AWOL - Issue 28 (Fall 2020)

AWOL ISSUE 28

FALL 2020

TRACING A LEGACY: SEGREGATION, ZONING AND WEALTH IN WASHINGTON

A N E X A M I N AT I O N O F D . C .’ S H I ST O R Y I N F O R M S A CONTEMPORARY VISION FOR AU AND THE SURROUNDING COMMUNITY

IN THIS ISSUE: FROM PERFORMATIVE TO PRODUCTIVE STUDENTS AND FACULTY WORK TO CREATE A SUSTAINABLE FIGHT FOR RACIAL JUSTICE

BAKING THE CAUSE INTO BUSINESS A PROFILE ON IMMIGRANT FOOD

PORTLAND IS BURNING

ONE SUMMER, TWO CAUSES, THOUSANDS OF OREGONIANS; HOW CIVIL UNREST AND WILDFIRES SHOOK THIS WEST COAST CITY

AWOL MAGAZINE

ISSUE 28 | FALL 2020

SENIOR EDITORS EDITORS–IN–CHIEF Chloe K. Li Editorial Braeden Waddell Multimedia MAGAZINE DIRECTOR Katherine Long CREATIVE DIRECTORS Caroline Lougee Kavi Farr PODCAST DIRECTORS Grace Vitaglione Shannon Durazo

EDITORS STAFF EDITORS Margaux Renee Talia Marshall McKenzie Beard PHOTO/VIDEO ASSISTANT Maddie Ceasar DESIGN EDITOR Sierra Cougot

L E T T E R

F RO M

T H E

E D I TO R S

Dear Readers, This semester, AWOL did what it has promised to do for the student body since its beginning: be critical and challenge authority. But this time, it was within our own organization.

It is no hidden fact that AWOL, much like many newsrooms, is predominantly white.

Despite our mission, this semester has made it clearer than ever that racism, and therefore our complicity with white supremacy and the status quo, has run rampant in the organization for too long.

We recognize there is no way to undo the harm we caused to former and current staffers of color. But we realize recognition is not enough and that we need to commit ourselves to real change.

At the beginning of the semester, the people of color on our e-board organized a meeting, opening up the space to be critical of the white leadership. Following this meeting, leadership who were directly responsible stepped down from their positions, and those remaining took action to change how they led in the newsroom.

We cannot fulfill our commitment to subverting and confronting systems of power outside of AWOL, when we are unable to do so within. For an organization that has dedicated itself to holding the university and other institutions accountable, we have failed our readers and our own staff by not addressing these systemic issues.

As Editors-in-Chief, we want all people of color to be irrepressible in their role in the organization, but also with their criticism of us.

We know there is more work to be done. This is going to be a long and necessary process and we will be unwavering in demanding a complete rejection of white supremacy, even if that means constantly being critical of ourselves and relinquishing our own power to achieve that goal.

In solidarity,

FOLLOW US @AWOLAU

Chloe K. Li and Braeden Waddell

CONTENTS 02

PORTLAND IS BURNING

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ATHLETE ACTIVISM AT AMERICAN UNIVERSITY

A summer of unrest for thousands of Oregonians McKenzie Beard

AU Athletics launches Anti-Racism Education Collective Elizabeth Scott

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STUDENTS CONDEMN VIRTUAL ASAC

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WUHAN: RETURNING TO NORMALCY

Students with disabilities condemn university support services’ response to online learning environment Braeden Waddell

University students in Wuhan returned to school amidst the pandemic Ziyi Yuan

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Immigrant Food

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TRACING A LEGACY: SEGREGATION, ZONING AND WEALTH IN WASHINGTON

PHOTO ESSAY Chloe K. Li

An examination of D.C.’s history informs a contemporary vision for AU and the surrounding community Margaux Renee

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FROM PERFORMATIVE TO PRODUCTIVE

Students and faculty work to create a sustainable fight for racial justice Luci Rascher

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‘ZOOM UNIVERSITY’: IS IT WORTH IT?

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RIPPED FROM THE WALL

With COVID-19, previously popular student hangouts have grown quiet Bonnie Bishop LISTEN TO OUR PODCASTS:

AU without the PD: looking to the past to change the future of policing on campus

Braeden Waddell and Shannon Durazo

THE HUM

RIPPED FROM THE WALL

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AWOL Magazine

PORTLAND I One summer, two causes, thousands of Oregonians; how civil unrest and wildfires shook this West Coast city.

Written by McKenzie Beard Art by Rojeen Azadi and Caroline Lougee Photos by Cory Elia

Summer in Portland, Oregon, is traditionally filled with weekend family camping trips, Shakespeare in the park and artisan food truck grub — but 2020 ushered in a wave of civic activism for the city’s residents that monopolized the season.

While loud displays of advocacy have been a hallmark for decades, Portlanders faced unprecedented challenges when their community was caught in the crosshairs of two critical issues in just one summer: police brutality and climate change.

‘Do You Think I’m Afraid to be Arrested?’

Cozca Itzpapalotl, a local activist, gripped her iPhone and hit record as five men clad in riot gear approached her. A firework exploded overhead as the police officers moved to tackle Itzpapalotl to the ground, and a baton struck her directly in the face. The demonstrators around her ducked underneath makeshift shields fashioned out of garbage can lids and pool noodles to protect themselves from the cascading sparks.

Projectiles flew, teargas burned and rubber bullets from federal agents’ guns pelted Black Lives Matter protesters outside of the Portland 02

federal courthouse building. The demonstrators roared: “This is what democracy looks like!”

demonstrations in the summer of 2020, making it the largest organized protest in U.S. history.

On May 25, 2020, Minneapolis Police arrested George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, after convenience store employees alleged that he purchased a pack of cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill. Security footage reveals the horrors that ensued while Floyd was held in police custody.

Portland remains one of the whitest cities in America, with 77.1% of residents being caucasion according to the U.S. Census, as a result of the state’s deeply racist history. In part, this is due to the state’s original constitution in 1859 that explicitly forbade Black people from living in its borders, making it the only state in the union that did so. But Itzpapalotl said that mainstream media’s tendency to portray the majority of Portland Black Lives Matter activists as white is a narrative she disputes.

In eight minutes and 46 seconds, a white police officer murdered a Black man in America — a frequent cautionary tale and an outcome of what protesters say is systemic racism and white supremacy embedded into U.S. police forces.

Itzpapalotl estimated that since she joined the Black Lives Matter demonstrations on May 27, she has only missed 10 days of protesting.

That’s approximately 150 days of nearly uninterrupted civic activism in the streets of Portland. But Itzpapalotl wasn’t alone.

Floyd’s untimely death, among others, ignited protests against police brutality across the country and around the world that drew crowds larger than ever seen. Polls from Civis Analytics, a data science firm that works with businesses and Democratic campaigns, estimate that between 15 million and 26 million people participated in the

“By saying that, the media is erasing all of the Black, Chicano, Latinx and Indigenous activists that are doing work in our communities,” said Itzpapalotl.

But what started as peaceful marches quickly dissolved into chaos, and attention shifted to Portland as riots in the city’s notoriously white and liberal streets were met with federal force.

Cory Elia, a multimedia journalist based in Portland, has been covering the protests since they began in early June. Elia said that during the first month of uninterrupted Black Lives Matter demonstrations, most standoffs were between civilian protesters and officers with the Portland Police Bureau.

IS BURNING When federal officers were sent to the city in early July to protect the federal courthouse, the protests were brought to “a whole other level,” Elia said.

On July 4, the Trump Administration and the Department of Homeland Security deployed federal agents clad in riot gear and military garb to patrol the streets of Portland, a move that does not require permission or request by the local government per federal law.

Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf said the protests in Portland around the federal courthouse were “an attack against America” by “lawless anarchists who destroy and desecrate property.”

However, the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, an NGO specializing in crisis mapping, reported that 83% of Black Lives Matter demonstrations in Oregon during the summer of 2020 involved “no serious harm to people or damage to property.”

Post-deployment of federal troops, the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project found that violent demonstrations in Portland rose from 17% to over 42%.

“When the feds showed up, it was turned directly into a war zone,” Elia said. “Feds going after protesters and indiscriminately hitting the press and legal observers.”

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According to ACLED, the introduction of federal agents in Portland correlated with a 10% increase in “violent demonstrations” at Black Lives Matter events.

Videos circulated on social media showed federal agents roaming the city’s streets, at times several blocks from their jurisdiction surrounding the federal courthouse, in unmarked uniforms and vehicles.

Itzpapalotl said that the first time she was arrested by Portland police over the summer she was heading home from a long day of attending demonstrations near the federal courthouse. When officers began to taunt Itzpapalotl and threatened to arrest her for her involvement in the protests, she retorted, “Do you think I’m afraid to be arrested?”

seen before especially in terms of the ammunition and tear gas used. Prior protests have used these devices, but not in the volume used today, Elia said.

“Tear gas feels like poison,” Itzpapalotl said. “Your eyes sting, you can’t breathe. It makes you feel like you’re going to die.”

