The Hoya: January 17, 2020

VOL. 101

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY, WASHINGTON, D.C., JANUARY 17, 2020

No. 14

Leo’s Starts Green Initiative

Warren Urges Lius’ Release

GIULIA TESTA

JAIME MOORE-CARRILLO

Hoya Staff Writer

Hoya Staff Writer

LEO MKT transitioned to reusable dishes and cutlery this semester as part of a broader campus pivot toward more sustainable dining practices.

Previously, the food stalls on the main floor of Leo J. O’Donovan Dining Hall exclusively used disposable cutlery and dishware. The trash bins in upstairs Leo’s are now accompanied by racks, which are taken down to the dish room where used tableware is washed along with used dishes from the Fresh Food Company, according to a Jan. 6 Hoya Hospitality announcement. Compostable containers are still available by request for students taking their food to go.

The transition to reusable utensils in upstairs Leo’s was led by a collaboration among Georgetown University’s Office of Sustainability, campus environmental advocacy groups and Hoya Hospitality, the university’s food provider, according to Director of the Office of Sustainability Audrey Stewart.

“We were thrilled to collaborate with student environmental clubs, Auxiliary Business Services and Hoya Hospitality last semester to help plan the reusable tableware initiative, and are glad to be able to take this additional step, in coordination with LEO MKT, to increase sustainability outcomes on campus,” Stewart wrote in an email to The Hoya.

The Georgetown Renewable Energy and Environmental Network, one of the clubs involved in the effort, has been pushing to institute reusable tableware for years, according to GREEN President Noelle Gignoux (SFS ’22). The cost of transitioning away from single-use dishes and utensils posed a significant challenge to the push for the new system, according to Gignoux.

The new dining system will drastically cut back waste, according to Gignoux.

“It’s easy to write off the amount of waste that used to be produced upstairs, because we never actually see the sheer magnitude of waste that we produce,” Gignoux wrote in an email to The Hoya. “This new setup makes See LEO’S, A6

Panel: Seek Peace in Iran YALDA ZARRABI Hoya Staff Writer

Congressional pushback on presidential foreign policies is essential to quelling the escalating tensions between Iran and the United States, Program Director of the Institute for Policy Studies Phyllis Bennis said in a panel Monday.

The event, titled “Iran on the Brink of War: A Teach-In,” was sponsored by the Program on Justice and Peace and the Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching and Service.

Panelists for the event included Bennis, Georgetown University graduate student in philosophy Keyvan Shafiei and Deputy Director of the Arab American Institute Omar Baddar. The event was moderated by professor of philosophy and Co-director of the Program on Justice and Peace Mark Lance.

Less than two weeks before the event, the Trump administration ordered an airstrike that killed Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani and several Iraqi militia officers Jan. 3. The airstrike followed an attack by the Iranian militia on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, on Dec. 31. While the Trump administration has claimed that killing Soleimani was a necessary defensive action to See IRAN, A6

NEWS

NATALIE REGAN/THE HOYA

Call Your Mother secured a zoning variance Jan. 15 after facing community opposition, paving the way for the popular bagel deli to open on the corner of 35th and O streets.

Call Your Mother Set To Open by End of Month CLARA GRUDBERG Hoya Staff Writer

After facing months of community opposition and bureaucratic delays, popular bagel deli Call Your Mother was granted a zoning variance Jan. 15, clearing the way for an expected opening by the end of the month.

The Washington, D.C. Board of Zoning Adjustment voted unanimously Wednesday to grant Call Your Mother a zoning exception, allowing the bagel deli to serve hot food. Pushback from neighbors and community officials triggered a process that included four separate BZA hearings on the topic.

The outcome is a long-awaited victory for the deli, according to founder and owner Andrew Dana.

“We are over the bagel moon,” Dana said in an interview with DCist. “We are thrilled that we can now toast bagels and top them for our customers.”

Call Your Mother announced its plans to open on the corner of 35th and O streets in June. The space was formerly zoned as a retail space, but the bagel deli needed to be zoned as a corner store to be able to prepare hot foods. The proximity of another corner store, Wisemiller’s Deli, however, prohibited that option because of corner store rules. The BZA granted Call Your Mother an exception to the proximity rule, allowing it to go forward with the opening.

The new bagel deli’s proximity to Georgetown University’s main campus sparked interest among students, some of whom started a petition in favor of Call Your Mother’s opening which garnered 476 signatures. The BZA’s decision proves that student voices can yield change, according to Georgetown University Student Association Senator Samuel Dubke (SFS ’21), who cosponsored a Nov. 24 resolution urging the granting of the zoning variance.

“This is a huge victory for all of the Georgetown community, and will bring more business and dining options to the Hilltop,” Dubke wrote in an email to The

Hoya. “Moreover, it demonstrates that student activists can work effectively with the wider business community to break through the District’s bureaucracy.”

Advisory Neighborhood Commission 2E, a local government body of elected officials that represents Georgetown, endorsed the granting of the variance Jan. 7, with a 6-2 margin, according to The Georgetowner.

The deli’s opening will improve food options in the Georgetown area, according to ANC 2E Commissioner Matias Burdman (COL ’21).

“Call Your Mother’s opening is a major victory that will bring affordable and high quality food options to the university’s doorstep,” Burdman wrote in a statement to The Hoya.

Tenants living in the buildings that neighbor the space led the opposition against granting the zoning variance. The opposition group appeared at all four of the BZA hearings to make its case. The vote was disappointing but not surprising, according to Melinda Roth (LAW ’03), a neighbor who was active in the opposition effort.

“It was completely an expected outcome,” Roth said in an interview with The Hoya. “It was clear that the BZA would try and find a way that they could allow Call Your Mother to operate the way that Call Your Mother wants to operate.”

The granting of the variance is concerning because the building will be permanently zoned with the exception, according to Roth. Roth said she fears future tenants may not be as cognizant of neighbors’ concerns.

“Now that variance is with the building forever,” Roth said. “It could come in and be like some sort of other take-away food shop, which hasn’t promised to be a good neighbor, and isn’t a good neighbor.”

While disappointed in the BZA’s decision, Roth plans to support the Call Your Mother opening, she said.

“No matter what happens, you know I’ll be in line with everyone else,” Roth said.

“You know I want them to succeed, and I wish them the best.”

FEATURED

New Assistant Director Women’s Center announced assistant director Jan. 8.

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Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) released a statement and contributed to legislation this week supporting the release of Cynthia Liu and Victor Liu (COL ’21) from China, where they have been detained since June 2018.

Chinese authorities have prevented Liu and his older sister, Cynthia, who are U.S. citizens, from leaving China under an exit ban, which bars travelers from leaving the country. Warren and Markey, who represent the Liu siblings’ home state, released a Jan. 14 statement urging the Chinese government to release the Lius. The previous week, Cynthia penned a letter to Markey urging the U.S. government to push for their release, according to CNN. Chinese police hope to compel the Lius’ estranged father, Liu Changming, to return to China to face criminal charges. Changming, who is accused of participating in a $1.4 billion fraud scheme, left China in 2007 and cut ties with the family. When the Liu siblings visited China with their mother, Sandra Han, to visit their dying grandfather in June 2018, authorities then imposed the exit ban blocking their return to the United States. The siblings have since lost contact with Han, who is being detained in a secret holding facility.

The Liu siblings’ detainment is unwarranted, and their release is overdue, according to Warren.

“China’s use of exit bans on my constituents and other American citizens is unacceptable and must end,” Warren said in the shared press release. “The Liu siblings are confined to Chinese territory for no legitimate reason and it is long past time for them to come home. I’m glad to partner with Senator Markey on a bill that would hold the Chinese government accountable for this unjust policy.”

“China’s use of exit bans on my constituents and other American citizens is unacceptable and must end.”

ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MASS.) U.S. Senator

One day after issuing their statement, the Massachusetts senators collaborated with Senators Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) (LAW ’90) on a related initiative. The senators introduced a bill that would revoke or deny visas to Chinese officials involved in implementing and enforcing exit bans on U.S. citizens. China has long used exit bans to keep Chinese dissidents and human rights activists from leaving the country, according to USA Today. In recent years, however, the Chinese government has started limiting the international travel of some foreign nationals.

After the Massachusetts senators issued their news release, Georgetown University President John DeGioia (CAS ’79, GRD ’95) advocated for the release of Liu in a Jan. 14 public statement.

“Georgetown joins Senators Markey and Warren in urgently asking for the release of Victor and his sister Cynthia, both U.S. citizens,” DeGioia wrote. “Advocacy for Victor has ensured that his case has been brought forward at the highest levels of government and, as we continue to support Victor as a member of our Georgetown community, we sincerely hope a diplomatic solution can be See LIU, A6

FEATURE Professors in Policy SFS professors enhance teaching with field expertise.

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SPORTS

Early Admissions GU accepts 11.72% of early applicants.

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Doubling Down Five Hoyas score double digits in Creighton victory.

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OPINION

Lucky Number 7 Track and field team lands seven first-place finishes.

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Support Survivors Georgetown must reform its Title IX Compliance Office.

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EDITORIAL Accessible Admissions Georgetown must eliminate $75 application fee.

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Menstrual Equity The university must provide menstrual products.

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Send story ideas and tips to news@thehoya.com

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OPINION

THE HOYA

HOYA HISTORY • Jan. 18, 1974

Requests for Exorcism Follow Movie’s Release If a friend or relative starts shouting obscenities in a low, raspy voice, don’t call Georgetown University and ask for an exorcist.

A handful of worried callers have contacted the university since “The Exorcist” opened in 20 cities last month. Some of the callers claimed to know someone possessed by demons and asked if any priests on campus were available to perform the rite of exorcism.

CONSULT PHYSICIAN

The Office of the Executive Educational Vice President Rev. Edmund G. Ryan, S.J., which has received about seven such requests, has referred the callers to their parish priests. The university’s public relations office has asked callers to consult a family physician or psychiatrist.

Fr. Ryan’s office has received most of the requests for information on exorcism, since the university lists him as an authority on the subject. The Office of Campus Ministries and the public relations office have received

only a few calls.

“The Exorcist” is based on the bestselling novel by William Peter Blatty (CAS ‘50), who produced the film version and wrote the screenplay. William Friedkin directed the movie.

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FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2020

THE VERDICT Race to the Opossum –– The citizens of Raleigh, N.C. are receiving pushback from an animal activist group for

their New Year’s Eve tradition: suspending an opossum in a transparent box and slowly lowering it to the ground as they count down to midnight.

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Pawsitively Green –– A North Carolina family got quite the shock when one of their dogs gave birth to a lime green puppy this week. Sadly, a veterinarian told the owners the unique hue will likely fade.

Astrological Asparagus –– An English woman recently claimed she predicted the separation of Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, from the royal family. She allegedly accomplished this through “asparamancing,” the art of fortune-telling using asparagus spears.

Traffic Jam –– Washington State drivers encountered quite the obstacle on New Year’s Eve: tumbleweeds piled 30

feet high blowing across a highway. Many cars were found either abandoned or trapped underneath the pesky plants.

Skippers Astray –– Three MLB teams lost their managers in the span of a week as MLB released punishments for the

Houston Astros’ sign-stealing scandal in 2017. While there is no crying in baseball, there certainly seems to be cheating.

BOX OFFICE BONANZA

The film was released for the holiday season. Already interest is so great that there is speculation that the movie may become the all-time champion at the box office.

It appears that interest is not confined to the massive lines seen outside movie theaters.

