9-16-2021

THE NEXT MAYOR, 3

STUDYING ABROAD, 4

SUMMER FLINGS, 6

The two top mayoral candidates for the City of Boston have been decided.

Study abroad programs are back despite COVID-19 pandemic.

Lifestyle article discusses moving on from summer flings in September.

CE LE B RATIN G

THURSDAY, SEP. 16, 2021

OVE R

50

YE ARS

O F

I N DE PE N DE N T

STU D E NT

EDITORIAL, 7 Times are changing as technology takes the front seat in Boston.

J O U R NA LI S M

THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER AT BOSTON UNIVERSITY

YEAR LI. VOLUME C. ISSUE IV

OBITUARY: Remembering SPH Professor David Jones Nathan Lederman Daily Free Press Staff

COURTESY OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY

David Jones, a Boston University Health Law and Policy & Management associate professor in the School of Public Health, died Sunday in an accident. He is remembered by colleagues and students for his cheerful spirit, his passion and his love for his family.

David Jones, an associate professor in the Boston University School of Public Health, died at the age of 40 following an accident near the JFK/ UMass T-station Saturday. Jones, who had been out running, accessed a rusty flight of stairs and fell 20 feet to his death when the stairs gave way. He is survived by his wife Sarah Sacuto and their three children.

“He was the most loving, kind, considerate person I knew,” Sacuto wrote in a post on the public Facebook group “In Memory of David Kline Jones,” created to remember him and celebrate his life. “He was the best father. He loved to dance to Phish, be outdoors, and run. He loved unconditionally and was the proudest father to his kids.”

SPH Dean and Robert A. Knox Professor Sandro Galea said he first met Jones seven years ago after initially arriving at BU. The two would later work together to start the Public Health Post, a website which Galea said “translates the science of public health.” Jones served as the site’s founding editor-in-chief.

“I really enjoyed all my dealings with David,” Galea said. “He was a collegial, positive presence, who really made our community better.”

In regards to how Jones will be remembered by current and former students, Galea pointed to student testimonials on how Jones would encourage and cheer up students who were having a “rough time” with their dissertations.

“It’s that kind of optimistic, positive, forward-looking spirit that I

think people valued about him immensely,” Galea said.

Fellow SPH professor Michael Stein wrote via email that Jones was an adored teacher, and a number of his students stayed in touch with him years after they had graduated.

“David was a humble, understated and completely superior scholar,” Stein wrote. “Everyone who had the good opportunity to work with him claimed that they had joined a ‘dream team.’”

As for what drove Jones, Galea said his core passion was his family.

“I think that a desire to create a better world for his children animated a lot of what he did,” Galea said.

“I have a lot of respect for how David went about building his life.”

According to Galea’s letter posted on the SPH website Sunday, Jones was also the recipient of AcademyHealth’s Outstanding Dissertation Award, the BU School of Public Health Excellence in Teaching Award and the Association of University Programs in Health Administration’s Thompson Prize for Young Investigators. He was also passionate about research and connecting it to policy.

In the letter, Galea announced that resources will be made available for students, faculty and staff soon along “with details for a memorial to best celebrate his life and spirit.” Space was held Monday afternoon for faculty and staff of the BU community to attend both in-person and remotely, and for students in the Tuesday class Jones taught at the regularly scheduled time.

A GoFundMe page created to help support Jones’ family has reached over 100 thousand dollars in the last two days.

Bostonians recoil after vandalization of 9/11 Memorial

By Greye Dunn Daily Free Press Staff Boston Police have identified and located a suspect who allegedly vandalized a number of the 2,997 small American flags planted in the Boston Public Garden Sept. 9 in remembrance of those lives lost during the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

Flags were reportedly snapped in half, knocked over and scattered on the sidewalk.

Sergeant Detective John Boyle of the Boston Police Department said a suspect was located but not yet apprehended.

“The suspect was identified and located,” Boyle said, “Detectives will seek complaints against him in the Boston Municipal Court.”

The flags were planted by Project 351, a youth-run organization based in Massachusetts which aims “to develop the next generation of community-first service leaders,” according to their website. The group wanted to commemorate those lost to the Sept. 11 attacks, including 206 Massachusetts residents.

Police have not yet released information regarding the alleged perpetrator, including his motivations or age. Boyle didn’t say if there were

any indications that this was a pattern, calling it “simply vandalism.”

The flag display has since been restored.

“I think this is an isolated incident,” Boyle said.

Marcus Merisier, a nurse’s aide at Mount Auburn Hospital, said he believes that maybe a conspiracy theorist or a cynical person must have committed this seemingly random act of vandalism.

“It doesn’t really make sense to vandalize memorials,” Merisier said.

Grace Greason, a senior studying biology at Harvard University, said she doesn’t personally remember the Sept. 11 attacks but understands the vandalism as a negative reaction to the patriotism usually tied to 9/11 memorials.

“They just see a flag, and they vandalize it,” Greason said.

Reflecting on the vandalism, Greason said she thinks people are becoming detached from 9/11 because modern times have complicated the typical patriotic response.

“I think people are, they’re talking about terrorism and America’s place in the geopolitical world with a more critical analysis, so it’s not as black and white as it used to be and that might change things,” she said. “It’s a much more complex topic.”

MEGHAN SCOTT | DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF

The Sept. 11 memorial on the BU Beach. At a near-identical memorial in the Boston Public Garden, several small American flags were vandalized Sept. 9 – reportedly snapped in half, thrown into trash cans and knocked over – by a now-identified individual.

2 NEWS

BU to hold a series of fun events for the Class of 2024 this weekend Anna Vidergar Daily Free Press Staff Boston University is hosting a variety of free events for the Class of 2024 Friday through Sunday as a way to make up for last year’s lack of large in-person activities. The scheduled events include a red carpet party, a mini-golf tournament, an ’80s themed skating and dancing night and a museum night.

Each activity will be held in a different location, from the George Sherman Union, the New Balance Field, Agganis Arena and the Museum of Science. Bus transportation will be provided throughout the night to the museum.

Students will be required to show their green badges, bring their BU ID and wear a mask for all indoor activities.

Kenneth Elmore, BU dean of students and the associate provost, said the Dean of Students office first thought of the idea in late May, and heavy planning began in June with the Student Activities Office.

“I wanted it to be a bit of a gift from my office to the Class of 2024,” Elmore said. “They started off being tested and being told to stay in their room and eating dinners from boxes and they spent a good part of the year doing that so I thought it would be a nice thing to give them an opportunity to do something they weren’t able to so readily do.”

Elmore said the events were planned with COVID-19 protocols in mind while also fulfilling their goal of making it a “welcome.”

“We wanted to do as much as we could to keep things either outside or in big spaces,” he said. “But the real

goal is to give people a chance to see each other and gather with each other in a way that they haven’t been able to do.”

