RAs file

United RAs at Penn wrote that RAs are “consistently undervalued and unpaid”

JONAH MILLER Senior Reporter

A supermajority of Penn residential advisors and graduate resident associates filed to unionize on Tuesday.

The RAs and GRAs have filed for official recognition with the Office and Professional Employees International Union Local 153 and the National Labor Relations Board. A letter from OPEIU Local 153 was sent to Penn President Liz Magill to announce their formation as a union and request voluntary recognition from the University. College junior and Rodin College House RA Mica Lin-Alves told The Daily Pennsylvanian that the group's central grievances center around the limitations of the meal plan, discouraged employment for first-generation, low-income students, and tasks that fall outside RAs’ job description. Lin-Alves said that these issues would not be official union demands until the group reaches the collective bargaining phase of organizing. "RAs are integral to campus life but are consistently undervalued and unpaid," United RAs at Penn wrote in a press release. "RAs are organizing for increased and fair compensation, better communication, and a more democratic workplace — when RAs are supported, so is the entire Penn community." leadership to not engage in anti-union campaigns against the RAs and GAs. As of 11 a.m. on Wednesday, over 640 letters had been sent. "Penn is a university that prides itself on civic engagement and creating the leaders of tomorrow, and we are proud to take this step towards workplace democracy," the statement on Action Network said.

In response to a request for comment, Penn spokesperson Ron Ozio wrote in a statement to See UNION, page 2

Following the reinspection on March 3 that found both new and repeated violations of city health code, 1920 Commons will close for renovations this summer to address the issues.

1920 Commons will be renovated this summer amid dining hall health code violations

Under Penn’s Capital Plan, the Commons renovations would cost $55 million in total through fiscal year 2024

ANNALISA FANG Staff Reporter

1920 Commons will close for renovations this summer amid efforts by Penn Dining to address repeated issues raised by recent health inspections. The initial closure for dining this summer will address issues with the 1920 Commons building infrastructure, Penn Dining announced on March 12. In addition, a study is expected to be completed this semester to determine the time frame and cost estimate for the renovation, Executive Director of Business Services Doug Berger wrote to The Daily

Pennsylvanian. The closure is a part of Penn’s Capital Plan for fiscal year 2023. Under the plan, which was published in June 2022, the Commons renovations would encompass the second and third floors of the facility and cost $10 million this fiscal year and $55 million in total through fiscal year 2024.

The planned improvements to Commons during summer 2023 have been underway since before the Philadelphia Office of Food Protection found the dining hall was not in satisfactory compliance with the Philadelphia health code after conducting inspections on Oct. 3 and Jan. 18. However, Penn Business Services Director of Communications and External Relations Barbara Lea-Kruger wrote to the DP that some work is being completed now “as part of our comprehensive approach to addressing issues raised in the inspections.”

On March 3, the dining hall was reinspected by the city and was found to not be in satisfactory compliance for the second time this year, with a number of both new and repeated violations of city health code. The most recent inspection cites observations of violations including a cockroach “observed crawling on the wall in the Expo station area” and an “inoperable” dishwasher that has resulted in the use of single-use plates and utensils.

The March 3 inspection came days after Penn Dining announced a new action plan for meeting health and safety regulations in campus dining

The press release also directed supporters to send a letter via Action Network asking Penn

Idina Menzel announced as 2023 Commencement speaker

“Abbott Elementary” star Quinta Brunson will deliver 2023 Graduate School of Education Commencement speech

JARED MITOVICH Senior Reporter

Actress and singer-songwriter Idina Menzel will deliver Penn’s Commencement speech at the Class of 2023 graduation ceremony.

Penn will award Menzel, a Tony award-winning actress, an honorary Doctor of Arts at the ceremony, according to an announcement from Vice President and University Secretary Medha Narvekar. At the 267th Commencement — which will take place May 15 at Franklin Field — graduates will be granted degrees, honorary degree recipients will be celebrated, and University officials and the commencement speaker will deliver remarks.

Menzel is well known for a variety of performances on the Broadway stage and big screen, including Maureen in the musical “Rent,” the original Elphaba in the musical “Wicked,” and as the voice of Elsa in the Oscar-winning Disney film “Frozen.” In “Frozen,” Menzel sang “Let it Go,” which became a Billboard Top 10 hit and won the Oscar for Best Original Song in 2014. She is the first artist to win a Tony Award for acting and have a song become a Billboard Top 10 hit.