Blatty’s book is based on an actual exorcism performed in 1949 on a boy after he was examined at the Georgetown University Hospital.

Ryan said the widespread interest in exorcism generated by the film may convince some people that physical or psychological disorders actually are cases of demonic possession. “In this case, exorcism seem the easy way out,” he said.

EDITORIAL CARTOON by Advait Arun

Andy Lang Hoya Staff Writer

For letters to the editor and more content, visit thehoya.com/category/opinion.

EDITORIALS

Invest in Lau Renovations Study spaces are an essential part of college campuses, and Georgetown University doesn’t have enough. To increase the total number of students that can be accommodated by university study spots, Georgetown should renovate Lauinger Library to increase its capacity.

While every student on campus is given a desk and a chair in their residence, everyone has different study habits, so the university cannot expect everyone to be able to study successfully in their rooms. Therefore, sufficient on-campus study spaces outside of residences are necessary.

Even though Georgetown has three main campus libraries available to undergraduates, these are not large enough to adequately accommodate Georgetown’s student body. Blommer Science Library, Lau and the Bioethics Research Library have a total of 1,384 seats, according to Director of Library Assessment Emily Guhde in an email to The Hoya.

Even if every seat in every library is being used, these spaces cannot support even one quarter of the 7,459 student undergraduate population. The lack of space in campus libraries makes it especially difficult for students to find spots to study at times when most students have more work to do, such as midterm and finals seasons.

While the university opened the Healey Family Student Center in 2014 as a new study space and has tables and seating areas in the Leavey Center, Regents Hall and the McDonough School of Business in which students can work, such alternatives do not make up for the lack of library space. Students still struggle to find seats on campus during busy study days, and time that could be spent studying is wasted trying to find a table at any of the study spaces.

Melissa Deng (SFS ’23) described an unnecessarily difficult search for a place to work during last month’s finals season. “My friends and I walked around campus trying to find a place to study, and thought we had hit the jackpot when we arrived at the ICC to find virtually no one there,” Deng wrote

in a message to The Hoya. However, this spot was not equipped as libraries are to support students studying at all hours. “Although there were spaces to sit down in the galleria, it was so incredibly dark that it was hard to concentrate and even read our notes,” Deng explained.

A lack of study spaces has plagued the university before. Lau was built in the 1960s, when the university had the potential to lose its accreditation because of a lack of study spots for its growing student population. The library remains the largest study space on campus and has 1,134 seats available to students, according to Guhde. But the student population has since grown, and the space now is not even large enough to accommodate a single undergraduate class, according to an August 2014 Hoya article. Lau was a valuable addition to campus when it was finally dedicated in 1970. But Lau was the solution to Georgetown’s study space problem in 1966, and in 2020, students need and deserve a new one.

In 2009, Georgetown hired an architecture firm to draft a master plan for Lau renovations that would have doubled its capacity to hold students, but the plans have yet to be finalized more than 10 years later. The university should take immediate action to provide students with an adequate amount of spaces to study on campus.

Once again, the university has tentative interest in increasing Lau’s capacity. “Plans for a potential renovation and reimagining of Lau are under discussion, including the possible redistribution of spaces currently allocated to book stacks, user needs, and user services,” Dean of the Library Harriette Hemassi wrote in an email to The Hoya. While redistributing spaces would be helpful, a full-building renovation like that planned in 2009 is necessary to drastically increase the capacity of Lau. Georgetown should finalize plans to renovate Lau and begin these renovations as soon as possible. To meet the demands of Georgetown’s rigorous academics, students need to spend much time studying. We deserve to have enough space to do it.

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Georgetown does not use the Common Application, the university requires guidance counselors to submit an additional fee waiver request for students directly to the university via a separate fee waiver form, letter or email.

Even though students have successfully navigated the fee-waiving process, the university is creating an additional hoop for low-income applicants to jump through to submit the same application as their higher-income peers. An easier application process for high-income applicants can make these students more likely to apply, contributing to a more socioeconomically privileged applicant pool.

The Georgetown administration has cited a desire to prevent the application pool from increasing with a lengthy application to ensure that the students who do apply are genuinely interested.

While removing the application fee could lead to a jump in total applications, Georgetown would not experience a significant increase in applications because the university does not use the Common Application. If it were free to apply, students would still demonstrate interest in Georgetown by taking time to fill out the university’s separate application, but removing the fee would make the application more accessible and thus draw a more diverse applicant pool. Moreover, Georgetown’s current requirements cannot accurately measure interest in the university with the fee creating a financial barrier for some prospective students.

Although eliminating the application fee would eliminate this source of revenue for the university, the cultural and institutional benefits of increased socioeconomic diversity are worth it. “Georgetown’s application fee is set by the University and supports the Admissions Office as its staff carefully review the more than 20,000 applications that Georgetown receives each year,” a university spokesperson wrote in an email to The Hoya. However, several other private colleges and universities, such as Wellesley College, Carleton College and Denison University, do not charge application fees and have still managed to keep their admissions offices open. Georgetown, too, can find alternative methods of funding.

The university should demonstrate a commitment to financial accessibility and increased socioeconomic diversity on campus by eliminating its application fee. $75 shouldn’t determine whether someone can be considered for admission to Georgetown.

Board of Directors

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Sana Rahman

Connor Thomas

After Georgetown University’s early action applicant pool decreased for the second year in a row, Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Charles Deacon (CAS ’64, GRD ’69) attributed the falling application numbers to an increasing use of binding early admissions programs at other institutions. But, as more colleges and universities choose to make their applications free, Georgetown should also look to its $75 application as a barrier for potential applicants.

Georgetown’s application fee is more than twice the $44 average college application fee in the United States, according to U.S. News & World Report. Georgetown should eliminate its application fee to increase the accessibility of applications and accommodate a more socioeconomically diverse applicant pool.

Georgetown already struggles with building a socioeconomically diverse student body. In 2017, the median family income of a Georgetown student was $229,100, compared to the national median of $61,372 that same year, according to The New York Times. Educational institutions should foster dialogue and exchange of ideas, but the ideas presented on Georgetown’s campus are limited when 21% of students come from the top 1%. To mitigate this socioeconomic disparity, the university should be actively working to recruit applicants from more socioeconomically diverse backgrounds. The steep application fee, however, can deter low-income students from applying to the university.

High-achieving, low-income applicants are less likely to apply to selective institutions like Georgetown than peers with similar academic performance that come from higher-income families, according to research compiled by Inside Higher Ed. A $75 application fee creates yet another financial barrier to deter potential low-income applicants.

While Georgetown offers to waive the fee for students with demonstrated financial need, this process creates an additional burden for low-income students. Moreover, the process of obtaining a fee waiver for Georgetown is more difficult than it is when students apply only to schools that use the Common Application. The Common Application Fee Waiver only needs to be approved once by a guidance counselor to waive the fees for all Common Application schools. However, since

Founded Jan. 14, 1920

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Eliminate Application Fee

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OPINION

FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2020

VIEWPOINT • SHANNON & SINGH

THE HOYA

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PONDERING POLITICS

Offer Period Products

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alf of the population on college campuses bleed monthly. Menstruating on Georgetown University’s campus is particularly miserable because of the lack of readily available menstrual products.

Georgetown boasts a message of cura personalis, or caring for the entire person, but has yet to follow through.

The school has a responsibility to provide all students access to menstrual products.

Such products are as essential to a person’s health as toilet paper and a lack of them can be a barrier to education.

There are 43 academic and residential buildings on Georgetown’s main campus, yet only 15 have menstrual products available in select bathrooms, per a 2019 report H*yas for Choice received from the Office of Planning and Facilities Management.

Georgetown has not made any information available about which bathrooms have products, and even those that have them run out quickly.

Not a single dorm on campus has tampon or pad dispensers, and some bathrooms on campus do not even provide garbage cans in the stalls to dispose of used tampons or pads. It is unacceptable to lack readily available menstrual products when they are such a necessity.

In a survey distributed on Georgetown’s campus by H*yas For Choice, 95.6% of the 229 undergraduate Hoyas who responded believed it is Georgetown’s responsibility to provide menstrual products on campus. The survey also found that 71.2% of Hoyas found it difficult to acquire products on campus, financially or otherwise. Currently, the only places on campus where you can obtain tampons or pads are at Vital Vittles and the campus bookstore.

The closest CVS is a 15-minute walk from Georgetown. At all of these locations, the price of a single box of tampons ranges from $5.99 to $12.29.

Assuming that only one box of the cheapest tampons is used by each person every month, a student that menstruates spends at least $72 a year on products.

An illogical and gendered expectation, which ignores how the accessibility of products is tied to one’s perceived gender, exists for those who

menstruate to always have products on their person or to have funds to purchase products when in public situations. Georgetown, does not expect its students to buy necessities like toilet paper, so they have no reason to expect students to provide their own menstrual products.

Menstruation is not just a women’s issue. Not all women menstruate. Not everyone who menstruates identifies as a woman. Therefore, menstrual products should be available in all bathrooms on campus so people who menstruate but do not identify as cisgender women can access menstrual products without being forced to enter a bathroom that does not align with their gender identity.

Increased access to menstrual products my also destigmatize periods, transforming menstruation into a general health issue while simultaneously taking away the gendered connotation of periods.

Georgetown is late to the game in terms of providing products for students. Brown University started providing free menstrual products in all bathrooms in 2016, including the men’s bathrooms. In 2017, Harvard University began providing products in the four freshman dorms. The program was so successful that the university expanded it to some upperclassmen dorms in fall 2017. Earlier this year, Yale University announced it would begin providing free menstrual products in all of its dorms. These three universities are only a few of the countless that have begun increasing access to menstrual products on their campuses.

Georgetown is responsible for providing menstrual products to students for their health. Georgetown must supply products in all women’s and gender-neutral bathrooms on campus and at least one clearly designated men’s bathroom per building. Periods should not be a stigmatized or a gendered part of students’ lives. Georgetown needs to practice what it preaches: cura personalis, period.

JESSICA SHANNON is a fresh-

man in the School of Foreign Service. KEERAT SINGH is a freshman in the School of Foreign Service.

Despite the fact that Facebook, as a private entity, has the legal ability to censor content on its site, Zuckerberg has chosen to reaffirm our country’s bet on an unchecked national dialogue.

Reject Calls for Facebook Censorship

Sam Kehoe

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acebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg seems to have no friends. After giving a speech at Georgetown University last fall advocating for “voice and inclusion,” pundits pounced on the executive for his hand in a menagerie of cultural issues: destabilizing our elections, polarizing our society and killing truth itself. The reality is that Zuckerberg is the only person defending free expression from both an overreaching political class seeking a regulatory body for social media and a misguided call for Facebook to become a stricter regulator of online speech. We are lucky such a patriot is at the helm of Facebook.

Critics of Facebook argue Russia used the site to interfere with the 2016 presidential election, citing how Russia created fake accounts to spread divisive and often false narratives. The platform is seen as so dangerously powerful that Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has threatened antitrust action against Facebook.

Social media has certainly expanded the scope of fake news. But accepting the risks associated with the unregulated free expression also guarantees a society in which people can challenge the status quo without fear of censorship. This American bet on free speech was accepted by the framers of the Constitution. Despite the fact that Facebook, as a private entity, has the legal ability to censor content on its site, Zuckerberg has chosen to reaffirm our country’s bet on an unchecked national dialogue.