One of the large spaces selected was the Museum of Science — the only location not on BU property.

“The Museum of Science is one of those places that I think a lot of people may have gone to [years ago], have never been to and maybe it’s on a bucket list,” Elmore said. “What’s more, it’s large and large enough to handle the number of people that we anticipate showing up.”

Clara Haymon, a sophomore in

the College of General Studies, said she thought the upcoming plans are “really sweet.”

“We didn’t really get that normal experience,” Haymon said. “I think that’s really sweet that they’re making an effort to kind of let us be new again, in a way.”

Haymon said she might not be able to attend the events due to time conflicts but said some of her friends were planning on going.

Jordan Kreindler, a sophomore in the College of Fine Arts, said she appreciates and thinks it was needed for the University to arrange something

for the Class of 2024 to help connect.

“I’m a little bit skeptical just because it’s really easy to make something sound really great on text, but I’m excited to meet people in our class because we haven’t really gotten to meet yet,” she said.

Kreindler said she plans to attend the Night at the Museum event unless she has “a ton of homework.”

“I definitely will go to the Sunday night science museum thing because I think that sounds really cool,” she said.

CGS sophomore Ashley Nifah said while she is happy the University is

doing something for sophomores, she is not sure how much else can be done to improve the Class of 2024’s experiences given the difficult pandemic year.

“Aside from reversing the year that we had,” she said, “I don’t really know if there’s anything they can do, to be honest.”

However, Nifah also said she is grateful for the University’s efforts and is looking forward to the skating party and museum night.

“I think it’s nice that they’re thinking of us,” Nifah added. “I appreciate that.”

THALIA LAUZON | DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF

The George Sherman Union. To make up for last year’s lack of large in-person activities for the Class of 2024, Boston University is hosting a variety of free events Friday through Sunday at the GSU, New Balance Field, Agganis Arena and the Museum of Science.

Students reflect on the transition back to in-person classes Lauren Rowlands Daily Free Press Staff As Boston University students adjust back to in-person instruction in pre-pandemic fashion — minus the wearing of masks — many have shared their hopes and fears for Fall

semester classes as COVID-19 cases continue to rise.

For many students in the Class of 2024, this year is their first chance to engage in the traditional college experience. However, the transition has proven challenging for some students.

Alex Gilbert, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences, said her on-campus community last year consisted much more of her roommates and not her classmates.

“There’s a difference between meeting people on Zoom versus meeting people in person,” Gilbert

said. “Now you have a community every time you go to class and you didn’t get that last year.”

However, Gilbert also expressed concern over the reduction in COVID-19 safety measures and the lack of a University-wide support system for those who test positive.

HANNAH YOSHINAGA | DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF

A green badge indicating COVID-19 protocol compliance. Boston University professors have said they are happy to have their students back for in-person learning but remain wary of University guidelines for students who test positive for the coronavirus.

“What if I’m sick? God forbid I’m in quarantine, what am I supposed to do for two weeks without going to class?” Gilbert asked. “In LfA if I wasn’t feeling great, I can still go to class, but now I don’t have that option.”

BU spokesperson Colin Riley said professors will treat missing classes for quarantine and isolation similarly to how they would treat student illness in previous years.

“This is just as it would be pre-pandemic, where if someone had an illness [and] they were not able to be in class for a reason they would communicate that with their professor,” Riley said.

Aidan Lafferty, a sophomore in the Questrom School of Business, said he feels safe in class. While he is glad about a more open campus, however, he said it can also be inconvenient.

“It’s going to take a little bit of an adjustment period,” Lafferty said.

“The most difficult part has been navigating from East Campus to West Campus in my little 15 minute stints between classes.”

For some students, BU’s vaccine mandate and indoor mask requirement have helped them feel safer on campus.

Georgia Nichols, a graduate student at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, said professors and students in her classes have cooperated with classroom masks mandates.

“Knowing that everyone’s vaccinated and wearing masks, I do feel safe,” Nichols said.

Riley added BU has no intention of bringing back the LfA system. With 94.6% of students and 93.3% of faculty fully vaccinated, cases have remained low so far.

“We’re hopeful as we see the numbers stabilize and we know the vaccination is the most important aspect of being able to continue,” Riley said.

CITY 3

CITY Activists discuss public housing issues in Boston following State hearing Madison Mercado Daily Free Press Staff Activists and state representatives spoke to and reviewed acts for changes to public housing policy in the Commonwealth during a virtual public hearing Wednesday afternoon.

Public housing — housing funded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development — is a more affordable option for low-income families and individuals.

There are approximately 1.2 million households in public housing across the United States, according to HUD, with roughly $7 billion spent on public housing.

The Boston Housing Authority is the public agency that provides public housing for more than 25,000 Boston residents and Tenant-Based Section 8 vouchers — HUD’s program for assisting low-income families and people to rent housing in the private market— for approximately 29,000 residents, according to the BHA website.

Redevelopment and modernization efforts are underway for public housing in Boston “to preserve them for future generations,” Brian Jordan, a spokesperson for the BHA, wrote in an email statement.

“As part of that effort, our priority is to ensure that every

single unit of affordable housing we currently have is preserved, and that the families that live in them are able to stay,” Jordan wrote in the email.

Public housing is impacted by underinvestment, racial discrimination and discrimination based on people’s criminal records.

Rebekah Levine Coley, a professor of applied developmental and educational psychology at Boston College, said underinvestment can also impact the wellbeing of families and child development because of their location in underinvested and highLIBBY MCCLELLAND | DFP FILE poverty communities.

Lenox Street Public Housing in Lower Roxbury. Boston housing activists and state repre“Due to the sentatives discussed acts for changes to the Commonwealth’s public housing policy in a public hearing Wednesday. underinvestment in public housing and the partnership with the BHA has of incarceration,” Credle policies that have historically allowed them to provide Section cycle said. “[The child is] going to end located public housing 8 vouchers to individuals released up incarcerated, [they] might developments in communities in the past two-and-a-half years. end up getting killed.

You don’t that are underinvested in,” Coley Individuals with certain types know what’s going to happen to said. “There’s lots of evidence of criminal records are ineligible that child if they have to leave a that concentrated poverty for public housing, according to house where [their] communities are detrimental for the 1996 Housing Opportunity supervised mother is supervising [them].” children, both their educational Program Extension Act. The BHA said they are success and their general health Credle said parents should not readjusting public safety in and well-being.” have to choose between leaving housing by moving to Leslie Credle, the founder of public housing or losing their their community-based policing, Justice 4 Housing, an organization housing voucher and removing problem-solving and prevention that focuses on finding their child off the lease if their methods, according to the email public housing for previously child is arrested. statement. incarcerated individuals, said a “It’s going to perpetuate the “The BHA Public Safety

department is committed to working with residents, and internal and external partners to ensure fair, inclusive and equitable policing solutions for all that we serve,” the spokesperson wrote.