“We are extremely pleased that Idina Menzel will be addressing this year’s graduating class at Commencement,” Penn President Liz Magill wrote in the announcement. “Ms. Menzel has contributed so much to America’s creative body of work and brought joy to us all. A tremendous role model for pursuing your passion with hard work and determination, she is also devoted to creating opportunities for others through the arts. I know it will be a memorable day for our students and their families.”

In addition to Menzel, Emmy-award-winning actress, producer, writer, and comedian Quinta Brunson will deliver the 2023 graduation speech for Penn’s Graduate School of Education.

Brunson, a West Philadelphia native, is best known for creating, executive producing, and starring in ABC’s “Abbott Elementary,” which premiered in 2021. Brunson

Penn to eliminate on-campus graduate student housing

The closure of Sansom Place West comes after Sansom Place East closed in April 2022 for redevelopment into a privately owned apartment building

KATIE BARTLETT Staff Reporter

Penn will become the only Ivy League university to not offer on-campus housing exclusively for graduate students.

In mid-November, Penn Off-Campus Services announced that Sansom Place West — currently the only Penn-owned graduate student housing option — would close at the end of the 2022-2023 academic year, according to Graduate and Professional Student Assembly leaders. The imminent closure of Sansom Place West comes after Sansom Place East closed in April 2022 for redevelopment into a privately-owned apartment building.

In response to a request for comment, Penn Business Services Director of Communications and External Relations Barbara Lea-Kruger directed The Daily Pennsylvanian to the Graduate Housing tab on the Penn Residential Services website. The site offers information about privately owned graduate student housing and rental search services.

Sansom Place West, which is located at 3650 Chestnut St., currently houses a few hundred graduate students, according to GAPSA president Robert Watson. In 2019, Associate Vice Provost for Graduate Education Anita Mastroieni told the DP that about 600 graduate students were living on campus, with around 75 acting as residential advisors in undergraduate college houses.

GAPSA Executive Board members said that they had been told that the closing of Sansom Place West is due to plans for renovation. In February 2021, a $10 million renovation plan for Sansom Place West was approved by the Board of Trustees Budget and Finance Committee. The plan includes upgrades to Sansom Place West’s interior and infrastructure, including aesthetic and fire panel improvements.

GAPSA Executive Board members said that they were informed that the on-campus housing option would be ending at the same time as the public announcement was made. They expressed frustration that the change had not been communicated earlier, alleging that no opportunity was provided for GAPSA to offer input.

See COMMONS, page 2 See SPEAKER , page 8 See GRADUATE, page 8

UNION, from FRONT PAGE students who are not on financial aid,” Williams said. “We view that as a fundamental inequity, and that needs to change.” said that he heard RAs and GRAs faced “a lot of disrespect” from the University, such as being told to put themselves in “potentially dangerous situations while the virus was raging.”

Williams said that he hopes Penn will “respect the democratic process and the workers’ rights to form a union.”

“We will be sharing additional information in the coming weeks. We encourage all RAs and GAs to learn as much as you can, so that you are fully informed about all aspects of this very important decision,” Executive Director of College Houses and Academic Services Karu Kozuma wrote in an email to all of the RAs.

Administrators from Penn’s College House & Academic Services did not reply to a request for comment by publication. There are 218 student RA positions available for the 2023-24 school year, according to CHAS.

OPEIU Local 153 organizer Scott Williams, a 2016 graduate of Penn’s Graduate School of Education, told the DP that he believes RAs want to unionize because of the “serious issues” they face as workers.

“Many of these workers receive financial aid in ways that make it so they are essentially doing unpaid work and are receiving less pay than

For FGLI students, Lin-Alves said that the University effectively cancels out their housing refund that is part of their financial aid package with the free housing guaranteed to RAs. Essentially, the refund FGLI students would receive for room and board is eliminated because of their RA position, but “now they have to work for it.”

Financially, Lin-Alves said that the meal plan’s inadequacy is also a key complaint. RAs and GAs receive a partial dining plan, equivalent to about three meals a week, which allows the employees to eat meals with residents on a full meal plan.