Even in the face of regulatory pressure, Zuckerberg has consistently and valiantly championed the cause of free speech. He has refused to police the accuracy of political posts, and he asserts Facebook is a public forum for discourse. In a particularly heated exchange on Capitol Hill, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) demanded that Zuckerberg state whether Facebook will remove posts containing lies from politicians. He ultimately refused to commit his company to verifying the accuracy of political speech. A Facebook tasked with determining the “truthfulness” of political posts — and thus prohibiting the expression of any posts deemed “incorrect” — would have license to control what information its users see beyond the engagement algorithms it currently uses.

HILLTOP VOICES

Amanda Feldman and Adam Shaham

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ince the release of the 2016 Campus Climate Survey on Sexual Assault and Misconduct, Georgetown University has failed to adequately address the rate of sexual assault on campus. In order to become the safe space it should be, Georgetown must implement reforms to its investigation process to better protect survivors and the campus community as a whole.

Georgetown’s lack of action on behalf of survivors is evident in its understaffed Title IX Compliance Office. The office, led by the Title IX coordinator, is meant to serve Georgetown students who have experienced discrimination on the basis of sex, harrassment or sexual misconduct on campus, but it has shown a lack of regard for survivors’ well-being.

The university gave no notice of full-time Title IX Coordinator Laura Cutway’s June 2018 departure, leaving survivors without an employee devoted solely to hearing and helping file their complaints.

Following Cutway’s departure, Title IX Investigator Samantha Berner took on the coordinator role, in addition to her own, on an interim basis until a permanent replacement could be found. Students questioned the decision for Berner to occupy both positions, as the workload and importance of each necessitated devotion to one role at a time.

But even survivors who do access Title IX services do not always receive adequate support. An anonymous piece pub-

so — and thus probably isn’t the best candidate for determining factual accuracy on social media, even if done via a corporate proxy like Facebook.

There is no entity, corporate or governmental, that is qualified to be the ultimate arbiter of reality. Being a free society means risking that citizens misuse their freedoms.

We accept this risk because it is preferable to the tyranny of allowing any other party the ability to abridge the voice of the individual. Zuckerberg has allowed Facebook to be a place where the individual can speak freely, consume information and sometimes be wrong. He has rejected demands for his company to claim regulatory license over speech on the platform and stood firm against legislative threats of intervention by the state. There are plenty of places in the world where information is spoon-fed to the public through government regulation. But the United States was founded on the idea that the individual’s mind ought to be able to roam free and think dangerous thoughts. There is danger in the United States’ gamble on free speech, but it’s a gamble worth taking when the alternative is unjust censorship.

Sam Kehoe is a freshman in the College. PONDERING POLITICS appears online every other Tuesday.

VIEWPOINT • DI BONA

Stop Failing Survivors lished by The Hoya told one survivor’s recollection of Berner interrogating and disrespecting them, implying that their version of events was incorrect.

The office failed to notify the survivor of their legal rights, and its neglect of the survivors’ needs led the survivor to drop their case — an outcome they felt the office had wanted all along. Berner has now been the permanent coordinator since July 2019, solidifying her role as protector of survivors’ rights, something she clearly has done a poor job of in the past.

To give some perspective, it took Georgetown about the same amount of time to hire a Title IX coordinator as it took to build the Empire State Building.

A nationwide search led them to a woman on the Hilltop who was openly questioned by a survivor. Students deserve better.

Distrust of the Title IX office extends beyond one survivor’s experiences. Three years after the 2016 survey, sexual assault remains prevalent on campus.

As of 2019, just over 20% of undergraduate women at Georgetown believed it was “very” or “extremely” likely that officials would conduct a fair investigation of sexual assault, compared to the national average of 40%. This figure, coupled with the doubling of students who believe sexual assault is “very” or “extremely” problematic on campus, leads to a distressing conclusion: Students are becoming increasingly concerned about sexual misconduct and, despite increasing awareness of on-campus resources, they have little faith in adminstrative support.

University officials have touted the expanded Sexual Assault Response Team of the Georgetown University Police Department and a full-time clinician in Health Education Services dedicated to survivors, yet the rate of sexual assault remains constant. And while the university has demonstrated interest in preventing sexual

Such a license would allow Facebook to draw the line between inflammatory opinion and “false” fact, a power too great for any organization to possess.

Zuckerberg, often criticized for possessing too much power, refused to allow his company to assume the supreme responsibility of determining what is and is not true.

Furthermore, since the First Amendment explicitly bars Congress from passing laws “abridging the freedom of speech,” lawmakers shouldn’t be pushing Facebook to regulate online speech in the first place. Capitol Hill’s threats of data regulation and antitrust action amount to the federal government’s attempt to bully Facebook into waging a campaign against speech with incorrect facts.

We should all take issue with congressional efforts to use Facebook as a proxy for its regulating speech on social media.

While Zuckerberg has promised to defend Facebook from corporate regulation, Congress ought to reaffirm its constitutional obligation to keep speech free from government control.

Moreover, the U.S. government does not have a stellar track record when it comes to determining the truth — the Afghanistan Papers, “like your doctor, keep your doctor” and weapons of mass destruction in Iraq are a few instances in which it failed to do

misconduct from happening on campus, this care does not extend to survivors once the misconduct has occurred.

Another example of university disregard for survivor well-being was revealed in the mismanagement of civil cases against members of the visible and lucrative basketball team. Active Metropolitan Police Department investigations brought accusations of harassment, burglary and assault against players to light; lack of transparency, administrative refusal to comment on the issue and a seemingly preferential treatment of highprofile students even prompted Georgetown faculty members to write a letter to University President John J. DeGioia (CAS ’79, GRD ’95). They proposed reforms such as clarifying Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act limitations on discussing ongoing Title IX investigations and allowing the university to remove members of sports teams from classes during investigations, but with no official response from high-ranking members of the administration, Georgetown continues to derail substantive efforts to better its treatment of survivors.

Mishandling of these cases was not a blip in the pattern — it is the pattern. Consistent lack of transparency and support for survivors is the culture Georgetown has chosen. The administration must take tangible action to accommodate the needs of survivors. Implementing the reforms proposed by faculty members is just the first step in addressing this issue. Fundamentally changing the administration’s culture of suppressing survivors must be the next one.

Amanda Feldman is a sophomore in the School of Foreign Service.

Adam Shaham is a sophomore in the School of Foreign Service.

HILLTOP VOICES appears online every other Wednesday.

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Revamp Civil Service

s the United States faces increasing political polarization, we must look to specific policy ideas that will help to foster a sense of national unity. Voluntary civil service — the expansion of a national, governmentdirected program to employ people and develop infrastructure — is a tested, economically sound method to make every citizen feel invested in the future of the United States. The federal government should radically expand the scope of our existing national service programs over the next few years to combat polarization and prepare the U.S. economy for the future.

National civil service programs were first implemented in the United States in 1933 to mitigate the unemployment and economic stagnation caused by the Great Depression. The Civilian Conservation Corps was a voluntary program that put millions of young people to work by building and repairing roads, bridges and lookout towers, maintaining national parks and developing national resources such as fisheries, stands of forest and rangeland. By providing housing, food and wages to three million young people, the CCC both alleviated a vast social problem and created infrastructure that continues to generate economic and recreational value today. Furthermore, the CCC helped revitalize the economy and exploit valuable resources just before the United States entered a critical period in its history.

A concerted national effort to revamp our infrastructure is much needed again today.

The American Society of Civil Engineers rated U.S. infrastructure just a D+ on its 2017 Infrastructure Report Card and suggested that approximately $4.5 trillion worth of repairs and investment are

needed to bring it back up to speed. According to that report, the United States has 15,500 high-hazard dams, as well as more than 200,000 bridges that are more than 50 years old. Thirty-two percent of urban roads and 14% of rural roads, meanwhile, are in poor condition. A revamped national service scheme could address some of these shortfalls that affect both quality of life and economic output — the latter of which is positively correlated with improved infrastructure.

Civil service programs would also benefit the United States’ relationship with the rest of the world. While the United States has historically stood behind free trade schemes, recent reversals in policy, such as renegotiating or pulling out of free trade deals, reflect anxiety about our place in a globalized economy. The creation of new high-speed passenger and freight railroads would boost the efficiency of trade and the interconnectedness of our cities while increasing the viability of public transport and cutting emissions.

National service work in education and professional development would help to create a new generation of skilled workers and mitigate the pain caused by deindustrialization — and its associated structural unemployment — by retraining workers for jobs in sectors in which the United States retains a competitive edge. The strengthening and specialization of our economy in this way would cement our ability to thrive in an internationalized, liberal economic system.

National civil service could also help to resolve the social problems with which we are constantly grappling.

Infrastructure investment in low-income communities would brighten residents’

economic prospects, and national service programs have already been shown to improve the quality of teaching in elementary through high schools in underprivileged areas. Furthermore, working together with people from many backgrounds on projects like infrastructure and education would help foster a sense of camaraderie and shared investment in the future of the country among young people.

An expanded national civil service program would not be politically difficult to implement. The CCC was by far the most popular New Deal program, with some 80% of the public in favor of it. The idea of a large-scale national service program remains popular today, with nearly four in five Americans supporting it, including 78% of Republicans and 90% of Democrats. In addition, 78% of all Americans think national service teaches values such as civic duty and patriotism, and 79% think it builds stronger communities. Clearly, an overwhelming majority of the public sees the value of these programs, underscoring the economic and social profit of implementing them.

National and state civil service programs such as Teach For America and AmeriCorps continue to put young people to work today, and the number of applicants to these organizations far exceeds their capacity. The U.S. government should expand these kinds of programs, fund them adequately and promote them to young people.

With such changes, we could solve our infrastructure problem, maintain our economic competitiveness and rekindle a sense of much needed national spirit.

TREY DI BONA is a freshman in the School of Foreign Service.

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FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2020

PAGE FOUR

INSIDE THIS ISSUE Artists & Fleas, a New York-based artisan marketplace, is set to open in the former Dean & DeLuca building in March 2020.

Story on A8.

Your news — from every corner of The Hoya.

IN FOCUS CHALK IN RED SQUARE

verbatim

“

This will most directly impact low-income students, who are already at a disadvantage in this expensive neighbourhood.”

Jordan Brown (COL ’21) on Metrobus rerouting in the District. Story on A9.

from our blog

THE WINNERS AND LOSERS OF 2010S MUSIC Here’s your list of the artists who flourished and flopped in the tuneful teens. How did your music idols fare? Find out here.

SHEEL PATEL/THE HOYA

Students chalked Red Square to call attention to statistics about the gender breakdown of human trafficking victims and to advocate for an end to human trafficking globally. Passersby saw the messages in the square the morning of Jan. 15.

blog.thehoya.com

GU Professors Bridge Gap Between Academia, Policymaking LIAM SCOTT

Special to The Hoya

During the 1990s and the early 2000s, high political instability in Liberia resulted in two civil wars that led to the deaths of over 250,000 people. These civil wars are estimated to have shrunk Liberia’s economic output by 90%, according to The Economist.

After a peace agreement in 2003, however, the political climate in the country significantly improved, and President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia was democratically elected in 2005.

Steven Radelet, professor of development in the School of Foreign Service, considers his time as an economic adviser to Sirleaf the most significant role he has taken on throughout his career. From early 2006 to 2010, Radelet helped erase 97% of Liberia’s $5 billion national debt by working with international creditors to write off and reschedule the debt, he said in an interview with The Hoya.

In addition to his work for Sirleaf, Radelet believes that his time at the State Department and at the United States Agency for International Development enables him to view development through the lens of both a scholar and a practitioner.