Portlanders sharply criticized the use of non-lethal weapons against peaceful protesters by Portland Police and federal agents. “I remember the first time the feds came out of the courthouse shooting,” Itzpapalotl said. “And couldn’t help but laugh because there wasn’t even anyone to be shooting at.”

Elia and Itzpapalotl both recalled that there was usually no effort to disperse crowds without ammunition.

“I had just gotten hit with a baton, shot with tear gas, and I had flashbangs thrown at me, so I already had been through this gauntlet. An arrest was nothing compared to what I just been through,” Itzpapalotl said.

Elia was arrested by police June 30, along with independent journalists Lesley McLam, also with KBOO, and Justin Yau, a freelance journalist who covered the Hong Kong protests in 2019.

After his arrest, Elia posted on Twitter he did not plan to return to covering the protests. But, “journalistic FOMO,” or fear of missing out, brought him back.

“I figured the more cameras out there, the more press actually reporting, the less likely it is everybody to get treated this way,” he said. “So I thought it was my duty to get the story out and try to provide extra eyes on the situation.”

The daily protests are also unlike any movement Elia has experienced or 04

“They’ll shoot when they don’t need to, it’s bizarre,” Itzpapalotl said. “Then they’ll shoot people who aren’t even protesting or people who are just driving by in their cars. They always seemed less trained in crowd control, less experienced and very trigger happy.”

According to an internal memo from the Department of Homeland Security obtained by The New York Times, the federal agents deployed in Portland were not specifically trained in riot control or mass demonstrations. Rather, officers sent to the city were from the Border Patrol Tactical Unit — essentially the equivalent of the SWAT team for the Border Patrol Special Operations

Group. The team is trained in undocumented immgrant sweeps and drug smuggling organizations, a far cry from protesters on city streets.

As a result of the Border Patrol Special Tactical Unit agents and Portland police, the continuous use of tear gas in the spaces surrounding the federal courthouse was so severe that it began impacting the health and safety of those who live and work in the area.

In an article by the Willamette Week, journalist Gary Thill reported that more than 60 inmates housed in the Multnomah County Detention Center, which is next door to the courthouse, were inadvertently teargassed after the substance seeped into the center’s ventilation system.

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, a Democrat, was tear-gassed in July after visiting protesters in front of the federal courthouse. Wheeler received criticism from protesters for failing to curb the Portland Police Bureau’s treatment of demonstrators, while others felt the mayor didn’t do enough to stop the vandalism and violence downtown.

Protesters said that corruption runs deep in local politics, and alleged that many city officials and members of the Portland Police Bureau have connections with alt-right and white supremacist organizations in the city.

“You can watch somebody if they’re sitting there [in] like military garments, camo, some kind of American flag attire who just completely gets left alone by officers,” Elia said. “But there could be a protester right next door, clad in black, and that’s their target, as opposed to the guy next door and both can be doing nothing. And I’ve seen it. It’s happened too in front of me and multiple times.”

In 2019, an investigation was launched into improper misconduct of a member of the Portland Police Bureau after hundreds of text messages were released that revealed a friendly relationship between an officer and right-wing organizer Joey Gibson. The texts, obtained by Willamette Week through a public records request, found that Lt. Jeff Niiya talked to and coordinated with the founder of Patriot Prayer, a farright pro-Trump men’s organization.

An independent investigation cleared Niiya of misconduct and collusion later that year. But this is just one of many incidents that protesters say is indicative of an inappropriate relationship between law enforcement and the political group.

Conservative ideologies play into this double standard of the perception of the demonstrations and treatment of protestors by law enforcement, Elia said, which can also be seen in many conservative media outlets’ coverage of the protests and has attached a negative connotation between the left-wing protests and violence.

“They’re not terrorists. These people are just protesters,” Elia said.

Both Elia and Itzpapalotl are still attending Portland protests most nights and plan to continue.

After President Donald Trump said in an August press conference that the “entire city is ablaze all the time,” right-wing media outlets pushed the narrative that Portland was being burned to the ground by dangerous rioters. This was disputed by Lt. Rich Chatman, a spokesman for Portland Fire & Rescue.

But as protests continued throughout the summer and into early fall, the phrase “Portland is burning” would take on a new meaning as a wildfire season unlike anything the state had ever seen loomed on its horizon.

‘We’re trapped and we’re going to die here’ The Oregon sky hung overhead, a festering red that cast a shadow over the state’s 4.2 million residents. Thick flecks of ash left a fine layer of soot over every surface, a site reminiscent of the blast that rocked the Portland metro area after Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980. But it wasn’t 1980, and there were no active volcanoes to blame.

Politicians said it was a shock.

The press called the event “unprecedented.” The flames creeping closer to Oregonians front doors each day were unlike anything they had ever seen in the state.

Morgan Romero was making her way home from a vacation in Washington state when she first saw the smoke.

When she checked a news app on her cellphone, she realized she was surrounded by small wildfires popping up too quickly to count.

“The entire time I was driving, I kept thinking to myself: this is going to be devastating,” she said.

Romero, a journalist for NBC’s Portland-based news station KGWTV, reported live from the site of the Riverside Fire in Clackamas County.

As a blazing 36-mile-wide wall of fire slowly enclosed the city, Romero spoke to Oregonians. Her message: leave while they still can.

Communities outside of hazardous zones began hosting emergency shelters in churches, baseball stadiums and local fairgrounds to support the 40,000 Oregonians who were forced to evacuate their homes.

“These poor people were sleeping in their cars with their animals, and they had no idea whether or not their homes were lost,” Romero said.

More than 7,500 firefighters were called to battle the unprecedented Oregon wildfires, including individuals from local fire departments, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Oregon National Guard and even several inmate crews who were paid $9.80 per day for their lifethreatening efforts.

While reporting on the Riverside fire in Clackamas county, Romero spoke with firefighters taking on the flames.

“At one point the firefighters were protecting these people down at this lake and they saw the fires coming in from both sides,” Romero said. “They told me that in that moment they thought, ‘We’re trapped and we’re going to die in here.’”

As Oregon burned, its residents’ health was put in peril. The Air Quality Index measures the level of pollutants in the air and how dangerous those levels are to human health, per guidelines determined by the Environmental Protection Agency. The wildfire’s broad impact caused Portland to be ranked as the No. 1 city with the worst air quality in the world. As a result, health officials in Oregon reported that one out of every 10 people visiting the emergency room has had asthma-like conditions due to the smoke.

EPA criteria considers any AQI above 150 to be unhealthy for people, with any above 300 being considered a “health warning of emergency conditions.” Up until now, the EPA has not provided health and safety recommendations for AQIs higher than 500, as they’re off the scale.

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AWOL Magazine

On Sept. 11, 2020, Portland, Oregon’s air quality was reported to be as high as 758.

Oregonians claim that they didn’t have enough time to prepare for the wildfires that scorched the state during the summer of 2020— but what if they did? What if scientists have been warning the public about these exact fires, for decades?

While global temperatures begin to creep upwards and unusual weather patterns intensify, politicians in Washington have simultaneously rolled back climate change policies, slashed funding to the Environmental Protection Agency and left international agreements centered around the environment.

All signs point towards wildfires such as those that have scorched the west as the new normal.

Even some native Oregonians contested new climate change legislation, with Republican lawmakers staging a walkout over a 2019 cap-and-trade proposal by Democrats that would limit carbon emissions in the state.

Davia Palmeri, a conservation biologist with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, confirmed these wildfires are unlike anything any living Oregonian would be able to remember.

“In the new modern age of science,we are experiencing unprecedented wildfires on the western side of the Cascade Mountains in Oregon,” Palmeri said.

As a result of seven fires, 868,372 acres have been scorched across the state of Oregon over the course over several weeks. But it’s not the number of wildfires that are surprising climatologists — it’s where they are burning.

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Places like the Willamette Valley, an area home to Oregon’s capital city Salem on the western slope of the Cascades, have historically been much wetter than they were in 2020. Dry conditions paired with powerful and hot winds from the east created the perfect conditions for the state to burn in places they never have before.

Scientists say this year’s fire season is just the beginning of a new era of the effects of climate change in the Pacific Northwest.

“We worry here in Oregon about rising temperatures and as it gets hotter it becomes dryer through evaporation,” Palmeri said. “We’re generally expecting less rainfall and changes in the time of year that rainfall occurs and all of that sets the stage for fires and the destruction of our forest ecosystems.”

As wildfires move west and begin to occur more frequently, Oregon was the second most popular moving destination in the United States after Idaho in 2019. This means more homes, and more people, are moving into fire-prone areas.

While Oregon demographics are changing, so are its physical spaces, and Palmeri believes this is because of climate change. “These fires burn at a severity and at a scale where the ecosystems being affected will go through a transition and have the potential to not be a forest anymore because it is never able to recover,” Palmeri said. “That will also create massive changes in habitat for fish and wildlife.”

‘Make Your Values Known To Decision Makers’ It has been six months since the killing of George Floyd that sparked some of the greatest social uprisings modern society has ever seen; but for people like Itzpapalotl and Elia, the fight for police accountability and racial justice in Portland is far from over.

According to the Oregon Department of Justice, reported bias crimes in the state more than doubled between May and June.

