February 24, 2021

The Emory Wheel since 1919

Emory University’s Independent Student Newspaper

Volume 102, Issue 3

Wednesday, February 24, 2021

Printed Every Other Wednesday

COVID-19 Cases Surge, Emory Expands Testing

By Madison Hopkins, Grace Lee and Sarah Du Senior Staff Writer and Contributing Writers

University President Gregory Fenves announced Emory recorded 106 cases Wednesday and Thursday last week. The University recorded a total of 174 cases between Feb. 15 and Feb. 22, according to Emory’s COVID19 Dashboard.

As of Tuesday evening, the Dashboard reported 51 confirmed cases on Feb. 17, with 50 student cases and 1 staff case. This is the University’s highest single-day case total to date.

The majority of cases were off-campus students, with clusters of cases at Raoul, Harris and Longstreet Means residence halls. Overall, only six cases in the last week were staff.

As of Sunday night, there were 125 students in isolation and quarantine at the Emory Conference Center Hotel, almost twice the peak number during the fall.

Associate Vice President and Executive Director of COVID-19 Response and Recovery Amir St. Clair urged students to comply not only with testing, but also with safety guidelines both on and off campus.

“Our students wear their masks, they’re physically distancing, they’re doing what they should on campus,” St. Clair said. “For whatever reason, we’re not demonstrating those good practices off campus..”

Conservative Students Maneuver Campus Politics

By Caelan Bailey Senior Staff Writer

Mackenzie Jones (22Ox) said it was “saddening and frustrating” that while she does her best to abide by COVID19 guidelines, she feels others purposefully disregard these guidelines despite knowing the consequences for the Emory community.

“They’re making a conscious decision to go out and party, and put themselves in risky situations, and they’re not only risking themselves but they’re

risking us,” Jones said. “It’s not only like putting us in harm’s way, I feel like it’s also disrespectful to everyone on this campus. I just feel like you have to have a lot of disrespect to do that.”

On-Campus Students to Receive Two Tests Per Week In response to the spike, the University increased weekly screen-

ing test requirements for on-campus students from once to twice per week.

Students were assigned to a Monday and Thursday or Tuesday and Friday rotation based on their residence hall.

Off-campus students must still test once per week if they wish to use campus facilities.

The University also added the

As competitive presidential and Senate elections in Georgia ushered in a record degree of political engagement among students, Emory conservatives are navigating a highly charged campus.

Today, students and professors alike point to a dichotomy between the Emory’s robust open expression policy that formally protects speech on campus and overwhelming social pressures that shame conservative expression.

Emory College Republicans (ECR) President Jasmine Jaffe (22C) noted that former President Donald Trump was particularly divisive, saying that ECR members voted for both President Joe Biden and Trump in the 2020 election. Even with Trump out of office, she doubts cross-ideological dialogue

See DIRECTOR, Page 3

See STUDENTS, Page 3

The Life and Legacy Of Hamilton Holmes

By Hannah Risman Contributing Writer

Courtesy of Colter Frey

Snow blankets South Congress Avenue, a major road in Austin, Texas, after Winter Storm Uri swept the state on Feb. 14.

Emory Texans Battle Winter Storm

By Hannah Risman and Hannah Book Contributing Writers Amid a pandemic on the most romantic day of the year, the perfect storm hit Texas.

Texas faced record-low temperatures as Winter Storm Uri swept across the state on Feb. 14. Unprepared for extreme weather conditions, the Energy Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) – the state’s power grid oper-

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Professor Appointed to Kamala Harris’ Advisory Board ...

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ator – failed to meet the increasing energy demands, leaving millions of Texans without access to electricity or heat.

After enduring multiple days of subfreezing temperatures, over 14.4 million Texans in 190 counties continue to face water disruptions without a clear end in sight.

Kendall Kalmans (24C), who is attending classes from her home in Houston, described the initial, collective sense of curious bewilderment as

Texans basked in the foreign flurries, unaware of the turmoil to come.

“It was like the snow day that everyone dreams of until Monday when people started losing power,” Kalmans said.

Mo Singhal (22C), a student currently residing in Dallas, echoed feeling astonished when snow first arrived on his doorstep.

“I’ve been here for about 12, 13 years

EDITORIAL Work Study Is Inequitable, Inefficient ...

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A&E Daft Punk Announces Split ...

See DESPERATE, Page 2

As the first Black student admitted to the Emory School of Medicine, Hamilton Earl Holmes (67M) is a trailblazing figure in Emory history.

Hamilton Holmes, nicknamed “Hamp,” was born on July 8, 1941 in Atlanta. Hamilton grew up in a renowned family within the civil rights community. A “third-generation integrationist,” Hamilton succeeded his grandfather and father who successfully filed suit in 1955 to desegregate Atlanta’s public golf courses.

Hamilton attended Henry McNeal Turner High School, the most prestigious public high school for Black students in Atlanta at the time. He excelled at Turner, balancing his esteemed scholastic record and athletic accomplishments as senior class president and co-captain of the football team. Hamilton graduated as valedictorian from Turner in 1959.

His success at Turner attracted the attention of Jesse Hill, a member of the Atlanta NAACP education committee, who recruited Black students to desegregate Georgia higher-education institutions. Hill suggested that Hamilton and Charlayne Hunter, a fellow Turner graduate, apply to the University of Georgia (UGA), an institution thenGovernor Ernest Vandiver famously

vowed no Black student would attend.

UGA rejected both Hamilton’s and Hunter’s fall 1959 applications, citing “space shortage,” but the NAACP persisted. Following a two-and-a-halfyear legal battle, federal judge William Bootle ruled in favor of the students on Jan. 6, 1961, arguing that Hamilton and Hunter were “fully qualified for immediate admission” and “would have already been admitted had it not been for their race and color.”

Consequently, UGA admitted the first two Black students in its 175-year history.

Hamilton transferred from Morehouse College (Ga.) to UGA in 1961 and was met with burning crosses, a hanging black effigy named “Hamilton Holmes” and a studentorganized riot. Braving racial hostility, Hamilton still excelled scholastically, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1963.

Like UGA, Hamilton’s admission to the Emory School of Medicine as a student of color required legal action.

Two Emory administrators sued Georgia in 1961 to overturn a discriminatory state tax statute that would have revoked Emory’s tax-exemption status if it admitted students of color.

The Georgia Supreme Court ruled in favor of Emory in 1962, and Hamilton became the first Black student admit-

See HOLMES, Page 2

EMORY LIFE What SPORTS Emory Athletics Black History Month Means Restarts With Obstacles ...

Back Page PAGE 7 to Black Profs. ...

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Wednesday, February 24, 2021

The Emory Wheel

‘Desperate’: Students Faced Water, Food Shortages Endowment Continued from Page 1 now, and I’ve never seen it get below 20 degrees even,” Singhal said. “But the Saturday, Sunday right there on the six degrees Fahrenheit, that was pretty freezing, pretty cold, especially when, like, you don’t see snow very often in Dallas.”

The winter dreamscape lost its allure early Monday morning as mass power outages raged statewide. With plummeting temperatures, Texas’ energy infrastructure proved illequipped for the extreme weather conditions, cutting energy production to a mere half of ERCOT’s winter generating capacity.

Despite expert recommendations to “winterize” energy infrastructure following similar power outages in a 2011 winter storm, Texas power companies opted out of necessary upgrades to save money, leaving residents in the dark.

Living up to its nickname, the Lone Star State established an isolated power grid in 1970 to circumvent government regulation. Without assistance from the national energy grids, Texas failed to meet the peak demand for power and heat.

Without electricity and reliable communication, freezing Texans faced uncertainty and feared abandonment.

For Cutler Cannon (20Ox, 22C), who is currently living in Atlanta, this fear was exacerbated by an inability to contact his loved ones in Van Alstyne, Texas, located 30 minutes outside of the Texas-Oklahoma border.

“Electricity didn’t necessarily affect my household, but it affected the cell towers so there were extended times that I didn’t hear from my parents,” Cannon said. “I didn’t have any way to reach them.”

In Houston, Kalmans faced other concerns. She described an alarming scene at a grocery store where residents scrambled to prepare for food and water shortages.

“There were probably 150 people in the parking lot waiting when it opened at 10 a.m.,” she recalled. “In terms of food, it was like grab what you can, like there was no eggs, no milk, no nothing.”

Enduring mass power outages and food shortages, the worst was yet to come.

“An even bigger issue was the water because there were a lot of pipes that

Courtesy of Cutler Cannon

Shoppers walk past barren shelves in a Walmart in Van Alstyne, Texas. burst,” Kalmans explained. “They haven’t been able to fix all the pipes, so bacteria gets in where the pipes are burst … making it unsafe to be consumed directly from the faucets.”

This widespread infrastructure failure has left 14.4 million Texans governed by water boil notices, including more than 150,000 without clean water. Cannon described a story experienced by many Texans: “A pipe burst … and over 500 gallons of water flooded our basement.

That was really unfortunate because we had recently had a break just a few months ago … And we had to put all this money forth for insurance claims.”

Facing skyrocketing insurance premiums for extensive property damages, Cannon said Uri’s economic implications will reverberate throughout his community long after the storm passes.

Singhal explained that poor infrastructure allowed the storm to cause severe home damage, including collapsing roofs.

“There are quite a few people who

are homeless,” he said.

Freezing and with scant governmental assistance, communities across Texas united to help struggling neighbors. Cannon described the immediate reaction among the Van Alstyne community, where Texans came together to offer housing, food or transportation to one another.

Although her neighborhood lost power on Feb. 15, Kalmans’ family had invested in a generator after Hurricane Harvey and so they opened their home to her neighbors. While the shared trauma forced people to come together, Kalmans noted the fear of COVID19 still loomed.

“It’s hard because I want to help as many people as I can,” Kalmans said.

“Our house has been relatively empty since COVID, and now it almost feels in some ways like a revolving door ...

With the virus, I wouldn’t be surprised if cases start to rise again in Texas because people are desperate.”

Despite withstanding physically and mentally exhausting conditions, students faced an additional layer of

told the Wheel. “We met at one of those events on Monday night and fell in love, and on Thursday he proposed and I accepted.”

After Marilyn graduated from Wayne State University in Detroit, they married in 1965. That summer, she moved to Atlanta as a “new teacher and a new bride” while her husband completed medical school.

Following his graduation from Emory in 1967, Hamilton pursued a general surgical residency at Detroit General Hospital, but was drafted by the military in 1969 to serve in Germany. In Nuremberg, Hamilton completed an unofficial training residency at a military hospital where he gained valuable hands-on experience.

Hamilton decided to finish his residency at Emory upon his return to the country in 1973. Chair of Orthopaedics at Emory Thomas Whitesides interviewed Hamilton for the residency and hired him on the spot.

Honored to teach and work alongside a “true pioneer of the highest quality, honesty and capability,”

Whitesides expressed reverence for Hamilton, noting, “My relationship to him was professional to start with, but then it was family.”

When Hamilton finished his residency at Emory in 1976, he joined the Emory Clinic Staff, serving as an assistant professor of the Orthopaedic Division of the Department of Surgery.

Robert P. Kelly Professor and Chair of the Orthopaedics Department James Roberson trained as a surgical orthopaedic resident under Hamilton during his early years as a faculty member.

“He was certainly a role model for me,” Roberson remarked. “He was a hardworking surgeon who was very focused on patient outcomes and delivering good care to patients.”

In following years, Hamilton led a distinguished career in medicine; he became the chief of orthopaedics at the Veterans Administration Hospital, now the Atlanta VA Medical Center, and later opened a private practice.

From 1989 to 1995, he served as medical director at Grady Memorial

stress virtually. Without Wi-Fi, Texas students could not attend Zoom calls or stream lectures and were cut off from college life.

“All my professors were really, really understanding,” Singhal said. “I had a couple of them emailing me every day, like, hey, how are you doing? Is there anything else I can do for you?

One professor was like, you have an exam. And I was like, I have a storm.”

Although acknowledging her professors’ sympathetic responses, Kalmans criticized administrators’ delayed response which came on Thursday afternoon, days after the power outages began.

“It was almost inappropriate how long it took the University to reach out,” Kalmans said. “And I still haven’t seen any communication that’s gone out to the public of the University as a whole. I only received an email because I am from Texas and currently in Texas.”

University President Gregory L. Fenves tweeted on Feb. 19, offering support for Emory students affected by the storm.

“My heart goes out to all of the residents of Texas including my family, friends and everyone at @UTAustin.

Please be safe during this incredible confluence of covid and extreme weather. I’m proud of Texans,” Fenves tweeted five days after Uri arrived in Texas.

As the lights in Texas turn back on, students grapple with questions about what the state’s future will hold.

“Honestly, like now it’s just kind of stress of what’s going to be done to prevent this in the future,” Cannon said.

“It will either make it so much worse for me because nothing’s happening or if it will make it a little bit better if we see appropriate actions being taken.”

A week after Uri’s arrival, Kalmans remarked that Houston was 65 degrees and sunny, “throwing out Powerball numbers for weather.” However, the widespread damage across Texas will not melt away as easily as the snow.

“We’re trying to pick up the pieces now,” Kalmans said. “I think people are tired of picking up the pieces, but what I learned about my community is that we’ll continue to move forward.”

— Contact Hannah Risman at hrisman@emory.edu and Hannah Book at hbook@emory. edu

Grows Less Than 1%

By Max Pasternak Contributing Writer

Emory’s endowment grew from $7.87 billion in the 2019 fiscal year to $7.94 billion in the 2020 fiscal year, a 0.82% increase, according to a yearly study by the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO).

Between fiscal years 2018 and 2019, Emory’s endowment grew by nearly 8%, from $7.29 billion to $7.87 billion.

Emory ranks No. 17 among the 717 institutions in the U.S. and Canada surveyed in the study.

NACUBO, in collaboration with the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America, published the annual report on Feb. 19.