“Those experiences on the ground helped me, first of all, think about the core issues around development and to see them from a very different perspective than would someone — who I think if they spent their entire career in academia,” Radelet said.

Radelet is one example of a Georgetown University professor with policy experience who links professional work to academia to improve the effectiveness of their courses and research. By grounding theoretical concepts in both practical examples and personal anecdotes, these professors are exceptional resources for students interested in solutions-based policymaking regardless of their field.

BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN POLICY AND ACADEMIA

As an international affairsoriented school, the SFS curriculum draws upon theory and policy, attracting professors with diverse professional experiences.

Ranked by Foreign Policy Magazine as the fourth-best undergraduate international relations school in the world, the

SFS features many professors who integrate policy expertise with academia in their teaching, according to SFS Dean Joel Hellman.

“If you look at the average political science department among strong universities in the country, it’s unusual to see a large [group] of people who play both roles — practice and theory,” Hellman said in an interview with The Hoya. “It’s very much something that is linked to specific schools like our School of Foreign Service or policy schools elsewhere.”

Victor Cha, a professor of government and vice dean for faculty and graduate affairs in the SFS, sees Georgetown as an institution often secluded from the real world that still seeks to bridge the gap between academia and policymaking.

“We are an ivory tower, but we’re not an ivory tower in the bad sense,” Cha said in an interview with The Hoya. “It’s an ivory tower that does have a great deal of appreciation for and seeks to connect the world of scholarship and the world of policy.”

Katherine Marshall, a professor in the SFS and a senior fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, worked at the World Bank for 35 years before coming to Georgetown. Having worked on projects ranging from agricultural development in Africa to social policy governance in East Asia, Marshall uses her World Bank experience to develop policy briefs at the Berkley Center in addition to teaching SFS classes such as “Religion, Ethics, and World Affairs” and “Development and Religious Institutions.”

Marshall concluded her time at the World Bank by researching the links between religion and development, a topic she has continued to concentrate on at Georgetown. Academic institutions and policy-oriented organizations should complement each other, as both can have similar thematic focuses, according to Marshall.

“The hope has been and still is that the more robust intellectual possibilities of working from a university can be a real complement to the operational experience of an organization like the World Bank,” Marshall wrote in an email to The Hoya.

“That is what I try to achieve in both research and in engaging

with students on issues.”

Cha has likewise led a career devoted to policy in addition to academia. He began teaching at Georgetown in 1995 but took a leave from the university from 2004 to 2007 to work as the director for Asian affairs at the National Security Council under former President George W. Bush.

Cha easily returned to teaching by applying his public service experience directly to his academic work at Georgetown, in part by developing a course on sports and politics upon returning to the university.

Even though policy-oriented jobs and academia maintain thematic similarities, challenges remain when transitioning between the different spheres, according to Marshall.

“Balance is a constant challenge, for me as for many others,” Marshall wrote. “At my stage of life I am able to devote most of my time to professional work, but with many different responsibilities I find it daunting at times.”

THE INFLUENCE OF PRACTICE IN THE CLASSROOM

Policy experience can enhance the classroom experience for multiple reasons, including by giving professors the ability to ground concepts in specific examples, according to Ellena Joo (SFS ’21), who has taken multiple classes with Cha. Georgetown professors with policy experience can draw on their past work to demonstrate how concepts are applied in a realworld setting.

The policy focus of the Cha’s courses, which include “Modern Asia: Politics and Society” and “Korea and the World Powers,” reflect Cha’s experience in the region and teach students to think like policymakers, according to Joo. “He also really makes an effort to ask us questions in class that are very policy-centered, and the bulk of our discussions are about what we would do if we were the future policy advisers and experts of this region,” Joo said in an interview with The Hoya. “I’ve just grown a lot as a policy thinker.”

Incorporating personal anecdotes and examples from the policy world into the classroom makes classroom experiences more vibrant and engaging, according to Cha. “There’s a little bit of that

storytelling that takes place in class,” Cha said. “It’s always related to making some sort of point about a concept. It allowed me to bring to life some of the theories that we teach with examples, not just historical examples like I said, which are important, but also examples that I personally was involved in.”

Nicole Bibbins Sedaca, a professor of international relations in the SFS, worked for a decade at the State Department. Sedaca served as senior adviser to the under secretary of state for democracy and global affairs and senior director for strategic planning and external affairs in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor.

Having also worked at the George W. Bush Institute and the Atlantic Council, Sedaca not only incorporates these experiences into her courses, but also connects students to her outside work.

“The students in my Human Rights Policy Lab seminar were able to meet with an extraordinary group of Burmese scholars, hosted by the George W. Bush Institute,” Sedaca wrote in an email to The Hoya. “It was a great opportunity for my students to dialogue with these courageous activists, while also enabling several of us from the Georgetown community to share some of our work on democracy, hu-

man rights, and political negotiations.”

A MULTIDISCIPLINARY APPROACH TO TEACHING

Professors can use a multidisciplinary approach rooted in their careers in policy, mirroring their work in a way that prepares students to apply courses to the real world.

International relations professor Rebecca Patterson spent over two decades with the U.S. military and served as deputy director in the Office of Peace Operations, Sanctions, and Counterterrorism at the State Department. While at the State Department, Patterson worked on how United Nations peacekeeping missions intersected with U.S. policy toward the host nation. Patterson currently uses this experience to inform her students about policy choices, such as when intervention from the UN is a good or bad idea, according to Patterson.

Understanding the real-world applications of academic content is essential when creating a course based on policy experience, according to Patterson.

“When I develop curriculum, I try to be very outcomes-based,” Patterson said in an interview with The Hoya. “What are the two or three big things I want them to be able to live beyond the course?”

Emphasizing the benefits of multidisciplinary approaches in practice better informs students on how to apply what they are learning, according to Marshall.

“How do you link a solid understanding and respect for scholarship with an appreciation of how these things translate into practice on a daily basis?” Marshall wrote. “The work that I’m doing draws on seven, eight different disciplines and so that to me is very important.”

Georgetown professors with experience in academia and policy highlight the significance that both perspectives play in making sense of complex global issues. Both academic and policy-oriented outlooks are vital to understanding the relationship between religion and development, according to Marshall.

Multidisciplinary analysis also helps professors explain the complexities of real-world scenarios, such as how policy is implemented, which is difficult to teach without having direct experience in the policy world, according to Cha. “There are some aspects of policy — the so-called sausagemaking of policy — that can’t accurately be captured in scholarship,” Cha said. “Experiencing all of this helped me to be a better teacher and better scholar.”

CENTER FOR SECURITY STUDIES/GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY

Professor Rebecca Patterson draws on her experience working at the State Department to inform her students on policy choices, such as when intervention from the United Nations is warranted.

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GU Women’s Center Names New Associate Director

Embrace Vulnerability In Creativity, Noname Says

ELLA HETFIELD

ASHLEY ZHAO

Annie Selak was named the new associate director of the Georgetown University Women’s Center Jan. 8, marking the first time two full-time staff members have worked in the center since Oct. 2018.

In her new role, Selak will help current director Shiva Subbaraman advance the mission of the Women’s Center and assess which topics or projects the center will focus on in the upcoming year. Subbaraman, who has served as the director of the LGBTQ ResourceCenter since its founding in 2008, was appointed to simultaneously direct the Women’s Center in November.

High student traffic in both centers and few staff members available to work in either prompted the Women’s Center to hire another full-time staffer, according to Subbaraman.

“There was a lot more increased demand from both undergraduate and graduate students but it was still a oneperson office. It was clear that getting a second person was not an option,” Subbaraman said in an interview with The Hoya. “At the end of the day, if students need to be served, they need more than one adult in each office and before there was just one.”

Former Director Laura Kovach resigned from her position as director of the Women’s Center in October 2018.

Former programming director Karla Rondon continued normal programming with the center until her departure in June 2019, after which three undergraduate students ran the center for over a year.

As a result, student interns had to take on increased leadership responsibilities that usually would have fallen to the director, such as training new interns.

Selak’s hiring will allow the Women’s Center to better cater to Georgetown students’ needs, Caroline Sarda (COL ’20), an undergraduate staffer who helped run operations while the center looked for a director, wrote in an email to The Hoya.

“I definitely think Annie will help push the centers in the right direction,” Sarda wrote.

“I think what we’ve learned from the past semester is that

Artists have a responsibility to be honest and vulnerable in their work, rapper and poet Noname said at an event Wednesday.

The event, titled “Existing in Multitudes: Noname,” was hosted by the Georgetown University Lecture Fund. At the event, Chicago-native Fatimah Warner, known professionally as Noname, discussed themes of race, sex and politics as they relate to her personal experience creating music and poetry. The event was moderated by associate professor of African American Studies Zandria Robinson.

Though artists should not feel obligated to share personal experiences with their audiences, they should strive to be genuine and vocal in their work, according to Noname.

“When it comes to our responsibility to talk about black flight and to keep going through — ’cause I mean it’s traumatic to revisit all of this in your work all the time — I don’t think it’s our responsibility to do that necessarily,” Noname said. “But I do think all artists, and particularly black artists, I think it’s crucial for us to be at the very least vulnerable in our music.”

Noname, who first came into prominence for her debut mixtape released in 2016, spoke about her own experience during the production of her debut album, “Room 25.” The album, which was released in Sept. 2018, received widespread critical acclaim, with Rolling Stone deeming Noname one of the best rap-

Special to The Hoya

Hoya Staff Writer

@ASELAK/TWITTER

Annie Selak will serve as the new associate director of the Georgetown University Women’s Center. Her appointment was announced Jan. 8. we really need to re-engage with students and what they need and want from the Women’s Center, and I think Annie’s extensive experience working with students will be really great in that process.”

Prior to working at Georgetown, Selak worked at the University of Notre Dame, where she helped students with topics ranging from student leadership and development to sexual assault prevention and response, according to a Jan. 8 email announcement of Selak’s appointment.

The hiring of Selak follows the fall appointment of Amena Johnson as associate director to the LGBTQ Resource Center, working under Subbaraman.

Both Selak and Johnson come to their positions as the centers plan to restructure, according to Subbaraman. Previously, the two centers operated as separate entities, but now the centers share a director and will begin collaborating on more operations and initiatives.

As part of the restructuring, the three full-time staff members plan to work to their professional strengths across both centers, facilitating programming and outreach. The changes will not diminish the individual identities of the two centers, according to Subbaraman.

“The two centers will remain separate in terms of their function and their audience. They will have distinct identities, but for all intents and purposes, the three professional staff here will work across both,” Subbaraman said.

The increased professional

presence in both centers will allow student volunteers and staffers to better serve students on Georgetown’s campus, according to Sarda.

“I think all of the staff changes this year will enhance the work of both centers,” Sarda wrote. “Having more staff members to look to for guidance will certainly make student workers’ lives easier and more effective, and will also help grow the reach of the centers on campus.”

The restructuring reflects current dialogues about the interconnectedness between the LGBTQ and women’s communities, according to Subbaraman.

“There was a big shift in how current generations of students think about gender.

Even before Laura left, the two centers collaborated a lot to talk about what is gender,” Subbaraman said. “The reason the LGBT Center has been very successful is that we have had a very broad vision, and that is the vision we want to bring to the Women’s Center.”

As the centers move forward, Subbaraman plans to involve students in discussions this spring about the new structure to ensure the centers fully support the Georgetown community’s needs, according to Subbaraman.