Some current redevelopments of public housing in the city are focused on creating mixedincome communities that will improve the quality of the housing and of the residents, such as one at the Mary Ellen McCormack development in South Boston, Coley said.

“The theory also is that having a more economically integrated neighborhood will lead to improvements in the broader community,” she said. “So we’ll attract more businesses, higherquality educational opportunities and healthcare and other kinds of services to the community and help to improve the opportunities and the well being of the current residents in those communities.”

Public housing has done well by helping people pay rent, but they have also harmed families with previously incarcerated individuals, Credle added.

“I’m trying to address the collateral consequences from excluding individuals coming home from prison. [Public housing is] their last resort, they cannot afford rent, especially the rent in Boston,” Credle said. “We should have second chances for folks.”

Wu, Essaibi George prevail, stage set for November Samuele Petruccelli Daily Free Press Staff

of votes — announced significant tallies. Their wins were accompanied by concessions from candidates such as Acting Mayor Kim Janey, who was running for a full term.

“This was a spirited and historic race, and I wish them both luck in the final election,” Janey said in a statement. “While tonight hasn’t ended how we hoped, we have so much to be proud of.”

Janey was the first woman and first person of color to be seated in the Mayor’s chair after her predecessor, Marty Walsh, departed for his position as Secretary of Labor in the Biden Administration. Rachael Cobb, associate professor and chair of political science and legal studies at Suffolk University, said Janey’s loss

could reflect her late entrance to the race.

“She’s not an incumbent the way many incumbents are, so it’s hard to compare,” Cobb said. “But, at the same time, the incumbents have not Michelle Wu and Annissa Essaibi lost in Boston, so this is surprising.”

George surfaced as the top two Associate Professor in the political candidates of Tuesday’s preliminary science department at University of selection, setting the stage for a Massachusetts-Lowell John Cluverius historic general election that would said the election was Michelle Wu’s give Boston its first elected female “race to lose.”

Mayor and first elected person of “Michelle Wu was the top citywide color. vote-getter,” Cluverius said. “She The final votes came in at 9:53 a.m. also has the best name recognition, Wednesday, with Wu at 33.36% and according to the polls.”

Essaibi George at 22.48%.

Data from the Boston Election Both candidates gave speeches Department indicates 108,180 ballots hinting victory well before Boston’s were cast in this preliminary race.

Elections Department—which “This is a low turnout election, not struggled to report beyond 1 percent a lot of people were paying attention, and the people that are paying attention see Michelle Wu as a winner,” Cluverius said, “and people like voting for winners.”

Ap pro a c h i n g midnight Tuesday night, election staff were still processing thousands of mailin and ballot box votes, according to Alexis Tkachuk, member of the SOPHIE PARK AND SAMUELE PETRUCCELLI | DFP FILE Boston Election Michelle Wu and Annissa Essaibi George, who were elected the top two mayoral candidates in Tuesday’s Boston Preliminary Municipal Election. Boston is primed to elect its first female mayor and first C o m m i s s i o n . mayor of color in November’s general election.

As for whether

a similar timeline would occur in November, Tkachuk said “that’s open to discussion.”

“Obviously, mail-in ballots is something that the electorate and elected officials want to support, as well as the ballot boxes, particularly during COVID,” Tkachuk said, “So potentially, yes.”

Until then, the candidates might not share similar strategies on the final leg of campaigning, according to Cluverius. For instance, Essaibi George could have the incentive for more debates, contrary to Wu, who may want fewer to retain her lead.

“When you are placed in second, without an obvious coalition to come behind you, you have to make strategic choices that always can backfire,” Cluverius said about Essaibi George’s position in the race.

Coming in second by a 10.88% margin means Essaibi George will have to properly balance the right political equation to surpass her fellow lawmaker in the polls, Cluverius said.

“She has to play smart and get lucky in order to win,” Cluverius said.

“Michelle Wu does not have the same set of requirements.”

Though one campaign will start with less public support, Cobb said both will operate strategically to target a specific demographic of known voters rather than seeking to persuade unregistered or unlikely voters.

“Their goal here is, how many votes do we need to win,” Cobb said.

“They are thinking very, very, very strategically about who they know

they’ve got, and then who they’ve got to persuade, and they are less interested in finding the unlikely voters.”

Boston’s Ward 4 Democratic Committee endorsed Wu last May, and its Chair, Jonathan Cohn, said he was “very excited” to see her win by such a large margin.

“Something that was clear in polling about young voters in Boston being strongly in favor of Michelle [Wu] was clearly reflected in the election results,” Cohn said.

Cohn also characterized what he believes separates the two candidates.

“Essaibi George is mainly focused on a continuity from Walsh,” Cohn said. “[Wu] understands the interconnections between the city’s issues and about how we could craft policy to make sure that we’re addressing them at the same time.”

But no matter who takes the City’s top job, her administration will create a “substantial transformation” in terms of how Boston is governed, Paul Watanabe, director of the Institute for Asian American Studies at UMass Boston, said.

“I think of Boston as often referred to as ‘the Athens of America,’” Watanabe said. “Like Athens, Boston has always been led by White men.”

Wu, daughter of Taiwanese immigrants, and Essaibi George, of Tunisian and Polish immigrants, will need to “build a broader coalition” of supporters in the next two months to get them the vote.

“It’s going to take some challenge to appeal broadly across people from different races,” Watanabe said.

4 FEATURES

FEATURES Experts in public health reflect on the pandemic and what our next normal should be Emily Pauls Daily Free Press Staff

Boston University’s School of Public Health held a webinar on Monday to reflect on the pandemic and discuss the potential post-pandemic world.

The webinar had three professors from different universities around the world and one other panelist from the World Health Organization.

Sandro Galea, the dean of SPH, said at the event that a new theme — “Public Health. Now is the Time” — was chosen for the year to “elevate an area where community expertise intersects with the priorities of public health.”

Each month, the theme is highlighted through a “Next Normal” series event. Monday’s event, “The Next Normal: Global Health,” was the first part of a series that covers how topics such as education, food, civil liberties, politics, mental health, hospitals and children’s health relate to COVID-19 and public health.

“The pandemic tested public health like nothing before in recent memory,” Galea said. “The task now facing our global health efforts is to reimagine our world, in light of the lessons we have learned to shape a healthier future.”

The moderator of the webinar was BU professor of biomedical engineering, Muhummad Zaman. At the beginning of the event, he welcomed the diverse range of panelists from different disciplines in the field and

different nationalities — something he said was especially important for discussions around this pandemic.

“We need to have multiple voices,” Zaman said in an interview. “It’s not just epidemiologists and clinicians, but it’s also policymakers and public health practitioners who need to think about these questions, and do so in a way that allows for constructive debate and dialogue that promotes good health and well being but also ensures that the future is inclusive, and it’s equitable for all.”