Emory’s endowment remains the largest of any participating university in Georgia, with the Georgia Institute of Technology ranking No. 2 in the state and No. 51 nationally at $2.17 billion and the University of Georgia ranking No. 83 nationally with $1.36 billion.

Senior Director of Research and Policy Analysis at NACUBO Ken Redd told the Wheel that many participating institutions reported negative changes to their endowments and slower growth compared to previous years, though he could not speak to the cause since it was not surveyed.

NACUBO President and CEO Susan Johnston said in a press release that the study captures the first few months of the challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic and that next year’s report will “help complete the picture of how institutions and their endowments coped.” Returns from endowments this past year were lower than the returns from last year, “which tends to translate to lower increases in endowment values,” Redd explained.

Redd added there was a large drop in new gifts to endowments with a 16% decrease nationally. Emory has raised an average of $376 million annually over the last three years and $45 million toward COVID-19 initiatives in the last year to prepare for the next phase of its current capital campaign.

Institutions spent more from their endowments this fiscal year, the study found, with spending increasing by 4%-6% across participating schools.

— Contact Max Pasternak at max.pasternak@emory.edu

Holmes Remembered as ‘Brave Physician Leader’

Continued from Page 1

ted to the Emory School of Medicine the following year.

Marilyn Holmes described her late husband’s experience at the Emory School of Medicine as drastically different from his experience at UGA in a 2015 interview with Woodruff Health Sciences Center Historian Sally WolffKing. Hamilton’s decision to pursue medical school at Emory was an easy one, she said.

“There were no restrictions imposed on him,” Marilyn said in 2015. “The faculty welcomed him with open arms.

He made a lot of friends in medical school.”

After his first year in medical school, Hamilton worked for the SmithKline Beecham pharmaceutical firm in Philadelphia. While living in the city for the summer, Hamilton met Marilyn Vincent, his future wife of 30 years.

“I was there for my sorority convention and he was invited to be an escort for some of the social events,” Marilyn

Hospital until he became chief of orthopaedics at Grady and associate dean at Emory’s School of Medicine.

Executive Associate Dean of Medical Education and Student Affairs John Eley was a student and resident of Hamilton while he served as Grady’s medical director. While Hamilton broke multiple educational race barriers, Eley noted that he remained humble.

“He didn’t act like a hero,” Hamilton said. “He acted like a heck of a good doctor who had really high standards for the profession in mind.”

While the hours were long and the work was arduous, Marilyn remarked that in his pursuit to be “the best orthopedic surgeon that he could be,” Hamilton never failed to support his family as a loving father and husband.

“He’d leave the morning of one day and we wouldn’t see him again until the night of the second day,” Marilyn explained. “So he knew that it was hard on all of us, but he tried to let us know that we were a valuable part of his life.”

After Hamilton suffered a hypertensive stroke, Whitesides took care of him in the hospital. Two weeks after quadruple bypass surgery, Hamilton passed away on Oct. 26, 1995 at age 54 in his Atlanta home. Hamilton’s legacy lives on through his family, professional accomplishments and the integration of Georgia higher education.

In his honor, the University established the annual Hamilton E. Holmes memorial lecture series and erected a first-year dorm in his name in 2012.

Nicknamed a “walking hello” by his children, Hamilton is remembered by loved ones for his congeniality, stopping to speak with everyone “from the top offices to the custodial staff.”

“He was a trailblazing person, and it makes a difference to stop and pause and reflect and think about what we are doing,” Eley said. “To make the world a better place, because that’s what doctors are trying to do. And Hamilton showed us how.”

— Contact Hannah Risman at hrisman@emory.edu

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The Emory Wheel

Wednesday, February 24, 2021

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Students Cite Hostility Despite Open Expression Policy Continued from Page 1 at Emory will become easier in the short-term.

“A lot of people who are on the right are still very hesitant to talk to people on the left because no matter what, they’re going to imagine Trump and imagine just vile things about people on the right,” Jaffe said. “So I’m not very optimistic.”

Physical representations of political tensions last manifested on campus months ago when pro-Trump chalkings authored by “Underground Republicans” appeared on the Oxford campus on Election Day. Oxford campus currently lacks an official Republican student organization.

Political chalkings have a history at Emory — pro-Trump chalkings appeared on Emory’s Atlanta campus in 2016, which thrust the University’s then three-year-old open expression policy into a national debate about free speech on college campuses.

When students discovered the chalkings and a Trump sign hanging from a tree at Oxford last November, they washed, burned and threw them away.

Dean of Oxford College Douglas Hicks wrote in a Nov. 4, 2020 email to Oxford students, staff and faculty that “Oxford is a community where important conversations are supported and encouraged,” linking to the University’s open expression policy.

Oxford’s Residential Education and Services did not identify who removed the messages, Director of Communications Cathy Wooten wrote in a Jan. 18 email to the Wheel.

Oxford Young Democrats Executive Board member Madden Tullis (22Ox) said the club condemned the chalkings’ content but supported the University’s open expression policy, noting the messages represented an unwillingness for open debate.

“That is really a symbol of the University’s lack of actual discourse happening” Tullis said of the sidewalk messages.

Students Struggle to Openly Share Views Paul Chillemi (22Ox) recalled friends, then unaware of his conservative political views, “screaming” about states voting Republican on election night.

Chimelli’s Christian high school had

what he described as a “right lean” with room for ideologically diverse social circles — an atmosphere he described as starkly different from Oxford.

“Going to college … was kind of a shock to me,” Chillemi said. “I knew it was coming, I expected it, but I still don’t think I was prepared to be kind of in the face of constant opposition.”

With friends, Chimelli said he was initially “terrified” of openly expressing his opinions, at times backpedaling comments by claiming they were meant as jokes. Although he still remains “very selective” about what he says, his social circle prioritizes friendship over disagreement.

“If I didn’t have friends across the aisle at Oxford, I don’t think I would have friends,” Chimelli said.

Professor of Sociology and ECR adviser Frank Lechner explained that while campus culture depends on changing student bodies, he thinks Emory is part of a national shift toward limited political discourse.

“It is important to cultivate space for alternative views, if only for the majority view to be tested,” Lechner said. “I do think that we run a risk at Emory, and perhaps in American higher education, of assuming that there is one right way to think about a wide range of issues.”

The Emory Whig, founded by former Wheel opinion writer Robert Schmad (23C) in November, lists its mission as providing means for students to voice their “unadulterated beliefs,” creating “good faith political discourse” and establishing a platform for students to read “well-reasoned, conservative arguments.”

Conservative students who spoke to the Wheel said they view Emory’s student body as skewed heavily left. A 2016 Wheel survey found that 61.78% of respondents had a favorable view of Hillary Clinton as compared to 5.25% for Trump.

Colin Stelmach (22C), who identifies as a libertarian-leaning conservative, said he’s wary of what he says outside of his conservative-leaning inner circle for fear of “being labeled as an other.”

“You say one thing, people might take it out of context, post it online, make a statement about you, and that can be very damaging,” Stelmach said.

“You feel that you have to be very careful with what you say as to not upset anybody, even if you don’t think that

The Emory Wheel Volume 102, Issue 3 © 2021 The Emory Wheel Alumni Memorial University Center, Room 401 630 Means Drive, Atlanta, GA, 30322 Business (404) 727-6178 Editor-in-Chief Madison Bober madison.bober@emory.edu

Founded in 1919, The Emory Wheel is the financially and editorially independent, student-run newspaper of Emory University in Atlanta. The Wheel is a member publication of Media Council, Emory’s organization of student publications. The Wheel reserves the rights to all content as it appears in these pages, and permission to reproduce material must be granted by the editor-in-chief.

The statements and opinions expressed in the Wheel are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Wheel Editorial Board or of Emory University, its faculty, staff or administration.

The Wheel is also available online at www.emorywheel.com.

Corrections

• In the Feb. 10 issue, “Emory Healthcare Workers Attend Super Bowl” incorrectly stated that Jonathan S. Lewis was the official health care provider of the Atlanta Falcons. In fact, Emory Healthcare is the official health care provider of the Atlanta Falcons.

• In the Feb. 10 issue, “SAs to Receive Pay Starting Fall 2021” incorrectly stated that Celline Kim (23C) was part of a “working group” involved in discussing payment for Sophomore Advisors. In fact, Kim is not.

Sarah Davis/A sst. News Editor

Students at Oxford College found pro-Trump chalkings signed by ‘underground Republicans’ on Election Day. your views should be upsetting.”

Jaffe said many ECR members find themselves the only conservative students in their social circles and typically avoid talking politics. If students are vocal about their views, especially on social media, Jaffe said they aren’t often met with room for discussion.

“Their friends will do one of two things: they will completely abandon them, and they will no longer have them as a friend, or their friends will just [say] ‘Oh ok, that’s interesting,’ but they don’t really want to get into the nitty gritty in terms of policy,” she said.

Emory’s Open Expression Policy Chair of Emory’s Open Expression Committee and Associate Professor of Law Alexander Volokh explained that while private universities are “free to be as restrictive as they like,” Emory’s open expression policy grants “quasiFirst Amendment protections.”

The Committee writes opinions on events brought forward by community complaints or independent investigations. Enforcement falls on Campus Life or student conduct departments.

In the case of the Oxford chalkings, college administration delivered a response without committee recommendation.

Assistant Vice President of Campus Life Suzanne Onorato said the department takes an “educational approach” when enforcement is required, spreading awareness of the policy itself through means such as providing chalk and encouraging students to write their own messages.

Some students have lauded the University’s open expression policy,

though conservative students perceived University administrators as liberal-leaning. Former ECR President Christian Zimm (15Ox, 17C, 20B, 20L) evidenced former University President Claire Sterk’s filing amicus briefs against the Trump administration and recalled a resulting productive conversation between ECR leadership and Sterk.

Emory’s Board of Trustees 2020 election cycle donations, by comparison, were overwhelmingly Republican, with 67% of donations going to Republican campaigns and PACs. Stelmach pointed to widespread backlash to ECR’s decision to invite speaker Heather Mac Donald to speak on campus in January 2020 as an example of students’ unwillingness to engage.

He noted that during the talk a student screamed at Mac Donald, “trying to silence her.”

“She definitely said some things that even I don’t agree with and I’m sure most people didn’t agree with, [but] I didn’t think that she was openly attacking anybody,” Stelmach said.

Mac Donald received significant backlash from audience members when she spoke against affirmative action and claimed that “the vast majority of what is called campus rape [are] voluntary hookups.”

Jaffe said ECR was unprepared for the amount of “pushback” the event received. She pointed to Michael Knowles’ 2019 Emory visit as relatively more controversial in the content of his speech and credited the public response to Mac Donald to ECR’s growing profile since reforming in 2018.

Conservative community members

acknowledged students’ prerogative to protest. However, they believe that limiting speech arbitrarily could limit a range of views and ostracize conservative students.

Though Chimelli began college with an open mind about his beliefs, he stated that withstanding backlash solidified his conservative views.

“I think it showed me like I really do believe what I believe not just because of who I was surrounded by,” he said.

Jaffe noted that liberal student groups have “rejected” ECR’s requests to engage in debates, stating such groups have said they “don’t want to legitimate our policy or us as an organization.”

Jaffe specified two occasions: a debate with Emory International Relations Association (EIRA) about former President Barack Obama and Trump’s foreign policy and a debate coordinated through Emory Votes Initiative with the Young Democrats of Emory.

EIRA President Wendy Avilés (22C) told the Wheel that EIRA “couldn’t produce two organizations to discuss the issue,” and the event became an internal general body debate. Young Democrats President Alex Chanen (21C) said the organization was focused on organizing students around election issues at the time.

TableTalk is a student group that promotes challenging discussions and debates across campus. Co-Presidents Sabrina Flores (21C) and Brennan Dyson (21C) said while the club has adjusted to an online format, its mission remains important amid what Dyson described as a “chasm” between political parties.

“Perhaps it makes you uncomfortable and perhaps it makes you angry … but all in all, I also think that understanding the other aisle can make both of your arguments stronger,” Flores said.

While Jaffe’s term as ECR president ends in April, she said she would continue to support ECR in the face of hostility.

“My hope for the club is to just grow our membership, bring conservative voices and values to campus where they’re often drowned out by people on the left that have a more dominant space,” Jaffe said.

— Contact Caelan Bailey at cjbail3@emory.edu

Director of COVID-19 Response Urges Compliance Continued from Page 1 Goizueta Business School as an additional testing site.

The University’s increase in testing capacity since the fall semester also included plans for the possibility of testing twice a week. Emory does not anticipate any difficulties with processing the additional tests, according to St. Clair.

St. Clair said the University opted to increase screening test requirements in place of more severe measures such as shelter-in-place orders.

“Unfortunately we’re seeing spikes across lots of different colleges and institutions,” St. Clair said.

“And some of these colleges are responding by putting a shelter-inplace order in … I don’t want us to get to that point.”

For example, in early February, the University of California, Berkeley imposed a strict lockdown due to a spike in cases, prohibiting outdoor exercise. The University of

Massachusetts, Amherst also instituted a similar two-week lockdown following a rise in cases, which was lifted early this week.

Currently, on-campus students are allowed to have no more than three individuals within their room at all times. A maximum of 10 students are allowed in lounges and common areas.

The average time for a screening test result is under 30 hours. On-campus students have been 95% compliant with weekly testing since the beginning of the semester, St. Clair said.

It is difficult to pinpoint an exact number of students who have had their Wi-Fi access restricted due to non-compliance, according to St. Clair, because a student who fails to schedule a test can do so before the restriction goes into place, preventing it from taking effect.

According to Emory’s spring 2020 student compact, students who have violated COVID-19 guidelines receive one warning before receiving any official violations or incidence reports.

Failure to abide by University guidelines may result in loss of on-campus housing or ultimately expulsion.

