The Georgetown Voice, November 20th, 2015

VOICE

November 20, 2015

The Georgetown

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NOVEMBER 20, 2015

THE GEORGETOWN VOICE Volume 48 • Issue 7

staff editor-in-chief Chris Almeida Managing editor daniel varghese Executive editors Noah buyon, christopher castano, lara fishbane news editor ryan miller assitant editors Courtnie baek, lilah burke, Liz teitz Leisure editor Elizabeth baker assistant editors Jon block, dinah farrell, brian Mcmahon Sports Editor Joe pollicino assistant editor max roberts halftime Leisure editors Mike bergin, erika bullock Sports editors alex boyd, rob ponce assistant sports editor matt jasko Voices editor graham piro assistant editor charles evain

“272” by Patricia Lin

Editorials

Voices

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Carrying On: I’m Busy Right Now Chris Almeida

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Up in the Air Caitlyn Cobb The Lone Senior Santul Nerkar

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McCarthy Highlights Both Clerical and Journalistic Flaws in Spotlight Andrew Gutman

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Nice Work If You Can Get It Brian McMahon

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editor@georgetownvoice.com Leavey 424 Box 571066 Georgetown University Washington, DC 20057

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The opinions expressed in The Georgetown Voice do not necessarily represent the views of the administration, faculty or students of Georgetown University, unless specifically stated. Columns, advertisements, cartoons and opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or the General Board of The Georgetown Voice. The university subscribes to the principle of responsible freedom of expression of its student editors.

design Cover editor megan howell editors eleanor sugrue, ellie yaeger spread editors pam shu, sophie super PHOTO editor JOSHUA RAFTIS copy Chief suzanne trivette editors Sharon Mo, Hanh Nguyen, Amal Farooqui, Maddi Kaigh Anna Gloor, Clara Cecil, Greer Richey, Hannah Wingett Dana Suekoff, Rachel Greene, Matthew Soens online online editor kenneth lee social media editors sahil nair, tiffany tao Editorial Board chair Laura Kurek associate editors marisa hawley, kevin huggard, sabrina kayser, christina libre Staff writers Jonny Amon, Ben barrett, jeremiah benjamin, Caitlyn cobb, amanda christovich, brendan crowley, elizabeth cunniff, Chris dunn, isabel echarte, rachel eshelman, nicholas gavio, anna gloor, andrew granville, christian hallmark, susanna herrmann, amelia irvine, cassidy jensen, Laura Isaza, santul nerker, noah nelson, tyler pearre, brendan pierce, justin plumb, Brendan saunders, isaiah seibert, phillip steuber, thomas stubna, tyler walsh staff photographers Ambika ahuja, saman asdjodi, jen costa, megan howell, gavin myers, freddy rosas, Taryn Shaw, andrew Sullivan staff designers erin annick, emma francois, Johnny jung, Allison kaufman, yuna ko, samantha lee, Patricia lin, May li, kali sullivan, Abbey roberts, Vance vaughan

general manager tim annick

11/19/15 12:07 AM

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THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

{ From the web } @CasualHoya Classic

chris almeida

IN FOCUS

Winless Hoyas fall to No. 3 Maryland

retweet of @whalers26

“Our soccer team started off 0-2-1 and now they’re 15-2-2,” Georgetown Head Coach John Thompson III told the press after the game.

Read our recap and game notes, and stay up-to-date on coverage on all things men’s basketball, on georgetownvoice.com.

KenKen Puzzles

By Kathleen Coughlin KenKen puzzle are similar to Sudoku in that you need to fill in the numbers (in this case 1-4) which appear once and only once in each row and in each column. The darker outlined areas are “cages” which contain a mathematical operation and a target number. The numbers in the cages must be combined using the specified operation to reach the target number. For example, a 2-square cage where the target is +5 has four possible solutions, 1&4, 2&3, 3&2, and 4&1. Note that the order of numbers in the cage does not matter for subtraction or division.

Last issue’s solution

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EDITORIALS

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NOVEMBER 20, 2015

Overhead Costs The Neighborhood’s Grievances with the FAA This year, the D.C. Fair Skies Coalition, an advocacy organization of nine local groups including GUSA, Georgetown University, and the Citizens Association of Georgetown, filed a petition for review against the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) concerning the recent alteration of flight plans over the Potomac River. This alteration has resulted in more planes flying over Foggy Bottom and the Georgetown neighborhood, which, for Hoyas, means even more ambient noise on a campus already ridden with the cacophony of seemingly-perpetual construction.

Flights over campus—and the racket that accompanies them— have been a reality on the Hilltop for decades. With Reagan National Airport just down the river, plane-related noise is an inevitability. Blue & Gray tour guides halfheartedly joke to prospective students that they’ll get used to the roar of jet engines eventually.

This Editorial Board understands and shares the concerns of the Georgetown neighborhood; we all want to live in peace and quiet.

However, while the FAA’s move to reroute flights has elevated ambient noise to hitherto-unreached levels of annoyingness, there’s really only so much we can do about it—especially considering that the FAA gave us the chance to comment on it before-the-fact.

With that being said, we can only continue to grin and bear it for so long. Georgetown administrators, residents, and students should relish the rare opportunity to make common cause and engage in that time-honored American tradition: complaining about the government.

May Li

Fueling the Debate Proposed GUSA Referendum on GU Fossil Free At the start of the month, GU Fossil Free (GUFF) announced plans to include a referendum on divestment on the 2016 GUSA Presidential Ballot. If all goes to plan, undergraduate students will have opportunity to vote in February on whether Georgetown should divest its endowment from holdings in fossil fuels. However, after a long debate about the merits of divestment and referendums last Sunday, the GUSA Senate tabled their vote to approve the referendum. This is a delay that runs the risk of frustrating student voices.

This Editorial Board has previously expressed its support of GUFF and their mission: complete divestment by the university from fossil fuel investments. It remains clear to us that the moral and economic arguments in favor of full divestment, including from fossil fuel investments in commingled assets and mutual funds, outweigh the arguments against it.

This issue at hand, though, is not the worthiness of divestment as a protest action. Rather, it is GUSA’s decision to table a potential referendum that is cause for alarm. Should they table it for good, calls into question their commitment to the “student” part of student government. This

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Editorial Board supports the basic idea of the referendum, as a method of gauging the position of the general student body on campus issues. A referendum, especially one regarding an important topic, can have far-reaching benefits.

For one, a referendum increases understanding on the views and opinions of the student body. The results of a referendum provide us with a great deal of insight into how students think about an important issue. While there are statistical limitations to this information, it can nonetheless be very helpful for interested parties, especially those trying to petition the administration to tackle an important issue like divestment.

The last time GUSA administered a referendum, it found that over 90 percent of students were against the proposed creation of a satellite campus. This had a tangible effect on the administration’s actions: the “One Georgetown, One Campus” campaign succeeded, and plans for a satellite campus were scuttled. GUSA’s referendums can have power.

For interested parties, a referendum represents a judgement day—a point by which they need to have convinced a majority of students of their position. As such, these

parties undertake considerable efforts to get students’ votes. We believe that the student body stands to benefit from the increased volume and quality of discourse that typically precedes a referendum. Students have an expanded opportunity to get the facts and then make their decision.

The referendum process is particularly useful for both proponents and opponents of divestment, both of whom are grappling with a fairly complicated issue. We are encouraged by GUFF’s stated plans for hosting teach-ins and further petitioning on the issue. We hope the referendum will be approved, as we believe it will motivate both GUFF and detractors of divestment to engage in a lively debate regarding the issue.

In light of this, we are deeply concerned

by GUSA’s reticence to approve the referendum for the February executive ballot. In our view, even if you do not consider divestment a good idea, a referendum assessing student opinion on the matter is a good thing. While those in favor of divestment do have a structural advantage, since they’re already organized under GUFF, the referendum could give those who are opposed to divestment the opportunity to organize, furthering the important dialogue around the issue.

Fundamentally, by refusing to put the question of divestments to students, GUSA is making a judgment—an unfair one—as to the value of merely considering the question of divestment. It should be patently obvious that there is widespread student engagement with and interest in divestment (look no further than the many, many opinion pieces featured in the pages of this newsmagazine and The Hoya on the matter). The GUSA Senate appears not to have noticed this vibrant discourse. They should not impose their ignorance on the student body at large by denying us all the chance to continue the conversation about divestment via a referendum.