After introductions, each panelist had eight to 10 minutes to discuss lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and what the next normal could look like.

Olakunle Alonge, assistant professor at John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said one of the best ways to handle global health issues such as the COVID-19 pandemic is “multilateral cooperation and collaboration.”

“When people come together at a global, national and sub-national levels, and we actually work with the principle of cooperating to find solutions to common problems, this is the most important strategy,” Alonge said.

COVID-19 has shown us “the resilience of the human spirit” and global cooperation, Alonge said. But, he said the current system of global health needs a “remodel.”

“The solution of yesterday cannot carry us forward into the future,” Alonge said.

Phuoc Le, associate professor at the University of California San Francisco, said he “can guarantee” that we

need to act faster for future pandemics, which will require more investments in health systems, he said.

“These systems have to be strong enough to respond in a way that is extremely timely,” Le said. “We definitely saw that speed is of the utmost importance during this pandemic and nature of this pandemic.”

Helena Legido-Quigley, associate professor at Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health at the National University of Singapore, said she has been working in Europe and Asia throughout the pandemic. This, she said, has shown her how different each country’s strategies of dealing with the pandemic are.

Through her research, she found that “despite the warnings, the world was not prepared.” She said ignoring those warning signs, which the world did during the SARS and Ebola health crises, should be avoided in the future.

“We need to listen to the recommendations and implement them,” Legido-Quigley said.

Equalizing global health is also something she said needs to be a priority for the future.

“We will have to be very upfront on some of the injustices that have been happening in global health,” Legido-Quigley said in an interview. “We have done all of these assessments of what went wrong in previous pandemics, and the recommendations were never followed.”

The final panelist, María Neira, director of the Department of Public Health, Environment and Social Determinants of Health at the World Health Organization, said that to get

MAYA CHADDA | DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF

The Boston University School of Public Health. The School held a webinar Monday as part of their “Next Normal” series to discuss the potential post-pandemic world and its implications for global health cooperation.

to the next normal, “structural failures” need to be repaired.

“By repairing this relationship with our ecosystems and biodiversity, we will be able to reduce our vulnerability,” she said. “We need to make sure that this financial support is going in the right direction and not making the same mistakes that we have been making until now.”

One of the most common recommendations over the pandemic was to wash your hands, she said, but many places around the world don’t have access to the supplies to do that.

“If you invest in access to safe water and sanitation and hygiene, you are making a very good investment to prevent many diseases and to create a healthier society,” Neira said.

Following their opening remarks, the panelists then had time to answer questions from the audience. One question asked was, “how do we ensure that our strategies are truly inclusive?”

Neira said that we need to push for “universal health coverage [and] equity on the vaccine distribution.”

Legido-Quigley pointed out that many countries that have universal health coverage exclude refugees and migrants. This needs to be reversed, she said.

Using an “asset-based framework” by using local leaders and local communities is one way to “ensure bottom-up and top-down approaches to the next pandemic,” Le said.

Other topics asked and discussed were how to deal with misinformation, renewable energy in healthcare systems, socioeconomic disparity and vaccine distribution.

“It’s important for us not to forget that it’s COVID today, it could be another thing tomorrow,” Alonge said.

“As long as those underlying causes are not addressed, we’re actually just moving money, we’re just changing faces but we’re not solving the problem.”

Study abroad students take off to new experiences, despite COVID-19 restrictions

LUWA YIN | DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF

Students attending the Study Abroad Expo at Marsh Plaza Wednesday. Boston University’s Study Abroad program has returned in-person after almost a year and a half – but it doesn’t come without restrictions and termination of certain locations for the Fall semester.

Ilana Keusch Daily Free Press Staff

At the beginning of this Fall semester, students braced themselves for long, masked flights and jetted off to different corners of the world — for Boston University’s Study Abroad program had resumed operations for students after almost a year and a half.

However, BU Study Abroad has not returned without restrictions.

Due to differing COVID-19 guidelines across the globe and the increased prevalence of the Delta variant last summer,

students are getting a different experience than in previous years.

Gareth McFeely, the executive director of BU Study Abroad, said the COVID-19 pandemic has been a challenge for the Study Abroad office to manage due to budget cuts and a decrease in staff members.

He said the Study Abroad office was operating remotely until around June of this year, but returning to in-person had brought several questions about housing, COVID-19 protocol and more.

“We felt that we were able to make good decisions for all of those questions,” McFeely said.

“But we had the factor of not being certain if countries would

welcome our students … [or] international students generally.”

He said that some locations offered in the Study Abroad program — such as Sydney and Shanghai — are still not open to students at this time. Only nine out of 23 cities offered are currently housing students for the Fall semester.

For those hoping to escape Boston for the semester, the programs admitting students did welcome them — but not without some snags.

Jacqueline Mang, a junior in the College of Fine Arts, is currently in Venice on the Graphic Design track. She said she was thankful that her family decided to head over to Italy early because her peers encountered an unforeseen hurdle in their travel plans.

“I know that [people] who came with the group flight had to get a last-minute COVID test because all of a sudden they required a COVID test to be able to get on the flight,” Mang said. “I heard it was stressful and last minute.”

The Padua and Venice Italy program, which McFeely said had two different departure dates, encountered issues due to changing travel policies. He said in between the two departure dates, Italy’s entrance guidelines changed to require a recent negative COVID-19 test result.

McFeely confirmed that this hitch did not impede anyone from ultimately reaching Italy in either the Padua or Venice programs despite the change in COVID-19 guidelines. The Study Abroad

office also contacted students leaving for other countries in the following week to encourage them to get tested in case other countries put similar guidelines in place.

Some students had to reevaluate their Study Abroad plans as the future became unsure last March.

Regina Acosta, a senior in The Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences, had to shuffle some things around last year.

Acosta originally planned to go abroad last Spring but hesitated to apply after seeing Fall 2020 plans canceled last year.

“I’ve been remote for a year and a half in Texas,” Acosta said. “So I realized, with time, that Study Abroad [last Spring] was not going to happen.”

Acosta is currently in Geneva, Switzerland on the Public Health track and said that because of COVID-19, students have to take extra protocols to ensure their safety.

Students in Geneva pick up a weekly rapid COVID-19 test to conduct themselves and return a couple of days later, Acosta said, adding that about 20 students are studying abroad there currently — a decrease in participants compared to previous years.

McFeely says that he does not expect that changing COVID-19 guidelines and the recent Delta variant will affect admissions in the Spring.

“More of the restrictions are likely to come from individual students and maybe their families,

who might remain nervous about whether this is the best time to travel abroad,” he said.

In regards to the Spring, McFeely said that the office is in “full planning mode” and keeping watch of countries whose borders are still not open to BU students and programs.