Director of Student Conduct Julia Thompson declined to state the number of conduct violations and number of students who were removed from campus in a Feb. 16 email to the Wheel.

“We meet with the student and engage the parent/guardian to assist with determining the best outcomes for the student if they are having challenges adhering to the university policies,” Thompson wrote.

St. Clair said cases in last Wednesday’s spike are being investigated through the typical processes of contact tracing and cluster investigations. Cluster investigations involve attempting to trace where a group of people may have been exposed together.

— Contact Madison Hopkins at mhopki6@emory.edu, Grace Lee at grace.lee4@emory.edu and Sarah Du at sydu@emory.edu

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Wednesday, February 24, 2020

NEWS

Women’s March Co-Founder Discusses Racial Justice

By Claire Fenton Senior Staff Writer “Conversation is the first unit of social change.”

Racial justice organizer and Co-President of the Women’s March Board of Directors Rinku Sen reminded Emory students that community often sparks engagement surrounding social reform at her lecture “Activism and Mobilization: What Anti-Racism Can Look Like.” The Feb. 20 event was the first in a three-part series hosted by the Office for Racial and Cultural Engagement and College Council.

Although Sen’s resume includes being a co-founder of the Women’s March, for the former president of the racial justice organization Race Forward and one of Ms. Magazine’s “21 Feminists to Watch,” championing social justice was not always her natural calling.

While Sen was initially wary of activism as a 17-year-old sophomore at Brown University (R.I.), her friends convinced her to attend a racial justice rally after two white student-athletes beat up a Black freshman on campus.

“At the time, I had no intention of going to a racial justice rally,” Sen said. “[My friends] did an intervention on me, like you might do with your friends who just have blinders on or who are involved in some behavior that’s really harmful to them and others.”

As an Indian immigrant, Sen saw herself as a “minority” and felt uncomfortable being labeled as a person of color. She credited her friends for showing her that she did have a place in racial justice activism and opening her eyes to a meaningful, “deeper” community of like-minded individuals.

“I think that was the moment where I understood that being an American wasn’t about looking like Marcia Brady,” Sen said. “It really was about being in a community and working

with the people around you to make that community the most compassionate, the most inclusive community.”

Sen broke down the steps essential to a successful social justice organization.

While important to identify the broad, overarching problem at hand, she noted that pinpointing smaller related issues and attacking them one by one is the most effective strategy.

“When you’re organizing, what you’re doing a lot of the time is trying to figure out how you can take chunks out of the big problems that affect our society,” Sen said. “Problems are [a] wall, and when you just see it as a wall it’s really difficult to figure out how you’re going to make progress on it, how can things change so that people have an easier time getting access to the things they need access to.

Issues are that slice of a problem that helps you take a chunk out of that wall.”

Sen highlighted five areas for activists to focus on when tackling social justice issues: a constituency of people affected, research to validate claims, the specific causes, the large-scale demands and the targets who can meet them.

By defining each objective clearly, activists can better mobilize their communities and lay the groundwork for meaningful, long-lasting change, she said.

“Organizing is a sustained form of activism to build power and make change,” Sen said. “We often spend 80% of our time talking about the problem and 20% of our time talking about the demands and the solutions and the actions we all need to take to get us to those solutions. Consider flipping that.”

Referring specifically to racial justice, Sen described how activists cultivate a “racial lens” to understand how an issue impacts different demographics. She explained the goal of develop-

ing such a lens is not to become “colorblind” to race, but rather to confront how racial disparities are intertwined with social inequity and help communities that are disproportionately affected.

“I don’t feel that ‘anti’ is enough,” Sen said. “We can’t just tear something down. We have to build something else in its place. And what we’re building is racial justice, which I find to be a more sustainable destination. I actually think of anti-racism as steps along the path, but I think of racial justice as the actual destination.”

Sen fielded questions concerning the effectiveness of “pandering” social media activism and the difficulty of finding trustworthy social justice resources among the sea of internet information. While Sen was generally supportive of any action that sparks public discourse, she advised the audience to follow activists and organizations that espouse genuine, positive messages.

“The emotions that are going to get people to do more, those emotions certainly include anger, but they also have to include hope and optimism,” Sen said.

“I think an organizer’s job is to open up a path for people to be better versions of themselves.”

Sen encouraged all who are interested in social activism, no matter their previous level of knowledge or involvement, to join movements they are passionate about without fearing their inexperience will somehow lessen their contributions.

“Movements are built with people who never did anything before the first thing that they did,” Sen said. “I really want to encourage us to embrace that conversation, and to remember that conversation includes listening as well as talking.”

— Contact Claire Fenton at claire.fenton@emory.edu

The Emory Wheel

Pearl Dowe to Research Kamala Harris’ Legacy

By Sarah Davis Asst. News Editor Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Political Science and African American Studies Pearl Dowe is one of eight scholars nationwide selected for a fiveyear position on the Kamala Harris Project advisory board.

The board was created by the University of Southern California (USC) Dornsife Center for Leadership

by Women of Color to study the significance of Harris’ time in office.

USC Professor of Political Science and Gender and Sexuality studies Ange-Marie Alfaro appointed Dowe to the position following the results of the 2020 election. Dowe will serve for the duration of the Biden-Harris administration.

Board members will host academic conferences, conduct research and publish their findings over the next five years.

Each scholar will examine questions about the kinds of power women hold in authority positions and the impact they have on policy making decisions. The project will host a virtual conference on May 7 to mark the vice president’s first 100 days in office.

Dowe stressed the importance of researching the first woman to serve in such a prominent political position.

“We are coming from a position that, yes there’s a symbolic component here that has to be celebrated, but we’re also talking about a Black woman, Indian woman who’s in a position of power,” Dowe said. “What does that mean moving forward?”

As a scholar of African American history and politics, Dowe has extensively researched the history of Black politics and is a co-editor for the National Review of Black Politics.

She believes her experience editing

the academic journal will inform her research on the board.

“In that role, I have the opportunity and the privilege to review cutting edge research in the field,” Dowe said.

“It will help me think about different ways that power is impacting politics and particularly the interests of Black people.”

Dowe expects Harris to exercise significant authority and assume a major presence in the administration to prepare herself for future political positions.

“She has the opportunity to be the most powerful [vice president] because I think what is understood, and what has been said by some, … is that she is likely going to be the presidential nominee going into 2024,” Dowe said.

“There’s going to be a very strategic effort to have her engaged in very key areas of the administration.”

President Joe Biden has made efforts to include Harris in significant decision-making processes, including the decision to rejoin the World Health Organization and in Oval Office conversations about expanding COVID19 vaccine access to poor and rural communities.

Dowe noted that Harris will be able to weigh in on issues that are “critical in this moment,” such as the recent power and water outages in Texas, which already has and continues to disproportionately affect communities of color.

“She has opportunities to give a very different view and to add more of a complex type of conversation around not only why we see these things happen but the impact, which can therefore shape public policy in hopefully a more robust way,” Dowe said.

— Contact Sarah Davis at sgdavi4@emory.edu

Crossword: Three-Point Puzzle

By Aidan Vick, Associate Editor Across

Down

1. Religious non-believer 8. All success comes ___ ___ ___ 15. Squeeze out 16. Tarnishing, dirtying 17. Archaic version of “sometimes” 18. Slaves and servants 19. UV skin protection 21. Rahs- College game cheers 23. “___ the door” 24. Swindle 27. “Losing My Religion” band 28. God whose name is the same in Greek and Roman myth 30. “Year” in Spanish 31. Ammo clip or print entertainment 33. ___ Laszlo, skincare line used

by Marilyn Monroe 34. ___ ___ location 36. Another name for the Roaring Twenties 38. Embark from the shore 40. Trojan king in the “Iliad” 41. Letter and sensory word 43. “Don’t say I didn’t ___ you” 44. Burial vase 45. Maritime preposition 47. Fix, like a trap 48. Multi-handled mug 49. Costa ___ 50. Steinbeck’s “___ of Eden” 52. Weapon of a Hogwarts student 55. City on Lake Ontario 58. “Great Expectations” love interest 62. Native American spiritual life force in Algonquian groups 63. Inter-ear headphones 64. Sleeps on someone’s couch 65. Dallas Mavericks, or a clue to the beginning of 1, 19, 36 and 52 across

1. Texas grocery store chain 2. File type for applications 3. Cell service provider 4. ___ Stratus, WWE star 5. Decomposed plant material in soil 6. Titular paradise of “Paradise Lost” 7. “EarthBound” hero, “Super Smash Bros.” staple 8. Star-reading fortune teller 9. Where Dante goes first in “The Divine Comedy” 10. Expelled, like a grievance or a smell 11. Group united by kinship 12. Object of American imperialism 13. Celebrity skit show 14. Body fat esters abbr.

20. Mnemonic for proteins 21. Tie the knot twice 22. Spectacular, marvelous 24. Julius, Augustus, salad 25. College admissions, ideally 26. Only yin 27. Militaristic Hindu caste 28. Sports entertainment conglomerate 29. Exceedingly intelligent in youth 32. Wu-Tang member also known as “Genius” 35. With seeds or discontent 37. Grain-providing purple plant 39. Gold standard of reference books 42. Emory’s home of exercise, flatbreads 50. “Enters” in Spanish 51. What you owe 52. “Month” in French 55. Run-___, 90s basketball trio 56. Manual boat propellent 57. Microscopic messenger 59. LA Clippers coach 60. Latest MGMT album, abbr.

61. Suffix for sarc-, phant-, cytopl-

The Emory Wheel

Opinion

Wednesday, February 24 2021 | Opinion Editors: Ben Thomas (ben.thomas@emory.edu) & Brammhi Balarajan (bbalara@emory.edu)

EDITORIALS

Work-Study Is Inequitable, Outdated Federal work-study is a nearly 60-year-old program that aims to support low-income students by assisting them with nonacademic expenses such as food and transportation. Today, however, many work-study positions are menial jobs, like a tour guide or library assistant, that fail to offer students invaluable work experience or sufficient financial comfort.

Amid growing worries over student loan payment, forgiveness and postgraduate employment opportunities during the pandemic, the inefficiency of federal work-study jobs only exacerbates students’ current financial stress.

Federal work-study presents various issues for low-income students that the new administration must consider in light of rising student debt and financial insecurity. These include the burden of balancing a full academic course load with work and its negative impact on classroom success and ability to pursue extracurricular

opportunities.

The federal work-study program allows students from low- and middle-income backgrounds to work on campus for a few hours each week starting at $7.25 per hour, the federal minimum wage.

For instance, at Emory the program promises that work-study students can earn up to $2,500 each academic year to supplement housing and living expenses.

The reality of the work-study program is far more grim. On average, students who participate in the program nationwide only receive $1,850 each year — $650 less than the $2,500 maximum — because universities can only offer work-study positions on a part-time basis.

To earn the full $2,500, students may volunteer to take extra shifts, a decision that often forces them to choose between their academics and basic needs. For instance, studies have shown that students who work more

than 15 hours a week are likely to have a C grade average or lower, whereas those who work less than 15 hours a week are likely to have a B average or higher.

Students should not need to trade off between financial stability and academic success — academic institutions should work to ensure the work-study program serves as a pipeline to finding work experience and employment.

Since low-income students need to use their earnings from the work-study program to cover essential costs of living, financial constraints sometimes force them to take on extra shifts.

The financial difficulties disproportionately affect marginalized groups, causing them to overwork themselves: Black, Latinx, female and first-generation college students work the longest hours.

In comparison, otherwise privileged students can prioritize their academics because they do not have to tack on a heavy work schedule and are

also more likely to have connections to high-profile employers through their parents. Unlike low- or middle-income students, these more privileged students do not need to work long hours in work-study positions to network.

Low-income students can devote less time to their studies compared to their privileged counterparts, which keeps them behind on their studies and perpetuates the cycle of inequality.

The pandemic has only worsened low- and middle-income students’ experiences with the work-study program.

Many have lost positions that provided them with experience and connections in their future careers.In order to mitigate these barriers, workstudy programs should directly aid students’ job prospects.

Federal work-study is most beneficial for post-college employment when the jobs involved directly correlate with a student’s field of study, according to the Urban Institute.

Most students, however, take positions that don’t correspond with their major, such as attending a library desk or cleaning gym equipment, and the jobs leave them more stressed and exhausted.

This work does not offer low-income students the job-specific experience that is often necessary to find coveted internships and employment after graduation. Work-study programs that emphasize students’ career interests would help mitigate these costs.

As the nation faces student loan and unemployment crises that have been aggravated by the pandemic, lowincome students should not have to give up employment opportunities just to meet basic needs.

We urge the Biden administration to consider changing the focus of work-study from a university-centered task to job preparation in order to ensure that all students, regardless of financial need, can achieve academic and postgraduate success.

Emory, Moderate COVID-19 Internet Restrictions Before last week, all students residing on campus were required to test weekly for COVID-19.

For those who failed to schedule their next test for a given week, Emory decreased their internet speed and blocked access to certain entertainment and social media sites.

Due to the recent spike in COVID19 cases, President Gregory L. Fenves announced that all on-campus students must now be tested twice a week, organized by their residence halls, adding on to the existing punitive measures for students who failed to schedule a test.

There is no question that these restrictions on sites such as Amazon and Netflix incentivize students to keep up with the twice-a-week requirements.

However, Emory should lessen restrictions for students who fail to attend their testing in a timely manner.

Compounded by fewer on-campus events, strict health measures, and conflicts with jobs and internships, the unique circumstances of this year demand flexibility on the University’s part, especially since the process of receiving a test can be difficult.

Testing times make it challenging for some students to maintain a regular screening schedule.

All of the five testing sites are only open sometime between 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., so students with internships or jobs — on or off campus — may find it challenging to find time to get tested during business hours, another factor that adds to already demanding course schedules.

Occasionally, this complication means being one day late to satisfying compliance.