“We will try to start conversations with students to ask where are the overlaps, where are the differences and what needs to remain separate between the two centers,” Subbaraman said. “By having me oversee both, my vision is that the three of us will work together to be available for all

Demographic Survey Shows Diversity in GUSA Senate LIANA HARDY

Special to The Hoya

Over two-thirds of respondents in a Georgetown University Student Association senate survey identify as ethnically nonwhite, according to an internal demographic survey presented at a Jan. 12 weekly senate meeting.

Senators have been required to fill out a demographic survey since a bylaw amendment introduced by the 2017-2018 GUSA senate, according to later legislation. The most recent dataset, obtained by The Hoya, shows 31% identify their ethnicity as white, 31% as Latino, 24% as Asian and 14% as black.

The survey question about ethnicity received 29 responses, though 28 students currently serve on the senate.

The GUSA senate represents a student body that identified as 50.1% white during the 2018-2019 school year, according to data compiled by the National Center for Education Statistics, a research branch of the United States Department of Education.

In recent years, GUSA has become more effective at promoting diversity and inclusivity, according to Senator Eric Bazail-Eimil (SFS ’23).

“I think GUSA is definitely making steps in the right direction,” Bazail-Eimil wrote in an email to The Hoya. “As the electoral demographic information presented to us this past meeting showed, the Senate has clearly become far more diverse, representing far more communities than it did in years past.”

Past efforts to elevate inclusivity in GUSA included a campuswide referendum certifying that senators be elected by class instead of geographic location, intended to increase diversity in the senate in 2017.

The statistics also revealed that 60% of the 30 responses

to a question about gender identity indicated male identity and 40% indicated female identity. Seven women won seats during last year’s spring senate elections, marking an increase in female representation compared to recent years. In the fall 2018 GUSA senate elections, which filled 14 senate seats, the student body elected only one woman, Hayley Grande (COL ’21).

Additionally, the 2018-19 senate included an all-male freshman class. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 55.9% of the Georgetown undergraduate community identifies as female.

Though GUSA has become more inclusive, it must continue its efforts to increase female representation in the senate, according to Bazail-Eimil.

“We still have progress to make in ensuring that women are represented in all the branches equitably,” BazailEimil said. “But I credit this administration’s hard work at recruiting candidates of color and bringing in lots of people into the executive and other agencies from all parts of campus.”

The survey revealed that 37% of the 27 responses to a question about sexual orientation identify as LGBTQ while 63% identify as straight. Additionally, 55% of 28 responses to a question about religious identity as Christian and 43% identify as nonreligious, while 3.5% identify as Muslim and 3.5% identify as Hindu.

In a nod to GUSA’s growing diversity, Senator Zach Volpe (SFS ’23) Jan recommended introducing legislation on Jan. 12 that would push back GUSA’s Sunday meetings to 6 p.m. to accommodate students who want to attend Sunday religious services. Volpe indicated that the current GUSA meeting time was particularly an issue for Hindu students, as it conflicted with Weekly Āratī,

a Hindu service held by Georgetown’s Dharmic Life on Sundays at 5 p.m.

This time change would accommodate both GUSA senators and members of the Georgetown student body interested in attending GUSA meetings, according to Volpe.

“I think part of this is making sure that all people of all faiths can attend public meetings and also feel comfortable to run for office knowing that they’re not going to have to compromise their religious practice for serving in public office,” Volpe said in an interview with The Hoya.

Volpe’s own involvement in the Hindu community on campus brought the time conflict to his attention, he said.

“The issue basically started with myself, in that I am both a practicing Lutheran and Hindu,” Volpe said. “I started talking to some other people in the Hindu community about this and they voiced that they felt that there was somewhat of an injustice.”

The new legislation will help the GUSA senate best serve the Georgetown community, GUSA Senator Eddie Galvan (MSB ’23) said.

“I think it’s important to take into consideration all of the groups across campus,” Galvan said in an interview with The Hoya. “We’re supposed to represent our student body.”

This proposed legislation would demonstrate GUSA’s commitment to representing the interests of all communities at Georgetown, according to Bazail-Eimil.

“I think this change will be a win-win for all Senators, regardless of their faith affiliation,” Bazail-Eimil wrote. “It would definitely show that GUSA gives important consideration to the needs of other communities, religious, ethnic, racial, etc. when forming policies and representing the student body.”

pers alive.

“Room 25” deals with more serious and personal themes, according to Noname. The increased vulnerability of this album made Noname feel more concerned with public reception, she said.

“With bodies of art, the public, the audience, they decide who you are based on material. That was a struggle for me.

I’ve never been in the public eye, so coming into ‘Room 25,’ I definitely came in with expectations based off of what other people were expecting of me,” Noname said. “I wanted to get my point across that I’ve matured, and this music is more serious sonically and lyrically.”

Aside from being in the public eye, another struggle musicians face is the mass consumption of music with little regard for the meaning behind the art, according to Noname.

“When I’m performing or when I’m in a space, and people are just consuming blindly without any sort of deeper — not that you need to sit and have deep analysis — but just even emotionally thinking about what is this person going through that they would write this type of music,” Noname said. “I guess that’s just hip-hop right now. We’re not really taught to engage with hip-hop in a way that’s beyond just consumption.”

Despite this public tendency to focus primarily on blind consumption, Noname continues to emphasize the underlying themes and political commentary behind her music, especially those regarding her own identity, she said.

Her identity as a black woman is something that is deeply important to her, Noname said.

“I’ve only experienced life as black, and then woman, so everything that I think about always comes from blackness first,” Noname said. “I never felt oppressed as a woman in a way that I experienced it being black.”

Given the largely male-dominated spaces within the black community, Noname said that she hopes her music will inspire black women to take on a more active role within their own communities.

“Leadership in the black community, especially in the organizing spaces, they’re romanticized, and a lot of the leadership that we’ve had has predominantly been male,” Noname said. “I hope that black women listening to my music feel empowered to link up with other people around them. I don’t want them to just consume the music and be like this is just for therapy, this is just for when I’m feeling sad. I want it to motivate people to get up and to do something.”

Having found her way into the hip-hop scene through slam poetry, Noname also emphasized the importance of finding a community in art and music.

“What’s very crucial is to just really search and find community or create it yourself,” Noname said. “Music is such a communal act, unless you’re like a genius and you’re one of those people who can just produce a whole thing on their own, but most of us need outside help.”

The Corp To Start Selling Nicotine Cessation Products CALLIE DIMODICA Hoya Staff Writer

Students of Georgetown, Inc., commonly known as The Corp, plans to begin selling nicotine cessation products at Vital Vittles in coming weeks, ahead of a universitywide tobacco ban that will go into place Aug. 15.

Beginning in August, smoking and other tobacco use will be prohibited within Georgetown University-owned buildings and grounds, the university announced last April.

Prohibited items include all ecigarettes, including juuls and vapes. The ban comes more than two years after students voted in a student government referendum in favor of creating a smoke-free campus.

Georgetown University Student Association Chair of Student Health Casey Kozak (NHS ’20) has pushed for the ban’s implementation since her appointment in 2018, she said. Kozak encouraged The Corp to begin selling cessation products such as nicotine gum or lozenges to help smokers quit smoking.

“The Corp was really open to the idea of bringing in cessation products,” Kozak said.

“If we are going to put this ban in place we also need to have solutions available for people who are looking to quit.”

The decision to begin selling cessation products was driven by an entirely student-led initiative, according to Chairman of The Corp Joshua Sirois (SFS ’20).

“We as a company recognize the desire of students and Georgetown community members to transition away from nicotine and tobacco products,” Sirois wrote in an email to The Hoya. “We equally recognize that nicotine patches, mints, and gums are better alternatives.”

The university offers smoking and tobacco cessation support for students, faculty and staff. University resources include workshops and personalized cessation programs, which are available through all university-sponsored medical plans and the Student Health Center, according to Associate Vice President for Benefits, Payroll and Wellness and Chief Benefits Officer Charles DeSantis.

The university plans to continue to support students as the university shifts to a smoke-free campus, according to DeSantis.

“We realize that the Smoke and Tobacco-Free Policy may significantly impact members of our community,” DeSantis wrote in an email to The Hoya.

NATAILE REGAN/THE HOYA

The Corp plans to begin selling cessation products, such as nicotine gum or lozenges, at its Vital Vittles location in the coming weeks.

“We aim to create a supportive transition ahead of the policy’s fall 2020 implementation.”

The university is preparing for the ban’s enactment by displaying signage around campus to notify campus visitors and increasing communication about the smoke- and tobacco-free policy with the campus community, according to DeSantis.

Students with multiple infractions of the smoke- and tobacco-free policy may be considered in violation of the Code of Student Conduct and will be subject to disciplinary action, according to the smoke- and tobacco-free policy. Repeat violations by any faculty or staff member will be handled through normal university processes.

While The Corp was originally supposed to receive a shipment of the new cessation products Wednesday, the products were mistakenly not included with the shipment, according to Sirois.

“We have been awaiting the arrival of the shipment, and unfortunately, the products were not included with our order,” Sirois wrote.

“We’re contacting our vendor to understand what went awry, but we now are uncertain of when we will receive the products and be able to begin sales.”

Though The Corp currently sells JUUL products and traditional cigarettes in its Hoya Snaxa and Vital Vittles locations, the stores plan to halt sales of tobacco products in

tandem with the shift to the tobacco-free campus, according to Sirois.

“The Corp has full intentions of ceasing the sale of tobacco products prior to the onset of the tobacco-free policy this fall,” Sirois wrote. “The Corp will begin phasing out nicotine products over the summer of 2020.”

The high cost of cessation products often presents a barrier to students trying to quit smoking, according to Kozak.

The price of one package of cigarettes in Washington, D.C., is around $10. A two-week supply of nicotine patches costs upward of $50 at CVS, while a package of 100 pieces of nicotine gum costs $45.

“The biggest issue was actually a cost barrier,” Kozak said. “A lot of people I talked to said they would go to CVS or wherever and get patches, and they said they are really expensive and they know in the long-term quitting might save them money on cigarettes, but in that moment it’s easier to go for the draw of cigarettes that are cheaper than the patches.”

Kozak said she hopes the availability and affordability of cessation products within The Corp will help students who are trying to quit.

“While I cannot speak to the exact costs of the products at this time, I can say that we sought out the most affordable products for students,” Kozak said. “We will be incredibly receptive to feedback to ensure students are satisfied with their choice of product.”

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University Releases Statement Calling on China To Release Liu LIU, from A1 reached for his return home as soon as possible.”

The university has faced mounting pressure from students concerned with Victor Liu’s captivity to voice more public support for his expedited return.

In November, the Asian American Student Association hosted an event at which students and faculty called on the university to consider new strategies to facilitate Victor Liu’s return.

Evan Medeiros, a School of Foriegn Service professor specializing in U.S.-China relations who has been involved in Georgetown’s efforts to push for the Liu siblings’ release, attended the event.

Georgetown officials have met with members of the Trump administration and the National Security Agency to facilitate an end to Victor Liu’s detainment, according to Medeiros.

“Georgetown is fully committed to ensuring Victor returns to the United States as soon as possible,” Medeiros wrote in an email to The Hoya.

“To that end, the University has been working closely with U.S. Government officials since June of 2018 to se-

cure Victor’s release, and we will continue to advocate for the Administration to do the

utmost to secure the earliest possible return of Victor to his home in the United States.”