Although the University’s Study Abroad program returned with unexpected challenges and restrictions, McFeely said students interested in the program are encouraged to keep an open mind when applying.

“This is the time of uncertainty … We can do great planning together, we can have detailed conversations with students if they have particular concerns,” McFeely said. “But we certainly have had to develop a mindset of great flexibility, adaptation on the fly, and we’re trying to encourage all of the students who would like to come with us on programs in the Spring to think in those same terms.”

Though COVID-19 may have complicated the path there, Acosta said studying abroad in Geneva is “really great” and connects you to “an international hub.”

“Geneva is a wonderful place, in the sense that it’s so beautiful, we’re up in the mountains,” Acosta said. “It’s definitely a place that’s very proud of their culture.

It has a lot of great vineyards and amazing lakes and it’s right next to France, so it’s just like a train ride away, and you really get to take in that difference.”

SPORTS 5

SPORTS Inside the Huddle: Buying or selling Week 1 reactions Ethan Biddle Daily Free Press Staff Well, Week 1 of the NFL season is in the books, and with that comes lots of quick reactions. While some are certainly fair, others are a bit extreme.

So before you start fire selling every player on your fantasy team, let’s see if we should be buying or selling these Week 1 reactions.

The NFC West is the best division ever All four teams in the NFC West came up with wins on Sunday. The Arizona Cardinals and Seattle Seahawks steamrolled 11-win teams in the Tennessee Titans and Indianapolis Colts, respectively. The San Francisco 49ers dominated the Detroit Lions for three quarters before a couple of fumbles and an onside kick recovery

by Detroit made it a close contest.

Lastly, the revamped Los Angeles Rams made a statement on Sunday Night Football by dicing up an elite Chicago Bears defense.

This division has four clear-cut playoff-caliber teams, one of which will win the division while the other three fight for wild card spots. Could we see four playoff teams from the same division in 2021? It’s highly unlikely, but if you were to hypothetically take one of the teams out, who would it be? Best division ever may seem like a stretch at first, but these

ILLUSTRATION BY YVONNE TANG

four teams are truly the real deal.

Verdict: Buy Ezekiel Elliott is washed It almost feels like a yearly tradition to bash Elliott. After a rough 2020 season, Elliott is looking to show the world he is worth the hefty contract the Dallas Cowboys gave him last year.

Unfortunately, he drew one of the worst possible matchups in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to open the season.

The Bucs had the best rush defense in 2020, allowing just 80.6 yards per game on the ground. Conversely, they were much worse against the pass, surrendering 246.6 yards per game through the air, good for 12th worst in the league.

The Cowboys knew what they were doing by not running the ball on Thursday night, attacking the weakness of the Bucs’ defense and in turn scoring 29 points. Elliott will surely get more work in future weeks when the Cowboys take on the Los Angeles Chargers, Philadelphia Eagles and Carolina Panthers. Each of those defenses ranked in the bottom half of the league in terms of rushing yards allowed in 2020.

Verdict: Sell Jameis Winston is the truth It’s just one game, it’s just one game, it’s just one game … OK, forget it. Winston looked great. After a weirdly solid season in 2019 where Winston threw for 33 touchdowns and 30 interceptions while also rack-

ing up 5,109 passing yards, Winston went to New Orleans to back up future Hall of Famer Drew Brees.

After getting surgery on his eye in the offseason and barely playing in 2020, Winston seemed motivated to make a statement in 2021. And what a statement he made. Winston completed 14 of his 20 passes, totaling 148 yards and five touchdowns while not throwing a single interception.

This was against a Packers secondary that allowed the seventh-fewest passing yards per game in 2020, so you can’t say it was an easy matchup.

Winston simply looked poised in the pocket, making quality reads and throws like a … dare I say, first overall pick? This was the Winston fans fell in love with at Florida State University — the same Winston who won the Heisman Trophy in 2013 while leading FSU to a national championship. With Winston under center, the New Orleans Saints seem primed for another good season.

Verdict: Buy The Green Bay Packers’ offense is bad Woah, woah, woah … the Packers still have 2020 MVP Aaron Rodgers on their team, right? Along with elite surrounding talent in Davante Adams, Aaron Jones and Robert Tonyan? OK, I thought so. Let’s calm down a bit and realize that the Saints were playing inspired football after having to practice outside of New Orleans due to Hurricane Ida. Should

the Packers have scored more than three points? Sure, but let’s not jump the gun and say this offense isn’t still a top-five unit in the NFL. Verdict: Sell The 2021 NFL Draft is actually a wide receiver class The big idea heading into the 2021 NFL Draft was that it was loaded with quarterback talent. And while this still rings true, the wide receiver talent in Week 1 is hard to ignore.

After reports of a poor training camp, Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase caught five of his seven targets for 101 yards and a touchdown. The Miami Dolphins’ Jaylen Waddle also had a good game, catching four of six targets for 61 yards while also adding on a touchdown against a tough New England Patriots defense. Lastly, the Philadelphia Eagles’ Devonta Smith caught six of his eight targets for 71 yards and a score. They all looked explosive, and seem to already be the number one options on their teams.

Still, it might be a little too soon to write off all the quarterback talent that was taken. At the end of the day, it’s way harder to be a successful quarterback than it is to be a successful wide receiver in the NFL, and to say this 2021 class is going to be known for its wide receivers when the first three picks were quarterbacks is a bit extreme. Still, this is an interesting take that is certainly worth monitoring.

Verdict: Sell

Women’s soccer gets back on track with 2-1 win over New Hampshire John Fallon Daily Free Press Staff The Boston University women’s soccer team defeated the University of New Hampshire 2-1 Sunday afternoon. The team’s record improved to 3-4-1 after a rough stretch of games to start the season, giving them a much-needed boost of confidence.

The Terriers have now won two out of their last three games while also earning their first win at Nickerson Field this season, improving to 1-2-1 at home. Senior forward Jenna Oldham said the victory meant a lot after last Thursday’s tough loss against Providence College.

“It was really important,” Oldham said postgame. “We kind of needed this win going into conference play next week, so I think it was great to get a collective team win and just leave it all out there.”

Oldham played exceptionally well, scoring two goals in the game to lock down the win over the Wildcats (2-41). Typically an assist-maker, Oldham saw two of her three shots on goal reach the back of the net, her first and second goals of the season.

The first goal came just before the 30th minute off an assist from junior midfielder Julianna Stureman, while the second was scored off a penalty in the 59th minute. It marks the first successful penalty kick for BU since the 2018 Patriot League semifinals.

Oldham now has three career goals at BU to pair with her nine total assists, but she was more satisfied with the team’s performance than anything

JACOB COLLING | DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF

Junior midfielder Julianna Stureman runs in pursuit of the ball in a soccer game against the University of New Hampshire Sunday. The Terriers won 2-1.

else.