Among all reported hate crimes in Oregon this year, the most common motive for the perpetrator was race, with a majority of victims being Black people.

In an effort to hold police accountable in her community, City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, who is the first Black woman to hold the position, introduced a measure to

create a community oversight board for the Portland Police Bureau. The bill was passed with an approval rating of 82%, the largest win for the city’s November local election.

While flames were extinguished, Oregon emerged from the rubble of the 2020 wildfire season that killed at least nine people and destroyed more than 4,000 homes, resulting in damages totaling more than $1 billion.

Moving forward, Palmeri said that collaboration of Oregonians and local government to protect the natural heritage of Oregon is essential.

care about what our ecosystems look like and that they stay there.”

A community is defined by its people, and Portland is no exception.

“Portland has always been a place that has had a lot of people willing to revolt against repressive powers,” said Itzpapalotl. “That’s something that I don’t think will ever change.”

McKenzie Beard (she/her/hers) is a senior studying Journalism with a minor in Women, Gender, and Sexuality studies.

“Really, this is all about making your values known to the decision-makers who manage our public lands where a lot of these wildfires occur,” said Palmeri. “Let them know that you 07

AWOL Magazine

ATHLETE ACTIVISM AT AMERICAN UNIVERS Using their platform as leaders in the campus community, AU Athletics launches Anti-Racism Education Collective and individual teams take to social media to show support for the Black Lives Matter movement.

Written by Elizabeth Scott Art by Caroline Lougee

Whether professional or collegiate, athletes in the United States have historically used their platforms to stand up for various causes; in particular: racial justice. This year, the National Collegiate Athletic Association will allow students to express their views in more ways than ever before, including on their uniforms.

After a summer of Black Lives Matter protests around the world, studentathletes at American University decided to take action in partnership with AU Athletics to form the Anti-Racism Education Collective.

According to their press release, the collective will work “to provide an opportunity for education and awareness on racial inequality and other social justice issues, and to create engagement within the AU Athletics community for studentathletes, coaches and staff.”

“I would say our teams have been receptive to the idea and trying to support our Black student-athletes and let them know that they have a community that’s here and listening,” said Marsha Harper, head coach of the women’s soccer team.

June Mwaniki, a member of the AU cross-country team, said that open communication between athletes and coaches is essential.

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“The part of the athletic department that I’ve encountered has done well in being inclusive and having conversations,” Mwaniki said. “We’ve been able to have open dialogues with our coaches and teammates about our experiences in encountering racism.”

In late July, the NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel passed guidelines that allow collegiate athletes to make social justice statements on their uniforms. Student-athletes are able to wear a patch on the front of their jerseys to celebrate or memorialize events, people or other causes. While the status of many sports seasons is uncertain as the pandemic intensifies, the patches aren’t the only thing teams plan on doing.

“The players have also mentioned more ways that we can support the Black community. They’re proposing ideas and drafting ideas where we can start to support more local Black businesses,” Harper said.

Politics and sports are not a new combination, with a long history of athletes using their platform to speak out against racial discrimination.

At the 1968 Olympics, Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their black-gloved fists on the medal podium in order to protest racial discrimination. In 2003, Toni Smith, a collegiate basketball player, turned her back on the flag during the

national anthem to protest the Iraq War. After Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson, five members of the St. Louis Rams walked onto the field with their hands up.

This year, at the U.S. Open, women’s champion Naomi Osaka wore face masks with the names of Black Americans killed by police to all of her matches. Each mask honored a different name: Breonna Taylor, Trayvon Martin and George Floyd were featured, among others.

But athlete protests have been met with harsh responses in the past.

After Colin Kaepernick knelt for the national anthem in 2016, he was released by the San Francisco 49ers and has not been able to play in an NFL game since. LeBron James and other NBA players were told to “shut up and dribble” when they spoke up about the challenge of being Black in the United States and critiqued President Donald Trump.

This year, many of these same teams, including the 49ers, posted messages of solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. These actioWWns have been criticized by some as being performative activism.

At AU, one of the plans for the athletics program is that studentathletes will meet in small groups on a regular basis. The groups will

SITY

be discussing books, articles and other material related to anti-racism.

Currently, they are reading “White Fragility” and discussing it at their biweekly meetings.

“Every two weeks we try and read a chapter, and give people time to reflect upon the chapter. I can say certainly from my standpoint it’s been great to obviously express how I feel but also hear different people and their viewpoints, through their respective lens,” Harper said. “I think from this process there’s certainly been some growth.”

The creation of the collective followed actions taken by individual teams this year, including Twitter statements of support for the Black Lives Matter movement.

The AU women’s soccer team started a photo campaign titled “Do You Hear Us?,” in which all athletic teams as well as some athletic administrators participated. Over 50 members of the athletic community took photos with messages of support and solidarity for the Black Lives Matter movement and the Black community.

“What’s awesome is that a lot of the stuff that we’re seeing, on our team page in particular, is all student-led.

Our communications department has been very helpful for creating the graphics, as well as pushing out the content and the other teams have been awesome,” Harper said.

“Our [social media] captions raise awareness and we stand by the BLM community publicly,” said Malak Hassouna, a member of AU’s swim and dive team.

Throughout the pandemic, people across the country and the globe have used social media to stand up against racism and encourage other people to make their voices heard. AU athletic teams have created videos standing up against racism and also have shared posts encouraging students to vote.

Many teams, including the women’s soccer team, have shared graphics showing that 100% of their team is registered to vote.

“Can we get the word out about voting and not make it about one party versus the other but just telling people to vote and encouraging them

to do so and educating them on why voting is important, and also giving them the resources.” Harper said.

Following the events of this summer, the Patriot League athletic conference created an anti-racism commission which Harper and men’s basketball coach Ed Jackson work on.

One of the goals of the athletic department is to work with the wider campus community. The Patriot League is working to connect their efforts across campuses as well.

Town halls have been discussed as a possibility for when students return to campus.

“It’s good that a lot of things were created to have the issue of racism and social injustice not be just a moment, and instead a movement. I think we’ve done a pretty good job of laying some foundations so that we can make sure that it’s consistent,” Harper said.

Elizabeth Scott (she/her/hers) is a freshman studying International Relations.

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AWOL Magazine

STUDENTS CONDEMN VIRTUAL ASAC AU community members with disabilities call out university support services’ response to online learning environment Written by Braeden Waddell Art by Ian Vaughan

The web version of the story will be updated with a comment from the university.

Kadaline Jackel, a former AU student, said the final straw in her decision to leave the university was when it announced the original plan for the fall semester, which would have been a hybrid between online and inperson learning.

The plan only allowed freshmen and sophomores to apply for housing, while upperclassmen were forced to look elsewhere for places to live.

Jackel said she was unaware that the university had canceled her application.

“I have a disability and I had to apply for housing accommodations,” said Jackel. “To hear that I was being kicked off campus and they canceled my application five days before they made the announcement was unsettling, to say the least.”

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Though the university would later announce a fully online semester, Jacksel said she felt as though the university’s decision not to prioritize students with disabilities and students from lower income households felt wrong.

“I don’t like the way that they treat their students,” said Jackel. “I knew they didn’t really care about us from the get-go, and this is just solidifying that ‘hey, we only want your money, we don’t really care how you get to these classes.”

Jackel is not alone. AWOL reporters spoke with students during the pandemic about their experiences with ASAC and the frustration, confusion and humiliation they endured while attempting to work with the accessibility office.

Students say ASAC services can harm more than help Students have criticized AU’s history of inaccessibility for students with disabilities, and its sometimes harsh treatment of students who seek accommodations from the Academic Support and Access Center since long before COVID-19. During the pandemic, some students said long-standing issues were made much worse.

AU had 24 investigations into its handling of civil rights abuses between 2015 and 2018. Of those cases, 11 involved “denial of benefits,”

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accessibility or harassment on the basis of disability, according to reporting from ProPublica, None of those cases resulted in any legal actions from the U.S. Department of Education, but students with disabilities continue to argue that they were, and are, being mistreated.

Ben Shore, a junior at AU, said his prior experience with ASAC had been fine up until the pandemic.

But he said this semester has been “horrifying” and that he has been seriously inhibited after several accommodations he relied on were taken away without warning.

“I had been getting all the support I need, and then the school just decided that ‘you don’t get this anymore,’” he said. “It brought me to where I was so debilitated that I’m now back to being with a service dog.”

Shore said after his accommodations were removed, he was forced to rely on support systems he had previously not needed, and that if he received the accommodations he requested he “would have continued living his normal life.” He said he contacted several mental health experts and approached the center again to argue his case, but was denied the option to reinstate his previous accommodations.

“I’ve never been treated so poorly in terms of accommodations and disability related support, than I have been from AU,” said Shore.

Jackel expressed similiar concerns with the center before leaving the university.

“There are so, so many issues with ASAC,” said Jackel. “I know that they claim that they’re trying their best, but with the stories I’ve heard, I can’t say I believe that.”

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She said that even after getting accommodations for PTSD, she believed that ASAC doesn’t “take psychiatric disabilities as seriously as any other disability.”