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY INVESTMENT OFFICE

Victor Liu (COL ’21) has been detained in China with an exit ban since June 2018. University administrators have worked for his return.

Congress Should Strive Toward Deescalation In Iran, Panel Says IRAN, from A1

SHEEL PATEL/THE HOYA

The trash bins in upstairs Leo’s are now accompanied by racks, which are taken down to the dish room where used tableware is washed along with used dishes from the Fresh Food Company. Compostable containers are still available by request.

LEO MKT Introduces Reusable Tableware LEO’S, from A1 infinitely more sense because we are instantly cutting down on garbage that goes directly into the landfill.”

Reusable plates and flatware were used throughout upstairs Leo’s before the 2017 renovations, according to Associate Director of Business and Operations David Schoen. Upstairs Leo’s switched to disposable materials because of the student body’s request for more on-the-go options. However, Leo’s soon realized that too much waste was being generated by the increased use of paper products, Schoen wrote in an email to The Hoya.

In addition to reducing waste, switching to reusable tableware will help improve Georgetown Dining’s postconsumer composting, according to Schoen.

“We are glad to be able to make the switch to reusable plateware and flatware, which overall is more environmentally-friendly and sustainable than disposable flatware,” Schoen wrote.

“This will reduce the amount of paper waste generated and will allow for more accurate sorting of food waste, which is diverted from the waste stream to be composted.”

Preparations were made at the end of last semester and over break to have the new system ready by the start of the spring semester, Schoen added.

“The reusable materials arrived on site at the end of the Fall semester, and all materials were set up over the winter break,” Schoen wrote.

“Signage has been added to help direct students, faculty, staff, and guests on where to place their plateware when they are done eating, and all food service staff have

been trained on transport, washing, and stocking procedures.”

The change follows a campuswide shift toward more environmentally friendly practices. In January, the university established the Laudato Si’ Fund, which sets aside $300,000 in grants to help fund student-, facultyand staff-proposed projects that seek to combat local and global sustainability challenges. In September, 50 students living on and off campus began composting their residential food in a pilot program organized by Compost Cab, a compost pickup service, and GREEN. Even though the upstairs

Leo’s transition represents a positive step toward ecofriendly habits, the university should expand its efforts to other areas on campus, according to Gignoux.

“The next issue to tackle would hopefully be the dining options in the Leavey center, such as getting recycling in Royal Jacket and reusable options there, as well as reusable dishware options at the other dining services,” Gignoux wrote. “Composting is also another area in which Georgetown has room to improve — GREEN has been taking steps to make it more accessible to the student body, but it would be fantastic to see the univer-

sity step up on this issue and offer more post-consumer composting options, as well as education on the issue.”

The decision by Georgetown and Aramark, the university’s food service provider, to introduce reusable tableware sets a valuable precedent in sustainable practices, Gignoux wrote.

“This is a huge step because it shows that the university and Aramark recognize their responsibility to be good environmental stewards, setting an example for the students that pass through the university that our small, everyday actions have large environmental consequences,” Gignoux wrote.

SHEEL PATEL/THE HOYA

Georgetown University’s Office of Sustainability, campus advocacy groups such as the Georgetown Renewable Energy and Environmental Network and Hoya Hospitality worked to institute the reusable tableware.

deter future Iranian attack plans, many Iraqi and Iranian officials have condemned the strike as an act of aggression and have warned the United States to expect retaliation, according to The Washington Post.

Given public concern about executive overreach when declaring war, Congress can best deescalate the current situation between the United States and Iran, according to Bennis.

“Right now Congress is the key,” Bennis said. “There are finally people in Congress willing to fight back just a little bit against these rogue administrations that believe that presidents have the right to just go ahead and go to war wherever they want upon whatever excuse they want for whatever reason without any concern for the consequences.”

From 1998 until his death, Soleimani was an Iranian Major General in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a branch of the Iranian Armed Forces that protects the country’s Islamic republic political system. In retaliation for killing Soleimani, Iran fired missiles at two Iraqi military bases in Irbil and Al Asad that housed U.S. forces Jan. 8, according to BBC. Such retaliation is not a cry for war, but a sound response to the loss of the Iranian leader, according to Shafiei.

“I think the response was carried out quite reasonably given the enormity of the loss for the Iranian government and the Iranian regime,” Shafiei said.

“I’m not sure anyone is really beating on the drums for war in Iran; the people certainly are not.”

While Soleimani had been accused of implementing violent domestic and foreign policies, the United States did not have the right to kill him, according to Bennis.

“Even if this guy had been a terrorist, had attacked civilians, does that give us the right to just kill him because we found him in our sights?” Bennis said. “That is what we have come to. The notion that it was somehow okay to kill him is driven by this global war on terror assumption.”

Diplomatic relations between the United States and Iran worsened after the Trump administration pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in May 2018, according to Reuters. The JCPOA, signed in 2015 under President Barack Obama, limited the scope of Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for easing economic sanctions.

While pulling out of the nuclear deal has reportedly been the primary reason behind the contentious relationship between the two nations, the

principal conflict between the two countries is regional authority issues, Baddar said.

“The fundamental adversarial position we have with Iran has to do with the fact that Iran has an independent foreign policy, so it does not mesh with ours,” Baddar said. “It’s about the fact that the U.S. has a regional project dominance and that Iran is challenging that dominance and trying to spread its own dominance on the region.”

Later in 2018, the United States reintroduced sanctions on Iranian oil assets and trading services, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Sanctions, like war, have a crippling effect on the nation and its people, according to Shafiei, whose father

“There are finally people in Congress willing to fight back just a little bit against these rogue administrations.”

PHYLLIS BENNIS Program Director, Institute for Policy Studies

suffered from a rare disorder and was unable to receive necessary medicine as a result of U.S. sanctions on Iran.

“When politicians tell you that sanctions are an alternative to war, do not be fooled.

They are violence.” Shafiei said. “Sanctions hurt people and they’ve hurt me, and I will do everything that I can in my power to try and make sure that the people I am voting for in this upcoming election know that I do not support sanctions.”

Even if the Trump administration does not intend to incite a war with Iran, its current actions have further destabilized the two nations’ relationship and have also caused Iranians to suffer for their government’s actions, according to Baddar.

“I think Donald Trump might believe himself when he says he doesn’t want a war with Iran,” Baddar said. “But he has charted out a course in U.S. policy that has guaranteed a confrontation with Iran by tearing up the nuclear deal, shutting down any avenue for diplomacy, by imposing crippling sanctions on the Iranian economy, sanctions that increase the Iranian people’s suffering as a means of pressuring the Iranian government to change its behavior.”

NEWS

FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2020

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Class of 2024 Early Action New MBA Certificate Bridges Admit Rate Hits New Low Sustainability and Business HANSEN LIAN Hoya Staff Writer

Georgetown University offered admission to 11.72% of early action Class of 2024 applicants, a record low despite the number of applications falling for the second year in a row.

Georgetown accepted 856 students from an applicant pool of 7,305, a 6% decrease from last year’s 7,802 applicants. Early action applicants were notified by mail with either an acceptance or deferral to regular decision Dec. 15.

Of the early applicants, 4,109 applied to Georgetown College, and 450 were accepted at an acceptance rate of 10.95%, the lowest among the four schools.

The School of Foreign Service received 1,508 applications and admitted 197 at an acceptance rate of 13.06%. The McDonough School of Business admitted 139 applicants out of 1,106 at an acceptance rate of 12.57%. The School of Nursing and Health Studies received 582 applications, admitting 70 at an acceptance rate of 12.03%.

The College may appeal to potential applicants due to its curricular flexibility, offering the largest selection of majors out of the four schools, according to College Vice Dean Sue Lorenson.

“It doesn’t surprise me that the College has the lowest admit rate,” Lorenson wrote in an email to The Hoya. “For many students, parents, and high school counselors, when they think about ‘Georgetown,’ they’re really thinking about Georgetown College.”

The number of applicants dropped across all four schools for the second consecutive year, according to records provided by Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Charles Deacon (CAS ’64, GRD ’69). The College and the

NHS both saw an 8% decrease in applicants, while the SFS experienced a 4% decrease and the MSB experienced a 1% decrease in applications.

Students applying early action to Georgetown may not apply to any binding early decision programs, according to the Office of Undergraduate Admissions website. Early decision programs offered by peer universities may have contributed to Georgetown’s decrease in applicants, according to Deacon.

“We keep the early rate below the overall rate so that we don’t overadmit from the early pool.”

CHARLES DEACON (CAS ’64, GRD ’69) Dean of Undergraduate Admissions

“We see this as a larger reflection on the continued pressure many applicants are feeling to commit to an Early Decision school, as opposed to a reflection on interest in Georgetown,” Deacon wrote in a letter to The Hoya.

Boston College and the University of Virginia both adopted an early decision program for the first time this admissions cycle.

BC and UVA are two of Georgetown’s significant overlap institutions, according to Deacon.

Despite the decrease in applicants, the applicant pool maintained the competitive level and strength of previous years, according to Deacon. Students accepted in this year’s early application cycle generally placed in the top 5% of their class, with the mid-50% of ACT scores ranging between 33 and 35, the mid-50% of SAT verbal ranging between

720 and 760, and the mid-50% of SAT math scores ranging between 730 and 790.

Early action rates have hovered around 12% for the past four years, while the general admissions rate, in its most competitive year, was 14%. The admission rate for early action is purposely kept lower than the general rate to give regular decision applicants a fair chance, Deacon said in an interview with The Hoya.

“We keep the early rate below the overall rate so that we don’t over-admit from the early pool,” Deacon said. “The early pool historically is a little bit more affluent and a little bit more majority students, because students who are lower income, students of color, are usually later in the game, so the larger pool will come later during regular decision.”

This year’s application pool continued to see a growth in applicants from minority groups.

Twelve percent of the applicants self-identified as Black/AfricanAmerican, 14% as Hispanic/ Latinx, 20% as Asian-American and 1% as Native American.

Admitted students came from 49 states and 31 countries. The state from which the most applications came was California, followed by Maryland and New York.

The university has continued to offer a non-binding early action program over single-choice early action and early decision alternatives in order to not restrict a student’s options, Deacon said.

“We don’t think that helps anyone, because you can only pick one school,” Deacon said.

“That means you only get one financial aid reward, and you have to accept that, and we’ve not felt that was a good plan. You’re only going to get one offer, and it’s not going to be a particularly generous one.”

HARRISON MCBRIDE Hoya Staff Writer

Select students in the McDonough School of Business’ MBA program began classes for a new certificate program centered around business sustainability this semester.

The certificate in sustainable business will focus on general business approaches to environmentalism, with specific emphasis on supply chain management, the general management of the goods and services supplied to a business and corporate environmental sustainability. MSB certificates provide students the opportunity to supplement general curriculum requirements with specific topics.

Inspiration for the certificate first developed about five years ago when elective courses about sustainable business were created by MSB professor Vishal Agrawal, who will serve as academic director of the certificate program, Agrawal said in an interview with The Hoya.

“For the last four or five years, I started developing electives on this topic so that was sort of my goal initially,” Agrawal said. “So that was sort of the impetus behind developing a certificate in this case, a way for students to signal their experience, their qualifications and their knowledge in this space.”

Adding the certificate to the MSB not only reflects a demand by businesses to further address the topic in MBA programs, but also promotes Georgetown’s Jesuit teaching values, Paul Almeida, MSB dean and William R. Berkley chair, wrote in an email to The Hoya.