“I was excited for myself, but excited for the team, more importantly,’’ Oldham said. “I think it took all 31 of us. Every single person on the bench, every single person on the team, so it was a collective team win.”

BU’s resilience was tested in the

second half when UNH converted a penalty kick in the 62nd minute to threaten the lead. But the Terriers remained solid on defense to stay in control of the game and prevented the Wildcats from scoring again.

Things are looking up for the Terriers, who started the season 1-3-1.

The team has scored first in each of its last three games and now has two home games before hitting the road again. Oldham said it’s important for the team to build confidence at home.

“It’s just protecting our home turf,” Oldham said. “Everyone has pride in that. We have team pride in not losing

on our home field, so I think every time we just come out here, we leave it all out there.”

BU women’s soccer hopes to extend its winning streak to two next weekend as the team takes on Lafayette University at Nickerson Field Sept. 18 at 4 p.m.

6 LIFESTYLE

LIFESTYLE August, I love you ... September, I love me Bailey Clark Daily Free Press Staff Summer flings are meant to end. That is the simple beauty of them: they have an expiration date.

The concept sounds like a remarkably good idea in May. Equally as lovely in June and July while dancing through the honeymoon phase, knowing you’ll never see him pale and sad. But, in August — when said boy moves back to Indiana, leaving you with the subsequent week-and-a-half of painstakingly sorting through every moment you shared to ease your boredom while awaiting your own return to college — summer flings aren’t as fun.

The inevitable result of choosing a university that doesn’t start classes until around Labor Day weekend means that while my hometown friends are already fussing over papers and bad dining hall food, I’m home, alone.

There I was, in my hometown, reflecting on the past couple of months while walking my dog and picking up groceries for my mom.

My most prominent thought?

‘I miss him.’

Of course, I do. I am boiling our relationship down to a summer fling, but in all reality, there are years and years of history that perfectly explain why I already feel nostalgic over what had only

left me three days ago.

Not to mention, the seemingly up-in-the-air way we left things.

Will this relationship end with August? Will I strictly see him when we are both home — adding a new layer of relatability to Taylor Swift’s “‘tis the damn season”?

Will he pine over me for years — because why wouldn’t someone fall in love with me — while driving through our perfectly suburban backroads and icecream-for-dinner dates? These are all questions that quickly took a backseat when ideas surrounding validation crept to the forefront of my mind.

I do miss him. However, that feeling is accompanied by an emptiness that is most definitely not the result of a summer prospect. The stronger emotion is a longing for validation — a recurring experience no matter the seriousness or length of a relationship.

Whether it’s a boy who complimented me in passing or one I dated for two years, when he exits my life, the validation that his presence brought me is truly the empty hole left behind.

Now I understand myself to be a relatively secure, independent person, but filling myself with do-no-wrong affirmations seems like a dangerous line for my ego to tiptoe across.

How does one find selfvalidation without escaping to an idealistic world of undeserved admiration?

My answer has come in the form of dating myself again. With

COURTESY OF BLESSING RI VIA UNSPLASH

A September calendar. What thoughts arise once a summer fling wraps up? Bailey writes about finding self-validation through oneself following a romance.

the absence of the previously mentioned boy and my closest friends, I have been forced into extensive time with myself.

Rather than fill it with endless scrolling leading to getting to know internet personalities and the cast of “Bachelor in Paradise” better than myself, I have been practicing anything that comes up when you search “how to spend my alone time,” whether it be reading, writing, walking, reflecting or procrastinating packing.

By being my own friend, I am uncovering genuine qualities about myself that I appreciate without fluffing my ego with unauthentic falsities to fill the void of extrinsic praise.

When you find aspects of yourself that you enjoy, no one can get in a car and drive off with that validation. You become the provider of that warm, kind feeling you get when a stranger compliments your shoes or various classmates nod along to your rambling comment in

lecture.

Self-appreciation can’t necessarily match the thrill of an unexpected remark detailing how lovely another person thinks you are, but making a point to acknowledge that you, too, see yourself as lovely numbs the longing for it.

All in all, boys are fun and supply some top-notch debriefing material. However, they are most useful when they leave, and you get to fall in love with yourself all over again.

My brain is a fixer-upper Yvonne Tang Layout & Graphics Editor

I need you to enter a world of imagination for a second.

The inside of my head is actually hollow. It’s not hollow in the sense that it is empty, but rather in the sense that there is enough space to walk around and explore.

To be more specific, it’s actually in the shape of a room — a neglected one at that. There are cobwebs in the corners, loose photographs in disarray and crumpled bedsheets.

I, like so many others, have forgotten that I permanently live inside my head. Even if I get out of my head for a day, I’ll be back every night to rest. There’s only one question to ask myself: would I rather rest in a beautiful room or one with cobwebs?

There will be no U-Haul to drive me away nor shiny, new mansions to move into. So I’ve decided my brain is a fixer-upper.

First, I’m going to open the curtains. It’s partly because I like the look of the sunbeam on the mattress, but mostly, it reminds me that it’s a big world and people are walking outside. I am not alone.

Everywhere I step, the space feels uncomfortable. I lift my foot and realize it’s because the wooden panels are chock full of dust, so I grab the Swiffer and wipe it away.

COURTESY OF JOEL OVERBECK VIA UNSPLASH

A person in solitude. Yvonne Tang illustrates the neglected room inside of her mind in this piece and reveals what is gained from making the effort to fix it up.

Now when I think about dust, it will be only a memory.

Speaking of memories, I look at the pile of photographs on the floor. One sticks out that makes me unhappy, so I carefully tuck it at the bottom of the desk drawer.

I won’t look at that anymore until I’m ready.

I hang the other photographs next to my mirror, and I smile.

Now I won’t accidentally step on them on the way to the bathroom.

I promise myself that if I ever

get sick of the walls again, I’ll paint them an outrageous color, like poopy brown or neon green.

And then I’ll paint them back to a muted color, like tan. For now, though, I’ve realized that I actually don’t mind it here. “Here,”

meaning my own head.

There are a lot of things that make the room in my head uncomfortable and cramped.

Sometimes I say things without thinking. I’m only 5’3”, and I have the self-confidence of a turtle. I get peeved at myself for these thoughts all the time, and they collect just like dust. But what’s the point when you feel how comfortable this pillow is?

Did you see the flower blooming inside the window pot?

No matter how noisy it gets outside that window, the bestcase scenario is I can always come home to this very welcoming room. If it gets too loud out there, maybe I can blast some of the Beatles’ greatest hits in here.

The biggest realization I had while moping around in a cobweb-ridden brain is that no one can give you happiness but you.

If the room inside your head is a mess, it will feel like the entire world is too.

Say you take that first step by opening the curtain, and you get a nice view of the horizon line.

But that’s such a small view in your entire peripheral vision. The room is still messy.

Outside the window, it could be beautiful and sunny, or worse — it could be just as foggy and gray as it is inside.