Lin-Alves said that the meal plan is not enough, as other universities provide a full dining plan for RAs and GAs.

He added that the plan to formulate a union among RAs and GAs had been coming up in conversation among employees across the College Houses for “a long time,” citing a number of RAs who noticed issues and determined that a union was the “best way” to address them.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Lin-Alves

Testing the Reward-Drinker Hypothesis of Naltrexone Using an Extended-Release Formulation

University of Pennsylvania

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“Coming out of the pandemic — not only as a health crisis but also as a social crisis — the work that RAs are doing is really important in creating this community, so we think that we should have a greater compensation that’s deserving of that work,” Lin-Alves said.

While the pandemic has mostly passed, LinAlves noted that similar situations continue to manifest, adding that other support services within Penn Residential Services “aren’t always as responsive as they should be.”

“Part of the RA system is that we are oncall overnight, [and that responsibility] rotates throughout the different RAs in each House,” Lin-Alves said. “That basically means we are often the first point of contact for any issues that happen. Even though it shouldn’t be our responsibility to continue responding to situations all the time, because we’re the most available, it often is.”

The process of collecting signatures and gathering support for the union was a “grassroots effort,” Lin-Alves said, adding that the approach was mainly conducted through one-on-one conversations with every RA and GA.

Since there is already more than a supermajority of RAs and GAs who support unionization,

Williams added that the next steps include negotiating with Penn and the National Labor Relations Board on finding a date for a formal election — where RAs and GAs vote either ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on unionization — within the next six weeks. According to the email from Kozuma, the elections consist of a simple majority, so even those who choose not to vote will be bound by the results.

Lin-Alves said that he hopes that Penn will be supportive of the employee union, but expects the University to oppose the formation nonetheless. He said that it is the group’s federally protected right for workers to unionize as part of the First Amendment, adding that despite potential opposition from the University, the RAs and GAs are “still strong together” and have a supermajority to form a union.

The announcement comes after RAs at peer universities, including Barnard College, Wesleyan College, and Tufts University, successfully formed labor unions.

“If we are going to improve our working environment and get the compensation that we need, we need to have a stronger voice, and we can get there collectively with a union,” College junior and RA Madeleine Riley wrote in the press release.

COMMONS, from FRONT PAGE

facilities on Feb. 28. In this announcement, Penn Dining said that its facilities have not had repeated violations that went uncorrected or severe violations.

Hill House was also found not in satisfactory compliance with the health code on Feb. 6 and is still due for reinspection.

Penn Dining said it identified issues with plumbing and drainage in the Commons building that needed to be addressed to prevent pests from getting inside while Commons was closed over spring break. Penn Dining said it has worked with a plumbing specialist to flush, clean, and repair the drains.

“Attending to these mechanics will make significant contributions in preventing pests from entering the building,” Penn Dining wrote.

While most of the repairs were completed during spring break, Penn Dining wrote that there may be additional repairs required that entail closing Commons for about one day. In this case, Penn Dining said it would notify patrons of arrangements for meals in other locations on campus.

The renovation study that is being completed this semester will also determine “what food options we could offer,” Berger wrote.

Commons last underwent renovations during the summer of 2012. These changes focused on the lower floors of Commons, including a revamped patio area, relocating Starbucks to the lower level, and the expansion of the retail dining options. The expansion created what is currently known as Gourmet Grocer, which includes grab-and-go options for students.

Penn to increase tuition and charges by 4%, raise income limit for financial aid

The eligibility threshold for financial aid packages that fully cover all undergraduate costs will be raised to $75,000 next year.

ELEA CASTIGLIONE AND CAMELLIA BÙI Staff Reporters

Penn announced a 4% rise in the cost of attendance and an increase in the number of students who will be eligible for full financial aid.

At a University Board of Trustees meeting on March 2, administrators announced that undergraduate tuition and charges will total $84,600 for the 2023-2024 academic year, up from this year's $81,340. The 4% increase represents a return to pre-pandemic rates — following a 2.9% increase last year and 2.8% the year prior — and marks the second year that total undergraduate costs exceed $80,000. The tuition rise was announced alongside an additional increase to the undergraduate financial aid budget.

“This increase helps to offset the impact of high levels of inflation, especially for compensation, and is accompanied by an approved undergraduate financial aid budget of $286 million, a 12% increase from 2022-2023 projected financial aid spending," the University wrote in an announcement.

