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the Alexandria Redevelopment and Housing Authority and on the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Council on Underserved Communities. AWOL sat down with him to discuss the gentrification of D.C.’s Shaw/U-Street neighborhood, social integration and empathetic urban development.

What began your interest in neighborhood change?

I think a lot of my interests in neighborhood change came from experiences I had in high school. I grew up in a suburb north of New York City in Westchester County. It was a very segregated community.

It had about 30,000 people, and there were maybe five black families in the entire town. Living in an affluent, segregated area, I didn’t have much exposure to inner city areas. But when I was in high school, I joined a [basketball] team based out of Riverside Church, which was in West Harlem. I played for two years in the spring and in the summer in Central Harlem. Most of the guys in my team were from Harlem or from the South Bronx. Going into Harlem, which was coming off the crack epidemic, I would see crack vials, gangs and abandoned buildings.

About a year and a half after playing, our coach paid for SAT tutoring.

You had to get over a 700 to play in your first year of college. One day, the coach asked how many people had gotten over a 700, and I was the only one on the team who had. I was also the only white person on the team. [My teammates] seemed very similar to me in terms of intellectual capability. I thought there must be something about growing up in Harlem or in the South Bronx that has a detrimental impact on people reaching their innate ability and full potential. That experience of playing basketball in Harlem led me in college to think about doing something to better the urban environment. How can we bring resources and development to heavily concentrated poverty areas, but in a way that doesn’t displace everyone; in a way that actually benefits guys like my teammates?

In your latest book you discuss the development of D.C.’s Shaw/UStreet neighborhood. Can you talk about your findings?

I’ve studied Harlem, the South Side of Chicago and now the Shaw/UStreet area. These three are some of the most historical black major transformation in the last 20 years, maybe 30. There’s been an awful lot of economic changes, but also racial changes. It used to be 90 percent African-American in 1970. It’s now only 30 percent African-

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THE DISTRICT American. It is for D.C. a very diverse neighborhood in terms of race and ethnicity. But what I found is when you’re in the community, it segregates.

There’s this sort of micro-level segregation; I’ve coined it diversity segregation. It’s neighborhoods that on the census-track level look very diverse, but when you get into the civic institutions, the churches, the recreation centers, the parks, the restaurant, it begins to segregate. We had these theories that mixed-income, mixed-race communities would benefit low income communities, because it would broaden their social networks. They’d be talking to and interacting with the newcomers, but what I found is that while that community has developed, there isn’t the meaningful social interactions happening.

I think that’s one of the major findings from the book, because what we’ve assumed as urban planners and policymakers is that when we create diverse communities that people will interact with one another.

You see that you really need to the grease the wheels of social integration to stimulate meaningful interaction. Without that, you have these groups that have been so segregated for so long that just because their housing is next to one another does not mean they’ll socialize. If you don’t have that social interaction, mixed-income communities may not benefit the poor very much.

How can you make that social interaction happen? Is the saying “birds of a feather flock together” necessarily true?

One thing is that many of the people that are moving –– the millennials –– to a place like Shaw are moving because of the diversity.

Most neighborhoods like Shaw would have never seen a white influx.

It’s only been recently in the last ten years that we see African-American neighborhoods seeing an influx of whites. Most of the whites that are going there are saying that they want to be in an environment that is not a homogenous suburb or central city area like Georgetown or Foggy Bottom.

We’ve had policies in the U.S. that have legally segregated and separated people. We’ve had discrimination in red-lining. We’ve had zoning policies that have made it tough for us to integrate. We’re trying to break those things down from the past. I think that since there has been so much separation from the past, that people don’t know how to integrate.

I think we need community organizations that think about strategic ways to bring people together. Maybe it’s a food, music, or art festival or a community gardening initiative. There has to be programming in a diverse community that recognizes these differences, but also recognizes that we have more similarities than differences as people. Each community is going to have its own strategy to bring people together.

Governments and communities need to help with facilitating that integration. It just won’t happen naturally, even if people are seeking to be in diverse communities.

Why are historic African-American communities targeted for gentrification? Why are they attracting white millennials?

I think part of that relates to housing policy of the past. There was “urban renewal” in the 1940s, 50s and 60s and what that did was create poverty pockets of public housing that traditionally tended to be right outside the business districts of cities. Now, there is a “back to the city” movement in which millennials want to be near the downtown.

However, not everyone can afford the downtown. So, they’re seeking neighborhoods close to the downtown, and neighborhoods outside the

downtown are where public housing neighborhoods tended to be located.

In the 1990s, there was a push to knock down the public housing that was distressed in these neighborhoods. When that public housing was demolished, I think whites were more likely to go to those communities.

Knocking down the projects was a symbol that maybe those neighborhoods would revitalize. When you bring together this “back to the city” movement with the knocking down of the projects, you get a recipe for gentrification.

Why is D.C. called the “Cappuccino City”?

I coined D.C. the “Cappuccino City” to play off what it had been known as: “Chocolate City.” It had been known as “Chocolate City” because it was a major city that had a black majority. But it wasn’t just the demographics, it was also that African-Americans took control of [the political power structure]. African-Americans have led the D.C. government since it was re-instituted in 1973 with home rule. Black empowerment is part of this “Chocolate City” notion.

Now, I named it “Cappuccino City” because it’s a metaphor for what is happening in D.C. Cappuccino is the ground-up coffee, which makes the espresso, but then you add the steam-white foam of milk. That’s the millennials that are moving back. You add the milk, and the price doubles. An espresso is two bucks, but a cappuccino is four. When white millennials moved back to D.C., property values were at about $250,000 and then they went up to about $500,000.

The other part is that whites are moving to the central business districts.

When you add the foam to the espresso, you see the foam in the middle of a cappuccino, and the darkness moves out to the outer periphery.

Poverty and people of color are moving out to the outskirts of D.C. and to the suburbs. The spatial formation of a cappuccino is what the D.C. area is starting to look like. Also, related to it, is the political change that is happening. The white millennials are taking over the neighborhood associations, and now D.C. City Council has a white majority for the first time since 1973. So, you have a political shift in which AfricanAmericans are losing political power, and whites are gaining it.

What can we as members of the D.C. area do to advance urban development in responsible, empathetic and effective ways?

I think what’s important for people coming to D.C. is to understand the history of the neighborhoods they’re moving into. Get to know their neighborhoods. Get to know the people that have been living there for decades. I think many of the millennials coming to D.C. are civically engaged and want to get involved in politics. Getting involved in their advisory neighborhood commissions and community organizations is very healthy. But what happens many times is that newcomers that get civically involved say that their idea is the best idea and the things that they want to see is what all people should want. And that may not necessarily be the case. Really talk to your neighbors and see what their values and interests are, and try to come up with things that resonate with everyone. Try not think that just because you like bikes, for example, means that everyone likes bikes. What can we do together to make sure that everyone’s interests are catered to? I think that’s the way to do empathetic civic engagement.

Paloma Losada is a sophomore studying international studies and economics.

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