New rules now dictate the days on which students can be tested based

Slowing internet access can stress students out and further harm their mental health, which is already suffering. on their residence hall, which further hinders access.

This arbitrary testing schedule dis-

advantages those who test on Tuesdays and Fridays because if they miss their Friday appointment, they no longer have the chance to make it and may lose their internet for an entire weekend.

Slowing internet access can stress students out and further harm their mental health, which is already suffering.

Restricting social media access may lead students to feel as though the University is holding their free time hostage if they aren’t able to meet strict testing deadlines.

The heavily restricted social scene on campus already limits opportunities for students to relax and find a balance between work and leisure.

Maintaining widespread testing compliance is crucial for the health

and safety of the entire on-campus community, but it should not impinge on students’ access to adequate Wi-Fi and social media services.

Indeed, implementing a one-day grace period for students to schedule their tests would demonstrate that the University understands the various challenges students must confront while navigating their rigorous schedules.

A world that has largely moved online cannot cut off those who rely on it.

We can keep cases down and students properly connected to the internet without sacrificing either.

Emory students are not delinquents for whom major threats are necessary; we are adults, and the University must treat us accordingly.

The above editorials represent the majority opinion of the Wheel’s Editorial Board.

TThe Editorial Board is composed of Sahar Al-Gazzali, Brammhi Balarajan, Viviana Barreto, Martin Li, Yun Zhu, Rachel Broun, Jake Busch, Sara Khan, Sophia Ling, Demetrios Mammas, Meredith McKelvey, Sara Perez, Ben Thomas, Leah Woldai and Lynnea Zhang.

The Emory Wheel Volume 102 | Number 3

Madison Bober Editor-in-chiEf Isaiah Poritz ExEcutivE Editor Ayushi Agarwal Managing Editor Ryan Callahan Managing Editor Caroline Silva Managing Editor Rhea Gupta divErsity and inclusion Editor Jacqueline Ma Copy Chief Ninad Kulkarni News Editor Anjali Huynh News Editor Ben Thomas Opinion Editor Brammhi Balarajan Opinion Editor Angela Tang Emory Life Editor Jessica Solomon Sports Editor Forrest Martin Photo Editor Jackson Schneider Photo Editor Cailen Chinn Chief of Digital Media

Jada Chambers Copy Editor Michael Mariam Asst. Sports Editor Phyllis Guo Copy Editor Stephen Altobelli Asst. A&E Editor Gabriella Lewis Multimedia Ed Saru Garg Asst. A&E Editor Becca Moszka Multimedia Editor Aidan Vick Associate Editor Sarah Davis Asst. News Editor Jesse Weiner Associate Editor Matthew Chupack Asst. News Editor Sophia Ling Asst. Opinion Editor Yun Zhu Asst. Opinion Editor Kaitlin Mottley Asst. Emory Life Editor Lauren Blaustein Asst. Emory Life Editor

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The Emory Wheel welcomes letters and op-ed submissions from the Emory community. Letters should be limited to 300 words and op-eds should be at least 500. Those selected may be shortened to fit allotted space or edited for grammar, punctuation and libelous content. Submissions reflect the opinions of individual writers and not of the Wheel’s Editorial Board or Emory University. Send emails to emorywheelexec@gmail.com or postal mail to The Emory Wheel, Drawer W, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, 30322.

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OP-ED

Wednesday, February 24, 2020

The Emory Wheel

White Women, Racism Is Your Fault Too Rachel Broun In a recent live stream on Instagram, Representative Alexandria OcasioCortez (D-N.Y.) relayed her harrowing experience within the Capitol on Jan. 6, where white supremacists stormed the building and brought about destruction, pain and turmoil.

She narrated the terrifying ordeal she experienced and even stated that she “thought [she] was going to die.” Even as Ocasio-Cortez expressed her terror and trauma, her Republican opponents in Congress, such as Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), have attempted to discredit and invalidate her experiences surrounding the insurrection.

White women, such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), are able to achieve higher office despite their white supremacist views and active work against democracy, supporting claims that high-profile Democrats could be executed for their “treason” against the government. Armed with extremist views, they are given national platforms to spew conspiracies related to QAnon and disrupt the legitimacy of our government. They are active white supremacists within Congress, and their position threatens the accountability of Congress as a whole. Then and now, white women in the U.S. are active and passive participants in white supremacy.

The Women’s March, which began

in 2016 after former President Donald Trump’s election, is an example of how womanhood has become synonymous with anti-Trump rhetoric. During the march, women wore “pussyhats” as a visual statement against Trump’s sexism and in support of women’s rights.

However, the assumption that women oppose Trump is not always true: even after his sexist, racist and homophobic statements, 47% of white women voted for Trump in 2016. Several key members of Trump’s team are also white women with extremely anti-feminist opinions, such as former White House adviser Kellyanne Conway.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders upheld and defended Trump’s racist rhetoric at the press secretary’s podium. Even white women who tout progressive and leftist politics can use their platforms to further white supremacist narratives.

In today’s politics, Trump promoted white supremacy and many female members of his administration contributed to his violent and hateful rhetoric. For instance, Conway was the talking heads for Trump’s entire agenda; Sanders defended jokes Trump made regarding police brutality. No matter how discriminatory, white women contributed to hateful rhetoric throughout Trump’s presidency. Yet they are not held as accountable as other members, such as former Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), whose racist remarks led the House to condemn white supremacy in 2019. It is sex-

ist to assume white women are not responsible for the racism, sexism and discrimination of the Trump administration. They are just as complicit in white supremacy. Throughout slavery’s abominable history within the U.S., white women owned enslaved persons and committed brutal violence against them similar to their male counterparts. Marie LaLaurie, a white female slave owner in New Orleans, Louisiana, tortured and murdered the enslaved people she owned. Up to 40% of white women owned slaves during the height of American chattel slavery, and many abused them extensively.

These white women were complicit in the foundations of white supremacy in the U.S. After the abolition of slavery, white women have continued to perpetuate white supremacy throughout the U.S., even in the fight for their own civil rights. In the early 20th century, the suffrage movement was divided along strict racial lines. When the 15th amendment enfranchised Black men before white women, white suffragettes advanced their cause with racist rhetoric geared to place themselves ahead of other people of color. They focused more on traditional views of womanhood, specifically white womanhood, which completely erased women of color from the fight.

After the 19th amendment, white women became an essential enfranchised group who were able to leverage their white supremacy politically.

You Belong. Imposter Syndrome Doesn’t.

Chloe Wegryznowicz Last August, I sat in front of my laptop during orientation. I couldn’t stop worrying about how silly I looked on Zoom. While other first-years discussed how they spent their summers reading French philosophy or learning a second language, I was thinking about how I spent mine washing dishes in a Wendy’s. My head was a jumble. All of a sudden, I felt like I wasn’t enough. I felt like a fraud, and I was sure everyone knew it.

Psychologists call this sensation imposter syndrome (IS) or imposter phenomenon. IS causes your mind to lie and tell you that you aren’t smart or rich enough to belong — that you aren’t doing enough. It is a feeling of self-doubt so strong that even your achievements feel like losses. It is estimated that 70% of people will experience feelings of IS at least once in their lifetime, often in college. We must recognize that IS diminishes diversity, educational quality and the well-being of our peers and faculty.

Psychologist Audrey Ervin stated that IS applies to anyone “who isn’t able to internalize and own their successes.” For instance, high-achieving students from all backgrounds set unrealistic goals and expectations to seem like the “ideal” undergraduate.

But that ideal is a trap that causes students to feel like a fraud.

The pretense to be perfect prevents individuals from prospering in academics, work and relationships. As a result, college is no longer about pursuing academic growth, but about appeasing IS. Students from marginalized communities feel that pressure, especially acutely, even among those who excelled academically prior to college.

Many minority, low-income, disabled and first-generation students simply don’t have the privilege of support, which deprives them of the affirmation and advice helpful in overcoming IS. This isn’t to say that individuals who have access to support systems can’t develop IS, but minorities often lack the support of empathetic advisers,

counselors or parents with academic degrees. When you couple underrepresentation with a lack of support, it is easy to feel confused, alone and, in the case of IS, fraudulent.

Not only are students from marginalized communities predisposed to develop IS, but they are also already conditioned to feel like outsiders. IS strips people of their authenticity and threatens diversity. Especially at predominantly white institutions, there is pressure on students and staff to display a certain level of prestige and intelligence. This places unreasonable expectations on minority students, and they are set up to feel further out of place. This catastrophic pressure to

Imposter syndrome strips people of their authenticity and threatens diversity. be the cookie-cutter Western standard of perfection is ridiculous. It builds and buries students in the rubble of insecurity.

How can academic institutions expect to build a diverse, inclusive class when diverse students feel like imposters? Inclusivity isn’t a quirk.

When institutions preach about inclusion, diversity and acceptance but forgo the necessary steps to ensure those things, there is a systemic issue.

This is true whether or not that underrepresentation is classified as one of illness, economics, sex, gender or race. There is an obvious disparity between the represented and underrepresented, a gap that IS exacerbates by compelling insecure students to assimilate.

Despite its serious implications, IS is still not a recognized mental illness. Given the extent to which IS detracts from individuals’ life experiences, though, this needs to change.

Take, for instance, the impact of IS on undergraduates.

Professors at the University of Cincinnati found that IS causes under-

represented students to disengage from academic and social activities like joining clubs, going to campus gatherings and attending classes.

The study also concluded that those with IS have constant feelings of inadequacy and exhibit an unhealthy pressure to succeed.

IS prevents scholarly growth, and prestigious institutions aren’t doing enough to change this prevalent problem.

Universities, institutions and students should do more. We must provide more advising resources to the groups most susceptible to IS. There should be an extension of financial and academic support systems to include everyone, since seeking guidance may be especially difficult for underrepresented groups.

IS begins when individuals feel fraudulent and unworthy, so if you’re a student, change that. Learn to love people as they are, and learn to dispel unreasonable expectations of what a friend, student or peer should look like because everyone belongs here.

At Emory, I have noticed a one-sizefits-all, impersonal approach to advising and friendships. While I have met quite a few humble, kind and accepting staff and students, quite a few is clearly not enough.

Preventing students, staff and faculty from feeling like imposters begins with accepting and allowing authenticity.

Let’s normalize pre-med students in the theater and love pre-laws in the anime club. We must stop pressuring students to be prepackaged units of perfection — because then those students are less students than they are products of a machine.

Whether you spent the summer reading French philosophy or scrubbing dishes in a Wendy’s washroom, you belong.

Begin to accept your peers, your faculty and yourselves.

You don’t need to be perfect to be loved, and you don’t need to be perfect to love others.

Chloe Wegryznowicz (24C) is from Catawissa, Pennsylvania.

Many did so during Jim Crow, opposing school integration efforts and civil rights for people of color within the U.S. White men justified the despicable and abhorrent lynchings of Black men by claiming to be protecting white women. Weaponizing their voices, white women added to the abuse of Black, Indigenous and people of color across the U.S. Emmett Till was just a 14-year-old Black boy when a white woman’s lies led to his brutal and violent lynching in Mississippi in 1955.

Over 50 years later, Carolyn Bryant, the white woman at whom Till allegedly whistled, recanted a major portion of her testimony. Nothing happened to Bryant. Instead of facing any consequences for her lies, she continued to live in peace. Till was an innocent boy, robbed of his life due to a white woman’s lies, but he was not the only one lynched for the alleged protection of white women. These matters are not trivial or merely historical. Racism still exists throughout the U.S. and remains entrenched within the highest forms of government.

The civil rights white women advocated for in the 20th century and continue to fight for today are often centered around capitalist and patriarchal ideals. White women have and continue to raise their own status within this system rather than focus on destroying structures that affect all marginalized groups, thus ignoring the intersections of their gender, race,

class and sexuality that skew the axis of privilege. White feminism aims to place white women on equal footing with white men, disregarding other factors of oppression overlap with gender. Issues that broadly and deeply affect all women often affect women of color in more intense and multiplied ways. White feminism perpetuates the ideas of choice feminism and individuality as feminism, rather than undoing the systematic facets of oppression that many Black and Indigenous feminists seek to address.

As we work to undo the foundations of white supremacy in the U.S., we must acknowledge the extant white supremacy within our current structures before we can begin to address it.

White women need to understand how they can and have historically perpetuated white supremacy and need to actively fight against these systems.

White women: do your homework, walk your talk, go beyond white feminism and understand how the intersection of identities affects women of color beyond the difficulties you face.

Understand the history of oppression and be a listening ear. There is so much outside of the Women’s March that is necessary to learn and understand.

It is your responsibility to amplify women of color and listen to their lived experiences.

Rachel Broun (23C) is from Carrboro, North Carolina.

Rename Yerkes George Shepherd I am delighted that Emory University, where I teach, has worked tirelessly to eliminate racism and antiSemitism. However, Emory has overlooked an egregious example. Emory’s Yerkes National Primate Research Center, on Emory’s Atlanta campus with over 500 employees, and a division of the prestigious Woodruff Health Sciences Center, is named for Robert Yerkes. As I describe in detail in a recently published article, Yerkes was a racist, an anti-Semite and a champion of eugenics, who, even during the Holocaust, advocated for killing the mentally disabled. He was a central force in the passage of the racist Immigration Act of 1924, which excluded millions of Jews from the U.S. in the years before World War II. In Yerkes’ career, primate research was a sideline. Instead, his life’s main work was as a founder and leader of the eugenics movement from its beginning in the early 1900s until the Nazis copied it and took it to its logical conclusion. Even in 1941, as the Nazis were killing disfavored groups in concentration camps, Yerkes praised the Nazis and advised that, in order to improve the U.S. gene pool, “biologically unfit” people, such as those who were “mentally defective,” should be euthanized.