“As companies are increasingly focused on sustainable

business practices, it is essential that we strengthen our curricular offerings in this area,” Almeida wrote. “We have a longstanding Jesuit tradition of teaching our graduates how to do right by their companies while also doing right by the world. This certificate is another way in which we can leverage the unique character of Georgetown to ensure we are educating students to become principled leaders in an increasingly complex world.”

Under the new certificate, students will complete a 10.5-credit combination of core and elective courses relevant to the program, according to the press release. Two courses, “Environmentally Sustainable Operations and Business Models” and “Corporate Social Responsibility,” are required to complete the certificate in addition to 4.5 credits from a list of approximately six approved electives.

Though the required courses in the program provide a comprehensive view of the topic, Agrawal additionally plans to implement supplemental activities to further distinguish the program from other certificates.

“Those two required courses together sort of really provide a good encompassing of for-profit versus non-profit, and social versus environmental, and sort of laying down the groundwork for sustainable business,” Agrawal said. “Now the other thing which will be going along with this is that we’ll be planning a bunch of different activities: case competitions, industry events, career and networking events, to sort of really provide way more than just ticking the boxes.”

The first class of students in the program began the cer-

tificate at the start of the spring 2020 semester, and applications for the next cohort are currently open.

Though the program is currently in its first semester, there are already plans and policies in place to enhance the program in the future, Prashant Malaviya, associate professor of marketing and senior associate dean of MBA programs, wrote in an email to The Hoya.

“The way this certificate and all of our other certificates evolve over time is essentially by an addition of new electives that are relevant for the certificate or through the revision of current courses that are part of the certificate,” Malaviya wrote.

“We do an ongoing curricular review and innovation process and these certificates would be subject to the same continuous innovation process for the curriculum and whatever new innovations are happening in the business world should get reflected in what we include in the curriculum of the certificates.”

The environmental sustainability certificate joins two existing certificates within the MBA program, nonmarket strategies and consumer analytics and insights.

Though there is not currently much overlap between the certificates, Agrawal hopes to emphasize interconnectedness between the three options in the future to build a more comprehensive program.

“I think this year’s class can share certificates if they like without double conflicting courses, so there’s some coordination already happening,” Agrawal said. “I see a lot of scope for people to sort of play at the intersection of these certificates and in the future hopefully we’ll find ways to collaborate on it.”

National Security and Law Protests Essential to Fighting Center Names New Director Climate Change, Fonda Says ANNA FERRAZZI Hoya Staff Writer

Georgetown University Law Center named international justice and war crimes expert Anna Cave as its new executive director of the Center on National Security and the Law, after a monthslong search to fill the role.

Cave replaces Nadia Asancheyev (LAW ’06), who served six years as executive director of the center, a department of the Law Center that emphasizes scholarship and experiential learning initiatives for graduate students enrolled in the program.

Cave’s appointment was announced Dec. 9.

In her new role, Cave will focus on promoting diversity in all facets of the center, she said.

“How do we ensure that there is diversity of expertise, diversity of backgrounds?”

Cave said in an interview with The Hoya. “I think that’s an area where the field really needs to grow. It’s not a particularly diverse field, so the Center can help educate and mentor a diverse next generation of national security experts.”

Cave hopes to direct the center to look more closely at the real-world effects of national security policies, she said.

“It’s easy to focus on the nitty-gritty of the law or these abstract principles

— so separation of powers, checks and balances, or what it means to fight terrorism,” Cave said. “But, what does that actually mean for the people who are affected by our national security bureaucracy, policy, legal framework? What is the human element?”

The Master of Laws Guide ranked the Law Center as the No. 1 program for “National Security / International Security Law” in the United States. As executive director of the center, Cave will help bolster the school’s reputation in the field, according to Executive Vice President and Georgetown Law Dean William Treanor.

“In light of the school’s position as a national leader in the field, she will have the opportunity to help to advance the conversation in ways that strengthen U.S. national security and rule of law,” Treanor wrote in an email to The Hoya.

National security and rule of law go hand in hand, according to Cave. By studying the intersection of the two fields, the center can help enact positive policy change, according to Cave.

“I hope that the center that we build can have an impact in the world and that we can take and translate the research, and identify some of the key problems and then

SHEEL PATEL/THE HOYA

Georgetown University Law Center’s Center on National Security and the Law announced Anna Cave as its new executive director Dec. 9.

really experiment and innovate possible solutions,” Cave said. “You really need to have a national security system and approaches and policies and laws that are undergirded by rule of law principles.”

Prior to joining the center, Cave worked in national security and foreign policy positions in the Department of State and U.S. government.

Cave served as the director for Central Africa on the National Security Council and helped to advise, support and coordinate the U.S. executive branch’s response to security crises in Central Africa, she said.

Her time at the NSC taught her critical decision-making skills and gave her real-life experience, Cave said.

“You get to see all of the permutations of U.S. interests, U.S. power, U.S. values, when to restrain and hold back, how to balance competing interests,” Cave said.

“That kind of glimpse behind the curtain of how the national security apparatus actually works was incredibly valuable.”

Cave most recently served as the founding director of the Ferencz International Justice Initiative, a division of the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, which works to prevent genocide and other crimes against humanity. Leading the initiative in its early stages also prepared Cave for her role as executive director of the center, she said.

“That was really creating something new, and launching something new — in a big institution,” Cave said.

“So creating a new strategy, and then figuring out how to implement it, and understanding the comparative advantage that your institution has, the needs in the field that you’re working in, and the way in which those two things can come together to create something new.”

Cave’s diverse past experiences will serve her well as she joins the center, Treanor wrote.

“Anna brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise: she has experience in private practice, government, and the nonprofit sector, so she understands critical questions from a number of perspectives,” Treanor wrote.

MADDIE BERRY

Special to The Hoya

Active demonstrations supplement individual lifestyle changes in making strides towards combating climate change, according to actress and activist Jane Fonda at a Jan. 7 event.

The event, titled “This is Not a Drill: A Discussion with Jane Fonda on Climate Change,” was hosted by the Georgetown Environment Initiative and the Kalmanovitz Initiative on Labor and the Working Poor, a research group that develops policy and strategies to improve American workers’ lives. The dialogue was led by Director of the Georgetown Environment Initiative Peter Marra.

While reducing meat and fish consumption or buying an electric car are important steps toward alleviating the effects of climate change, individuals need to think bigger when it comes to combating such a time sensitive issue, according to Fonda.

“It’s a good place to start, but it’s not the place to stop,” Fonda said. “Our individual lifestyle choices can’t be scaled up in time. Time is the issue. We only have 10 years to do something that is probably the biggest challenge that humans have ever faced.”

Fonda, a longtime climate activist, moved to Washington, D.C., and created Fire Drill Fridays, a weekly march on Capitol Hill in which she

and other demonstrators engage in protests and acts of civil disobedience to fight for climate justice.

Fonda found inspiration for Fire Drill Fridays after reading Naomi Klein’s “On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal.” The book specifically referenced teen climate activist Greta Thunberg and other youth climate activists, all of whom served as further inspiration for Fonda’s move to D.C. and creation of the weekly protests, she said.

“I said, ‘I’m gonna move.

Greta says get out of your comfort zone, so I’m moving to D.C.,’” Fonda said. “‘I’m gonna camp out in front of the White House for a year.’”

Fonda said Fire Drill Fridays were her way of joining youth strikers in demonstrating against climate change.

“The young student activists here in D.C. agreed that they would share their Friday protests with me, and so that’s what got me here,” Fonda said. “I’m very very moved by what’s happened.”

Since the first Fire Drill Friday in October 2019, turnout at the protests has increased.

Around 500 protestors attended the most recent Fire Drill Friday on Jan. 10, which was Fonda’s final climate rally in D.C. before moving back to California.

While the movement hopes to enact widespread change, specific areas of focus include advocating for the regulation of the fossil fuel industry and

the Green New Deal, a congressional resolution to address climate change, Fonda said.

“At Fire Drill Fridays, we talk about the Green New Deal, but then we add on no fossil fuel expansion and phase out of existing fossil fuels with a just transition for the workers. Those are the main demands,” Fonda said.

“We can have all the windmills and solar collectors in the world, and if they keep drilling and fracking and refining and turning stuff into plastic and everything, we’re never gonna solve the problem.”

Fonda’s activist experience is not limited to climate justice. She was a vocal opponent to the Vietnam War in the 1970s and has continued to be outspoken on other issues including women’s rights and Native American rights. In 2017, Fonda came to campus to speak about unfair labor practices within the services industry.

Activism not only helps stress the urgency of an issue, but also helps to mobilize more people to join in the push for change, Fonda said.

“Activism, and the kind of things we’ve been doing with Fire Drill Fridays, is creating community,” Fonda said.

“We have to fight for community in the sense that we are interdependent, that we have to stick together, that it’s gonna take all of us, so I highly advocate activism.”

JULIA ALVEY/THE HOYA

Actress and activist Jane Fonda spoke at a Jan. 7 event titled “This is Not a Drill: A Discussion with Jane Fonda on Climate Change.” At the event, Fonda discussed ways to get involved in the fight against climate change.

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Artisan Market To Replace Woman Indicted for Alleged Bomb Former Dean & DeLuca Market Threats to Georgetown Visitation GRACE BUONO Hoya Staff Writer

Artists & Fleas, a New Yorkbased artisan marketplace, is set to open in the historic Georgetown Park building March 2020.

Local vendors and craftspeople will be able to showcase and sell their goods in the building that previously housed gourmet grocer Dean & DeLuca. The location has been unoccupied since Dean & DeLuca closed August 2019.

Artists & Fleas will provide upand-coming vendors with the chance to participate in a market environment, according to Ronen Glimer, co-founder of Artists & Fleas.

“One of our core beliefs is to really create places of opportunity for fledgling businesses to dip their toe in the water of what traditional retail is,” Glimer said in an interview with The Hoya. “We take our cues from old world markets. We like a little bit of chaos and messiness and scrappiness.

It’s not a museum store. It’s not a department store. There’s got to be some freshness and some vibe.”

The Georgetown market will include two categories of vendors, according to Glimer. Some vendors will follow a consistent and traditional retail schedule. A second section of the store will welcome artisans who will sell for a limited period of time, from a weekend to a month.

Those who wish to sell at the new maker marketplace do not necessarily need prior retail experience, according to Glimer.

“We’re constantly a home for people of all backgrounds and

experience levels,” Glimer said.

“You don’t have to consider yourself a full-time fill-in-the-blank — jewelery maker, silversmith, seamstress, or painter or photographer. We’re a place of opportunity and experimentation and fun.”

The Georgetown neighborhood is the largest outdoor shopping district in the Washington, D.C.-Maryland-Virginia region, with over 450 retailers ranging from national chains to local boutiques and restaurants, according to Jamie Scott, the director of Planning and Economic Development at the Georgetown Business Improvement District.

Artists & Fleas’ leasing of the Georgetown Park building will bolster local vendors and benefit the community, according to Scott.

“These kinds of markets I think provide an opportunity for a lot of local entrepreneurs that they might not always get if they were trying to lease the space directly,” Scott said. “And so I think it’s a really important concept, and it’s important for Georgetown to keep supporting the local economy in that way.”

The arrival of Artists & Fleas comes following an article published by The New York Times that ranked D.C. as its first of 52 locations to visit in 2020. The ranking could bring new energy to Georgetown, according to Glimer.