Jackel said she felt as though her disability would be ignored by the school, and that even if students with disabilities received priority, ASAC would not fairly evaluate her need.

Shore felt as though ASAC “did not even do the bare minimum” to address his specific needs, and saw him as a “box to check off ” rather than a student with a disability who needed their support.

A longtime advocate for people with disabilities, Shore started a nonprofit advocacy organization and volunteers with CASA DC as a court-appointed special advocate for children with disabilities. He said his work and his experience with his own disability shaped the way he perceives how ASAC responded to his needs.

“Some people with disabilities just don’t have the ability to speak up for themselves. And that’s why I like to; I have the ability to speak up for myself, I have the ability to advocate for myself and others,” said Shore. “I know a lot of people are in my shoes, and they are just stuck, and they can’t do anything about it.”

After his experiences this semester, Shore said he approached attorneys to discuss his case as a potential Americans with Disabilities Act violation by AU and was told that if ASAC refuses to provide the accommodations he needed, he might only get what he needs by suing.

That, Shore said, shouldn’t have to be his only option.

“Just because it’s hard work, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done, doesn’t mean that people like me don’t deserve to be helped,” said Shore.

Pushing back Some students are pushing forward with plans to identify and address concerns like those that Shore and Jackel expressed.

Before leaving the school, Jackel said she had been going to be working as an advocate with the Center for Advocacy and Student Equity to represent students with disabilities in the organization’s work with ASAC. Although her experience this summer drove her to leave, the department she was planning to lead with CASE has still been introduced.

The six-person team working within CASE’s accessibility and accommodations department is dedicated to working with students with disabilities.

Wrigley Kline, who works with CASE, said in an interview that she joined the accessibility and accommodations department specifically to make sure other students don’t have the same experiences with ASAC that she did.

“I want to be there for students who are struggling and help where ASAC lets people slip through the cracks,” Kline said. “This semester presents new challenges for disabled people trying to access education, and ASAC isn’t prepared to meet those challenges. I want to be here and have our department here to pick up the slack.”

In the past, Kline said she had several negative experiences with the center, and had focused on advocating for herself and others, specifically for disability pride and disability acceptance. This semester, she was asked to go to her professors directly to ask for accommodations, but as a person with autism, those kinds of smaller social interactions are more difficult for her. She said that while working with students during the virtual semester, others expressed that

they were having a similar experience.

“I think there’s an issue with the burden falling on disabled students to implement their accommodations, that’s a pattern we’re seeing,” Kline said. “Students who may have social anxiety or speech impairments are being asked to go explain their accommodation needs to a professor they’ve never met, with very little authority granted to them by ASAC.” According to Kline, it is the support center’s job to ensure students with disabilities get the services they need, not the student’s. Kline said this is part of a consistent level of indifference that she said she feels is built into the way the center interacts with students.

“I think ASAC knows it needs reforms,” Kline said, “‘ASAC is a very traumatic place for students, ASAC is about having your identity interrogated and having your needs questioned. And for me, it feels like ASAC is more of an obstacle to accommodations than a resource.”

Now that she’s working at CASE, she said the biggest problem is simply getting the university to listen.

Emily Deveraux, chief advocate of CASE’s accessibility and accommodations department, said in an interview that she contacted ASAC at the beginning of the semester, but still has not received a response.

“I think that just the lack of excitement from ASAC that this is a space being created on campus is very telling,” Deveraux said. “They should be excited that there’s somebody advocating for disabled students on campus.”

Deveraux and Kline said that they don’t want a hostile relationship between themselves and ASAC. Given their position as student

advocates, they just want a seat at the table.

“As a student who has dealt with ASAC, I am not surprised that it’s coming to this,” Kline said. “I would like to have expected that they would be all excited about our department’s existence. But I’m not surprised that we’re being stonewalled.”

Deveraux said that for now, CASE is focused on what they can do. They hosted a virtual space in November for students with disabilities to talk freely about their experiences this semester, and are planning to push harder for more involvement with ASAC in the spring.

“Change doesn’t have to be at the administration level, as much as we would love to see that,” said Deveraux. “I think, also, a shift in the student is effective, not going to say just as effective, because it’s not true, but it’s also really important.”

To Kline, the most important step going forward is to ensure ASAC is being held accountable for its influence on students. She said that significant improvements are necessary to rebuild trust between the center and people with disabilities in the AU community.

“ASAC needs to acknowledge the impact that they have on students.

The amount of control they have over disabled students’ lives and educational opportunities is great, and they have the power to make or break someone’s college experience,’’ Kline said. “They need to take that responsibility seriously. We need to trust them with that responsibility.

Braeden Waddell (he/him/his) is a senior studying journalism and Spanish language and area studies.

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WUHAN: RETURNING TO NORMALCY University Students in Wuhan, Where the Coronavirus Outbreak Began, Returned to School Amidst the Pandemic

Written by Ziyi Yuan Art by Ziyi Yuan

Students in Wuhan, China, returned to universities in September as the number of people infected with COVID-19 increased worldwide and many schools remained closed in the United States.

The vice governor of Hubei province, Yang Yunyan, delivered a message to the public in June saying “there is no need to wear masks in Wuhan while maintaining a social distance if people are outdoors and in open areas, such as parks.” But the Hubei government and scientists still suggested that Wuhan citizens should get into the habit of wearing masks and carrying masks everywhere.

WUH

Hansheng Li, a freshman majoring in clinical medicine at Wuhan University, has been doing his homework in his room and sharing the small space with his 10 roommates on campus.

According to Li, Wuhan University does not require students to wear masks or to socially distance in public places. Students are also not required to ensure their rooms are clean and disinfected, even though the school

According to the Johns Hopkins The medical class in a laboratory at Wuhan University. (Photo by Coronavirus Hansheng Li) Resource Center, there were around has nearly 54,000 students and 3,600 91,900 cases confirmed in China in academic staff.

November, nearly 68,200 of which were in Hubei Province.

“We normally have 50 to 100 students in one class. Students rarely In April, the total number of wear masks and professors don’t wear confirmed COVID-19 cases in masks during classes,” Li said.

Wuhan was approximately 50,400, according to the data from China Despite many people not wearing Global Television Network. After masks, Li said there have been no the Wuhan government tested its infections at the university. entire 11 million person population for COVID-19 in May, there were 300 asymptomatic and no new COVID-19 sufferers.

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The dining spaces and stadiums are open and operating normally, but students must take a temperature test before entering these spaces to ensure that they are not symptomatic.

Otherwise, I couldn’t get into Wuhan University,” said Li. The university has also laid down many regulations in order to keep teachers and students safe. It

However, there is a rule for every student at Wuhan University that if they want to leave, they have to submit an application stating why they need to go outside. This includes going back home, going shopping and going to work.

HAN

“So far I have adapted to campus life well. But I think the application is annoying because we have to fill the form, the university actually doesn’t care about where we are going. We just have to submit it before we leave the university,” said Li. In July, Li faced the National College Entrance Examination in China. The examination usually takes high school students three years to prepare for and is given once a year.

“I took online courses when Wuhan was locked down, but I was lazy because I stayed at home all the time. So, I studied by myself and did exercises to prepare for the examination, but I did not feel good.

After the city reopened in April, I went back to the high school to take courses,” said Li. There were about 30 students in each classroom of Li’s high school.

The teachers would hold a class in one of the classrooms and then use a camera to broadcast live in the other classroom, where they were all required to wear masks. This allowed every student to attend classes at the same time.

“I appreciated that I could go back to high school in April. Because the teachers were very strict in our study, so that I earned a lot of progress.

The health identity card (QR code) for Wuhan University students on WeChat program at the campus. (Photo by Siqi Fei)

Wuhan University’s campus program on WeChat to ensure the health and safety of students and professors. (Photo by Ziyi Yuan)

required students to submit health information on its campus program on WeChat for 14 days and get coronavirus tests before returning to school.

The health QR code on WeChat program in Wuhan university’s build for its students to scan before they enter. (Photo by Siqi Fei)

Siqi Fei, a sophomore majoring in electrical engineering and automation at Wuhan University, said that masks were required when students first returned to campus, but that requirement was discontinued.

“Later, teachers found that wearing masks would affect their teaching, so few teachers wear masks in class,” said Fei. “But we have to scan the health QR code to enter and leave the campus. For checking students’ body temperature, our university installed infrared temperature measuring equipment in the dining hall and some buildings.”

The infrared temperature measuring equipment in the dining hall in Wuhan University. (Photo by Siqi Fei)

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“However, there are few people who consciously scan the code, and the campus management is not very strict now.”

“The dining hall requires students to wear masks when we dine in, but not all students do as required,” said Fei.

WUH

As a student at Wuhan University, Fei only has four roommates at her room on campus compared to Li’s 10 roommates.

“Although the university does not have a dormitory hygiene requirement, my roommates and I will disinfect the dormitory regularly, such as spraying alcohol,” said Fei. Fei said if a student has a fever in the dorm, the student will be sent to a designated place for quarantine. Other students in the same dorm will also be quarantined for at least one day.