Yerkes was an anti-Semite and racist. Indeed, his work led directly to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Jews in the Holocaust. Yerkes was centrally effective in promoting antiSemitic and racist policies because he was a respected Harvard and Yale University scientist who created flawed studies that he promoted as creating a scientific basis for the inferiority of Jews and African Americans. He then championed the use of this sham science for promoting eugenics policies of sterilizing the “unfit,” of excluding Jews from the U.S. and of oppressing African Americans.

Specifically, Yerkes created the first widely used standardized test, administering it to millions of soldiers in World War I. The test was deeply flawed. Because of cultural bias, people

with white Northern European backgrounds — “Nordics,” as Yerkes called them — did best. Southern and Eastern Europeans, including Jews, performed much worse. African Americans were at the bottom. Ignoring environmental factors that also explained the results, Yerkes argued strenuously that the results showed Nordics were innately more intelligent than Jews, Slavs and African Americans. As a eugenicist, Yerkes concluded that the low-intelligence groups should not be permitted to degrade the U.S. gene pool. His test results were accordingly used for two purposes. First, the results were used to promote enforced isolation and sterilization of people with low test scores. Second, Yerkes argued tirelessly, in print and to Congress, that to preserve the quality of the U.S. population, Southern and Eastern Europeans should be excluded from coming to the U.S. Most importantly, Yerkes was central in promoting the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924. While still allowing easy immigration to the U.S. by white Northern Europeans, the act reduced immigration by people from Southern and Eastern Europe by approximately 90%. Notably excluded were millions of Jews who would otherwise have been offered sanctuary in the U.S. Instead, during the Nazi scourge, hundreds of thousands of people who would otherwise have been granted admittance to the U.S. were killed in Nazi death camps. Both in promoting the eugenics model that the Nazis copied and in helping deny sanctuary to European Jews, Yerkes contributed importantly to the Holocaust’s severity. In removing Yerkes’ name, Emory would conform with other institutions, such as the University of Michigan and University of Virginia. More than a year ago, I informed Emory’s leaders of Yerkes’ history and asked that the primate center no longer honor him. The name remains, although I have been told that my petition has been sent to a naming committee. I hope that the committee will soon remove this stain upon Emory.

George Shepherd is a professor of law at Emory University.

&

The Emory Wheel

Arts Entertainment Wednesday, February 24, 2021 | Asst. A&E Editors: Saru Garg (saru.garg@emory.edu) & Stephen Altobelli (saltobe@emory.edu)

Daft Punk: A Legendary Career in Review

Courtesy of Creative Commons

Daft Punk performs in Monterrey, California during their influential 2007 tour.

By Jeffrey Rosen Staff Writer Someone once told me people are born knowing the Beatles’ songs, and that saying also applies to one other group: Daft Punk. Exploding out of the French house scene in the mid ‘90s, Daft Punk, composed of Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel

de Homem-Christo, became one of the most influential and enigmatic electronic groups of all time, distinguishing themselves as all-time greats within house, disco, rock and dance. Their legendary tracks are unsung chapters in the pop canon, transcending house music as an electronic sub-genre and transforming into something entirely new. On Feb. 22, the futuristic duo

visualizing the south

uploaded a YouTube video titled “Epilogue,” which depicted the bandmates walking through a desert until de Homem-Christo attaches a bomb to Hangalter’s back and he explodes.

The clip ends wordlessly with a sunset; alongside a brief press announcement, the video concluded Daft Punk’s 28-year career. With an unmatched talent for sampling, pitch-perfect production and hard funk grooves, Daft Punk will undeniably be regarded as the most influential artists of all time.

Daft Punk may arguably be famous for their chromatic robot helmets, which disguised the pair’s identity. At the center of human bass and drums with electronic synths and vocals is the futuristic pathos of Daft Punk, mixing human sentiments with robot tech.

Daft Punk’s first album, “Homework” (1997), is the best look into their hardcore French house roots, with extended, distorted and intensely pulsating cuts. “Rollin’ & Scratchin’” and “Revolution 909” are prime examples of their raw house and electronic roots without the pop sheen they later became known for.

However, “Homework” still features several historic hits like “Da Funk” or “Around the World,” both of which are now dance music staples and the latter of which is a fine sample of Daft Punk’s master style. “Around the World” starts with a subdued main theme, slowly gaining energy and power until breaking open like a cresting wave of clarity and funk. Bright synth touches pop up

film review

‘I Care a Lot’ Can’t Answer Why You Should Care

in every corner and the whole track is pulled by a thumping bassline and the iconic robotic repetition of the words “around the world.” The very activity of dance itself is something ingrained in human nature, yet this passionate and bodily act is propelled by these automatic music-making machines.

Four years after “Homework,” Daft Punk released “Discovery” (2001). The production and sampling throughout this album represent a divine and nearly unmatched level of musical genius. The opener, “One More Time,” is an example of this sampling magic, pulling micro-samples from Eddie John’s “More Spell on You” (1979).

The result is a bittersweet, euphoric and bouncing anthem celebrating the power of dance. The first half of this album features numerous other house masterpieces like “Aerodynamic,” “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” and “Crescendolls.”

However, “Discovery” progresses far beyond simple energetic dance tunes and dives into atmospheric and cerebral house. “Voyager” is a celestial and supersonic trip through space, and in similar fashion, “Veridis Quo” is a wholesome safe space, feeling almost like the rest area in some sci-fi video game. Other tracks like “High Life” or “Face to Face” are incredibly forwardthinking, perfecting the aesthetics of future-funk and vaporwave more than a decade before their real conception as a genre. “Discovery” was also

“There’s no such thing as good people.” Among the first lines spoken in the film, this sentiment is front and center in writer-director J Blakeson’s new criminal dark comedy “I Care a Lot” on Netflix. Blakeson never lets you forget this opening stance as he dives deep into a critique of late-stage capitalism and attempts to get the audience to root for the unrootable, sympathize with the un-sympathizable and care about the un-careable, all to wildly differing levels of success.

“I Care a Lot” opens with a compelling con: Marla Grayson (Rosamund Pike) serves as a court-appointed legal guardian to elderly wards whom she claims can no longer live independently. This enables Marla to shove her clients into nursing homes while she drains their assets, sells their houses and controls their visitation rights.

Marla holds her elderly prey hostage until their untimely death in the nurs-

See iconic, Page 8

See new, Page 8

By Zack Levin Contributing Writer

local arts

The Best Little A Memorable Night of Swinging Jazz at the High Slaughterhouse in Texas

By Eythen Anthony Staff Writer

If you’ve ever explored horror films from the late 20th century, then there’s a good chance that you’ve seen Tobe Hooper’s work. Born in Texas, the writer and director is known for his violent films often set in his home state. Three examples include his killer crocodile motel film “Eaten Alive” (1976), his arthouse horror masterpiece “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’’ (1974) and its more comedic sequel “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2” (1986). Besides the shared setting, the three films also feature mentally-ill and uneducated antagonists affected by past trauma. At first glance, it appears that Hooper is simply painting a negative portrait of the Lone Star State. In reality, Hooper uses horror to highlight issues harming the state, such as lack of access to education, steady poverty rates and increased support for war.

Although Hooper has spoken about his love for his birthplace of Austin, the themes and inspirations for these films often seem to relate to his personal trauma or have some basis in horrific Texan events. “Eaten Alive” is based on the murders of Joseph Ball, a World War I veteran who fed his victims to alligators outside his Texas saloon. Co-writer Kim Henkel has noted Houston murderer Elmer Wayne Henley as an example alongside Edward Gein for the inspiration for Leatherface. These examples illustrate how Hooper’s upbringing and the history of the state reflect his view and

depictions of Texas.

“Eaten Alive” is a niche B-movie about a man who kills people and feeds them to the crocodile outside his hotel. However, using some of the information from above, one begins questioning the reasoning behind Judds’ actions. It’s implied that Judd was a soldier during World War II thanks to his prosthetic leg and various war memorabilia — he is depicted having war flashbacks before killing a patron (William Finley) who begins shooting at his crocodile. With this information, one can assume that Judd is a victim of PTSD as a result of his service, possibly meant to recall the story of Ball. Hooper uses this to question Texas’ continued militaristic interests. Judd is a symbol of Texas’ involvement in the military, as the state is cited with sending the most troops out of any state during WWII. Hooper creates a relationship between war and the continued deaths that can result from it. “Eaten Alive” was a product of Hooper’s anti-war mindset meant to explore the dangers facing Texans if they continue supporting war efforts.

One of Hooper’s most critically acclaimed works, “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” is a classic within the horror genre, often recalled when one thinks of the state. While there actually aren’t that many chainsaw-wielding killers, the film highlights the effects of poverty and lack of access to education in the state. Although Leatherface is the primary antagonist of the film,

See hooper, Page 8

A lex Wellisch/Contributing

The John Robertson Trio performs to a live audience at the High Museum of Arts.

By Alex Wellisch Contributing Writer As jazz clubs and music venues nationwide weather the ongoing pandemic, live music concerts of all kinds are few and far between. But on the third Friday of every month, jazz and art aficionados alike come together safely to attend Friday Jazz at the High Museum of Art in Midtown Atlanta. On Feb. 19, the show featured smooth and riveting jazz performances by the John Robertson Trio and the Milkshake Quintet.

Once inside, museum ushers explained the trio would play in the main auditorium while the Milkshake Quintet play in an adjacent building. I decided to attend the John Robertson Trio’s performance first.

While labeled a trio, the group began the night as a duo consisting of John Robertson himself on the keyboard accompanied only by the trio’s bass player and a vacant drum set. Even as a bass and piano duet, the jazz was swinging. Immediately, I could gather that this would be a night of smooth and jubilant tunes, largely due to the fact that Robertson was just as comfortable behind the microphone as he was behind the keys, singing his own rendition of Ella Fitzgerald’s “It’s Only a Paper Moon.” Later on, the two musicians were joined by Robertson’s son, James Robertson, who completed the trio. James sat down at the drumset and jumped right in, adding the delicate punch needed to complete the music.

Of course, some aspects of the

typical concert scene were modified to comply with safety guidelines and protocols. Seating was limited, and standing audience members were, for the most part, 6 feet apart. The audience members, along with the musicians, were required to wear masks throughout the performance. The Milkshake Quintet performed behind a wall of plexiglass, and Milkshake Mayfield himself was required to put a covering on the bell of his trumpet.

Apart from the safety protocols, what made the concert distinctive was its integration with the entirety of the museum. Concertgoers were encouraged to use the ramp in the auditorium to explore the museum’s vast collection of art exhibits rang-

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8

Wednesday, February 24, 2021

Hooper Unmasks Terrors of Reality

Continued from Page 7 he is only part of a murderous family that antagonizes a group of visiting teens. Working alongside Leatherface is Nubbins Sawyer (Edwin Neal), the hitchhiker seen at the beginning of the film, and Drayton Sawyer (Jim Siedow), the leader of the group. The trifecta is depicted as a group of uneducated people who work in closed, dilapidated facilities. The teenage gang picks up Nubbins at the beginning of the film, but his violent tendencies get him kicked out of the group shortly after. While talking to the teens, he explains he used to work at an old slaughterhouse nearby.

Drayton is first introduced at the beginning of the film working at a run-down gas station without fuel.

Leatherface, while unemployed, does work for his family to remove the main characters from their cluttered house.

Just as Judd was used to highlight the militarism of Texas, the Sawyer family highlights the poverty in the state. In a 2020 report, Texas ranked 40th and 37th nationwide for the highest poverty rate and percentage of young people pursuing higher education, respectively. Writing the Sawyers as uneducated men that antagonize a group of college students separates working-class Texans and elitist undergraduates, thus visualizing the destructive effects of reduced funding in impoverished areas within the state.

Although “The Texas Chainsaw

Massacre 2” is considered vastly different in tone, it blends the anti-war themes of “Eaten Alive” with the acknowledgment of poverty’s realities in “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”

There is little continuity from the first film, but an important addition to the sequel is the inclusion of a new Sawyer: Robert “Chop Top” Sawyer (Bill Moseley), a Vietnam veteran with an exposed metal plate in his head. Again, Hooper’s anti-war sentiments are clear, as Chop Top is a direct product of conflict — and his vicious actions, such as cannibalism only continue this cycle of destruction. The home of the Sawyers changes too, as they move to an abandoned amusement park. Yet again, Hooper utilizes the deteriorating setting to illuminate the poverty affecting Texas and, through the choice of a theme park, blames consumerism for this degradation.

Although it may seem that Hooper employs the negative aspects of his birthplace to fuel further stereotypes of the state, he’s really wielding horror to serve its primary function: underscoring the terror of reality. As “Get Out” (2017) did with white liberals, Hooper illuminates the problems Texans face through horror. While cannibal families and crocodile attacks are scary, they merely act as symbols for the real horrors the Lone Star State battles.

— Contact Eythen Anthony at eaantho@emory.edu

Music Uplifts ATL Crowd

A lex Wellisch/Contributing

The Milkshake Quintet performs in a separate building of the High Museum of Art in Atlanta.

Continued from Page 7 ing from modern and contemporary art to an exhibition on African art.

Due to the structure of the museum, which features art galleries that circle the auditorium, the music could be heard deep into the exhibitions. It was an experience that beautifully combined two separate art forms.

After a long walk through the extensive art galleries accompanied by lingering background jazz from the trio, I walked over to where the Milkshake Quintet was performing.

While not as colorful and grand as the auditorium, this room was much more intimate.

While the John Robertson Trio played feel-good sing-along tunes and waltzes, the Milkshake Quintet opted for a more upbeat, high tempo, almost gospel-jazz fusion. The music was uplifting, to say the least, and the vocalist, Milkshake’s wife Christine Mayfield, even paused in between songs to let her audience know that they could “show some love” to the Quintet by clapping, dancing

or shouting to express enjoyment.

It was undoubtedly an enthralling performance.