As it currently stands, whether or not the university divests from fossil fuels is dependent on the passionate action of a small group of students and the whims of a distant board of directors. A referendum on divestment will bolster not only student engagement but also could result in action that the student body stands behind. It is imperative, then, that GUSA votes to approve adding the referendum to the Executive Ballot.

Further postponing the measure into irrelevance would be a grave mistake.

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THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

University protests on race relations across the U.S. have provoked a flurry of media attention and political activism in recent weeks. This Editorial Board fully and adamantly supports efforts to address this difficult issue, but takes exception to some aspects of the process.

The Hoyas who’ve coalesced around the “BuiltOn272” and “GU272” hashtags have, on the whole, set an excellent example of student activism, and this Editorial Board cheers the success they’ve had in cultivating a conversation about injustices in Georgetown’s past and its present. The Hilltop—and the nation at large—must reckon with a living legacy of institutional racism, and student activists here deserve praise for kickstarting that reckoning. We have them, along with those who’ve raised their voices at Mizzou and other schools, to thank for the important dialogues and remedies to come.

It must also be said, though, that Georgetown’s administrators, particularly President DeGioia, merit recognition for their respect for student viewpoints. In creating the Working Group on Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation, the university made a good-faith effort to tackle latent issues of race and racism on campus, and when the time came for change, it acted. We wish the same could be said of other universities.

It’s encouraging to see free speech functioning well on the Hilltop, at least by the lower standard set by Georgetown’s often questionable track record. Hoyas faced no restrictions on their expression across campus, from Red Square to President DeGioia’s office. We worry, though, that some of the rhetoric espoused by student activists on social media and in person has had a chilling effect on the First Amendment right (and responsibility) of the press to report, in addition to the basic rights of other Hoyas to disagree with their cause.

In the Facebook event page used to organize the Red Square demonstration and subsequent sit-in in President DeGioia’s office, a succession of posts urged attendees not to speak to any press, citing a need for the action “to be safe and narrated in a certain way.” While we understand and sympathize with this impulse, and respect students’ right to refuse to speak with whomever they so choose, we find it problematic. In a thoughtful Washington Post opinion piece, freelance journalist Terrell Starr speaks of a tendency in the media to focus on less savory episodes in protest movements such as Black Lives Matter, implicitly “criminaliz[ing] black people’s pain and resistance to racial oppression.” It is this tendency—which doubtless-

ly exists—which drove some Hoyas to urge fellow demonstrators to turn away from the media. Starr’s lesson, though, cannot be that the media must steer clear of race-related protests or that protesters must stay away from the media. Rather, it is a call for balance and sensitivity that all press, including this newsmagazine, must heed.

The first two principles of the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics are “seek the truth and report it” and “minimize harm.” These mandates are clearly and inexorably in conflict. In the case of campus conversations on race—just as in every case—a balance must be struck between these principles. On some level, this means that reporters must report. It’s more than their job; it’s a service to the public’s vested right to know what’s going on in the world. Students are, again, well within their rights in refusing to talk to reporters, but doing so repudiates not just the vital public interest but also the interest of all activists in ensuring their side of the story is heard.

The Editorial Board was also troubled by the vitriol some student activists directed at those who challenged them or otherwise did not support their actions. It’s true: student activists do not have to ask nicely in combatting racism, and, moreover, the palpable anger, pain, and sorrow felt by Hoyas of color must find expression. With that being said, Hoyas should not be too quick to paint their peers with the scarlet letter of “white fragility”—which indirectly alleges racism—the moment their opinions diverge. Doing so is unfair, and serves only to alienate at a time when reconciliation is needed. And yes, it is

this same unfairness that Americans of color have been made to face for centuries, but the experience of oppression does not legitimate the creation of a cycle of social estrangement.

On college campuses throughout the country, students are working to combat negative racial climates. The issue is that racial climate is intangible. This has left the recent university movements to approach an intangible issue with demands for tangible change—a difficult task indeed. And so, it is hard to discern which actions will allow the community to take a step forward, which actions are ineffective, and which actions are counterproductive.

At Yale and at Claremont McKenna, movements with the stated goal of creating a climate of equality and acceptance pursued actions that had exactly the opposite effect. After perceiving actions of administrators as symptoms of a racist climate, protesters called for their resignation—rather than publicly question these administrators to better diagnose the issues at hand. Cer-

through verbal attacks or forced resignations, create a dynamic of opposition and divert us, as a community, from our intended ends.

At Missouri, President Tim Wolfe resigned after protests reached a critical mass.

Whether or not Wolfe was guilty of perpetuating a climate of racism, he likely did not resign because he realized his failings, but because of financial pressures induced by the football team’s boycott (an estimated $1 million loss per game not played) and urgings from members of the university’s board. Though the protesters forced Wolfe’s resignation, one does not need to look far to see that the larger problem of intolerance is still rampant at Missouri. Dean Mary Spellman’s resignation at Claremont McKenna does not solve any of the university’s issues.

Driving a wedge between students and administrators only creates animosity within our communities, making the healing process to come that much harder. By enumerating tangible steps for improvement, as the #BuiltOn272 movement has at Georgetown, and allowing for discussion throughout the community, universities can begin to move toward better futures.

At Georgetown, we believe that all students, staff, and faculty should be united behind the goal of creating an environment where everybody feels comfortable. But, when members of the Georgetown community feel uncomfortable voicing their views, the school will always be divided.

As seen most acutely with the Yale email on Halloween costumes, if differing opinions—or even just the questioning of others’ opinions—get immediately discredited, we as a community will fail. Rather, we must listen to each other in order to tackle the issues at hand.

In arguably his most famous piece in The Atlantic, “The Case for Reparations,” Ta-Nehisi Coates advocates for the passing of a bill called H.R. 40: Commission Patricia Lin to Study Reparation Proposals for Afritain protesters used phrases like “silence is can-Americans Act. This bill alone is not violence” to vilify all who disagreed with the solution to the issue of racism in this them. At Missouri, photographer Tim Tai, country, but through creating the open disan Asian-American student aiming to doc- cussion and critique of courses of action, it ument protests, encountered both verbal is meant to be a first step toward creating and physical abuse from protesting students equality. There will be disagreements about and faculty. When there is no room for dis- how to create an equal campus, and an equal course, when administrators who fall under society, but the best way to get past them, fire are expected to silently resign, when at Georgetown and beyond, is to continually those who agree with the goal but disagree discuss these issues with the intention, not of with the methods of a movement must stay silencing others, but understanding them. silent for fear of being branded a heretic, When it comes to equality, there is no our community does not move forward. “them.” There is only us, trying to make a Accusations of moral failure, whether it be better future for everybody.

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EDITORIALS

On Missouri, Yale, and the Memory of 272 Slaves Activism, Justice, and their Discontents

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NOVEMBER 20. 2015

VOICES

Seizing the Initiative An Analysis of Recent Racial Protests In the past three weeks, multiple college campuses have faced racial tensions on their campuses. Two of those schools in particular, the University of Missouri and Yale University, have

That’s our generation’s problem.

We are too sensitive to hear what those with opposing viewpoints have to say.

tension. The hunger strike of Mizzou graduate student Jonathan Butler in response to a series of racist incidents, most notably the vandalism of a dorm with a swastika drawn with feces, has captured the attention of the national media.

Meanwhile, Halloween weekend at Yale went poorly for the university. First, the Yale administration sent out an email warning students not to wear “culturally unaware and insensitive” Halloween costumes that could offend minority students. In response, Erika Christakis, a professor and administrator presiding over a student residence, wrote a letter to members of her residence hall informing them of her disagreement with the email’s central premise.

In response, hundreds of students have signed on to an open letter criticizing both Ms. Christakis and her husband, who also serves as an Associate Master for a campus residence hall.

Students demanded that the Christakises apologize for their alleged failure to create a “safe space” for students.

Students confronted the Christakises, shouting at both of them to resign. A video shows that when Mr. Christakis refused, students started to yell at him en masse. Both sides presented imperfect cases here. The Christakises defended the right to free speech, but they placed less priority on whether or not students may feel uncomfortable in what ought to be a safe space. But the school, in warning students about Halloween costumes, and students, in their outcry, prioritized the “safe space” at the expense of free speech.

In the cases of both Mizzou and Yale, the racist actions that triggered protests, emails, and outcries are all unacceptable. Students were right to decry these actions and demand change. But there’s an additional problem, and a pretty big one after the resignation of media professor Melissa Click. A freelance photographer was looking to photograph the proceedings of one of the protests when Professor Click blocked him, told him to “get out,” and then asked for some “muscle” to remove him. The university even sent an email this week asking students to report any instances of “hurtful speech.”