For the 2023-2024 academic year, the eligibility threshold for financial aid packages that fully cover all undergraduate costs will be raised to

$75,000, up from the previous income limit of $65,500. Students whose families make $75,000 or less annually will not have to pay for tuition, fees, housing, and dining. They will also be eligible for grants and work-study funds.

Last year, the financial budget rose by 11.1% to $288 million — the largest financial aid expansion in the past decade. The expansion of eligibility means that approximately 200 previously ineligible students can now receive this type of package, a large addition to the 1,067 students currently benefiting from the program, administrators said at the meeting.

“This expansion of Penn’s undergraduate financial aid program will make the path to Penn possible for hundreds of additional students each year,” Penn President Liz Magill told Penn Today.

The cost of tuition, housing, dining, and student support services for undergraduates will all rise for the 2023-2024 academic year, marking an increase of over $10,000 in costs in the past five years.

The full undergraduate bill includes $58,620 for tuition, up from the previous year's $56,212. University housing will rise from $11,754 to $12,166, and dining will rise from $6,134 to $6,330. Undergraduate fees, which cover the cost of student support services, technology services, and wellness services, will increase from $7,240 to $7,484.

The presentation given to the Board of Trustees cited inflationary pressures, labor market dynamics, tuition growth rate pressures, spikes in utilities costs, and financial market volatility as some of the reasons for the increased costs.

Penn is one of many universities with the largest increase in cost of attendance nationally after the pandemic, the Philadelphia Business Journal reported. Starting in 2020-2021 and through the 2022-2023 academic year, undergraduate fees have been partially used to cover COVID-19 public health measures such as contact tracing and testing.

Approximately 45% of undergraduates currently receive financial aid grants, averaging about $62,000 in funding and covering

LGBT Center announces ALOK as first scholar in residence

Penn’s Scholar in Residence program is the first residency of its kind at any university in the United States

DEDEEPYA GUTHIKONDA Senior Reporter

approximately 73% of the total cost of attendance. Additionally, the proportion of aid funded by Penn's endowment is projected to increase from 21% to 25%. With the new changes, 4,388 undergraduates are forecasted to receive needbased grant aid this year, administrators said.

Pell recipients as a percentage of traditional undergraduates has also increased to a new high of 17.3%, the University reported during the meeting.

Administrators also announced the 2023 fiscal year’s total tuition and fees revenue amounted to $1.733 billion, the majority of which comes from graduate and professional tuition. Traditional undergraduate tuition accounts for $543 million, along with $109 million from room and board, $101 million from the general fee, and $194 million from other fees.

Compared to peer institutions, Penn’s increase is in line with the growing trend of inflationary costs. The emerging pattern of increases in the cost of attendance among private elite universities is an increase of 4% or more, Forbes reported, including a 3.9% hike at Yale University and a 4.8% hike at Brown University.

Yale’s total undergraduate cost will rise to $83,880 alongside a financial aid increase. Stanford stands out with a 7% increase in undergraduate tuition and charges, which marks the largest among peer universities announced so far.

Stanford undergraduates from families with income threshold below $100,000 will be covered completely under the new program, rising from the $75,000 threshold the previous year. Similarly, Princeton University announced in September that most families with an income of $100,000 or less will receive aid covering tuition, room, and board.

Students protest 76ers stadium proposal in Chinatown outside of Board of Trustees meeting

Community members protested outside the Inn at Penn for over two hours

MOLLY COHEN Senior Reporter

Students for the Preservation of Chinatown protested at the Penn Board of Trustees meeting against the proposed Philadelphia 76ers arena in Chinatown.

Over 50 protestors affiliated with SPOC held a demonstration outside of the Campus Apartments office on March 3. The protest moved to the Inn at Penn — the site of the University's Board of Trustees meeting. Some students entered the Board of Trustees meeting but were asked to leave soon after announcing their demands.

According to a press release, SPOC is demanding that the University remove trustees involved with 76 Devcorp, the private development company behind the 76ers' arena, and David Adelman, and divest from all corporations tied to the proposed development.

Adelman — who also serves as CEO of Campus Apartments, a provider for off-campus housing for Penn students — is the chairman 76 Devcorp that works in partnership with the 76ers' managing partners.