“I think health QR code can not only detect students’ physical condition but also prevent people, who are outside the university, from entering the campus,” said Fei. “However, there are few people who consciously scan the code, and the campus management is not very strict now.”

Wuhan University also has its own hospital, called the Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University. Most students from its medical department can go to this hospital to intern.

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Patients waiting in line to register at the entrance of Wuhan University Renmin Hospital. (Photos by Xuanyu Wang)

“Our hospital requires all inpatients and their families to do a virus test before doing hospitalized surgery.

It’s a regulation to ensure the safety of all students and doctors,” said Xuanyu Wang, a graduate student studying clinical medicine at Wuhan University.

Besides Wuhan University, other schools also have various rules for the safety of students and teachers.

Central China Normal University not only has various health regulations, but also has installed a temperature detection system and face recognition system in each dormitory building.

HAN

Before returning to the university, students were required to fill out an application form and provide their health codes to the campus.

The university also asked students who live in highrisk areas to postpone their return to campus.

times a day. Masks are also required in public places outside of classroom dormitories. The dining hall only provided half capacity for students and teachers in the early days of our return to the university, but was fully open by mid-September. The university also requires students to bring their own tableware because the dining hall does not provide public tableware.

“Our school requires students to fill out an application and we have to get the approval from the counselor before we leave the campus, and we also need to tell our parents that we will leave campus before we the approval,” said Haojia Du, a sophomore majoring in mathematics and applied mathematics at Central China Normal University.

The information on the application at Central China Normal University also includes the reason for leaving campus, the place students are going and the time they will be leaving and coming back.

“I heard that our university’s application for leaving campus is much stricter than other universities in Wuhan,” said Du. “But I think it is understandable, and I am used to these rules.” ___

Ziyi Yuan (she/her/hers) is a senior double majoring in journalism and graphic design.

When students are at the university, they are required to report their temperature to the campus three 17

A AW WO O LL M M aa gg aa zz ii nn ee

BAKING THE CAUSE INTO BUSINESS

A Profile on Immigrant Food Chloe K. Li Interview by Chloe K. Li Photos by Chloe K. Li

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Chloe K. Li: Can you tell me about how your menu works? How has the pandemic impacted your menu?

Téa Ivanovic: Because of the pandemic, as many restaurants will tell you, there weren’t a lot of access to ingredients. We had to be really smart, and our kitchen had to be really smart.

We have an amazing kitchen head, her name is Mileyda Montezuma, she’s also from Venezuela. She’s like Enrique’s right hand woman. She was really smart with making sure we could use certain ingredients, we have access to them. We use a lot of interesting ingredients. Like in the Columbia Road bowl we used these loroco flowers, which are these little flowers that are grown in El Salvador, and berbere from Ethiopia. And it’s hard to get those ingredients, and when COVID hit, it was especially hard. So, we changed things up a lot.

We introduced sandwiches during the pandemic. What we do rotate is, we have a partnership with Tables Without Borders, it’s an amazing local NGO that works with immigrant and refugee chefs. And so we created two bowls with them with two of their chefs. One was an Iranian bowl, it’s called the Persian Plants and Peas, it’s probably my favorite bowl. And the second bowl was done with a chef from the Ivory Coast, it’s called the West African Gumbo Bowl. And so those rotate.

C: And that ties into my next question. What have been popular items?

And what are your favorite items?

T: Our Table Without Borders has definitely been very helpful, because our proceeds go to them. I also think bringing to light different questions, one thing with Black Lives Matter, what we were advocating was also that people are not paying enough attention to Black immigrants as well. And that’s what wanted to highlight with the chef from the Ivory Coast, is their contribution to gastronomical contributions to America. Our sandwiches have been very popular, we have an Old Saigon sandwich, it’s like a Banh Mi but with a twist. And our Havana sandwich, which is like a Cuban with a twist. We also have some really interesting drinks. Like, we have a Cafe Calma, which is like an almond based coffee but with dates, and you can get it iced or hot, and it’s like a perfect afternoon snack.

C: And so, can you tell me how the business functions and how it works with the NGOs? T: So when we talked and thought about how we wanted Immigrant Food to look like and feel like, one of the first ideas that came to us was that we wanted to partner with local NGOs. And why local, is because we think that way we make the most, the biggest contributions. Because large NGOs, national and international ones, have the means and fundings.

This was our way to try to help the local community, and we are very lucky that those NGO partners wanted to partner with us as well. And pre-COVID it was much simpler.

We donated our upstairs space, we donated to our NGO partners for their volunteering, or English or citizenship classes. They could use it with no cost to them. And this downtown location was very useful for them because a lot of their clients are here.

You think about immigrants and a lot of them are janitors or construction workers and they all work downtown, so it’s hard for them in between shifts to go out to the suburbs and meet the NGOs because unfortunately NGOs don’t have a lot of money to afford downtown locations, so that was one way that we helped.

many other restaurants in D.C., the first question we had to answer was: can we stay open? Right, can we survive this and for how long? And the immediate next question was: “What happens to our mission?” Because with Immigrant Food, there’s two beating hearts: one is the food and the gastronomy, and the other is the advocacy and the education, and they can’t go without the other. The answer was clear that we needed to keep the mission intact, but we knew that meant transforming it. So, we put our creative hats on and we thought about what that would look like.

C: How has things changed since COVID? How have you changed your business model?

T: Right. When COVID hit, for us, it hit pretty fast. Faster than a lot of other restaurants just because of our location. The World Bank got a notice to work from home, it was a suggestion before it was a mandate, that was in late February. And so once they stopped coming into the offices, and it’s all office buildings around us, it was completely dead. And, so, like

So, right behind you, next to our food menu, there’s an engagement menu.

And that’s a way for our customers to engage. We know a lot of people wake up and they go, “What’s happening to this country? What can I do?”

Think about when we first heard about family separation at the border, we all wanted to do something, but you often don’t have time on a weekly basis. So, we created what we call it an engagement menu, and so well it’s still here, but since there are less and less

people in the restaurant, we moved it virtual, so every Saturday it’s now a newsletter.

And other things is our thinktable, our educational portion that we do, that has remained virtual. And of course, the events, we tried to do a lot of community related events. We moved all of that virtual. For example, in June the Supreme Court made a decision on DREAMers. We hosted a virtual event with one of the lead attorneys on the case and with the executive director of United We Dream.

But we also wanted to make sure we provided our staff with opportunities. Because like with many restaurants we had to furlough our staff.

There just wasn’t enough work. So, a way to bring them back was also we introduced this Friday authentic immigrant dinner. So, where our staff, which are all immigrants, could make something from their home. So, for example, we did pupusas from El Salvador, and we did those four weeks in a row and they sold out four weeks in a row. We wanted it to become more 19 19

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interactive, and so we made them into a DIY kind of kit. We would send our DIY kits with all the ingredients, whatever we were making, pupusas, arepas, we made sangria, and you could follow along at home on Instagram live and try to make it with us, so that was also really popular. So we tried to do all these different creative events and that’s really how we’ve weathered through the pandemic until now. And let’s hope it continues.

C: And you talked about expanding to different cities, why start in D.C.?

What is so special about that and running a restaurant in D.C.?

T: Well you may have noticed that, Chloe, when you were walking here, we have a neighbor here to our left, the White House is very close. Was it a coincidence? It wasn’t a coincidence.

And the reason that we are here is to make sure our message is clear.

And you know we celebrate immigrants and we wear that right on our 20

sleeves and that’s also why the name is Immigrant Food and not something else. And y’know, D.C. in particular is fascinating in combining advocacy with innovation. Right, I mean a lot of casual places have started here.

C: You said a lot of your staff are immigrants, and I was wondering how have you incorporated the big immigrant groups in D.C., Salvadorean, Ethiopian, Honduran, into the restaurant?

T: Our chef, Enrique Limardo has always said that Immigrant Food is like 20 restaurants in one because it’s all fusion from all different places.

He always says: “I’m not going to make pasta as good as your Italian grandmothers,” so he’s lived all over the place. From Hong Kong to Dubai, he’s from Venezuela, so he has experience and learning from these cuisines first hand. And we wanted to incorporate some of the largest immigrant cuisines that have come to

America. Whether it’s more recent, like Ethiopians and Salvadoreans, but in the U.S. we know there’s the Irish immigrants or the Italian immigrants right? And one bowl that we started off with was an amazing bowl called the Columbia Road bowl, like the street in Adams Morgan where traditionally a lot of immigrants moved to, of course it’s now all been gentrified.

And that paid tribute to the biggest migrations in D.C., which are the Salvadoreans and the Ethiopians, so it was a fusion of those two immigrant communities.

C: What are the roles of restaurants in your opinion in this larger movement/fight for equality? I know that’s a big part of this restaurant’s mission.

T: We started thinking about Immigrant Food, and Immigrant Food was Peter Schechter’s idea. His background is fascinating. He was in political communications his whole life, but was also one of Jose Andres’ first investors, and then in 2018, when there was a huge, terrible negative rhetoric on immigrants, he had this idea to combine his two

ideas. He wanted to start a restaurant with a cause. When we talked about what immigrant food would look like and what it would feel like, we knew we wanted to do more than take part of our profits and donate it to a cause. Which is what you would think in traditional corporate responsibilities when huge billionaire dollar companies, it’s what they do.