All around, the event fed my musical appetite in a way that has been long overdue as a result of the pandemic. Walking into the High Museum, my first time inside a museum and at a live concert since last January, I was instantly overcome with nostalgia and excitement.

Standing in line, I saw other concertgoers with the familiar look of eagerness and anticipation before witnessing a live performance. Even the mundane act of waiting in line and scanning my ticket put a wistful smile on my face. If nothing else, the experience brought back traces of a simpler, more pleasant time before COVID-19. So, if you, like me, are having a burning urge to safely attend a live concert amid a pandemic, the High Museum’s monthly jazz night is likely your best chance.

— Contact Alex Wellisch at aawelli@emory.edu

A&E

The Emory Wheel

New Netflix Movie Falls Flat

Courtesy of Netflix

Marla Grayson (Rosamund Pike) stands in front of a wall of senior citizens to whom she serves as legal guardian.

Continued from Page 7 ing home, after which she picks up another unsuspecting victim and pulls the whole grift all over again.

The central scheme of “I Care a Lot” thrillingly establishes and develops the film’s commentary on late-stage capitalism. The early scenes of the film establish a stark contrast: Marla and her co-conspirators relish in their stolen wealth while their victims pay a heavy toll, suffering forced medications and extreme restrictions. The first act is exciting in its amoral complexities as it forces the audience to confront the con’s human consequences while simultaneously indulging in the high-life the hustlers achieve by taking advantage of helpless seniors.

Pike plays the con artist at the center of the scheme in a standout performance that perfectly captures the callous amorality of the film’s swindle.

Marla is a shark with a plastered-on smile, deftly flipping between a sincere surface-level guardian and the coldblooded capitalist who lurks beneath.

Her performance is the engine on which the film runs and relies.

Unfortunately, once the movie’s actual plot kicks in, which involves Marla going up against the Russian mafia after she accidentally cons an elderly woman with a shady past, “I Care a Lot” loses much of what made its central conceit and character

engaging in the first place.

Initially, the film is steeped in a murky sense of morality, indulging in Marla’s thrillingly apathetic antics while still balancing portrayals of her actions’ actual consequences. By introducing the mafia, an obviously greater evil, as an antagonist to the inherently corrupt character of Marla Grayson, the film undermines its own characterization of Marla. “I Care a Lot” is forced to simultaneously portray Marla as an underdog trying to outmaneuver a well-oiled operation that is hell-bent on taking her out as well as a callous businessperson who basks in her victims’ suffering. The lack of consistency in the film’s framing of Marla’s actions leads to a passive, detached viewing experience — it’s nearly impossible to be invested in a character that waffles between a complicated anti-hero and an indisputable protagonist.

This inability to become invested in the plot is only heightened by the fact that the film repeatedly denies any substantial complications to Marla’s goals until more than halfway through.

“I Care a Lot” does not establish that there’s any possibility for Marla and those close to her to fail in their scheme throughout the first half of the film. This lack of set-up ultimately sabotages “I Care a Lot” for itself later down the line, when the heat begins to rise around the protagonists because

of the film’s aggressive insistence that the world bends to whatever is convenient or lucky for the main characters.

The film’s overreliance on convenience as a plot device diminishes any chance of a suspenseful experience during pivotal scenes.

“I Care a Lot” finds its footing again in its ending, which offers an exciting development that returns to the first act’s indulgence in ethical ambiguity and character-driven actions rather than conforming to whatever the plot necessitates. Unfortunately, even this hurts the film, as the ending feels more like a development that should’ve served as the inciting incident following “I Care a Lot”’s first-act instead of the conclusion of Marla’s story. The ending retroactively makes a bulk of the film feel superfluous; acting more like filler to provide content for Netflix than a fully-fleshed out story.

Though “I Care a Lot” features an exciting avenue through which to critique capitalism and a chillingly charismatic performance from Pike, the plot Blakeson chooses to tell with those pieces muddies any intrigue that the film’s successful elements tried to establish. “I Care a Lot” fails to answer a simple but essential question: “Why should I care?”

— Contact Zack Levin at zack.levin@emory.edu

Iconic Electronic Duo Disbands Continued from Page 7 released as the soundtrack to a sci-fi anime film, “Interstella 5555,” which perfectly suits the colorful and futuristic feel of the album. “Discovery” is a high watermark for music as an art form, combining orchestrally grand dance classics with artful, complex and emotional melodies.

In the 10 years following 2001, Daft Punk continued to set the standard for high quality, high fidelity and forward-thinking dance music.

The duo’s output stayed fresh, including several remixes and collaboration albums such as “Human After All” (2005) and the “Tron: Legacy” (2010) movie soundtrack. All of these projects saw the duo exploring various electronic realms and influenced the incorporation of electronic club and dance genres into pop, something that remains widely popular.

There was also the inventive and influential “Alive 2007,” a recorded live set from the duo’s historic 2007 tour. On this tour, Daft Punk reinvented their concert set, creating a gargantuan pyramid and innovative lighting array upon which to perform.

Daft Punk’s wildly theatrical stages set

a new standard for complex design and majestic grandiosity expected from 21st-century concerts.

Daft Punk actually finished off their career eight years ago in 2013 with their last studio album, “Random Access Memories,” proving them to be as powerful and relevant as ever. There was the phenomenal “Get Lucky” featuring Pharell Williams and Nile Rodgers which has held up as one of the greatest pop songs of all time.

Other songs like “Give Life Back To Music” or “Lose Yourself To Dance” see the group returning to their nearreligious celebration of the power of music and dance.

Tracks like “Touch” or “Beyond” feature classical orchestration, reminiscent of ‘70s disco aesthetics but revitalized with modern synth-funk instrumentation.

The duo’s influence is impossible to overstate. Nearly every move Daft Punk made left a powerful mark on electronic music and popular music.

Artists such as LCD Soundsystem, Panda Bear, Kanye West, Pharell Williams and Skrillex — just to name a few — cite Daft Punk as a foundational influence upon them sonically, visu-

ally and philosophically. Whether it’s the robot helmets, shiny suits or retrofuturistic aesthetic, the group’s visual components feel intentionally crafted and genuine.

The visual aspect of the robot helmets, designed by Paul Hahn, Alex Courtes and Martin Fougerol was a critical part of their philosophy. For the group, the music and artistry were separate from the creators themselves — their music served as a sacred and safe space for personal expression while their personal lives remained out of the limelight.

For a while, European dance music was considered very cheesy and unhip, especially within American circles. Daft Punk was unapologetic about their love of dancing, the club scene and their uncompromising vision for the future of music and art, making it cool again to love electronic music and dancing.

Whether you’re a lifelong fan or a first-time listener, pay tribute by connecting to your nearest hi-fi sound system and play it loud.

— Contact Jeffrey Rosen at jrose77@emory.edu

The Emory Wheel

Emory Life

Wednesday, February 24, 2021 | Assistant Emory Life Editors: Lauren Blaustein (lblaust@emory.edu) & Kaitlin Mottley (kmottle@emory.edu)

STUDENT RESEARCH

SCHOOL SPIRIT

How Seniors Adapted Their Swoop vs. Dooley: Which Mascot Is Best?

Theses Under COVID-19

By Christine Plaster Contributing Writer

By Joyce Zhao Contributing Writer LWriting a senior thesis is an extensive, strenuous process even during a normal academic year, but it can prove to be even more challenging during a raging pandemic. Like anything that combines curiosity and academic interest, the toll that such a lengthy project takes on students vary widely.

For her thesis, economics and psychology major Nikita Dsouza (21C) is exploring the intricacies that contribute to decision making. Dsouza noted that COVID-19 has made inperson interactions with her subjects challenging.

Nikita Dsouza (21C)

Courtesy of Nikita Dsouza

“Usually in a regular year you can get people to sign up relatively easily,” Dsouza explained. “I think this year the number of participants is definitely … taking a hit.”

Dsouza anticipated this hardship and even considered moving her study completely online. However, after reading “articles on the difference between hypothetical decisions and tangible in-person decisions,” she changed her mind, noting that she didn’t want the quality of her research to be negatively impacted.

Somewhat similar to Dsouza, economics and mathematics joint major Danielle Handel (21C) is examining how socioeconomic status mediates the effects of exposure to tropical cyclones on infant health prior to birth.

For Handel, using Zoom through-

out the pandemic facilitated her thesis process, as it allows her to more easily schedule meetings with her adviser.

Flexibility aside, Handel still decried Zoom fatigue.

“The hardest thing is having Zoom classes all day and staring at my computer all day and then being like, ‘Okay, now I have to work on my thesis and code for like three hours,’” Handel said.

Peter Lee (21C)

It’s time to finally settle a decadeslong debate. Dooley has reigned on campus as the “unofficial” mascot since his first appearances in 1899, empowering students by speaking his mind when no one else would. Swoop, on the other hand, took the campus by storm in 1987 sporting vibrant yellow and blue, leading athletes to championships all while students cheered alongside him. They are both beloved, but who is dearest? Today we will judge them based on the crucial characteristics needed for leading the Emory student body.

COVID-safe Initiatives

Courtesy of Peter Lee

Another economics and mathematics joint major Peter Lee (21C) is investigating overconfidence through the phenomena of binge-watching TV. “What if you are overconfident about your ability to stop watching TV whenever you want? This is where phenomena like procrastination and binge-watching come in,” Lee explained. “My thesis is about coming up with a theoretical model that predicts — explains at least — why bingewatching happens.” For Lee, being completely virtual has aided his thesis — people have been watching TV more than ever before.

The pandemic has also allowed Lee to skip out on a central part of his thesis: subject observation. He noted he has largely avoided awkward inperson monitoring by “gathering the data from people in their most natural state” — their own home.

COVID has not been a factor of change in his thesis, since his data stems from indirect subject interac-

See STUDENTS, Page 10

During the pandemic, there is nothing more important than keeping our students, staff and educators safe and healthy, and one particular mascot has saved the day. Swoop himself determined what a safe distance looks like by telling us to stay a safe 6-feet swooplength apart, and the administration has since put this information on every poster and sticker they could get their hands on. Dooley, on the other hand, has yet to comment on the COVID-19 outbreak. Perhaps he saw no reason to be concerned because, as a skeleton, he cannot contract the virus herself — how inconsiderate. Swoop steals this category. Dooley needs to start catching up on the current events of the living.

Communication Skills Emory, in its fundamentally inclusive nature, includes two mascots that struggle with speech. Dooley cannot communicate verbally because of the unfortunate lack of vocal cords, an esophagus and organs, however he is able to carry his weight through exqui-

BLACK HISTORY

Illustration by Angela Li

site penmanship. It has yet to be confirmed whether Swoop knows English, though it would be quite impressive if he could. Another inconvenience is the severe carpal tunnel Swoop experiences in his talons when trying to write autographs, so writing long essays like Dooley is near impossible. Dooley has to take the cake on this one.

Mobility Emory’s beautiful Atlanta and Oxford campuses offer numerous areas to walk around and meet up with members of the student body.

Swoop is quite agile as an athlete and is rumored to fly around campus, as any good mascot does. He also makes rather frequent appearances. Dooley, once again, is deceased, so mobility in any form is a challenge, (I’m sure that cane enters supernatural realms beyond human comprehension), but to our disbelief he still manages. Either way, a cane shows weakness even for, quite literally, a dead woman walking, so Swoop earns a gold star for mobility.

Cost Efficient In the final category, one must consider the economic benefit of having a low-demand mascot in order to allocate

After that constructive debate, we’re left with a tie. No one can deny the mascot capabilities of this particular pigeon and skeleton. All Emory students should feel safe knowing these gifted and one-of-a-kind individuals dedicated their lives to leading us on campus, and we get both of them.

— Contact Christine Plaster at christine.plaster@emory.edu

Your Guide to Pandemic Online Shopping

Associate Professor of Medicine Jason Cobb (Left), Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Philosophy George Yancy (Middle) and Senior Lecturer in the Department of African American Studies Michelle Gordon (Right).

Black Profs. Talk Black History Month

When Dr. Grant S. Shockley joined the Candler School of Theology in 1970, he was the University’s first Black professor. In his wake, Black faculty members have helped transform Emory into the illustrious institution it is today. To commemorate these lead-

Conclusion

CLOTHING

By Sophie Gern Contributing Writer

By Josh Kim Contributing Writer

school funds to important resources, like infinite paper bags at the Dobbs Common Table and free pens to sign COVID-19 test forms. Swoop’s home is the Woodruff Physical Education Center, and that is one expensive nest.

With the school supporting a boujee eagle, we may never have the money for soft and strong toilet paper. Dooley is quite the opposite; this girl owns one outfit that we hope occasionally gets washed at the afterlife laundromat, and has no need for food, water or sleep. Metaphorically speaking, Dooley needs less maintenance than your Trader Joe’s house cactus. With an economic surplus like that, no one can deny the undead of their superb resource allocating skills.

ers and Black History Month, which was created by historian Carter G. Woodson in 1926 — the Wheel asked Black faculty what this month means to them.

Senior Lecturer in the Department of African American Studies and Director of Undergraduate Studies Michelle Gordon stated that Black History Month “signals to me that

Black history has yet to be integrated fully into the mainstream narratives and collective understanding of socalled Western or American history.”

However, it “remains valuable and necessary, even as we also see disappointing, tokenistic, and superficial attempts to acknowledge BHM in

See YANCY, Page 10

With the closure of many clothing stores and limited capacity in those that remain open, online shopping has taken center stage. This, in combination with our tendency to fantasize about a COVID-free world where we are all style icons, has led to a phenomenon I like to call “online shopping for the future.” If you’re looking to cope with your shopping addiction without the risk of in-store browsing, below is a list of five online clothing websites to get your wardrobe ready when you finally leave your house.