“Hurtful speech” seems like a particularly worrisome way of putting it, however. It presents a slippery slope, as it’s unclear what constitutes “hurtful speech.” Police also can’t exactly act on any “hurtful speech” unless it presents a

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threat. But the police, while acting to prevent vipoint by allowing students to attempt to silence each other, since groups who are silenced often see few other options available to them to make their point.

“Hurtful speech” is an arbitrary, broad-ranging term that could encompass much more than what the school intended. In the process, the school may be crossing boundaries as a public university if it ends up silencing speech that is not explicitly threatening.

This is the issue that has led to such a big battle at Yale. It also connects to the irony that students—and liberal ones at that—who protest against the administration on behalf of various freedoms have been actively looking to the administration to take action to silence any particularly vocal dissents to their ideas. In a time with more racial tension and less access to information than there is now, progressive-minded youth of the 1960s from all walks of life solved their own problems by protesting the establishment for change. Our generation doesn’t protest by and large; we just beg the establishment to solve our problems.

Our generation is known for being very reliant on authority. We trust a lot of our private information to machines run by large multinational conglomerates. We tend to follow directions and step right into line. We are often too busy focusing on ourselves and our various outlets of expression to unite as a group. And when we do, as the Yale case illustrates, we turn to arguments about political correctness to implore our establishment to take action. In the ‘60s, students sought to control the actions of the establishment. In 2015, students want the establishment to control their own actions.

All of this relates back to what President Obama said in September: “I’ve heard of some college campuses where they don’t want to have a guest speaker who is too conservative, or they don’t want to read a book if it had language that is offensive to African-Americans or somehow sends a demeaning signal towards women… when you become students at colleges, you have to be coddled and protected from different points of view.”

That’s our generation’s problem. We are too sensitive to hear what those with opposing turn to the establishment, the administration, etc. to silence anyone who disagrees with us.

Instead of protesting the establishment, we are so reliant on it that our generation turns to it whenever we do not get our way. Occasionally we protest the establishment when it takes ac-

Mizzou, Ferguson, and the other incidents that have triggered #BlackLivesMatter protests), but most of the time students look to blame someone else and ask for the administration to silence him or her. But we need to have a dialogue instead. It’s that same dialogue that leads to an understanding among people with ed these controversies. #ConcernedStudent1950 movement at Mizzou. The students of color at Mizzou have in fact done their predecessors proud. In the same vein as the Civil Rights Movement and student protests of the 1960s, they have presented their demands via social media, pickets, and sit-ins.

So far, black students at Mizzou and their allies have stood up in the face of injustice and demanded that their voices be heard. They have rightfully demanded that there should be greater representation for African-American students and other students of color in the student body, faculty, and administration. They hope that this will lead students of color to not have to worry about discrimination and victimization on a daily basis. The Mizzou students, unlike those at Yale, decided to focus less on silencing their opponents and more on refusing to be silenced. They are voicing their opinions until those opinions turn into real change.

We don’t need to waste our time asking the school to police what Halloween costumes people wear and protesting against those who solely push for free speech. We need to make sure peodon’t tolerate racist acts, get their message across.

When people are silenced, they turn to other outlets to express their beliefs and vent their frustrations, often the Internet or the press, where they spread their own anger at being silenced to others inside and outside of their community. This is what has led the issues at both Mizzou and Yale to grow from schoolwide issues to nationwide issues. Trying to silence opposing views, even if those views are offensive, doesn’t work because it increases hostility. Instead, we must use freedom of speech and the power of our own words to drive out any hate and racism we see. It’s like Dr. Martin Luther King said: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.”

BY ROEY HADAR

He is a junior in the SFS.

11/18/15 11:55 PM

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THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

A Flight from Classical Liberal Thought Do our feelings really matter? Certainly they matter to each of us. Emotions, in all their varieties and magnitudes, are an inextricable element of humanity. They can also matter to those around us; our interactions with those we count among our friends, family, colleagues, etc. are reliant upon our estimations of each other’s emotional states and our corresponding responses. I think few would deny these claims. But I am acquainted with many who would impassionedly but disparately answer the more contentious question: should our feelings matter to others?

To assuage any worries that this is no more than an esoteric inquiry, I submit that to answer this question is to arrive at an understanding of the bitter tensions and motivations for recent proresignation of the University of Missouri’s top spaces and subsequent denial of the press’ access on the grounds of “emotional safety,.” the student demands for the removal of one of Yale’s residential college administrators over an email suggesting that Halloween costumes ought not be policed, the resignation of Claremont McKenna’s junior class president after she faced student condemnation for wearing various articles of traditional Mexican attire, and the student body’s rejection of an annual 9/11 remembrance at the University of Minnesota alleging that such an activity would provoke “Islamophobic” sentiment—while undeniably linked by claims of racial or ethnic insensitivity—share a more fundamental commonality.

This commonality is the conviction that each individual’s sensibilities are inherently and universalunobjectionable position, but when we appreciate the extensive and potentially dangerous effects this mindset may have, we will quite rightly be much more wary to adopt such a position.

By default in liberal thought—that is, the classical liberalism of its truest Enlightenment-era form—individuals are tasked with forming their beliefs and doing with them as they please. Naturally, in a liberal democracy (and I think few would object to the application of this term to, at the very least, the American ideal) this paradigm extends to all citizens. The distinguishing feature of liberal thought is that such individual beliefs are unenforceable, insofar as others may not be subjugated to them. Instead, beliefs are exchanged in the oft-invoked conceptual marketplace of ideas, or more contemporarily, an “intellectual space.” Crucial to the intellectual space is the ability to freely express these ideas to one’s satisfaction, no matter how disagreeable or even reprehensible this ability appears to any other marketplace participant. In

pose them on others.

With only this cursory understanding of liberalism and its necessary protection of free expression, a disharmony between liberalism and certain contemporary movements becomes strikingly visible. A new phenomenon of potently illiberal thought has worryingly secured its footing in higher education —namely, the idea that free expression is outmoded. Rather than committing to the idea that all individuals have an inborn liberty to speak, write, and think in whatever manner that individstudents across the country, and even within our own university, committing to the notion that certain perspectives are, by their very nature, superior.

So superior are these perspectives that to challenge them or even fail to proactively support them is to commit an unspeakable injustice. As confused and treacherous as such an ideology is, this is still nothing but a set of beliefs that is duly protected by liberal principles. What would be truly worrying would be the enforcement of this ideology. Sadly, the last few days have revealed precisely that: the tangible and brash espousal of censorship.

More concretely, we must ask ourselves: when did this begin? How did we arrive at the point where University of Missouri students (and, far more gravely, professors) believe that they are due the right to occupy public spaces exclusive of the tographed, spoken to, or even exist in the presence of any who stand to challenge their convictions?

How did we arrive at the point where Yale students demand that administrators face disciplinary action for suggesting that individuals have the right to dress as offensively or inoffensively (acknowledging the subjectivity of such determinations) as they choose and be subjected accordingly to civil discourse? More broadly, when did a paradigm shift occur in which the burden of securing individual peace of mind was transferred from each individual to everyone but the individual?

These are not new systems of thought. Such censorial ideologies join the company of a long line of illiberal ancestors. They are merely the modern incarnations of the Bolsheviks, the Chinese Cultural Revolutionaries, and the French Committee of Public Safety. Like the early Christian Gnostics, they presuming to know what is best for everyone else.

Now, this is not to suggest that today’s autocratically-inclined collegians espouse the violence perpetrated by these named groups. However, they are all ness of their beliefs, which gives rise to censorship

The question then, which each of us faces, becomes how to counter ideologies that view censorial means as permissible for enforcing their own conceptions of what is civil, respectful, or polite.

The answer is rather simple, though its implementation poses a considerable challenge. We must drive out the notion that anyone other than oneself is responsible for securing one’s positive emotional experiences. Each individual has his or her own preferences and standards of decency by which he or she believes others should abide. However, these standards are subjective determinations. The marketplace of ideas on campus, which is to say, the ability to speak, dress, write, or think without seeking the approval of an administrator or self-appointed committee (or more commonly, a mob) of students allows the exchange of these subjective determinations. Whether each is successful in gaining popularity upon entry into the marketplace is of no consequence to this discussion.