And that’s great, but we wanted to do more than that. We wanted to use the food metaphor, bake the cause into the business model. And we think all companies, all businesses, whether they’re multi-billion dollar businesses, medium size businesses, or small startups like ours, we all have our responsibility to take a stance, and we’re at a moment in time where we need to take a stance on important social justice issues.

C: And to my next question, Immigrant Food is very special because of how it functions. It is very special, but I was wondering what can other restaurants do to also do what Immigrant Food is doing?

T: Well we have been called a

cause-casual restaurant because we have fast casual dining but we’re, y’know, the cause is embedded, so we have a cause that we espouse. I hope that Immigrant Food will set the tone for many other restaurants to do the same thing. But, it does require a different type of thinking. My title is Communications and Outreach Director. But, when you think of a new restaurant, you might think: why would they have a Communications Director? It’s a strange title for a new restaurant. But we hope that Immigrant Food is scalable. The idea of Immigrant Food is that we’re trying to expand to different locations and hopefully eventually maybe to different cities across America. And we hope that this will set a token for all businesses whether they are restaurants or something else to espouse a cause in their model.

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TRACING A LEGACY Segregation, Zoning and Wealth in Washington An examination of D.C.’s history informs a contemporary vision for AU and the surrounding community Written by Margaux Renee Art by Sierra Cougot

Police responses differ across the District In October of 2020, 20-year-old Karon Hylton-Brown was riding a moped in Brightwood Park when he was killed in a collision after a chase initiated by D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department.

Hylton-Brown, who was using the moped to search for his missing keys after a Friday night out with friends, was struck by an oncoming car as he exited an alley-way, pursued by MPD.

As demonstrators clashed with police in the nights following HyltonBrown’s death, Reed recalled hearing the sound of smoke canisters being deployed outside the Fourth District Station from his home in Silver Spring.

“He ain’t even get off the block before police chased him,” longtime friend Reggie Ruffin told WAMU/DCist, recalling the night of Oct. 23. The attempted traffic stop resulted in the four officers involved being placed on administrative leave and a U.S. attorney review.

“It felt very visceral,” Reed said. “This feels very close to me, physically, the sound, but also knowing that those neighborhoods, Petworth and Brightwood, are the heart of where my family has been since immigrating here in the ‘70s...it’s a very familiar, meaningful place to me.”

In the following days, HyltonBrown’s family, friends and supporters gathered at the Fourth District Station of the Metropolitan Police Department demanding “acknowledgement, answers and accountability,” according to WAMU/ DCist.

But as Reed experienced the sounds of unrest echoing from Ward 4 on the night of Oct. 28, residents of Ward 3, where AU is located, heard the roar of simultaneous sirens as MPD’s Second District force headed in both directions on Wisconsin Ave. to protect property in Georgetown and Friendship Heights.

Outside the District boundary, several Montgomery County Police Department units responded near Bethesda, in anticipation of possible looting.

For Dan Reed — a Washington native, urban planner and freelance writer — Hylton-Brown’s story impacted him greatly.

“It was very personal to me how mundane that story was,” Reed said.

“He was looking for his keys and then 22

he got into chase with the police — that could have been me, that could have been my cousin,” Reed said, referring to his cousin, a young Black and Indian man who often rides his skateboard around Washington.

“The duality of people protesting at the police station on Georgia Avenue,

while police were going to protect property on Wisconsin Avenue is the modern day manifestation of decisions that were designed to keep wealth in the hands of affluent white families who could purchase property west of the Park,” Reed said, referring to Rock Creek Park, the District’s historic line of racial division.

The legacy of slavery at AU After an Eagle editorial published in April of 2018 highlighted AU’s historical ties to slavery, the university established its Working Group on the Influence of Slavery, which most notably found that AU’s founder, John Fletcher Hurst, was a slaveowner.

Additionally, the report concluded that AU relied on broad, countrywide fundraising to establish a campus and that these funds “no doubt included wealth accumulated from and during the slavery era.”

But there is an even more recent chapter of AU’s history that begs to be examined; one that pervades every corner of the District and of the nation as a whole.

The Federal Housing Administration was founded in 1934 in an effort to increase America’s housing stock.

The FHA, however, proved to be an important mechanism in the development of U.S. residential segregation. A policy now commonly known as redlining worked to both segregate neighborhoods while ensuring that the white ones would accumulate the most wealth. This was accomplished primarily through the refusal to insure mortgages in and near Black neighborhoods.

The FHA justified this practice by perpetuating the myth that “if African-Americans bought homes in these suburbs, or even if they bought homes near these suburbs, the property values of the homes they were insuring, the white homes

they were insuring, would decline,” according to NPR. The Home Owners’ Loan Corporation began drawing up maps in the late 1930s — maps that would later on come to dictate where property was most valued and therefore worthy of police protection. On these HOLC maps, neighborhoods were graded from A through H to denote their level of “risk,” according to Reed.

“Neighborhoods that showed signs of racial mixing got lower grades, and the neighborhoods that were largely written off as slums — meaning there were a lot of poor people or Black people living there — got the lowest grades,” Reed said.

In the context of the Washington region, this meant that Ward 3, where AU is located, and the adjacent areas in Maryland, such as Bethesda and Chevy Chase, were given the high grades of A and B whereas the rest of the city, with the exception of the Gold Coast, was given lower grades.

“So, from the jump, the federal government said we are going to allow investment in Ward 3, and literally nowhere else,” Reed said.

According to Derek Hyra, it’s important that the university reckon with its own place in a historically segregated and wealthy neighborhood. Hyra is an associate professor in SPA and founding director of AU’s Metropolitan Policy Center.

“I know that the university is really thinking deeply about its role and thinking about history of race, and racism,” said Hyra, citing the Antiracist Research and Policy Center’s new fellowship in the History of Slavery and its Legacies in D.C., among other efforts to uncover this history.

“But, I also think it’s important for

the university to think about its contemporary role in alleviating the racial disparities that we have in our city,” Hyra said.

“Invisible Walls:” Local leaders work to change zoning codes On Sept. 29, the organization Ward 3 Vision hosted a virtual event entitled “Help Take Down the Invisible Walls Around Ward 3,” which featured local speakers such as Dan Reed and Ward 3 Councilmember Mary Cheh, among others. According to Ward 3 Vision, the ward’s “invisible walls” referred, of course, to the comorbid legacies of racially restrictive covenants and redlining policies, but more specifically, to a zoning code which some view as exclusionary.

“Many municipalities in sections of cities and towns would zone in a way that would make it very difficult for units that accommodate low income people to go in,” Hyra said. “So, there’s been a big push to, instead of doing exclusionary zoning, trying to do inclusionary zoning, and what that means is to change the zoning code.”

Ward 3 Vision has been one of the groups engaged in this push locally.

They said that a “long history of systemic practices of discrimination has led to our present lack of choices in housing types” in Ward 3. They said that the passage of Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser’s Comprehensive Plan Amendment Act (B23-0736) — the primary charge of which is to create 36,000 more housing units in the District by 2025 — will be vital to reforming the local zoning code and making Ward 3 a more inclusive community.

“It’s a moral obligation to allow and encourage growth in areas like Ward 3, where amenities are plentiful,” Councilmember Cheh said “That growth, in meeting the needs for expanded affordable housing options throughout the District, can be accomplished in a way that enhances 23

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and reaffirms the character of our neighborhoods.”

Cheh has represented Ward 3 on D.C.’s city council since 2007 and has lived in the ward for more than 30 years.

“It’s a false choice I think, to just think that we either have to allow high rise apartments on every street corner or freeze development where it is today,” she added.

According to Hyra, reforming the zoning code to allow other types of structures besides single-family units will “increase the probability that affordable housing could be built by allowing a greater number of plots of land to accommodate large multifamily buildings,” he said.

“But you know, just because you have multi-family housing doesn’t mean it’s going to be affordable housing,” Hyra said. “The zoning just determines the type of structure, but it doesn’t 24

necessarily mean that affordable housing will come even if the zoning ordinance is changed.”

That’s why for Reed, inclusionary zoning is only one piece of the puzzle in addressing the affordable housing shortage in the District.

“In the near term, there are lots of things that we need to be doing to ensure affordability — that’s why subsidies are important, that’s why housing vouchers are important, that’s why inclusionary zoning is important,” Reed said. “Zoning can address the longer-term challenge, but it won’t solve everything.”

As for AU’s role in addressing this longer-term challenge, Hyra suggests that the university work with local leadership.

“I think it’s important for the university to think about its land holdings,” Hyra said, referring

specifically to Arlie Center, a 300 acre property in Warrenton, Va. that was gifted to the university in 2016.

Additionally, Hyra cited WAMU’s Connecticut Ave. building, which the university owns, as an example of a valuable land-holding along one of the District’s major commercial corridors.

“That is an incredible asset,” Hyra said. “If the university is going to sell it, the university could also take out low-interest loans on that asset — it could help the city craft its affordable housing structure. ___

Margaux Renee is a sophomore studying international studies and sociology.