So what can you control? Not the hypothetical weather. But you stare at the empty space on the windowsill for a moment, and you think: ‘Huh, a potted plant would look really damn nice there.’

EDITORIAL 7

EDITORIAL We should be wary of digital cities

TION BY ILLUSTRA

Today, in an interview with Insider, Boston’s senior infrastructure and energy planner Manuel Esquivel explained new plans to make Boston a more efficient and green city. One of these plans includes collecting data of the city to better understand the traffic flow of pedestrians, cyclists and vehicles.

The surveillance measures include video cameras “to provide data on health, safety, and traffic,” data analysis platforms, and street sensors. The city collaborated with the internet conglomerate Verizon to create these “smart street” technologies.

Verizon has been reported to sell its customer’s data. In February of 2020, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Federal Communications Commission intended to fine Verizon — among other phone companies — hundreds of millions of dollars for selling customer’s real-time location data to companies that would utilize this data to track people.

Not only did they reportedly sell customer’s data, but they also have a sloppy record of protecting it. These companies would often sell to location data aggregators: companies that polish up people’s data to distribute it to marketers and search engines.

In 2019, it was revealed that virtually anyone could access instantaneous location data from Verizon customers through location data aggregators like Location Smart.

Though Verizon promised its customers a cessation of selling this information in 2018, a Vice report found the company continuing the practice half a year later.

Moreover, more recent articles reported on Verizon’s continued selling customer data to advertisers. This is the company our great city decided to collaborate with to install video cameras across our city, and sensors under our

streets.

The response to this news may generally fall into two camps.

Some may feel frustrated that our private data is yet again being shared with a massive corporation without our consent or any guarantee of government protection of our privacy.

Others may be completely resigned to the fact that personal privacy is no longer a feasible reality in this digital era. We already signed away our rights to personal privacy when we made our first Facebook account or used google to search something up.

Even if our data and digital identity have been bought and sold a billion times over, how does that affect us in real-time?

What can we do other than despair at how little the government cares about these issues and our privacy?

This mindset can be likened to ignorance as bliss, but the great irony is that we are not ignorant anymore of how much of our personal lives we expose on the internet.

You as a private, non-influencer individual cannot profit from your digital existence.

But big corporations can and have. This is an objectively terrifying truth but incredibly difficult to actually wrap one’s head around.

Regardless of one’s opinion on the possibility of personal privacy, this news announcement is significant because it signals the further emergence of surveillance out of the digital sphere and places it firmly into the real, physical spaces we traffic daily.

This, of course, comes with benefits. The data cameras and street sensors will collect will ostensibly be utilized to make streets safer in line with Boston Transportation Department’s Vision Zero plan to eliminate all traffic fatalities

NG

TA YVONNE

by 2030.

Moreover, the regular use of technology generally makes life easier. Being able to pick up a meal or drink at the first digital-only Dunkin’, for instance, or the dream of maybe one day being able to get on the T without having to recharge one’s Charlie Card, may make one’s life easier — if they have a charged phone and a data plan. Moreover, digital-only services limit contact with other people, which is ultimately beneficial in a world still heavily plagued by the COVID-19 virus.

But any surface-level benefits must be weighed against the many consequences of these increasingly digitally-dependent urban designs, beyond the abstract and all-consuming issue of data privacy.

First, we must consider who these technologies may exclude. Though a 2017 study found that 90% of unhoused people had cell phones, they do not have stable access to WiFi, charging ports and data plans. Thus, digital-only restaurants like the new Dunkins may not only exclude unhoused people in regards to gaining access to their products but also remove an open space where they could previously have utilized the bathrooms or charged their phones.

Second, we must consider how these technologies may be utilized to replicate existing systemic inequalities like racism.

Though city officials have not explicitly stated that “smart street” cameras would be utilized to monitor crime, the stated intention to utilize these cameras for “health” and “safety” measures makes them viable options for future abuse of power.

Surveillance technologies are immutably shaped by the biases of the people who programmed them. Research from 2018 found that facial recognition surveillance technology

misidentified Black women at a rate of 35%, while nearly always identifying white men correctly. In 2019, the federal government admitted in a report that facial recognition software does not work well on recognizing people of color or women and works best on white men’s faces.

Potential misidentifications could have devastating effects. A false identification could lead to a false arrest and imprisonment.

In a criminal justice system rife with racism, police brutality and violence, this could have potentially deadly consequences.

Moreover, the American criminal justice system is a racist system that has been shown to disproportionately imprison Black and brown people. Any surveillance technology, regardless of its accuracy, would only further the devastating effects of this system.

This applies to areas beyond software.

Boston Dynamics is a robotics design company that has worked with the U.S. military and the New York Police Department to produce surveillance and weapons equipment.

Last February, a video of a robotic dog that Boston Dynamics designed for the NYPD went viral, with many calling it unsettling. The NYPD eventually canceled its contract with Boston Dynamics, but these forms of robotic policing are nonetheless on the horizon. Robotic forms of policing could lead to further surveillance and police violence against communities of color.

The fully digital city is rapidly approaching, and it is reasonable to appreciate the potential benefits and luxuries it may bring with it.

But these luxuries will never be able to make up for the freedoms we will lose if we allow these kinds of technologies to go unsupervised or unchecked. They may introduce more problems than they solve.

EDITORIAL BOARD Lily Kepner, Editor-in-Chief Madhri Yehiya, Campus Editor

Emma Sánchez, Managing Editor Isabella Abraham City Editor

Sonja Chen, Sports Editor

Yvonne Tang, Layout & Graphics Editor

Conor Kelley, Photo Editor

Katrina Liu, Lifestyle Editor

Bini Ollivier-Yamin, Opinion Editor Veronica Thompson, Podcast Editor Molly Farrar, Features Editor GRAPHIC BY ALEXIA NIZHNY KK Feuerman, Multimedia Editor

8 COLUMNS

Don’t Be a Hypocrite:

OPINION

New music? I forgive them for everything now Viktoria Popovska Columnist I don’t really take the label of being “chronically online” as an insult. There is something poetic about experiencing first-hand the shifts in the online world’s attitude towards really anything.

Being “chronically online” is a term used to describe people who spend too much on the internet, to the point that it messes with their perspective on reality.

One moment everyone is advertising their 1000-piece Squishmallow collection, and the next, they are harassing Charli D’amelio for showcasing her copious Squishmallow collection. One moment, everyone is criticizing Billie Eilish for queerbaiting, and for a video that resurfaced where Eilish sings a song with an Asian slur and uses African American Vernacular English, or AAVE, but the next moment everyone was living for the second half of “Happier than Ever.”

Social media is a wild ride. Seriously though, what’s up with that?

I’m not here to add my two cents on the great-void topic that is cancel culture, but I am concerned about what seems to be a lack of moral strength among the general social media user population.