Board of Trustees Chair Scott Bok did not respond to a request for comment.

Last year, 76ers management announced plans to build a new stadium, as the team's lease with Wells Fargo Center — their current home stadium — expires in 2031. The new stadium is one block away from the Chinatown Friendship Gate, the entrance to the Chinatown neighborhood, and its announcement has sparked fear of gentrification by some residents and students.

According to a statement from 76 Devcorp, the arena will not be built in Chinatown, but rather in the Fashion District at Market East. The statement also says that 76 Devcorp is committing $50 million to improve, strengthen and enhance communities around Market East and pursuing solutions to improve commerce, transit, safety, cleanliness and vibrance to the area.

meeting were initially told they could not enter due to a change in policy about allowing students and the room being too full, SPOC co-founder and College sophomore Taryn Flaherty told The Daily Pennsylvanian. According to SPOC's press release, nine Penn students eventually were allowed to enter the Board of Trustees meeting — which is open to attendance from Penn community members — and one student began speaking of the group’s demand as others passed out the demands to the Board of Trustees members.

Hotel management then told the students that police were downstairs and asked them if they wanted to be escorted out, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Flaherty said that the protestors then decided to leave the meeting and continue the rally outside with the other protestors.

"Our whole point is that we want the Board of Trustees to hear our concerns," Flaherty said.

Following this incident, protestors remained outside the Inn at Penn for over two hours, and students and community members spoke to the crowd about their experiences with displacement in West Philadelphia and why protecting Chinatown is important to them.

"We as students at Penn, we as residents of the city need to actively be resisting the complicity in the destruction of neighborhoods across Philadelphia and tell Penn to cut off all ties," Flaherty said at the protest.

In addition to the demands involving cutting ties with developers and corporations involved with the construction, SPOC also demanded that Penn end plans to privatize student housing, reevaluate the Wharton curriculum, and openly express support for residents in Chinatown opposing the construction.

Mixed-media artist ALOK was named the inaugural

Penn’s Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Center announced its first-ever scholar in residence following an anonymous $2 million gift to the center.

The Scholar in Residence program is the first residency of its kind at any university in the United States, according to Penn Today. The program — which will launch in April with ALOK — aims to invite prominent LGBTQ leaders to Penn.

ALOK is “an internationally acclaimed author, poet, comedian, and public speaker, whose work explores themes of trauma, belonging, and the human condition,” according to Penn Today. In addition to publishing "Femme in Public," "Beyond the Gender Binary," and "Your Wound/ My Garden," they have toured more than 40 countries over the past decade.

"In the face of escalating malalignment we see a widening chasm between the reality of LGBTQ+ lives and the misrepresentation of our communities in media and society," ALOK told Penn Today. "As LGBTQ+ scholars and artists we must continue to debunk anti-LGBTQ+ misinformation while also harnessing the power of LGBTQ+ storytelling to create a more inclusive and magnificent world. I'm looking forward to connecting with Penn students, faculty, and staff to celebrate the living poetry of our existence in these turbulent times."

ALOK was chosen by a student-driven advisory board in collaboration with Penn faculty and staff. The scholar program may vary from a short visit from an activist to a scholar teaching semester-long class, according to Penn Today. During their time at Penn, ALOK will guest teach in Penn's undergraduate and graduate programs, share meals with students, and perform.

“I’m really excited to see more South Asian nonbinary academics on campus, especially someone that is unapologetically themselves,” College first year Haydr Dutta, who is part of the LGBT Center’s transgender and nonbinary committee, told The Daily Pennsylvanian. “It is really inspiring to see the work they do and I look forward to welcoming them to Penn. I’m personally looking forward to the workshops they will be doing with students.”

Campus Pride recently named Penn a “Best Of The Best” college and university for LGBTQ students. The LGBT Center recently celebrated its 40th anniversary and is the second-oldest center of its kind in the United States.

“It is important to recognize that the residency will amplify student voices as well,” Erin Cross, the director of the LGBT Center, told Penn Today.

“According to Penn data, LBGTQ+ students comprise one of the largest minoritized campus populations. Now with this wonderful gift, the Scholar in Residence will bring LGBTQ+ experiences into the spotlight."