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FROM PERFORMATIVE TO PRODUCTIVE Students and Faculty Work to Create a Sustainable Fight for Racial Justice

Written by Luci Rascher Art by Arianna Cannon

In the wake of widespread protests, calls to action and political polarization in response to the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor this summer, students at American University have been mobilizing to support the Black Lives Matter movement with infographics, petition links and protest flyers.

Yet, some wonder how they can make their collective outrage both impactful and long-lasting for the years to come.

capable of sustaining a movement,” but “simply adding your name to an online petition is not enough to call yourself an ally, an activist, or a champion of equality.”

The New York Times reported that the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement is potentially the largest social justice movement in U.S. history, with over 15 million people and every state participating, but some are wondering what impact this movement will create in the future.

Elijah Murphy, is a graduate psychology student, a Black studentathlete at AU, and an intern with The Grassroot Project, an organization which provides school and community-based health education to Washington middle school students.

In this role, Murphy works to create sustainable racial justice initiatives within AU athletics and TGP.

According to an AWOL article from last spring, AU junior Elliot Williams said that “There’s a lot of lip service paid to activism, but very few students are willing to put in the time and the persistence that’s necessary to hold actions, events and to follow through with their goals,” when asked to comment on whether or not AU is actually the most politically active school in the nation.

In an article from The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, intern and student at Vanderbilt University who remained anonymous said that coupled with action, “petitions become powerful vehicles of change 26

“The right to petition public entities comes with the moral responsibility of doing more than just checking ‘virtual redress of grievances’ off of your performative activism bingo card,” said the Intern and Vanderbilt student.

Murphy, who created the AU Black Athlete Coalition this fall, said, “There aren’t enough spaces for Black and Brown people [on campus] and not enough avenues for Black and Brown people to feel comfortable and to succeed.”

He’s not alone in this view. According to the Lumina Foundation, which aims to create equitable education environments for all American students, “56 percent of survey respondents believe ‘opportunity isn’t equal in the U.S’,” in a survey conducted to assess “How do people

understand opportunity in the United States?”

A study conducted by the JED Foundation and the Steve Fund, two leading mental-health organizations, found that 50 percent of white students felt more academically prepared than their peers, versus 36 percent of black students. The same study also found that 75 percent of Black college student respondents tend to keep their feelings about the difficulty of college to themselves, versus 61 percent of white students.

“So often in previous times schools like to let things go under the rug for publicity sake but that’s just not acceptable if they expect for all of their [students and] athletes to feel comfortable and accepted at their institution,” said Murphy.

In addition to the AU Black Athlete Coalition, Murphy also helped to create Athletes United for Social Justice in collaboration with The Grassroot Project, which works in partnership with AU, Georgetown University, George Washington University and Howard University students.

“We’re looking to unite the four universities by sharing ideas and building off of each other to the end of being able to unite under one coalition and spread awareness in that way,” said Murphy.

In terms of going beyond performative activism on social media, Janessa Goldbeck of the Genocide Intervention Network said, “we learned early on that, at a national level, the best use of online organizing was an entry point for people to connect, then meet offline.

You cannot have just an online community. It’s not real. It can disappear at the click of a button. You have to combine the two.”

For non-Black allies looking to

support organizations working to combat structural racism on campus, Malini Ranaganathan, professor of environmental sustainability and global health and interim faculty director at AU’s Antiracist Research and Policy Center, recommends working with organizations “doing mutual aid, education, prison abolition, and environmental and health justice work.” She advised students to “find these organizations, learn about, donate, and volunteer with them, even if remote.”

In terms of antiracist course availability at AU, Ranganathan said, “course instructors need to take a hard look at their syllabi and not just pepper in BIPOC here and there, and not just have palatable ‘diversity and ‘implicit bias’ readings, but rather seriously engage with questions of history, power, difference and epistemology where relevant.” Adding that, “The curriculum is changing, and there are many critical courses for students to choose from, but students should seek these out.”

“I think some key strides are being taken, including amping up mental health and counseling, enhancing the safety and security of Black students, and rethinking the role of police in wellness checks,” said Ranganathan.

In regards to allyship on campus amongst student organizations, Murphy said, “I think that if groups on campus unite and help to empower groups, like the Black Student Union, and amplify those voices, that might be a first step.”

In order to understand and affect long-term systemic change towards racial equity, Ranganathan’s advice is: “Antiracism means acknowledging one’s privilege and power and being reflexive about how one ‘shows up’ in the movement. To me, the most important thing to be sustainable is to ‘keep doing the work’ in an authentic and deep way.”

___

Luci Rascher (she/her/hers) is a senior majoring in peace, conflict resolution, and global security with a minor in Arabic.

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AWOL Magazine

‘ZOOM UNIVERSITY’: IS IT WORTH IT? With COVID-19 ravaging the country, previously popular student hangouts have grown quiet.

Written by Bonnie Bishop Art by Maddie Ceasar

The seats are always open, the line is nonexistent and the warm inviting energy of one of American University’s favorite coffee shops has turned cold. The Bridge, a coffee shop on campus, is normally packed with students — but there is nothing normal about this school year.

With COVID-19 shutting down nearly all on-campus activities, The Bridge is quiet. Although the cafe recently reopened, COVID restrictions prevent The Bridge from having that packed and warm atmosphere that captures the essence of the cafe.

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The Bridge isn’t the only spot on campus that’s been affected since AU announced that its students would be taking classes online in the fall of 2020.

Where dorm rooms once held hundreds of students, classrooms hosted heated debates and the quad served as a playing ground for coed ultimate frisbee, AU has now lost a critical element of the college experience: an engaging campus on which to learn and grow.

Students across the country have been forced to weigh the benefits against the drawbacks of online learning as

they decide if the switch to a digital classroom matches up to the actual college experience.

Some AU students have had trouble justifying the cost of tuition for the quality of the online learning opportunities that are being offered.

As a result, 36 first-year students have chosen to defer their schooling until the spring of 2021 in an attempt to dodge the virus and save money in the meantime. This data was shared in an AWOL interview with Andrea Felder, assistant vice provost for undergraduate admissions data.

“We’ll see what happens in the spring, to give students a sense of confidence,” said Felder.

In May, US News reported that 17% of incoming students were considering whether or not to defer their education for the fall 2020 semester, opting instead to join their peers in the spring. The survey found that approximately 16% of incoming freshmen considered taking a gap year in an attempt to wait out the coronavirus pandemic.

Weighing the concerns of both the safety of students and the financial stability of the school, university administrators varied in their plans for the fall semester. While some colleges attempted to welcome their students back to campus with restrictions, others decided to go completely virtual.

For the fall 2020 semester, the AU college experience consisted of online classes on Zoom, virtual club fairs and online events with guest speakers.

But some universities tried to stay open. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill initially had their students come back to campus at the beginning of the fall 2020 semester. On Monday, Aug. 10, undergraduate students were sent home due to a total of 177 cases out of 30,000 students being reported on campus, according to The New York Times.

The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center collects data from educational institutions in order to track trends and changes. According to their research, “undergraduate enrollments at all types of universities, public, private for-profit, private non-profit, and public 2 year, are running 2.5% below last year’s level.” Private for-profit universities have seen a 1.9% decrease in the rate of enrollment.

AU’s admissions office has adjusted its recruitment and enrollment process largely in order to accommodate the circumstances of the ongoing pandemic.

“We had to move all of our recruitment activity to an online virtual platform,” said Felder.

Felder said it was important for current AU students to share their personal experiences with this year’s interested applicants in order to help applicants receive a better understanding of where they are applying.

Although a 10% tuition discount was offered to all undergraduates and graduate students for the fall semester, some found it difficult to justify attending the university online given its steep tuition prices.

AU sophomore Mihika Gokarn decided to take a gap semester during the fall before AU announced that the school would transition to being fully online in the fall as well. Gokarn said the decision was based primarily on the safety of the situation.

For Gokarn, who lives in California, flying across the country to attend school during a pandemic was a risk she didn’t feel comfortable taking.

“It just seems like a no brainer option,” said Gokarn.

For students that decided to participate in the fall 2020 semester at AU, they were left to create as much of a memorable college experience as possible.

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AWOL Magazine

Ashley Barnes taught AUExperience 1 as a professor for the first time this semester. Barnes primarily worked in the School of Professional and Extended Studies as the senior advisor for the Washington Mentorship program and Washington Semester program.

AU Experience I is a required class that focuses on creating a swift transition into college. Barnes’ focus was on establishing a classroom that created a sense of community for her students. But Zoom fatigue was a recurring issue in Barnes’ classes.

“It is hard to follow the curriculum, bit by bit, I think you have to cater to your students first,” said Barnes.

Barnes has been advocating for her students to connect with their peers virtually. She encouraged them to connect on social media, in GroupMe chats or through Blackboard discussion posts.

“I think out of everything, the social component is what students yearn for,” said Barnes.

Barnes said that only a handful of her students have expressed interest in transferring or deferring next semester, and found that her student’s virtual transition into the spring 2021 semester has been easier to carry out than in previous years on campus.