In order to preserve tolerance, we must be intolerant of the confused view that free expression is the enemy of any individual or group’s ideology.

To put a face to this position, we must swiftly and unequivocally condemn in strong words the Yale student’s heart-wrenching but nonetheless logically incoherent cries that academia is “not about creating an intellectual space,” but a “place of comfort.” I doubt I could have encapsulated so bluntly and accurately the core of this ideology in my own words.

Moreover, we must reinforce cultural environments that are inhospitable to the use of extortion and intimidation as valid means of advancing one’s cause. There are undoubtedly noble causes to be undertaken on today’s college campuses, and the resistance of racial intolerance is indeed among those causes. But none is so noble a cause as to warrant the suspension of ethical standards. This means that we must not decry calls for free expression and a free press as trivial and detractive, or worse yet, as racist, insensitive, or instances of “White fragility.” Nor can we accept the shamefully petulant but common refrain that students are simply tired of discourse, that they want results when and how they want them. That will not do. Such accusations of malice are unfounded and irrational when launched against those advocating the univer-

VOICES

Out of the Campus Comfort Zone

In order to preserve tolerance, we must be intolerant of the confused view that free expression is the enemy of any individual or group’s ideology.

democracy, each of us is obliged to safeguard the principles of free expression and free press without fear of the illiberal juggernaut that stalks campuses across the country today.

BY JOSEPH DIPIETRO

He is a sophomore in the College.

of liberalism.

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VOICES

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“When it comes down to it, I don’t think any of us got into Georgetown by skipping school events or rolling our eyes at people pouring their hearts out.”

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NOVEMBER 20, 2015

Viva La Vita Or H*yas for Choice and All its Misconceptions As a former president and current member of Georgetown Right to Life, also known as RTL or Vita Saxa, I’d like to weigh in on an opinion piece published in the Voice entitled, “Right To Life, With Conditions: The Hypocrisy of the ‘Pro-Life Generation.’” While I agree there are certain extreme pro-life groups that may use pro-life rhetoric too broadly, Georgetown Right to Life, the group at which the article was directed, is not one of those groups.

In the article, the author repeatedly explains that “pro-life” denotes a commitment to universal human dignity. She even quotes our mission statement, which asserts: “Through persistent effort we can, and will, create a society in which abortion, euthanasia, and the death penalty have no place.” Despite the author’s accusatory tone, I can attest that Georgetown Right to Life remains committed as ever to protecting life at all stages. Below, I’ve attempted to list the claims laid against RTL in that article so that I can properly address them.

The article implied that because the Facebook event for RTL’s “Pro-Life Rally” said nothing about RTL’s stance on capital punishment, it proves that RTL cares more about abortion than the death penalty. As it is difficult to effectively promote every plank of the RTL platform at every event we hold, each event is tailored to a specific cause under the umbrella of human dignity. The event to which the author was referring was specifically focused on Planned Parenthood because it was held the day Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood, testified before the House of Representatives in response to the undercover videos released over the summer, which present Planned Parenthood officials and employees in potential violation of several laws. Because Planned Parenthood performs abortions, the event RTL held focused on the issue of abortion.

The author of that article has also accused RTL of leaving the death penalty “largely ignored.” I am grateful to the author of the article for bringing attention to the devastation caused by the death penalty. I agree with her that there ought to be more of a discussion about it on campus.

However, to my knowledge, Georgetown Right to Life has either organized or publicized every anti-death penalty event that

has been held on or near campus in the past four years, which have included talks from the Catholic Mobilizing Network and the Community of St. Egidio. Last semester, the death penalty was discussed at length at our student panel entitled, “Why Am I Pro Life?” Georgetown Right to Life does not ignore the gross miscarriage of justice brought about by capital punishment. In fact, RTL has been working with the university to bring Sr. Helen Prejean, author of bestselling novel Dead Man Walking, and a tireless advocate for the abolition of the death penalty, to speak on campus next semester.

Right to Life does not use, as the author claimed, “ingenuine rhetoric.” There’s nothing disingenuous about the language we use. I admit we have the rhetorical advantage being called “pro-life,” but that is because we are pro-life. The author of the article asserts that pro-life means all life, and that’s absolutely right. Given this mandate, more than half of our club’s efforts benefit the oppressed and underprivileged.

We hold diaper drives once a month for the Northwest Pregnancy Resource Center, which was founded by Georgetown alumni. The center houses seven mothers and their babies at a time; it also provides free pregnancy tests and material support to women in need along with referrals to various social aid agencies, résumé writing workshops, etc. These services are available in English and Spanish.

RTL also raises money for the center through bake sales and t-shirt sales. In addition, we hold regular trips to a local nursing home to spend time with the residents there. Finally, we hold speaking events concerned with a host of pro-life issues.

Granted, there are anti-abortion organizations that do not concern themselves with life issues like capital punishment, but Georgetown Right to Life is not one of those organizations.

RTL has not focused “all of its visible efforts” on trying to defund Planned Parenthood. I’m not sure if the author meant to say that literally all of our visible efforts revolve around Planned Parenthood, or if she’s hyperbolically referring to the “ProLife Rally.” Assuming the former, I’ll say that we table three days a week, each day writing an important fact about a pro-life issue on a whiteboard. These facts cover the breadth of issues for which we stand. Our other “vis-

ible efforts” include our emailing list and our Facebook page, both of which support the entirety of RTL’s mission statement.

In my time at Georgetown, we’ve only Parenthood, and they were each prompted by that establishment’s questionable ethics.

Just to clarify, Right to Life is opposed to Planned Parenthood because it has potenaborted fetuses for years, and that raises some serious bioethical concerns. Right to Life does not deny that, with the notable exception of mammograms, Planned Parenthood provides helpful services to women in need. However, there are many other women’s health clinics in the country that perform these services and are not currently under investigation. We’re not against helping women. As I’ve said, we actively work to support mothers in need so they don’t feel like abortion is their only option.

Finally, the Voice the cartoon that accompanied the article suggests that RTL concerns itself with tabling rather than with the plight of every oppressed group of people. It seems absurd for the Voice to accuse RTL of not doing enough to protect all of the oppressed people in the world because life cause. RTL is doing all it can to support those in need in our area. Personally, as a member of Right to Life, I’ve gone on countless diaper drives, babysat, visited nursing homes, and raised money for various pro-life social justice organizations.

I understand that it’s a busy time for all of us—balancing work, extracurricular activities, and midterms, but that’s not a satisfactory excuse for failing to perform due diligence when writing an article. Unfortunately, it seems like the author of the recent article formed her conclusion about Georgetown Right to Life before doing research. If you, the author of that article, or anyone else has any questions or concerns about the efforts of Georgetown Right to Life, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at gu.rightolife@gmail. com or stop by our table in Red Square.

We’re a friendly group committed to living up to all that the term “pro-life” entails, and we’d love your help.

BY

TERESA DONNELLAN

She is a senior in the College.

11/18/15 11:55 PM

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THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

Carrying On: Voice Staffers Speak

I have been lucky enough to spend my time at Georgetown surrounded by some of the smartest people I have ever met.

The two of my colleagues that aren’t bound for high-powered to medical school and are preempting or mixing their time there with a graduate degree in an unrelated humanity or a

Everybody used to tell me that I was smart.

Before I came to Georgetown, I didn’t realize what conhigh school, but I never had trouble being one of the smartest students. I wasn’t world-renowned at anything that I did, but I was pretty good at everything that I took seriously. Like many successful high school seniors, I was cocky, and as I moved on to college, I had no reason to believe that I was ever going to be anything but exceptional. There are many issues with this line of thought, but none bigger than the fact that everything that I thought made me “exceptional” was something that appeared on my Common App. When I arrived at Georgetown, a lot of things that I had never even thought about changed. I hadn’t felt pressure to make friends since the day that I arrived in kindergarten twelve years earlier, and although I was only a 20-minute drive from home, I lived on a campus with exactly zero other students from my high school. I felt self-conscious and awkward.

Andrea Leng That’s when I stopped believing in myself. I’ve recovered since, but the issue is not that this did happen, but why it did. *** Three years ago, I went with a friend to an open jam session at a jazz club in D.C. As I went up on stage with a group of professionals and talented amateurs, the musician running the session called for the song “Cherokee,” which is a jazz the session leader looked over at me and nodded, gesturing for me to start playing. I’m sure that the noises coming from my saxophone were far from beautiful, but as I remember it, everything I played sounded great. played. That doesn’t make a lot of sense. It’s unlikely that after consistently playing for the last three years I have gotten worse.