“As we continue to develop a meaningful plan to ensure the arena project can positively impact Philadelphia and its residents, it is disappointing to see some groups claiming to represent the broader interests of the city irresponsibly spreading misinformation about our proposed plans,” the statement said.

Students trying to enter the Board of Trustees

“Penn and Drexel students have really strong ties with the developers of the arena,” Bryn Mawr College junior and co-founder of SPOC previously told The Daily Pennsylvanian in January. “We thought that we needed to really start pressuring both developers and the students at the schools to reflect on the systemic issues that the institution and the developers are perpetuating.”

SPOC previously held a protest in November on Penn’s campus demanding the halt of the development of the proposed arena.

The conversation circling SEPTA is more nuanced than headlines make it appear.

“UPENN ALERT: Report of Gunshots Fired | 4000 block of Market Street. Philadelphia and Penn Police responded to a report of gunshots being fired in the area of 4000 block of Market Street.

BREAKING: A man is dead after being stabbed on the train platform at 8th & Market streets in Center City.”

These headlines only fuel Penn students’ long-held safety concerns over riding SEPTA. When it comes to Philadelphia’s transit system, these thoughts percolate: SEPTA is not the preferred form of transportation. SEPTA is unsafe and dirty. Instead, students prefer to turn what would be their $2.50 fare into what can be a $20 Lyft or Uber ride, all in the name of safety.

Perhaps the age-old “don’t go past 40th Street” toxic belief at Penn also complicates conceptions about safety around particular stations. This disposition makes news about SEPTA even more grim, and suggests that perhaps precarious transit options exist due to a precarious city. In early February, at the cusp of Penn’s bubble, a shooting occurred near the 40th Street station. 8th and Market streets station made headlines this year after a man was stabbed to death on the train platform. These examples of violence are easy to recall and hard to forget. While many Philadelphians and Penn students alike can attest to an uncomfortable experience on public transit, do these fears reflect reality? And can these perceptions look different depending on the person?

One in two women feel unsafe walking alone at night. Compare this to the one in seven men who report similar sentiments. Women are fundamentally more unsafe in public, and are often recipients of a large range of uncomfortable experiences, from catcalls to violent attacks and more. The confines of a trolley car can only multiply these behaviors and sometimes, for women, the choice of taking public transit isn’t one that is inherently “safe” considering what could potentially happen.

These concerns are warranted. A year and a half ago, the westbound Market-Frankford Line made national headlines after a woman was publicly raped in a SEPTA car. As shocking as the assault itself was how many bystanders that allowed it to occur. For women, the choice to splurge on an Uber can be a matter of life and death.

There exists a public transit paradox then, particularly for women: People want to take public transit, for convenience or to save money or to be eco conscious, but this leads them to ride-sharing apps instead.

Samantha Cueto, a Nursing junior, typifies her experiences riding public transit, citing safety concerns regarding the times she travels. “I would like to take SEPTA [during] normal times,” she said, acknowledging her pattern of traveling at night, rather than during the day, which she alludes is a safer riding experience.

“I’ll go out in the evening for dates. I do take the Septa late at night … [but] never alone.”

‘Never alone’ is an unfortunate reality for many individuals when it comes to ensuring safety on public transit. Cueto also described an incident at a SEPTA platform where she was harassed by a man for money, an incident that put her in an uncomfortable spot as a woman. Accompanied by a few friends and her boyfriend when it happened, she had offered him a couple of singles, but the man was persistent in having her break the fifty that had slipped out from her wallet. “If my boyfriend wasn’t there, I would have been frightened,” she said. “That’s just what being a girl is like in Philly.”

Sarah Belle Kim, a College sophomore transfer student from New York, views SEPTA a little differently. Back home, she views the New York City subway system as an affordable, fast way to get around the city. Yet, she is cognizant of the Asian-targeted violence on the subway post pandemic, fearing for her older relatives, particularly her grandparents, after noticing a lot of the assaults were towards Asian elders. “It’s just hard hearing about that on the news,” she said.

When questioned about whether or not that has affected her riding habits or behavior on public transit in New York, Kim explained that though she personally hadn’t changed her transit habits, she noticed that her friends made drastic changes in their appearances for a sense of security in train cars. “I have a friend who is Korean American whose mom said she should dye her hair blonde so people on the subway would think that she was white,” she said.