I’m well aware that flip-flopping on issues isn’t just reserved for artists, but there is something so particularly irksome about when someone will tell me, “Yeah, like I think they are the worst person to have ever walked the planet, but this one song is just so good.”

It’s even worse when someone performatively called out the artist for being problematic on social media but then proceeded to use that artist’s music in their newest Tiktok. Are we not all aware of how important TikTok has become to

the music industry?

If you really don’t want to give an artist a platform because their actions don’t align with your beliefs, then why in the hell would you use their music on a platform that can blow it up instantaneously? Something about that doesn’t sit right with me. If you have so many moral objections to an artist, how can you so easily listen to their new album?

Look at “Lost Cause,” Eilish’s music video that came out in early June. The video initially saw praise, but soon the overarching reaction from communities on TikTok and Twitter accused Eilish of queerbaiting her audience.

People consequently jumped on their social media to make sure they were on the “right side of history” and told their followers that they would never listen to Eilish ever again.

The situation sparked a conversation about what falls into the category of queerbaiting — a great conversation to have. Still, I’m going to guess most people who “canceled” Eilish didn’t really sacrifice anything or stop listening to her music. Instead, they posted their performative 60-second TikTok bashing her or typed their performative 280 character tweet criticizing her and then unplugged to listen to “Bad Guy” for the 100th time.

I think that is my biggest issue: people will take a harsh stance, and I can never tell if it is genuine. Clearly it isn’t since you are still giving them your streams and support, but then why make the very public stance in the first place?

Not only does this attitude scream trend-follower, but it can be really invalidating for people who were actually impacted by what a problem-

ILLUSTRATION BY YVONNE TANG

atic artist may have said or did. Potential victims of the artist’s actions may feel like they have support from the social media sphere. But as soon as new music is released, the cycle goes into the “forgive and forget stage” and that support just vanishes.

So, listen, I get that social media can be scary, especially when you see everyone talking about a hefty topic. But jumping onto the bandwagon to then ultimately recant everything you previously said isn’t the best option.

Sure, you might want to participate in the conversation so that you don’t seem ignorant.

But I promise you that backtracking on your words after Kanye Wests’ new “Donda” album dropped is much more ignorant. So, let me offer some quick advice on things you can do instead of jumping on the internet to show your followers your lack of morals.

First, when controversy explodes, take a step back and assess the situation.

Read about what happened. If you don’t understand some of the concepts, then research them. The 60 seconds you were planning on using for your scathing TikTok can best be used to look up what queerbaiting, AAVE or racism is.

Next, if you ever feel pressured to say something online, just say you heard about the news and are educating yourself on the topic. Instead of hopping onto a trend, your followers will still appreciate that you aren’t staying ignorant about what is going on.

Finally, suppose you still plan on listening to the artist after doing your research and re-examining your morals.

In that case, that’s totally fine, but be aware that some people might unfollow you, disagree with you or totally hate you. Hey, at least you aren’t a hypocrite.

A Room With a View:

X equals X in algebra and real life, but it’s not always a bad thing Antonia Lehnert Columnist In mathematics, the axiom of equality states that a number is always equal to itself. This axiom is derived from the mathematician Euclid’s notion that “things which are equal to the same thing are also equal to each other.” To put it in even simpler terms, x equals x.

Among the infinitely more complex rules that dominate the math world, this axiom inevitably stands out with its dualistic nature: it’s incredibly self-explanatory and elusive all at once.

It strikes me as a concept that allows intrinsic balance in life, to the point of almost being reassuring. It proves that some things share a fixed uniqueness that can explain the greater idea of causality.

In “A Little Life” by Hanya Yanagihara, the main character Jude St. Francis perceives his life as the embodiment of this axiom. No matter how drastically he changes his surroundings, the demons — or, as he calls them, hyenas — of his past haunt him forever, reminding him that since he was raised amid suffering, suffering is all he will ever know.

This excruciating thought is his explanation for further painful episodes in his life, which he has no choice but to welcome as they represent that something’s “very elementalness can never be altered.” Yanagihara decided to never prove him wrong: unlike many other tragic heroes, Jude never recovers from his childhood trauma, and his life ends before he can get a taste of normalcy.

The character’s interpretation of algebra’s first axiom brings about the philosophical debate about determinism. According to this philosophical theory, every event is inevitably and necessarily determined by preexisting causes.

Hence, the life we live follows a script we have

no control over.

Similar to Jude and his surrender, we might be able to decide our individual actions, but never our destiny.

People who are particularly prone to guilt and anxiety could be relieved by the idea that somehow their life is not just a series of random events, but everything is going according to a greater scheme that watches over them. On the other hand, determinism also forwards the suffocating idea that having only one choice diminishes the importance of people’s actions. The step that immediately follows would be fatalism: humans are to simply resign to powerlessness.

Whether we believe in free will or determinism greatly affects the course of our own life.

Several scholars have conducted experiments and research about it. In a 2002 study, psychologist Kathleen Vohs from the University of Utah observed that day laborers who believe more strongly in free will perform better at their job. Contrarily, determinism-oriented individuals often behaved more instinctively and struggled to see themselves as blameworthy.

Free will is the foundation of today’s Western society, and people have inevitably internalized this perspective. A popular example of this would be the American Dream, which posits that success is an open door for anyone — regardless of the social status they were born into.

Although having such a mindset can be inspiring to those who benefit from seeing themselves in the privileged position of being the only masters of their existence, I encourage them not to reject determinism altogether.

I agree with Vohs’s finding that accepting our life as essentially meaningless can cause problems in society, as it may weaken our motivation and

increase our self-interest. Neuroscientist and writer Sam Harris, however, offers an insight we could all benefit from.

Harris observes that it would be advantageous to society to see other people’s behaviors from the same perspective. Namely, accepting determinism to a certain extent can increase empathy among men and discourage blindly hating humans who fail to conform to laws. According to Harris in a 2016 interview The Atlantic, “losing belief in free will undercuts the rationale for ever hating anyone.”

The deterministic theory enhances a deeper understanding of the human brain, which could potentially solve some deeply rooted issues of society. For instance, instead of considering criminals inherently evil people, we must acknowledge that luck, or rather the lack thereof,

contributed to them becoming a danger to society.

No one picked their own brain, and yet it determines all of our actions. Moreover, other societal factors at play, such as the racism of the criminal justice system, also play a deterministic effect in curtailing someone’s access to free will.

If the justice system accounted for convicts’ backgrounds, perhaps it would do a better job at rehabilitating them and eventually reduce the scale of crimes.

Even though it might be a particularly hard pill to swallow, I think it’s time for us to grow out of the illusions offered by free will and accept a certain degree of determinism because, for better or worse, we’re not the only ones in charge of our own destiny.

ILLU

STRA T

ION B Y YV ONN

E TAN

G