Depop Scouring Depop is like searching for treasure: a bit laborious, but worth the effort to find a steal. Launched in 2011, the online store allows you to second-hand shop and recycle what someone may call “old” clothing, which is becoming ever more important for the environment and in today’s fashion scene. My tip for sorting through the overwhelming number of items is to find a handful of reliable sell-

ers who frequently update their selections. Buying from select sellers means you take less of a risk with each purchase because you know the quality and authenticity of the products. A few of my personal favorites are: @ deconleecarlson, @alicefletchdf, @ manymanyclothes and @judelangley.

Happy thrifting.

Urban Outfitters Urban Outfitters is the quintessential go-to. With fast shipping and high quality items, it’s perfect for the shopper in need of a last minute basic.

However, Urban isn’t necessarily the place to find a unique item, or anything budget-friendly. Its audience being mostly teenage girls means that you’re likely to be one among thousands of owners of a single t-shirt.

Unlike the rest of the stores on this list, however, Urban Outfitters also sells home, lifestyle and beauty items.

Its multifunctionality is one of the best aspects of the website; when you order a shirt you can add in a cute throw pillow or new phone case, and who

See 5, Page 10

10

Wednesday, February 24, 2021

Students Show Resilience in Research Continued from Page 9 tion. He noted that he specifically wanted “data from people in their most natural state” — their own home.

Danielle Handel (21C)

Courtesy of Danielle Handel

“Even without COVID, I can’t just talk to them, I kind of have to have them watch TV on their own and then give me their data instead of me camping right next to them as they watch TV and getting their data,” Lee said.

As a result, Lee notes that the pandemic’s effect hasn’t been “that bad.”

That is, notwithstanding the difficulties of the process itself. When faced with obstacles, however, Lee remains resilient.

“To an extent, your creation is like your own child,” Lee reflected. “You’ve invested in it and you … want to see it succeed, so that by itself … drives me to finish the task.”

— Contact Joyce Zhao at joyce.zhao@emory.edu

EMORY LIFE

The Emory Wheel

Yancy: Black History Month Is About ‘This Moment in American History’ Continued from Page 9

When asked about how students “This is something that we can many facets of society.” can learn about Black history on cam- include in our curriculum, and what In an email to the Wheel, Samuel pus and in Atlanta, Gordon plainly we do at Emory, and especially being Candler Dobbs Professor of Philosophy noted, “seek and you shall find.” here on the health care side,” Cobb George Yancy wrote the month “The James Weldon Johnson said. “We’re in Atlanta. We have a very demands “the recognition of a blues Institute hosts weekly free lectures diverse patient population. We need people who may suffer, but to talk about racism, how it where suffering will never affects our patients, how it have the last word.” affects possible employees.”

Specifically, he stated, Tower-Gilchrist noted “Black History Month should the reductive challenges of “Just look around, ask questions, mark a time for deep reflecattempting to celebrate the tion for all Americans to wonder and read. Don’t wait on Black rich history of Black inditake a deep look into the viduals in a single month. history to present itself to you” American soul and ask: How She noted that the contribumuch longer will Black peotions of lesser known Black ple find it hard to breathe?

— Michelle Gordon, figures are often underrepHence, Black History Month Senior Lecturer in the Department of resented in this discourse. is not just about our history, “Within that one month, Afircan American Studies and honoring that history, we’re trying to appreciate it is about this moment in all of the people throughout American history.” history that are black indiAdjunct Lecturer of viduals who have contributBiology Cristy Towered,” Tower-Gilchrist stated.

Gilchrist lauded Emory’s efforts to that often deal with Black history ... “It should be year round, 12 months, commemorate Black History Month Just look around, ask questions, won- every day — mention these individuals through virtual events, as she believes der, and read,” she wrote. “Don’t wait and appreciate the accomplishments this setting accommodates those on Black history to present itself to they have had.” who otherwise could not attend live you.” meetings.

For Associate Professor of Medicine Kaitlin Mottley contributed report “I often wondered why some of these Jason Cobb (06M), Black History events weren’t offered before that way,” Month should be at the forefront of — Contact Josh Kim at Tower-Gilchrist said. “That way it can Emory’s health care curriculum. jki3527@emory.edu be more inclusive for everyone.”

TRAVEL

During COVID-19, Students Took Classes in New Locations

Continued from Page 9 doesn’t want that?

Reformation Reformation is the most expensive store on this list, but for good reason.

Every item I’ve invested in has been worth the price due to the high quality of their products and the sustainable production. RefScale is Reformation’s effort to track their environmental footprint, namely carbon dioxide and water use. They also calculate how their products help reduce environmental impacts compared to other U.S. clothing companies. It’s not the place for a quick turnaround sort of purchase — these pieces are special. The money’s worth it in the effort to be environmentally conscious. Reformation is perfect for a beautiful top or dress that you will own and wear for life. I purchased their Orangerie Dress last summer and it served as the perfect versatile dress: stunning for both day and night. Reformation also produces comfortable, high quality jeans that have a wide range of fits for any body shape. Like the rest of Reformation’s products, these jeans are built to last.

Don’t be surprised if your five-year-old pair comes out of the wash looking good as new. Check Reformation out if you’re looking to invest.

Isabelle’s Cabinet

By Allison Reinhardt Contributing Writer It is no secret that the past year of Zoom classes and limited face-to-face interaction has rendered an entirely new college experience: one that lacks the typical daily excitements that come with being a student.

Despite the disappointments of virtual classes that many college students continue facing, several Emory students have taken the circumstances as an opportunity to study in a new setting.

For Tyson Zhang (22B), the prospect of learning in a different location excited him.

“It’s kind of a cool opportunity to explore new places since I don’t exactly have to be in Atlanta,” Zhang said.

Along with a small group of friends, Zhang traveled from his home in Virginia to both Colorado and Utah during the Fall semester, where he hiked frequently and learned to ski. He is currently taking classes from Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

When making the choice to study away from both home and the Atlanta area, Zhang noted the social and academic benefits.

“Overall, I think living with friends is just more fun,” Zhang said. “At home, there isn’t really a good study environment.

Whereas here, you know, all of us are college students on Zoom, and there is a more academic environment, and I feel like I can be more focused on my work.”

While Zhang yearned for the chance to be safely surrounded by friends throughout this school year, sophomore Andrew Shulman (23B) chose to study in a place that would allow him to further explore his religion.

“When Emory moved online due to COVID-19, I saw a tremendous opportunity ahead of me,” Shulman wrote.

“After discussing with my parents and friends, I realized I could continue my secular education while pursuing a religious one.”

5 Sites to Buy Quality Clothing

This website is probably the least known of the ones mentioned, which is what I love about it. Isabelle’s Cabinet is a boutique store with two locations in California, yet it has a vast online selection. This means you can get a small store shopping experience online, which is quite rare. Due to the California-chique aesthetic of the clothes, it’s a great option for summer and spring as they specialize in floral tops, flowy dresses and pastel colored mini skirts. If you’re looking to expand your warm weather wardrobe, this is the perfect place.

UNIF

Courtesy of Tyson Zhang, James Chapman and Andrew Shulman

With classes remaining virtual through the spring, Tyson Zhang (22B) (Left), James Chapman (24C) (Middle) and Andrew Shulman (23B) (Right) used the opportunity to “study abroad.”

While he is still enrolled at Emory part-time, Shulman has been studying at Yeshivas Ohr Somayach in Jerusalem since this past Fall.

“I was introduced to Ohr Somayach by a friend at Emory and soon became enamored with it,” Shulman added.

“Ohr Somayach offers incredible mentorship, access to Judaic literature and a supportive community, all while being in Judaism’s holiest city.”

Between in-person lectures, Emory Zoom classes, meals, and prayer times, Shulman’s days are packed to the brim with activities, but he has still found the time to ponder how his experience abroad will shape his future.

“I’m hoping to gain the tools I need to continue my growth outside of Yeshiva and help those around me, making the world a brighter place,” Shulman said.

Although Zhang and Shulman originally planned to spend their entire year traveling, freshman James Chapman (24C) lived on campus first

semester, and his dissatisfaction with the beginning of his Emory experience led him to explore other options for the Spring.

“I just felt like I didn’t have any support structure. I was never really getting past the point of just trying to survive,” Chapman said. “And so I was like, this might not be the best environment for me. I think something needs to change.”

Chapman remarked that “maintaining independence” was important to him, but the lack of social opportunities on campus discouraged him from returning to Emory.

Through his research to get away from campus, Chapman found that he could book extended stays at various Airbnb locations for heavily discounted prices.

Noting that he did not want to feel like a tourist, Chapman decided upon three small towns to visit this semester while completing his Emory classes online: Detroit Lakes,

MN., Dove Creek, CO. and New London, CT. “The opportunity to live somewhere, and like sort of actually become a local...was really appealing to me,” Chapman said.

Although Chapman considered transferring after last semester, he realized that his time did not accurately reflect the full Emory experience and decided that he will return to campus in the Fall to give Emory another try.

Through sharing his experience, Chapman hopes to encourage others to actively seek out opportunities that allow them to flourish.

“I would just encourage them to take risks,” Chapman stated. “I think that’s what this is really all about. You’re really only gonna grow in important ways when you put yourself out there.”

— Contact Allison Reinhardt at allison.brooke.reinhardt@ emory.edu

UNIF is the store I would recommend to someone who’s looking to add some quirky and edgy pieces to their wardrobe. UNIF achieves a certain ‘90s grunge aesthetic that’s all the rage right now. I highly recommend their tank top selection and their plain basic tops with small, cute icons like sewn into them. UNIF also has a great selection of boots, but beware — many of them have incredibly chunky soles.

If that’s your style, then UNIF is the spot for you. UNIF also has the easiest website to navigate and is aesthetically pleasing.

Conclusion Whether building your shopping habits or just starting now, this list should help you make the most of online shopping. Go vintage and original with Depop, or play it safe with Urban Outfitters. Either way, you’ll look amazing when you step out into the COVID-free world.

— Contact Sophie Gern at sophie.gern@emory.edu

Wednesday, February 24, 2021

SPORTS

The Emory Wheel

COVID-19 Outbreak Disrupts Teams, Practices

Continued from Back Page

teammates, one positive test could sideline multiple players. When 40% of the baseball team was in quarantine, they were forced to practice with limited players.

Rising cases can also lead to tension within teams, as some players may become frustrated by teammates who do not abide by the COVID19 protocols and consequently put the entire team in jeopardy. Junior golfer Max Schwarz noted the dire consequences of breaking the Eagle Pledge.

“As a teammate, it’s probably one of the worst things you can do — when you’re putting other teammates in a position that they can’t practice, it’s a problem,” Schwarz said. “If someone’s been reckless, that’s obviously a problem, and it would be and it should be dealt with.”

Athletic Director Keiko Price stated that players will be held accountable for violations of the Eagle Pledge.

“We have explained to them that there could be a suspension if they are defiant by purposefully not abiding by the rules,” Price said in an

W Get your head back in the game: the writing game.

Contact Jessica Solomon at jessie.solomon@emory.edu for more information.

interview with the Wheel.

Price noted that deviancy could include not being responsive to COVID-related communications, providing inaccurate or incomplete information to the sports medicine staff, or purposely not appearing for scheduled tests.

Emory Athletics has adopted a three-strike system: one violation and a player is suspended for 14 days, two violations and the player is suspended for 14 days plus 10% of the team’s games in their next season, and three violations and the player is expelled from the athletic program.

Despite the rise in cases among athletes, many players said they are comfortable returning to practice.

Madison Schaefer, a senior pitcher for the softball team, is reassured by the fact that softball practices outside.

“I think everyone on the softball team felt comfortable,” Schaefer said. “We are an outdoor sport which helps a lot, and also we are each others’ social circles, so it’s not like we are going home to family members that might be older or something.”

Although teams are striving to maintain a sense of normalcy in their practices, the reality of competing during the pandemic has led to significant changes in the way teams practice. Currently, most teams are in phase one of a three-phase plan designed to build up to full team practices. Not all teams have to be in the same phase — outdoor sports could proceed to phase three before indoor sports.

In phase one, teams are allowed to practice with a maximum of 10 players; in phase two, teams can practice with up to half their roster; and in phase three, teams can hold full team practices. Currently, the women’s basketball team is in phase one, and for head coach Misha Jackson, this means practices will be focused on individual improvement.

“These first weeks of practices will be very focused on fundamentals,” Jackson said. “So shooting, passing, agility, getting stronger — all those sorts of things.”

However, because physicality is an integral aspect of the game, adhering to University protocols limits how Jackson can organize her

practices. This makes it challenging for coaches to develop new players and for new players to assimilate into the program.

“They’ve got to learn the intensity of a practice,” Jackson said.

“It’s going to be challenging for us coaches to get that across as we’re obviously not going to be having that type of practice to start off with, but we do owe it to them to make sure they’re getting a true sense of what our program is about.”

For the athletes who can practice, they still yearn for the opportunity to compete in games, meets or matches. Sophomore swimmer Willem Goedecke believes that collegiate swimming and diving competition may come to fruition in the form of virtual meets.

“Essentially, we will swim at the [Woodruff Physical Education Center] ourselves and then upload all of our times to a database,” Goedecke said. “Another team at the same time will compete at their pool, and we’ll combine all the data and then score it like a normal meet.”

Although swimming is conducive to innovative ideas like virtual

record. Their last match of the shortened season would come on March 7, when they swept Rhodes College (Tenn.) 9-0. Even though their season was interrupted by the pandemic, three players were named 2020 All-Americans by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association. Then-sophomore Antonio Mora and then-junior Hayden Cassone were selected for this honor as singles players, while Mora and then-junior Will Wanner were named All-Americans as doubles partners.

With such talented players and a triumphant start to the season, it’s only accurate to assume that their season would have ended on a successful note.

Off the court, Eagle athletes were also making tremendous strides. Last spring, 88 Emory student-athletes were selected to the UAA Spring AllAcademic Team. To be considered for this honor, one must have maintained at least a 3.3 GPA and have finished a

meets, not all sports can be played virtually. This has been a source of frustration for junior shortstop Zeke Diamond, whose season remains uncertain.