In Philadelphia, Kim echoes Cueto's safety concerns about taking transit alone past dark.

“If I’m with friends, maybe I’ll take [SEPTA] with them, but if I’m alone probably not,” she says. “When it is late at night, I would take an Uber if I’m far away from campus or do Penn Rides.”

Despite all this, however, Kim remains optimistic. Wanting to get to places like Center City quickly and for cheaper prices, she’s trying to take advantage of the metropolitan transit system, even if it means compromising on when she gets to take it. “I would say if you are concerned about safety and you can afford to not take the SEPTA, that’s totally fine. But that’s not an option everybody has,” she says.

If we look at these incidents at face value, it can be very easy to assume that public transit is inherently and extremely dangerous. Yet, we are hesitant to write off public transit altogether.

Penn students and nonnative Philadelphians alike that are cognizant of (mis)conceptions about safety should consider: Do you feel unsafe on public transit, or unsafe in general?

Ultimately, SEPTA isn’t the causal factor for race-based and gender-based violence. Rather, buses, trolleys, and transit cars reveal the invisible social tensions that bind us. SEPTA magnifies the larger social issues we collectively must tackle. Public transportation is just a microcosm of bigger societal issues: violence against Asian Americans, sexual assault against women, the wealth gap, racial biases and hate crimes … the list goes on.

In an age of rapid privatization of public space, the confined walls of a transit car are one of the last public commons so readily accessible. Where else in modern society are you forced to interact with other people, let alone people of differing economic and racial backgrounds? We are offered an affordable ride with the price (and sometimes added benefit) of human interaction.

The public transit dilemma is more complex than we make it out to be. To write off public transportation entirely is misguided and a mistake. Public transit is a microcosm of the many social issues plaguing our society, particularly when and where women and racial minorities feel safe.

From the early days of New Student Orientation, students are taught that inside the confines of 34th to 40th streets — our Penn bubble — you’re safe. Penn’s broken relationship with West Philadelphia shows how students are institutionally predisposed to harbor stigmas about the dangers of this city. While four SEPTA stations slice through our Penn bubble, students are still fundamentally disconnected from our community. Selection and memory biases undoubtedly play a role when we talk about public safety, and it could be beneficial to reflect on why and how you form these judgments the next time you choose to board SEPTA.

FIONA MILLER is a Wharton junior studying Behavioral Economics and Social Impact from Roanoke, V.A. Her email is fimiller@wharton.upenn.edu.

Blinded by privilege: the homelessness prejudice at Penn

ISKRA (THE SPARK) | Penn students must question their biases towards the homeless

I listened closely as one of my peers described traveling back from spring break, apparently quite grateful there were no homeless people to avoid in the train station when she disembarked. I opened my mouth to ask why it mattered but quickly shut it, knowing the boilerplate response I would receive: homeless people are violent and dangerous drug-addicts.

Before I arrived at Penn, I thought I knew what I was getting myself into: a prestigious Ivy League that was insulated, self-contained, and chock-full of children of the rich and powerful. What I neglected to consider was Penn’s situation in Philadelphia, a big city plagued by pollution, crime, and poverty. Even more naively, I ignored how these two forces collide when students amble down Spruce Street, or take the SEPTA into Center City for Sunday brunch.

As soon as I moved in, I heard the run-ofthe-mill complaints about the uncleanliness of the SEPTA and the alarming number of crime alerts. However, my peers disproportionately fixated on what some consider a mere nuisance, and others a pernicious evil: homelessness. Whether it was off-handed comments deriding a man asking for a hot meal, peers crossing the street to avoid a woman with all her belongings piled into a shopping cart, or social media posts expressing deep contempt for these same people, prejudice towards the homeless quickly became evident.

I was honestly surprised at the vehemence with which these opinions were communicated. Having gone to public school in the Baltimore area — a city with similar rates of homelessness to Philadelphia — homelessness was not new to me. Many at my high school struggled with homelessness and one of my closest friends was homeless for much of her secondary education. While my high school peers were not without their own biases, they didn’t approach the level of unfiltered prejudice towards the homeless which I have encountered on this campus. For the most part, my experiences are not shared across the Penn community.