So it’s probably not my playing that has declined. Rather, my

suddenly school didn’t make as much sense as it had before. I didn’t understand how to pick and choose which readings to do or how to study for two or three exams that comprised an

generally work my way around things that cause me trouble. But during my earlier years here on the Hilltop, damage was done, not irreparably to the future of my professional life, but certainly to my chances of graduating with top honors and of having a high placement within the hierarchy of Georgetown students,

fall, I heard that my mother had been diagnosed with cancer and that a good friend from home had run into a set of problems much more serious than mine. Depressed and anxious, I went into exams and discussion sections unprepared and then walked back to my dorm room with my head down, closed the door, and stared into a computer screen until I stopped thinking about my grades, which were quickly plummeting.

Did you notice what I just wrote? “Hierarchy.” What does that mean? To my knowledge, President DeGioia isn’t keeping a comprehensive multi-factor ranking of all undergrads at his desk. But for some reason, it seems like many of us at Georgetown have decided that we have been thrown onto campus with something to prove, not just to employers, but to each other.

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competitive instinct, though, most of the time, these brilliant students would rather ask me about myself than talk about their own achievements.

The issue is many others, who are brilliant by national standards but not by Georgetown standards, seem to need approval wherever they go. During my sophomore year, a student-made video was released exploring something that most Hoyas probably think about: is Georgetown too focused on perfection? The video concluded, after interviewing a number of undergraduates that, yes, Georgetown creates immense pressure for its students. What it didn’t seem to acknowledge is that this pressure exists only because we, as a community, create it and enjoy it. The video’s interviewees talked about the stresses of living in a competitive environment, but seemed all too happy to rattle off the names of their internships and club board positions. Students won’t just tell you that they are busy, but they’ll tell you why they’re busy, because everything from to “I’m studying abroad” is a form of capital. They’re telling you that they have friends or that they’re smart or that they’re worldly and cultured. In a place where 7,000 students whose biggest prestige-related failure before the age of 18 was not getting into Harvard, everything is a competition. Most of us pretend to hate this climate at Georgetown, but if that were the case, it wouldn’t exist. If most students were uninterested or opposed to the idea of sliding lines from their CVs into dialogue, few would participate in such actions. *** I care about being a good student. I care about making an impact on people with my actions outside of the classroom. son, or brother. In the end, the people who care about you are all that matter. As long as you don’t try to upstage them at every turn, your friends will be there long after your world stops caring about who put together the best Linkedin page. If we So, when people ask you the ever-familiar Georgetown question: “What do you do?,” don’t worry about appearing impressive. That won’t do you any good.

What do I do?

I try my best.

BY CHRIS ALMEIDA

He is a senior in the College.

11/18/15 11:55 PM

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NOVEMBER 20, 2015

UP in the AIR How the University, GUSA, and D.C. Neighborhood Associations are Taking on the FAA

by Caitlyn Cobb

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t’s not often that you hear about Georgetown students and the Georgetown neighborhood agreeing about a noise problem. However, this past summer, the Georgetown University Student Association (GUSA), the university, and seven local neighborhood associations, including the Citizen’s Association of Georgetown, took legal action against the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) by filing a petition for review in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

A recent change in air traffic over the Potomac has raised noise levels in communities from Foggy Bottom to Foxhall, and all nine organizations are working together to fight it. According to Ari Goldstein (COL ‘18) GUSA secretary of campus planning, the group of organizations recently chose the name D.C. Fair Skies Coalition, and their website, which GUSA is helping to build, is to be up and running this week.

The changes moved flights from over Rosslyn and Arlington to over the Potomac, increasing the aircraft noise in the east bank as planes clip the bank when turning over the narrower parts of the river. FAA ran a pilot for these new routes from March to May of 2015, and the changes were adopted permanently on June 25, 2015.

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Noise about Noise

or those in and around Georgetown, at least some airplane noise isn’t new news.

“Everybody is on the same page about the way air traffic is affecting our communities,” Goldstein said. “I mean, if you stand outside anywhere on campus, you hear every few minutes planes passing overhead. Phone conversations have to be stopped, events have to be stopped; so the impact of the noise is significant.”

The Georgetown University administration has also shown concern about the impact of airplane noise.

Chris Murphy, vice president for Government Relations and Community Engagement wrote in an email to the Voice that the university “has expressed concern about the impact of airplane noise to historic buildings on campus as well as the disruption it causes to students, faculty, staff, and other members of our community.”

However, not all Georgetown students agree that this type of disturbance warrants so much attention.

Marlene Cox (COL ‘16), believes that given the gravity of recent events, airplane noise is a relatively minor issue. “During Rugby practice, sometimes it’s hard to hear my coach when airplanes fly over our practice fields. That’s all,” said Cox. “Airplanes flying over campus seem a little arbitrary.”

Cassidy Gasteiger, (SFS ‘18), said her impression of noise on campus has changed drastically over time.

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“When I first got to Georgetown I thought I would have to transfer because I hated the aircraft noise so much ... But now I don’t even notice them, so I think I’ve adjusted,” said Gasteiger.

However, to some of the university’s neighbors, noise is a serious issue. The August petition for review comes after two years of attempts by Georgetown-area neighborhood groups to work with the FAA to address growing air-traffic noise and the impact of FAA decisions on air traffic through Reagan National Airport (DCA).

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An Unhealthy Environment

hen Roberto Vittori, an Italian air force officer and European Astronaut Corps astronaut, moved to Georgetown in 2013, he received no warning about the noise issue. After moving in, he realized that aircraft noise was a disturbance in his new home. “There is a very significant issue here in Georgetown with aircraft noise.”

“There’s three elements: annoyance, health impact, and safety,” he said.

According to Vittori, high levels of noise generated by air traffic over residential areas beneath their flight paths are both an annoyance and a health risk, interrupting sleep and increasing stress.

The changes being contested in the petition for review raised noise levels in the Georgetown area because they moved flight paths about half a mile to the east. This change has, according to Vittori’s calculations, caused a doubling in sound intensity (3 dbA increase) in the Georgetown area.

“Noise is a very tricky beast … You sleep, you may not even wake up, but the noise, the vibrations are bombarding you. And so you get up, and you are tired, or confused, or you don’t perform well, and you think it’s just a bad day. In reality it’s an unhealthy environment,” said Vittori. “A student usually takes it lightly, because it’s a temporary situation, but it’s really important ... For you, it’s an investment—you pay to go to college—so you should be in the best condition to perform.”

There is growing evidence that negative health impacts are associated with noise pollution.

The World Health Organization’s 2011 publication, Burden of disease from environmental noise: Quantification of healthy life years lost in Europe, lists increased risk for cardiovascular disease, sleep disturbance, and cognitive impairments as some outcomes suggested to be associated with noise pollution, and concludes that “there is overwhelming evidence that exposure to environmental noise has adverse effects on the health of the population.”

Air pollution is another environmental concern, particularly for those living directly under low-altitude flight paths as aircraft arrive to and depart from Reagan National.

“Engines, those large engines, burn a lot of fuel, and the byproducts are heavier than air,” said Vittori. “You won’t see it, you won’t feel it, but you will get [it] in your lungs.”

However, according to Sandra Borden, president of the Crystal City Civic Association, noise pollution around DCA is decreasing. She noted that Reagan has been using quieter and cleaner engines over the course of her 30 years of living right next to Reagan.

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THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

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NextGen: A National Problem

he FAA’s Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen), is a national program that aims to increase safety and efficiency as air traffic surges by using satellite-based, rather than radar-based, technologies for navigation and communications. The FAA’s implementation of NextGen routes, however, has been accompanied by complaints about increased aircraft noise in multiple cities and neighborhoods across the United States, including Phoenix, Baltimore, and Palo Alto.

According to Kevin Terrell, a founder of the MSP FairSkies Coalition, a similar group in Minneapolis-St. Paul, the group is not opposed to everything about NextGen. “We are opposed [to] the way it is being implemented near airports... The process is flawed, the FAA is tone deaf, and it needs to be reeled in, immediately,” wrote Terrell.

According to Terrell, this is a nationalized issue. “The situation is slightly different in every city. But, the essential elements of the story are the same, which is a lack of local interaction by the FAA,” said Terrell.

This story is familiar here in the District, where air traffic noise has been a growing concern for local communities over the past two years. Individuals from both sides of the Potomac believe that the FAA should communicate more clearly with the public.