“I’m just hopeful that things will kind of pick up for next semester, of course, in a safe manner,” said Barnes.

On Oct. 26, AU released its plan of action for the upcoming spring semester in 2021.

To help facilitate a stronger college experience, AU plans to offer more in-person courses in Spring 2021 by ensuring that classes that are either lab or art-based have on-campus instructions. By slowly opening up the campus and allowing students 30

to begin studying and living in AU buildings again, the university hopes to create a community.

AU President Sylvia Burwell stressed the importance of imagination when coming up with new ways to keep students engaged as the university proceeds online for the rest of the school year.

“We look forward to a creative spring semester that features increasing on-campus activity and more opportunities for our community to engage and learn,” said Burwell in AU’s announcement of their Spring 2021 plan.

While the university is coming up with creative alternatives to the traditional college experience, COVID-19 cases have begun to spike once again around the country.

When the university first announced that students would not return to campus in the fall 2020 semester, coronavirus cases were still growing.

Now, there are a total of 20,151 reported cases in Washington, D.C. as of Nov. 22, according to The New York Times.

Many students are left with the same decisions they faced in the fall: whether or not to take part in virtual classes this spring.

AU’s temporary leave policy only allows for up to a year for deferral.

After a year, the student must reapply to the university. Students can only extend their temporary leave once.

With no clear end date for the pandemic, it is uncertain when students will return to campus. The switch to spring online could leave some students to defer another semester, maxing out the amount of time that they are allowed on temporary leave. With the announcement of the spring 2021 plan, the policy for temporary leave has stayed the same.

Students must decide whether or not they will put up with another semester of a barren Bridge cafe and Zoom classes or choose to take a temporary leave of absence.

Gokarn said she is most likely going to continue her deferral into the spring 2021 semester.

“It’s okay to take a step back and to take a break,” said Gokarn.

Bonnie Bishop (she/her/hers) is a sophomore majoring in journalism.

AU WITHOUT THE PD Looking to the Past to Change the Future of Policing on Campus Written by Shannon Durazo and Braeden Waddell Art by Kavi Farr and Zach Vallese

The following is an abridged version of this semester’s episode of Ripped From the Wall, AWOL’s investigative news podcast. To listen to the full version of the story, including additional interviews and narration, check it out on Spotify and awolau.org.

After a summer of protests condemning police brutality and demanding accountability and transparency from law enforcement, students are calling on the American University Police Department to make significant reforms to better serve the AU community.

This semester, AWOL’s investigative podcast unit, Ripped from the Wall, looked into the current relationship between AUPD and students, the changes the AU community is hoping to see and the department’s perspective on their own role at the university.

AUPD has received harsh criticism from students over their policies of wellness checks, their presence in dorms for student conduct offences and most recently for their continued relationship with Washington D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department.

survivor of the Parkland high school shooting in 2018, said just weeks ago, six potentially armed police officers entered his apartment without warning to conduct a wellness check.

Deitsch had informed a professor and the AU counseling center he was undergoing a mental health crisis, and said it unclear why AUPD showed up at his door when he had an appointment with the counseling center the next day.

“AU says it’s their official policy that the counselors at the counseling center cannot have in person meetings due to health risks, but AU at the same time through that very policy allows themselves to send officers to your door if they have reason to believe that you need to be conducted under a wellness check,” said Deitsch. “That, to me, seems like an absolute hypocrisy for the reason that they’re allowed to send an authoritative force but not a therapeutic force, that, to me, is the core of this issue.”

For many students, although AUPD’s presence is always noticeable on campus, their actions, policies and even basic procedures are more ambiguous.

AU Junior Gabriella García-Astolfi had an experience where a friend of hers drank too much, to the point she could not even swallow water anymore or hold her head up. She said she debated even making the call to AUPD for assistance and a potential for about 10 minutes because of her knowledge of the department’s recent history.

Ryan Deitsch, an AU sophomore and

“I thought of Gianna [removed] 31

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earlier in the year, and how, you know, someone called a mental health check on her and she ended up being completely mishandled by the police in such a horrible way,” García-Astolfi said.

She said the two officers that arrived on the scene were Black women, which made her feel safer, but that she was still “anxious” and “on guard” when the officers were present. More importantly, to her, she said she felt that they didn’t actually help her friend in that situation.

Deitsch said his perspective of AUPD, along with his past traumatic experiences with police, made him immediately wary when they arrived at his apartment.

“AUPD did not harass me physically, but they have other students, and that’s something that should not be happening … It should never be in which, if a student is in crisis, that they are dragged out by their arms and legs by up, that should not be the case, but very much it’s happened,” said Deitsch “Knowing that it’s happened means that it could happen again, whoever’s in charge of AU policy needs to immediately correct it to ensure that wellness checks are conducted primarily under therapeutic means.”

Just last year, a Black student was forcibly removed from her American University-owned apartment by six police officers, some from AUPD and some from MPD. The protests that ensued demanded changes to AUPD policy, and were echoed in light of the racial justice movement over the summer as student groups from AU NAACP, AU Black Student Union and American University Student Government demanded change from the department for its past behavior.

In a recent joint statement from AU NAACP and AU BSU, the organizations said they were still 32

negotiating with the university but had experienced delays due to COVID-19.

“Our most immediate goal is to remove AUPD from the wellness check process. While our conversations have been productive we have ran into roadblocks regarding the legality of who can facilitate wellness checks and where licensed therapists are and aren’t allowed to practice,” the statement reads.

Traci Calandrillo, assistant vice president of campus life, said in an interview that her work at AU has focused specifically on a “critical incident response model” to train AUPD officers for addressing mental health crises.

She said in the past, when a student had a crisis, MPD would respond with an ambulance, a firetruck and police officers, which could exacerbate the situation and make it worse.

“We didn’t have control over that, because that’s what had to happen in order to get that person safely transported,” Calandrillo said. “But that’s what it would have looked like in reality for a student, everybody at the university was doing everything what we could to get them safely transported.

That’s a huge thing, though, when you’re the student.”

She said MPD policies

in place now allow for more personalized approaches when dealing with a mental health situation. For instance, Calandrillo said when a student needs to be transported to the hospital during a mental health crisis, officers may receive permission to collect necessities from the student’s room, like backpacks, clothes or toothbrushes.

In an interview, Vice President of University Police and Emergency Management Philip Morse said he believes the department is “very transparent and accountable” both to students and the Washington community as well.

“We always like for the students to understand that the police departments are a fabric of the university, and that our accountability is not unlike any other staff or faculty or student here,” he said. “We follow the same rules that everyone else does, and we’re even held to a higher standard because of what we do. And that’s very, very important as well.”

Morse said in response to protests over the summer, AUPD met

with students to learn about their perspectives on police and how to rebuild trust going forward.

“This summer was a restorative justice conversation, led by university administrators, and really bringing the police department together with students in what was a very safe environment and one where we could talk candidly with each other,” said Morse. “The most important piece of communication that can take place was listening and understanding and really hearing people’s concerns and what’s bothering them, and giving explanations of things that they may not have been aware of.”

While Deitsch said the individual police officers and administrators at the university are not to blame for his situation, he said AU policies need to change.

“I don’t think anyone at the university has the goal of triggering PTSD of students in trying to conduct wellness checks,” said Deitsch. “So how do we reconcile AU policy, the idea that they want to be there, they want to be supportive, they want to be able to provide the resources they have at their disposal for the students in crisis? And how do we reconcile that policy with the reality that it is officers abruptly showing up at your door? Those two things don’t end in the pinnacle of health, they just don’t.”

should consist of people who know how to deal with disabilities, they should have people of color ,LGBT people like a diverse task force, so that it applies to all the people who go to AU.” Early said students themselves need to take responsibility for making that change happen.

“I think it’s time that we recognize that as students, this is no longer high school where we have to listen to teachers or else we go to the principal,” Early said. “It’s time that we recognize that petitions help, talking to each other helps and we’re able to make a change. American University without students, it wouldn’t exist, so it’s time to no longer be afraid of taking action.” ___

Shannon Durazo (she/her/hers) is a senior studying journalism and women and gender studies.

Braeden Waddell (he/him/his) is a senior studying journalism and Spanish language and area studies.

Recently, newly elected Class of 2024 President Stevie Early said that while police abolition may not be a goal of her class, they are definitely interested in reform.

“I don’t think that will necessarily be able to actually abolish [AUPD],” said Early. “We don’t need AUPD as much as we use it, that means expanding the counseling center so that police no longer work with the mental health check, having a counseling center taskforce that 3 33 3

AWOL Magazine

Copyright Š 2020 AWOL Magazine All Rights Reserved.

Published in the United States of America American University 4400 Massachusetts Avenue NW Washington, DC 20016 www.awolau.org Cover and layout design by Caroline Lougee & Kavi Farr Type set in Garamond Premier Pro & Neue Haas Unica W1G ___________________________________________ AWOL 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; 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. ___________________________________________ General Email: awolau@gmail.com Web Editor: awolauweb@gmail.com Podcasting Directors: awolpodcast@gmail.com Bisexualitea Team: bisexualiteapodcast@gmail.com PR Director: awolpr@gmail.com

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