This is a function of the fact that nearly three quarters of Penn students come from the top 20% and likely have not truly experienced vast socioeconomic diversity. And with more students from the top 0.1% than the bottom twenty, students who are most likely to have struggled with homelessness firsthand are woefully underrepresented at Penn.

Thus, on a campus dominated by the financially comfortable to ultra-wealthy, it’s no surprise that Penn students approach homelessness with degrees of ignorance. Many have little to no experience with poverty, and they are easily susceptible to the popular narratives surrounding homeless people — the same stereotypes which reinforce homelessness in the first place.

The obvious danger in accepting such caricatures prima facie is that in doing so, one neglects the diversity of experience which undergirds homelessness in America. In reality, homelessness occurs for many less visible reasons not necessarily directly connected to inadequate finances, including health issues, escaping violence, lack of housing availability, and generational poverty.

Regardless, this deficit of experience does not excuse the rampant ignorance I’ve witnessed on the part of Penn students towards the people we share University City with. Penn students would also do well to remember that most of us are visitors in this city for four years, while Philadelphia is these people’s home whether they are housed or not. Despite this, many consistently ascribe their monolithic, often ignorant and racialized, conceptions of homelessness to every woman asking for spare change or every man sleeping on a sidewalk grate.

Not only does this conception perpetuate largely untrue stereotypes, it reduces what is inherently a structural problem to an individual failing. The reasons this is dangerous are two-fold.

Firstly, this suggests to governments, both local and national, that they are not responsible for assisting people out of homelessness nor for creating the policies that have enabled homelessness to occur.

Second, generalized stigmas against the homeless have been shown to perpetuate ideas that they are less than human, worthy of disgust and contempt. Such hardline discrimination restricts the homeless’s access to basic necessities like health care, which has even larger implications when considering employment opportunities and the like. Thus, prejudice towards homeless people is a self-fulfilling prophecy which continually reaffirms its validity while exacerbating the phenomenon.

The point of this article is not to plead with you about why homeless people are worthy of basic human respect and dignity — why they are should be obvious. Nor is this an explanation as to why homelessness occurs. For that there is excellent literature by NYU professor Deborah K. Padgett, Atlantic contributor Jerusalem Demsas, and countless others.

Instead, I beg Penn students to reevaluate their stances towards those they have never attempted to understand. As future leaders who will go on to shape public policy and opinion, it is paramount they confront these harmful prejudices now, before encoding them into our nation’s fabric even more than they already are. Moreover, Penn students should take the time to interrogate why they feel the way they do towards the homeless and in doing so, take a step back and remember the following:

Homeless people do not look or act one way or even have one story. Homeless people are people first and foremost — complex and varied — and by generalizing their presence as an urban problem, this reality is ignored.

By understanding the structural causes of homelessness, as well as the institutional barriers to employment, healthcare, and social services, a more complete picture of homelessness comes into frame. Homelessness is a problem, but homeless people are not, and to conflate the two is to reduce very real people to an abstract issue in need of solving.

If you listen to the pundits, the homeless are lazy, uneducated, violent, and drug-addled — and with no contradictory personal experiences, it’s easy to adopt this view as your own. However, we must be cognizant of when people and groups are being weaponized or leveraged for political ends and why. Especially when the facts are at odds with the rhetoric.

This is clearly a non-exhaustive list, but it can serve as a basis for recentering the conversation around homelessness at Penn. The immense wealth of our student body means that there is understandably little firsthand experience with homelessness in its varied nature, yet this does not preclude basic empathy. In fact, this wealth actually necessitates more intentional and deliberate reflection since class-status, especially within the Penn bubble, can insulate people from the reality of life just outside campus while allowing prejudices to go unchecked.

When I hear people repeat bigoted opinions about homeless people, I feel angry — not for some abstract idea of homeless people, but for my friend who was homeless by no fault of her own, who is the hardest working person I know, who doesn’t do drugs and abhors violence. Ironically enough, at the beginning of this article I intentionally didn’t list homelessness as a systemic problem plaguing Philadelphia, because the city has the lowest homelessness per capita of all large cities in the United States. While homelessness should be diligently addressed, the disproportionate fixation of Penn students on the homeless speaks to the biases widely held on our campus that must be deconstructed.

VINAY KHOSLA is a College sophomore studying history and political science from Baltimore, M.D. His email is vkhosla@sas.upenn.edu