“We, as the communities, feel like they have not been forthcoming with the changes that have happened,” said Andrea Ramirez, a Foxhall resident.

The larger issue, according to Vittori, is that the expansion of DCA’s airways over surrounding residential areas occurred without adequately consulting the affected residents. “Georgetown was founded in the 1750s. Georgetown University is also an historical landmark,” said Vittori. “There must be some kind of compromise between the expansion of residential areas and the expansion of airports.”

“What we’re looking for is not a ridiculous change in flight paths but really a rational solution to a problem that is affecting us all,” said Goldstein.

The FAA declined to comment on the issue given the pending lawsuit.

B

Over the River

efore the change, the route went over Rosslyn and Arlington in Virginia on the opposite bank of the Potomac, so while reversing the changes made to flight paths this summer would benefit the groups who filed the petition, it would move the planes back to the west bank of the Potomac and over Arlington.

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Number of Passengers

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Total Passengers at Reagan National Airport

Action against the FAA

he petition for review concerns the decisions made by the FAA to change flight paths through DCA “without addressing—and, in some cases, without even responding to— significant concerns raised by Petitioners and their members,” according to the petition.

The Voice obtained the entire docket with copies of court filings at pacer.gov.

The petition argues that, “the University, its resident students, and the Neighborhoods and their residents have suffered — and will continue to suffer significant, adverse impacts as a result of the FAA’s flight arrival and departure routes.”

GUSA was initially one of the petitioners but was removed from the petition in September. “As we are student group at Georgetown and not a registered non-profit or otherwise we do not have the ability to sign onto lawsuits,” wrote GUSA President Joe Luther, (COL ‘16) in an email to the Voice.

No decision has been made yet on the petition. Concerned parties can appeal FAA decisions by filing a petition for review in the U.S. Court of Appeals, as the Georgetown-area petitioners did, but there is a 60 day limit on appeals. In October, respondents at the FAA filed a motion to dismiss the case for lack of jurisdiction, arguing that the petition is invalid because they claim it was filed more than 60 days after FAA decisions made to the routes in question. As of now, the petitioners have until December 31 to respond to this motion for dismissal.

The growing community action on this issue has been mirrored by district representatives.

Over the past few years, Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton has been a part of the effort to work and address airplane noise in D.C. neighborhoods with the FAA. “We have gotten [the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA)] to set up a working group, comprised of residents from D.C. and Virginia with the FAA participating, to craft best flight path procedures going into DCA.” she wrote in an email to the Voice. “I strongly support the petition filed in August by nine location (sic) organizations. We must surround the noise issue to have a fair chance of contesting this perennial issue.”

Rep. Don Beyer, whose district includes Arlington County, agrees that noise is an issue for communities on both sides of the Potomac. “I look forward to continue working with the FAA on a durable long term solution that does not come at the expense of local homeowners in Virginia or in D.C,” he wrote in an email to the Voice.

Local residents can also express concern about aircraft noise by submitting a complaint online. According to Vittori, MWAA determines whether or not there is a noise problem at an airport by counting the number of complaints submitted, and a letter from a congresswoman does not count any more than a complaint submitted online.

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Year Source: Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority

Arlington County does not support a reversal to the old flight paths, according to Stephen Geiger, a representative of Arlington County on the Working Group set up by Rep. Norton.

Communities in Virginia have been concerned with aircraft noise from air traffic through DCA as well. The recent changes made to routes through DCA have affected both groups, and any future changes will as well.

According to Geiger, Arlington still experiences more aircraft noise than the Georgetown area communities.

“One of the areas of consciousness for this group has been to allow space for all these groups to operate independently and not obstruct each other,” said Goldstein.

“The key objective, as I see it, is to avoid a zero sum game contest between the citizenry on opposites sides of the river,” wrote Joseph Pelton, another representative of Arlington County on the working group, in an email to the Voice.

All these concerns about aircraft noise haven’t put everyone in opposition to the airport itself.

“The vast majority of people, including those experiencing aircraft noise, are supportive of National Airport,” wrote Geiger.

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The Future of Flight

ec. 31, 2015 is the deadline for the next move in the legal battle between Georgetown area organizations and the FAA. However, the petition for review is not the only factor deciding the future.

The expansion of DCA is a factor that will affect both sides of the river. According to Ramirez, MWAA claims to want to move air traffic and passenger flow into Dulles rather than expand Reagan.

“I would say the biggest next change coming is that DCA, Reagan is expanding their terminal further,” said Ramirez. “If they don’t want more passengers at Reagan, why are they building a new terminal?”

Borden, though, noted the importance of DCA for its economic benefits.

“The airport is an important economic engine for Arlington and D.C. … I find them a good neighbor,” she said.

Bigger, louder planes in the sky, though, could mean more noise complaints and community action. The continuing development of the D.C. Fair Skies Coalition could have an impact on how Georgetown-area organizations move forward with concerns about air traffic.

On campus, GUSA plans to run an information campaign as part of the group’s effort by educating students and providing a venue for people who want to take action. “I don’t think it’ll be a pressing issue for students on campus because so much else is going on, but it’s sort of another good way to keep students engaged in the community,” said Goldstein.

Goldstein feels that this student-community engagement might move the relationship between students and the neighborhood away from its rockier past. “I hope it will be part of a more constructive tone as we enter the next campus planning process.”

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NOVEMBER 20, 2015

The Lone Senior

Saar Finishes Distinguished Career

By Santul Nerkar

Lauren Saar remembers when she was one of five wide-eyed, unassertive freshmen in the Georgetown Volleyball program three years ago. Today, she’s no longer just a quiet girl from a small town in Michigan. Saar stands alone as the only remaining member of her recruiting class, playing with, as she describes it, “intentionality.”

“Coming from a senior’s perspective, that’s even more at the front of my mind, intentionality,” Saar says. “This might be my last game, this might be my last practice, and so on and so forth. It’s hard to envision that if seniors tell you that as a freshman, but you don’t really know until you’re almost done.”

Saar admits to feeling challenged by the exodus of her classmates, but relishes that she has stuck with Georgetown volleyball all throughout.

“Yeah, it was [difficult to watch her classmates go],” Saar says. “And not just my class, too, some other classes there were people that were on the team that left for one reason or another.”

It’s difficult, but this year as a senior you have a different mindset than before.”

“I am 100% glad that I stayed and stuck with it.”

Originally recruited as a libero, a primarily defensive position, Saar quickly transitioned to hitting outside and established herself as a cornerstone of the Hoya offense, something she was more accustomed to in high school.

“It’s an interesting story with Lauren. When I first saw her, she was three inches shorter than she is now, as a sophomore in high school,” said Head Coach Arlissa Williams. “But she continued to grow, both physically and in attacking aggressively on hits. She’s a person who is so positive, never complains, and always makes the best out of every situation. You don’t get that from players all the time.”

Saar is the unquestioned leader of a young Hoyas team, setting a positive example for underclassmen as well as being a strong vocal presence. However, the latter was not always a forte of the seasoned outside hitter.

“Lauren has been a great leader for us and has always made the right decisions on and off the court,” says Williams. “Lauren has always led by example, but now she has gone outside her comfort zone by being more vocal, which has been the biggest thing for her.”

Saar is modest about her own leadership capabilities, but stresses that her advice to the younger players has carried just as much meaning on the court as it has in the classroom. In particular, the senior points to the adjustment period that all incoming student-athletes face as one of her biggest hurdles at Georgetown. Whether it was consulting professors about exams and papers, advisors about potential majors and career paths, or just getting used to the daily grind of practice and lifting, the changes were plenty for Saar when she first arrived on the Hilltop.

“I think that not just in volleyball, but also in school there’s so much they don’t know, just about being freshmen at a university in the first place,” Saar, an English and Film Studies major, observes. “While you need to know time management as a student-athlete in high school, it’s at a whole new level in college. I’ve had to grow more as a leader because I have to be a little more verbal and communicative, because that’s what they need and what helped me as a freshman.”

There is also the on-court effects of improved team chemistry. Saar points out that the quality team cohesion off the court ultimately looms large in the team’s performance on the court. That perfect set you saw from Saar that set up a kill for Symone Speech? Chances are, a lot of what made that possible was fostered by the trust the teammates build for each other outside the lines.

“Whether it’s conditioning, as they say the suffering brings you closer together, and there’s also just the effort to hang out with each other more than you normally would,” Saar says.