“It’s very annoying not knowing what you’re actually working for,” Diamond said. “Obviously we’re working for a season and to win as many [games] as possible, but we just want to know that we can play.”

After the University Athletic Association canceled formal spring sport competition for spring 2021 on Jan. 12, the only opportunity for Emory athletes to compete this season would be against local competition, if at all.

Given the pandemic’s unpredictability, many players have expressed cautious optimism for the future of competition.

“It’s just hard to say,” Schaefer said. “If I had my best guess, we’ll have local games, but it will still be very, very different this year.

Jessica reporting.

Solomon

contributed

— Contact Andrew Feld at andrew.m.feld@emory.edu

WELLNESS

Mindfulness Improves Game, Lifestyle of Athletes

By Grace Reyer Contributing Writer

The measure of an athlete’s success is often determined by their performance on the field or court. Yet the level of athletes’ competition and focus may also be the product of something other than physical training or exercise: mental control. To stay locked in, athletes started prioritizing their mental health. Emory athletes, along with those in the professional sports world, have incorporated more mindfulness, meditation and yoga into their training routines. Since meditation and yoga are accessible, it is easy for athletes to integrate these strategies into their daily schedules.

Anna Arato, a junior forward on the women’s basketball team, started yoga in high school to make herself more flexible. She quickly noticed improvements in her game.

“Basketball is a fluid game, and yoga helped me to loosen up,” Arato said. “I had looser movements and felt less robotic with my mobility. Even taking 15 minutes out of your day to

do yoga gets you in the right mindset.”

On top of improving their flexibility, athletes also use meditation and yoga as a means of reducing stress, increasing calmness and promoting happiness. Men’s basketball freshman guard Matteo Whelton has also been using these practices before he came to Emory.

“Sports can be very stressful, and meditation allowed me to control my breath and my mind,” Whelton explained. “During practices and games, I was able to handle my emotions better on the court and focus on my play.”

While mindfulness, meditation and yoga have been useful practices to improve performances on the court, some athletes have found them useful in their life outside of sports as well. When Interim Head Strength and Conditioning Coach Drew Williams suggested short, 10-minute yoga videos for the volleyball team last year, sophomore middle hitter Kirwan Carey immediately felt their mental effects.

“I got kind of hooked because I

found them not only a really amazing way to stretch out and recover but also unbelievably relaxing and centering,” Carey said.

When Carey tested positive for COVID-19 on Jan. 25, she was able to relax more during quarantine by incorporating meditation into her daily routine.

“At kind of a scary and lonely time, it helped me become comfortable and in control of my thoughts,” Carey said.

The benefits Carey experienced from practicing mindfulness aren’t an anomaly. Studies have found that meditation helps to reduce stress, promote better sleep, speed recovery time, build endurance and deepen one’s sense of identity.

Even in professional sports, prioritizing mental health has proliferated. The NFL’s Seattle Seahawks were among the first professional sports teams to spotlight mindfulness meditation. In 2012, the Seahawks hired Michael Gervais to be their mindfulness coach and high-performance sports psychologist. Gervais regularly led players through sessions of yoga

What Could’ve Been for Emory Athletes Continued from Back Page

11

year of college.

Not only were spring sports cheated of a full season, but several winter sports never finished. The men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams were robbed of the opportunity to compete in the NCAA Division III championships, which were supposed to take place in early March. Both teams had placed first at the Emory Fall Invitational, and the women’s team was the reigning NCAA national champion.

Women’s basketball finished off their season with a 19-6 record, with their final game a 62-58 victory over the University of Rochester (N.Y.) on Feb. 29. Even though men’s basketball ended their season with a nail-biting loss in the second round of the NCAA tournament to Pomona-Pitzer College (Calif.) on March 7, they boasted a stunning overall record of 22-5.

When we fast forward to today, as the spring season slowly begins, COVID-19 outbreaks have once again

risen. How the season will play out remains up in the air. As an athlete myself, I believe I can speak on behalf of all athletes when I say that all we want is to be able to get back out on the

field, track or court again and play the game that we all know and love.

— Contact Mia Han at mia.han@emory.edu

and mindfulness meditation. In 2013, Seahawks offensive tackle Russell Okung told ESPN that “meditation is as important as lifting weights and being out here on the field for practice.” In 2014, the Seahawks went on to win the Super Bowl, and meditation might have been their secret weapon.

Whether at Emory or in the professional sports scene, mindfulness and meditation, as well as yoga, have changed athletes in numerous ways both on and off the court and field.

With the stresses of everyday life and the competition of sports, these strategies have been life-changing, especially for Carey.

“Sometimes our sports put just as much stress on our minds as they do on our bodies,” Carey said. “I really appreciate the strength trainers at Emory for organizing yoga sessions, both virtually and in person last year, because I’ve found that initial introduction is what led to me practicing semi-regularly.”

— Contact Grace Reyer at grace.reyer@emory.edu

Tebow: More Than An Athlete Continued from Back Page rise in political polarization.

Fans would often turn to sports as a distraction from these societal downturns only to witness a quarterback genuflecting in the end zone and delivering sermons in postgame press conferences. Regardless of Tebow’s intentions, he brought a new type of political dialogue and divide to football, forever blurring the lines between social-cultural issues and sports and further setting the tone for the future of the NFL and sports by and large.

Illustration by Gabriella Lewis

— Contact Calvin Furbee at cfurbee@emory.edu

The Emory Wheel

Sports

Wednesday, february 24, 2021 | Sports Editor: Jessica Solomon (jessie.solomon@emory.edu) | Asst. Sports Editor: Michael Mariam (mmariam@emory.edu)

EMORY ATHLETICS

One Year Ago in Emory Sports

By Mia Han Contributing Writer

and seeing how my symptoms are after that and then working up to attending practices.”

Despite the protocols Emory has taken to ensure player safety, many teams have seen positive cases.

Senior men’s soccer captain Josh Berman noted that, although the team discussed intentions of staying safe in order to give themselves the best chance to play, teammates have contracted COVID-19.

“There’s been a few [COVID-19 cases],” Berman said. “There’s been players who have symptoms but haven’t tested positive yet, and those players on the daily assessment say that they have new or worsening symptoms.”

Even if only a few players test positive on one team, all who have been in close contact with them must also sit out. Since many athletes live with or frequently socialize with their

It’s hard to envision a world before the pandemic where people wandered without masks, ate meals together in large groups and played sports.

Eventually, and hopefully, sports will be in full force again, but for now we can reminisce on one year ago today in Emory sports history.

The women’s golf team came in fourth place at the Linda Lowery Invitational on Feb. 24, 2020. The track and field team was training in the Woodruff Physical Education Center (WoodPEC) in preparation for the University Athletic Association (UAA) Indoor Championships that would take place on Feb. 29 in New York. Baseball was practicing at Chappell Park and enjoying a historic start in their season. On Cooper Field, softball was busy practicing, and men’s and women’s tennis were preparing for their next matches on the courts next to the WoodPEC. The sports matches from this week a year ago, too, would be some of the last matches for a full calendar year. Women’s tennis had dominated Sewanee: The University of the South (Tenn.) 8-1 on Feb. 22. Baseball was 5-1 after defeating DePauw University (Ind.) on Feb. 22. Softball had beat Birmingham-Southern College (Ala.) 8-4 on Feb. 23. Needless to say, the 2020 season for Emory sports teams was promising.

Men’s tennis was performing particularly well with an undefeated 6-0

See COVID-19, Page 11

See WHAT, Page 11

Courtesy of Natalie Spitzer

The women’s golf team prepares for the 2021 spring season at Stone Mountain Golf Club (Ga.). Teams beginning practices must follow strict COVID-19 protocols including mask wearing and social distancing.

Practices Resume, Few Athletes Able to Attend

By Andrew Feld Contributing Writer

After President Gregory L. Fenves announced on Oct. 15 that the spring semester would remain virtual, the possibility of Emory athletes losing yet another season to the COVID19 pandemic became all the more likely. However, on Dec. 21, Assistant Athletic Director for Student-Athlete Success and Compliance Audrey Hester notified athletes of plans to hold official practices in the spring.

Some teams, like women’s softball, started practicing as early as Feb. 9 while others, like men’s golf, plan to begin within the next week.

Several teams are starting their seasons without all of their players due to rising coronavirus cases.

Currently, there are positive cases in both men’s and women’s soccer teams, both swimming and diving teams, the baseball team, the men’s golf team and the men’s tennis team.

Prior to the start of practices, players had to sign the Eagle Pledge — a form similar to the Emory Student Community Compact — in which they agreed to follow Emory’s community safety guidelines. To help monitor outbreaks and track players’ status throughout the season, players must also fill out an online daily assessment of their health on the Emory Forward website.

The assessment asks student-athletes questions about symptoms and if they’ve been in a high-risk situation for COVID-19 exposure. If an athlete passes the assessment on a given day, they are allowed to practice. Athletes are also required to be tested — once a week for off-campus students and twice a week for those residing on campus.

When athletes indicate they have COVID-19 symptoms, they are contacted by an athletic trainer and are instructed to sit out team activities until they test negative. However,

players who contract the coronavirus face a long road to return. After their initial isolation period, players must take a few medical tests to make sure they are not suffering or will not suffer from any long-term effects.

Sophomore women’s soccer defender Peyton Robertson experienced severe symptoms from COVID-19 and now must get tested to ensure her heart is healthy, which includes an electrocardiogram, echocardiogram and blood work.

Robertson said that athletes who test positive for COVID-19 must undergo an EKG and blood work before returning to practice. Those who experience severe symptoms are also encouraged to get an echocardiogram, Robertson added. Even after players pass all of their tests, they still aren’t cleared for practice.

“They can’t throw us into practice normally,” Robertson said. “I have to do protocol, which is exercising minimally for 10 minutes one time

PROFESSIONAL SPORTS

Tim Tebow Retires After Divisive Athletic Career

By Calvin Furbee Contributing Writer

After five years in minor league baseball, Tim Tebow has retired from the sport. On paper, the former Heisman Trophy winner’s baseball career is unimpressive, as Tebow was one of the worst hitters in the minor leagues in his last season. Despite this, his short-lived career surpassed many analysts’ expectations and drew record attendance numbers for minor league games. The media and public’s reaction to Tebow’s apparent retirement from professional sports reflects the tone of his entire career, which is both one of allure and repulsion, perfection and incompetency, and undeniable star power.

What would later be dubbed as “Tebowmania” began in 2006, as the then-college freshman was initially listed as a second-string quarterback for the University of Florida. Despite his initial position on the depth chart, Tebow and the Gators would go on to have an unforgettable season,

upsetting The Ohio State University Buckeyes in the BCS national championship game. Following the graduation of Gators quarterback Chris Leak and Tebow’s promotion to starter, there was a great deal of both hype and skepticism surrounding the young quarterback’s future. No one, though, could have predicted how big a star Tebow would become, both on and off the field.

The 2007 season would be his breakout year in terms of athletics and celebrity status. He would become the first quarterback in college football history to run for 20 or more touchdowns and pass for 20 or more touchdowns in a single season in addition to being the first underclassman ever to win the Heisman Trophy. However, what began to define Tebow more than his near-perfect athletic achievements and successful 2008 and 2009 seasons was the cultural and societal fervor of his persona.

Whether it was his evangelical postgame speeches, Bible verses on his eye black or his iconic end zone prayer cel-

ebration dubbed “Tebowing,” he and his staunch devotion to his Christian faith drew great attention, praise and criticism.

Tebow was by all accounts a cultural phenomenon, ascending beyond the sport and becoming a focal point for the religious divide within the U.S. at the time. Many praised Tebow for his unapologetic worship of Christianity and purity until marriage, subsequently seeing him as a needed role model in not only professional sports but society at large.

On the other hand, some viewed him as an embodiment of “muscular Christianity,” a tackier and less offensive form of the religion that emphasizes bicep curls just as much as Bible readings. As Tebow’s fame continued to grow, so did the hatred and spite toward the quarterback and his “selfrighteous” evangelical tendencies.

Tebow became such a divisive figure within the world of sports that the choice of whether or not to support him seemed to carry just as much weight as one’s stance on fiery political

issues such as abortion or gun control.

As soon as Tebow was drafted by the Denver Broncos late in the first round of the 2010 NFL draft, many analysts and pundits doubted Tebow’s ability to find success in the NFL. After his first season, it would appear that the doubters were right as he started only a number of games, scoring only five touchdowns and throwing three interceptions.

The following season appeared to be no different, as Tebow was the backup quarterback on a team that was at the bottom of their division. The Broncos, after falling to 1-4, benched their starting quarterback in favor of Tebow, and what followed was one of the wildest and most perplexing seasons in the history of the NFL. By every metric, it appeared that Denver’s season was doomed when Tebow took over: the Broncos were one of the league’s worst offenses and defenses, and Tebow was criticized for having the “ugliest” pass in the league.

Despite the overwhelming odds, the Broncos’ schizophrenic playing and

Tebow’s apparent lack of passing ability, the Broncos were able to go on a six-game winning streak and defeat the reigning Super Bowl contenders the Pittsburgh Steelers in the wildcard round of the playoffs, all while looking like a mess of a team.

Even if Denver played incompetently for the majority of a game, Tebow and the Broncos were always able to pull out a last-minute victory as if by divine intervention. It was a chaotic and almost poetic end to Tebow’s short-lived and polarizing NFL career, as he would never win another game as a starter.

With Tebow now several years removed from the end of his tumultuous NFL career and with his recent retirement from baseball, it is easier to reflect on how he was so much more than a football or baseball player.

Tebow’s celebrity status peaked at a time when many Americans were facing hardship, still reeling from the Great Recession while experiencing a

See TEBOW, Page 11