“Otherwise, I think that your relationships off the court certainly impact your relationships on the court. So whether you want it to be separate or not, inevitably there’s going to be an impact there. We’re really grateful this season. We have a great team dynamic both on and off the court, which we haven’t always had.”

Having just achieved her 1000th career dig, Saar is certainly no stranger to accomplishments on the court. But from talking to her, you wouldn’t know. In fact, she wasn’t even aware of the upcoming milestone until I mentioned it to her.

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“Yeah, I honestly had no idea until you mentioned it just now,” Saar says. “You can’t do anything individually, without the people around you. And this season more than previous ones, I’m focused on stats a lot less. It’s something you can get caught up with a lot as a freshman or sophomore. I had never thought about stats before, but being in college you tend to focus on it a lot. I’m realizing I’m having a lot more fun this year just playing and not focusing on it at all.”

In fact, Saar’s most cherished moments of her accomplished Hoya career don’t center around wins or any broken records. Rather, the senior will reminisce about the times where things were not working out, and the team pushed through to find an answer. Those micro moments, where a busted set or mistimed block somehow wound up as a point for the Hoyas, are the snapshots that remain.

“I think it’s the little moments where something doesn’t go perfectly, and we get a point,” Saar says. “It wasn’t the perfect play, but it worked out and then we just get even more excited because it was chaotic. Take for example, [freshman Paige McKnight], our center. She does not get excited about things, visibly. She was just going crazy this last match, and that got everyone hyped. It’s the little moments in between that are unconventional, that are the happiest.”

“You might remember winning a game, or a championship, but oftentimes you remember the ties and relationships you’ve fostered, and how you made someone feel.”

Saar does not quite quantify what her experience at Georgetown has been like, especially measured against her expectations, but then again, can anyone?

“It’s not what you expect, though I don’t know what you expect. There are definitely ups and downs throughout the four years, but this year has probably been one of the most different seasons because we’ve had a completely new set of girls on the team. But it’s been one of my favorite years. We have an amazing team dynamic. It’s not what you expect. but I don’t think it can ever be what you expect it to be. I’m very happy with the season so far and thankful for the four years I’ve had so far. I’m going to miss it a lot.”

There is no question that Saar has left her mark on the Georgetown University Volleyball Program, one dig and five connections at a time.

Lauren Saar celebrates with her teammate Liv King after getting a Kill.

Georgetown Athletics

11/19/15 12:15 PM

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THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

LEISURE

McCarthy Highlights both Clerical and Journalistic Flaws in Spotlight

By Andrew Gutman The procedural genre — one in which a problem is presented, investigated, and solved—encourages precision and economy, allowing for the comparatively unaffected telling of true stories. It’s also a genre that is well-liked and prevalent in literature, television, and film. Yet the procedural genre is also difficult to pin down and master; it’s sometimes noted for its capacity for conjuring boredom. Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight avoids falling into this trap, and while the film might never reach the cultural prominence of, for example, All the President’s Men, it remains a gripping and compassionately-told tale of investigative journalism in action.

Spotlight’s title refers to the Boston Globe’s Spotlight Team, the oldest investigative reporting unit in the nation. The story tracks them as they attempt to expose the long-known but little-acknowledged Catholic sex abuse scandal. As the investigation progresses, the team is met with opposition on all sides, from both the Church and the laity — threats, veiled and otherwise, come even from everyday Bostonians.

It’s said more than once in the film that Boston is still like a small town, a claim that feels both quaint and ominous.

This film marks a big move for Tom McCarthy, who was previously known for his small character pieces like The Station Agent and Win Win. Spotlight signifies a shift into more mainstream, A-list movies. It’s a lot slicker than his previous indie hits and has a much flashier cast and subject matter, which for some could be disappointing. One may be tempted to call Spotlight Oscar bait—it certainly has the look and feel of a typical awards contender—but this accusation would undermine the degree of intelligence that McCarthy brings to the table.

McCarthy and co-writer Josh Singer keep a very tight focus on the Spotlight investigation itself. Besides a meager prologue, the film begins and ends with the team’s research and writing of the initial story. As in any good procedural, Spotlight moves through what was surely an incredibly drawnout, tedious process of combing through Church records and interviewing dozens of victims in an economic fashion, never remaining on one note for too long. This does occasionally result in a muddling of information (there are many named-but-unseen characters in play), but the film remains easy to follow.

The drama is rooted in the interactions of the primary cast, from Michael Keaton’s intrepid team leader, to Mark

Ruffalo and Rachel McAdams’ investigator duo and Liev Schreiber’s out-of-towner (and notably Jewish) Globe editor Marty Baron. Throughout the film, McCarthy highlights the insider-outsider relationship between the investigators and the city at-large. Baron’s outside perspective allows him to spot the problem of the Church quickly, and Robinson’s sheer Boston-ness gives him the credibility to expose the truth. In Spotlight, finding the facts is not so much the problem; the problem lies in disrupting the system that allowed them to be obscured at all.

It’s the examination of this system that gives the film a lot of its poignancy. In a late scene, there’s an interesting reversal where the focus of scrutiny shifts from the Church and those actively working to protect it to the Globe itself by asking why the paper took so long—literally decades—to start asking serious questions about the long-standing trend of child abuse by priests. It’s only a brief scene and perhaps doesn’t go as hard on the paper as some might deem appropriate, but it leaves no question as to the culpability of the Globe, acting as silent bystanders, in perpetuating the injustice just like the crooked lawyers defending the Church.

In The Visitor, McCarthy’s other socially conscious, hot-button issue drama, he manages to strike a conversation on immigration indirectly by focusing on just a handful of characters and discussing the impact of larger social issues on individuals. Spotlight cannot do exactly the same thing, situated as it is on the front lines of its chosen issue, but the film still benefits from this indirect framing. Just as The Visitor was not about immigration policy so much as it was about an immigrant and his unlikely friend, Spotlight is not so much about abused children as it is about those pushing against the mechanisms that allowed the children to be abused.

McCarthy’s approach in Spotlight, as in several of his films, is not the redundant brute-force we see too often in other films of this kind, and the movie is all the better for it. McCarthy is occasionally accused of being cloying and overly sentimental, but even if that’s true, he’s at least gentle about it. He treats his subject in an earnest but respectful fashion, always finding room to examine the gnawing questions under the surface. Spotlight is nothing revolutionary, but it’s admirably constructed, and certainly motivated by more than simple Oscar lust.

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NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT SPOTLIGHT AND THE FUTURE OF INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM

By Brian McMahon

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ver and over again, taking responsibility proves to be a challenging task for human beings and their institutions. Individuals go to great lengths to deny and conceal; as a result, others must go even further to unpack the truths that threaten our communities and livelihoods.

Investigative journalism is a powerful medium, one that has condemned and exposed individuals, institutions, and governments. In the film world, depictions of investigative reporting have often cast the men and women behind the stories as heroes, as renegades working outside of and above whatever corruption they seek to uncover.

With the release of the movie Spotlight, which details The Boston Globe’s investigation of the Massachusetts Catholic sex abuse scandal, director Tom McCarthy has graduated from the mold that defines iconic journalism films such as All the President’s Men, the critically acclaimed film following two journalists as they exposed the Watergate Scandal. Instead of glorifying the paper’s reporters, McCarthy and co-screenwriter Josh Singer attempt to portray them as they were: intelligent but flawed individuals, capable of fantastic reporting but also of missing or neglecting crucial information.

Marty Baron, Executive Editor of The Washington Post, views Spotlight as more aware of the realities of investigative reporters.

In an email to the Voice, Baron wrote, “I’m not an expert on Hollywood depictions of journalists. Generally, however, they seem to depict us as crusaders or as rascals, mostly the latter. The beauty of this film is that it recognizes that journalists, even as they can do a lot of good, have their flaws. And sometimes those flaws mean we fail to pursue stories as energetically or as deeply as we should.”

Whereas All The President’s Men gave us Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman in ardent pursuit of political justice, white knights valiantly tracking down every lead and clue, Spotlight places Globe reporters inside the very system they hope to lay bare. The Catholic Church almost runs Boston, in reality and in the cinematic creation. Churches loom in shot after shot, glaring down at the reporters as they move from house to house, hunting down priests and questioning their victims. All The President’s Men shows two heroes sinking into the filth to come up with their story, working in the shadows of Washington, but Spotlight’s main players emerge from the pervasive grime, struggling against the might of an institution that dominates Boston’s value system in broad daylight.

Though the broader results and implications of work like the Spotlight team’s lend themselves to dramatic performances, the day-to-day reporting hardly makes for a suspenseful action thriller. Eileen McNamara, the former Globe reporter and columnist largely responsible for sparking the investigation depicted in Spotlight, spoke to the Voice on this topic. “A lot of people were skeptical that this story could translate to film,” McNamara said.

“The work that we do is pretty tedious — there’s nothing particularly cinematic about looking through court files.”

Baron thought similarly. “I am amazed at how they made the often mundane, tedious work of journalists look spectacularly interesting,” he wrote.

They are not wrong. Though much of the film takes place in file rooms, empty courthouses, and cramped Globe office spaces, the narrative remains captivating throughout. McCarthy knows how to best capture and excite his audiences, notably in Win Win and The Visitor, and Singer’s experience on The West Wing surely helped make Spotlight’s script a taut and riveting one.

The efficiency of the film pairs well with the productivity of the Spotlight team, played with convincing energy

by Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Brian d’Arcy James, and Mark Ruffalo. No one role or performer steals the stage. Though Keaton, Ruffalo, and Stanley Tucci all turn in memorable scenes, collaboration reigns supreme, indi-

November 20, 2015

“I’m sure about the value we provide in the democracy. You can’t have one without us. People don’t go into journalism to become rich and famous …

They do it because it was a calling, a vocation, a mission to serve the public. Shining a light in dark places is a public task.”

-Eileen McNamara vidual senses of purpose augmented by a collective thirst for justice.

What stands out in Spotlight is the persistence of the journalists, their drive to continue working despite opposition from the Church and its allies. Baron sees the Spotlight team’s work as necessary in the face of crimes like those committed by the Church. “Whenever there is potential wrongdoing, particularly by a powerful institution like the Church, journalists are obligated to investigate—and to investigate aggressively,” he said.

“That’s what drove the Globe’s work. The opposition of the Church and any resistance in other Boston circles should be immaterial. This was a cover-up of breathtaking scope by an institution that should be considered a safe place, a refuge. When you come to realize all that, a team of journalists with integrity can’t help but continue its work.”

Likewise, McNamara sees the work as imperative for those in the field, people who play an important role in upholding our society’s moral values. “I’m not sure about [the designation] ‘hero,’” she said. “I’m sure about the value we provide in the democracy. You can’t have one without us. People don’t go into journalism to become rich and famous … They do it because it was a calling, a vocation, a mission to serve the public. Shining a light in dark places is a public task.”

With media forms constantly evolving and digitizing, investigative journalism faces a

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murky future, particularly in print form. Technology and data threaten to replace the work of reporters like those who led the Spotlight team, individuals who walk the streets and rifle through file rooms while waiting hours on end to get their hands on court documents. The question remains: is there room for in-depth investigative reporting in the future of journalism? Will we see anything like the Spotlight team’s work in five years? In ten?

Baron certainly likes to think so. “Data journalists are highly valued in newsrooms now because of their ability to compile and analyze data sets … But data sets alone don’t make stories. You still need journalists to do ground-level reporting. You can’t just look at data. You also need to talk to people,” he said. “Our industry and profession are under enormous financial pressure, and that’s been the case for a long time. Notwithstanding the financial pressures, however, I believe we’re obligated to do investigative work. Our politicians, policy makers, business people, nonprofit leaders, and even media industry leaders need to know that they will always be held accountable for what they do.”

The newspaper industry suffers in the shadows of social media and the never-ending news cycle, one filled with shouting matches and conjecture. McNamara hopes investigative reporting can survive amongst the chaos of newer platforms.

She asserted, “We want the public to see it isn’t all about television and talking heads shouting at each other. Real journalism is verification. The reliance in this movie in the reporting is on documentation. Those people who are critics of journalism think we just assert things from political bias. That is not what we do. We verify.”

Few would argue with the vision of journalism Baron and McNamara project, but can Spotlight play an active role in making/keeping that vision a reality?

We will certainly see McCarthy, Singer, and their extraordinary cast make the rounds on the awards circuit this winter, but the fact remains that a month from now, films like Star Wars: The Force Awakens and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2 will consume the majority of moviegoers’ attention. Awards attention and nominations will keep Spotlight in the cultural conscience for those who want it to be there, but Han Solo and Katniss Everdeen will fill every nook and cranny of the commercial world, an entity irrevocably more massive than said cultural conscience.

Baron holds out hope for McCarthy’s independent triumph.

When asked if a film like Spotlight can make a cultural impact amongst the aforementioned blockbusters he said, “I hope Spotlight will become a success commercially and perhaps encourage more sophisticated, nuanced, intelligent films. There’s no question that movies can have an enormous cultural impact, and I hope this one leads the public to, first, recognize that we should give voice to those who’ve suffered (in this case, survivors of abuse) and, second, recognize that we need strong investigative reporting and vigorous local journalism to hold powerful institutions and individuals accountable. If journalists don’t do it, who will?”

Compared to the box-office titans that will soon open in theaters nationwide, Spotlight remains a blip on the commercial radar. Nevertheless, the Spotlight team has produced tangible results since its work first broke in early 2002. Besides their 2003 Pulitzer victory, their work also led to the resignation of Cardinal Bernard Francis Law, who at the time served as Archbishop of Boston. The Spotlight investigation unearthed widespread abuse not only in Massachusetts churches but in communities across the United States and the world.

Spotlight has not only helped to expose offenders, but also to support victims. The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), has

grown exponentially in the past twenty years, with membership now totaling over 21,000 across 79 countries. The group aims to both help victims and protect vulnerable individuals from abuse.

For Becky Ianni, SNAP’s Virginia State Leader, Spotlight has reinvigorated the fight for justice against abusive priests. She wrote, “Spotlight has re-energized me as leader… It makes me want to renew my efforts to reach out to victims who are feeling alone and isolated. I believe that the movie will encourage victims who are still suffering in silence to speak out. I also hope that it will inspire journalists to continue to investigate and expose these crimes against children… and will educate the public about the sexual abuse of children in a powerful institution and how that institution put children in danger by their actions and inactions.”

The work is, of course, ongoing. Awareness of this issue has increased and will continue to do so, but SNAP’s work is as important now as ever before. Ianni knows how crucial her organization can be in saving and protecting lives. “SNAP will continue to work to expose those that abuse children and those that cover up that abuse, which is the bigger problem,” she wrote. “We are always trying to find new and better ways to reach out to those victims who are still suffering in silence.”

All the President’s Men inspired a generation of journalists who longed to challenge and improve our nation’s most powerful institutions. One is left wondering if Spotlight can do the same. The film’s narrative would certainly seem to have that potential. Before those stars of tomorrow can shine, though, they will have to find environments and jobs that allow them to do so.

McCarthy’s film has given us a raw and revealing look at not only the fallible individuals of the Catholic Church, but also those of the journalistic world. In the place of dramatized mavericks stand men and women who care for their communities and the job they inhabit. Even if the media landscape shifts enough to render a team like Spotlight impractical, they will never be irrelevant. The work transcends the job title, and can be done in all sorts of ways -- by leaders like those in SNAP but also by concerned and cognizant citizens everywhere.

“Shining a light in dark places is a public task,” McNamara told the Voice. If a society fails to shine its lights, the darkness only spreads. Journalists verify so that individuals can take action to affect meaningful change. One hopes that someone out there—whether investigative journalist becomes an antique term or not—keeps looking for verification, before the dark places expand and multiply, pervasive and impenetrable.

“We want the public to see it isn’t all about television and talking heads shouting at each other.

Real journalism is verification. The reliance in this movie in the reporting is on documentation.”

-Eileen McNamara

About Our Contributers MARTY BARON currently serves as the Executive Editor of The Washington Post. From 2001 until 2012, he served as the Editor of The Boston Globe. In his time at the Globe, he oversaw many investigative projects, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the Boston church sex abuse scandal.

EILEEN MCNAMARA is a professor of journalism at Brandeis University. She wrote for The Boston Globe for nearly thirty years, and in 1997 she won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary. Her 2001 column on abusive priest John J. Geoghan motivated Baron and the Globe’s Spotlight investigative team to pursue the coverage that would become the basis for the film, Spotlight.

BECKY IANNI

is the Virginia State Leader for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP). She coordinates and holds monthly support meetings for the northern Virginia region. She can be reached at SNAPVirginia@cox.net.

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