“I’m really excited to see people come back to rediscover Georgetown. There’s interesting things starting to happen in the indyfood-space, and we’re excited to be a compliment in the quote-un-

quote indy-retail-space,” Glimer said. “If you look around, there’s not a lot of independent retail around anymore. I think it’s time, and we’re excited to have this opportunity.”

Artists & Fleas was founded in 2003 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and has since expanded to additional locations in the New York City Chelsea and Soho neighborhoods. The organization expanded to the West Coast in 2014, opening a market in Los Angeles.

Artists & Fleas will ideally collaborate with neighborhood artisans to fill the Georgetown park building, according to Rachel Shank, executive director of Georgetown Main Street, a local nonprofit that advocates for more small businesses in the area.

“We hope they work with local makers and consider popups for the local businesses in the community,” Shank wrote in an email to The Hoya. “We’re excited that great space will no longer be vacant.”

Producing and selling work can be daunting, according to Glimer. Artists & Fleas hopes to support their vendors and help them succeed.

“I would just put it out there that for us, as a brand and as a business, we’ve always recognized how challenging and intimidating it can be for someone who makes something to get out there and sell it and to represent it,” Glimer said. “That is an act of bravery, and we feel really strongly about creating a community, giving people an opportunity, where they feel good.”

SHEEL PATEL/THE HOYA

Artists & Fleas will provide up-and-coming vendors with the chance to showcase and sell their goods in the space formerly occupied by upscale grocery store Dean & DeLuca. The market will open March 2020.

HANSEN LIAN Hoya Staff Writer

This article quotes an alleged instance of hate speech. Please refer to the end of the article for on- and off-campus resources.

A federal grand jury indicted a California woman for allegedly threatening to bomb Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School, a Catholic all-girls school in Northwest Washington, D.C., over its decision to publish same-sex wedding announcements in its alumnae magazine.

Sonia Tabizada pleaded not guilty to federal charges of obstructing religious exercise by threat and transmitting bomb threats in interstate commerce at her hearing Jan. 3, according to court records.

Tabizada will remain in jail until her Jan. 21 detention review hearing, at which the court will determine whether to detain her without bail.

Tabizada’s lawyer Carmen Hernandez wrote that at an initial appearance in court, a defendant ordinarily pleads not guilty, because at that stage the prosecution has not yet produced the evidence regarding the charged offense.

“Neither the defendant nor her criminal defense lawyer have had a sufficient opportunity to investigate the charges, research the law, nor discuss the events with the defendant,” Hernandez wrote in an email to The Hoya.

“So it is prudent to plead not guilty.”

Tabizada allegedly left two threatening voicemails for the school two days after a May 13 letter to the school community from Visitation President Emerita Sister Mary Berchmans Hannan announcing a new policy to include all alumnae marriage announcements in the Visitation alumnae magazine, according to The Daily Beast.

“Remove the f--cking gay motherf--ckers from your magazine, or I’m going to f-cking kill your kids,” she allegedly said in the first voicemail. “I’m gonna f--cking blow up the school and call it a mission from God. You guys are going to get terrorism within your f--cking school, motherf--ker. And you’re going to be guilty. And I warned you!”

Tabizada did not graduate from Visitation and has no known ties to it, a Visitation

NATALIE REGAN/THE HOYA

Sonia Tabizada pleaded not guilty after she was accused of making a bomb threat to Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School. official told NBC News.

Despite the threats, the fall 2019 issue of the school’s alumnae magazine featured announcements of same-sex marriages, according to Visitation Director of Communications Caroline Handorf.

“We did publish news of several same-sex unions in our most recent class notes, which were printed and distributed in December,” Handorf wrote in an email to The Hoya.

The school, located on 35th Street, was established in 1799 and is one of the oldest Catholic girls schools in the country. The decision to publish news of alumnae same-sex marriages came after reflection from school leadership on forging a more inclusive relationship with LGBTQ alumnae, according to Berchmans’ letter.

“The Church is clear in its teaching on same-sex marriages,” Berchmans wrote in the letter. “But, it is equally clear in its teaching that we are all children of God, that we each have dignity and are worthy of respect and love.”

The announcement received some pushback from Visitation alumnae who viewed the school’s decision as a betrayal to Catholic community.

“In claiming a ‘contradiction’ between Church teaching and the gospel message of love, your letter betrays a deep misunderstanding of Catholic sexual teaching,” four Visitation alumni wrote in an open May 23 letter. “Catholic doctrine is intrinsically unified: The Church’s teaching on sex and marriage is of a piece

with its teaching on the value of human life, the urgency of caring for the poor and marginalized, and the promotion of peace.”

In response, Berchmans, Head of School Dan Kerns and Principal Mary Kate Blaine sent a joint letter to the Visitation community May 31 reaffirming the school’s commitment to its Catholic identity.

“The editorial change to our magazine in no way lessens our fidelity to the Catholic values that have governed Visitation for over two centuries,” the letter obtained by The Hoya read. “It continues to be our firm belief that we can uphold Church teachings, while, at the same time, welcome all members of our community.”

The Catholic faith emphasizes that all members of the community should be accepted, according to the letter.

“As Catholics, we are blessed with both the richness of Church teaching and the abundance of the Gospel commandment of love. They are compatible and the fullness of our faith invites us to lives that embrace both,” the letter read. “It is God’s love that inspires us to ensure all members of our community feel equally valued and respected.”

Resources: On-campus confidential resources include Health Education Services (202-6878949) and Counseling and Psychiatric Services (202-687-6985); additional off-campus resources include The Trevor Project, a national 24-hour, toll free confidential suicide hotline for LGBTQ youth (866-488-7386).

Voter Participation Up 143% Kennedy Institute of Ethics Offices Damaged in Healy Fire Following Student-Led Efforts KELLY ANDERSON Hoya Staff Writer

The Office of Planning and Facilities Management is investigating the cause of a fire that broke out in a private office in Healy Hall on the evening of Jan. 5, according to a Georgetown University spokesperson.

The Georgetown University Police Department and the Washington, D.C. Fire and EMS Department responded to a fire alarm that sounded at 7:25 p.m. when no one was in the building. The fire tripped the building’s sprinkler system, which extinguished the fire, according to a university spokesperson.

The office is housed in the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, located on the fourth floor of Healy. An electrical issue most likely ignited the fire, according to acting Kennedy Institute Director Daniel Sulmasy.

“There were no flammable liquids, candles, or holiday decorations in the office, and it was unoccupied at the time, so none of these can have been causative,” Sulmasy wrote in a Jan. 9 email to The Hoya. “An electrical cause is most likely, but formal investigations are ongoing.”

Members of the community, many of whom were off campus for winter break, were notified of a fire investigation in Healy at 7:32 p.m via HOYAlert, a notification system that delivers news of emergencies to students, staff and faculty.

While Healy did not suffer any structural damage, the fire damaged the office and adjoining rooms, according to Sulmasy.

“The office sustained significant damage and many books and papers were damaged or destroyed — either by fire or water from the sprinkler,” Sulmasy wrote. “Carpets in several adjacent offices were made wet by the sprinkler system, and there

was water damage on the third floor, but the fire was wholly contained within the one office and did not spread.”

Previously, smoke from a mechanical failure triggered a fire alarm in Healy in February 2019. The alarm led to a complete evacuation of the building.

D.C. Fire and EMS determined that the smoke resulted from a defective fan belt on a heating, ventilation and air conditioning unit rather than from a fire.

During that incident, 45 personnel were dispatched as part of a predetermined procedure in the event of a potential fire in Healy.

The Georgetown community has faced several other false alarms in the past few years. In February 2018, a series of latenight fire alarms were triggered in the Southwest Quadrangle dormitories. Later that year, a circuit failure in the Nevils dormitory set off multiple false alarms.

Although Healy is operational, the incident’s aftermath has disturbed office routines, according to Katherine Arcement, communications officer for the Kennedy Institute.

“Cleanup is ongoing on the

KIE hallway, so there have been disruptions to day-to-day operations, but they have been minimal,” Arcement wrote in a Jan. 9 email to The Hoya.

Despite the inconveniences faculty at the Kennedy Institute are facing, those who work in Healy are adapting to the circumstances, according to Sulmasy.

“Several other faculty and staff have been working from alternative locations due to the noise of the drying fans and the smell of smoke, but most of us are still coming to work as usual and we can [be] very grateful that there was no more damage or disruption,” Sulmasy wrote.

Since the start of the spring semester, students and faculty have been using Healy while Facilities attends to the impacted areas, according to a university spokesperson.

“Healy Hall is fully-functional, and any remaining damage caused by the fire or sprinkler activation is being assessed and addressed by Georgetown University Facilities Management,” a university spokesperson wrote in an email to The Hoya.

SHEEL PATEL/THE HOYA

The Office of Planning and Facilities Management is investigating the cause of the Jan.5 fire, which damaged offices in Healy Hall.

GRACE BUONO Hoya Staff Writer

Voter participation in federal elections among eligible students at Georgetown University increased 143% from 2014 to 2018 following student-led efforts to facilitate voter registration.

Voter participation for qualified Georgetown students increased from 20% to 49% during the 2014 and 2018 elections, according to the National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement, a consortium that allows campuses across the country to collect data on their student registration and voting rates.

In the 2018 elections, voter turnout among Georgetown students exceeded the national average campus voting rate by 10%, according to the study.

Founded with the goal of increasing political participation on campus, GU Votes, a student-led branch of the Georgetown University Institute of Politics and Public Service, began initiatives in 2015 to make registering to vote more accessible for students.

GU Votes’ work to break down barriers to voting for students brings politics to the forefront of students’ lives, according to GU Politics Chief of Staff Carly Henry (GRD ’19).

“A lot of what we do is expose students to career opportunities in politics and public service and tell them how they can make a difference,” Henry said in an interview with The Hoya. “I think GU Votes is a really good way of showing students how they can make a difference immediately by registering to vote and making their voice heard.”

Students are now able to

register to vote in federal, state and local elections, as well as request an absentee ballot and find other electionrelated materials through a portal on MyAccess, GU Votes announced Nov. 4. Students can also register through GU Votes’ online voter portal: bit.ly/guvotes.

While data regarding student activity on the new MyAccess voter registration portal is not yet available to GU Votes, since August, 427 students have used the voter registration links on the GU Votes website, Henry wrote in an email to The Hoya.

“I think students are very enthusiastic and really want to vote and want to be involved in the political process.”

SARAH BRYANT (SFS ’22) Student Ambassador for GU Votes

GU Votes programming aims to combat unclear and complicated absentee ballot policies, which present barriers to registering for students who opt to vote in their home state, according to Sarah Bryant (SFS ‘22), a student ambassador for GU Votes.

“I think students are very enthusiastic and really want to vote and want to be involved in the political process,” Bryant said. “Often times, I think what we see at GU Votes is that when students don’t vote it’s not because they don’t want to or they don’t care. It’s that it’s often just really hard for students to do that.”

GU Votes holds an annual “Storm the Dorms” voter reg-

istration drive on National Voter Registration Day on Sept. 24. On the day in 2019, volunteers from GU Votes tabled in the four first-year dorms and registered hundreds of students.

With the 2020 presidential primaries and election approaching, GU Votes plans to establish relationships with clubs and organizations across campus to ensure they reach as many students as possible, according to Bryant.

“Really our club partnerships is something we’re trying to extend and work more on so that we’re able to reach parts of campus that aren’t just people who are already working with GU Politics,” Bryant said.

One way GU Votes hopes to connect with student organizations is through its voter drop box program, according to Bryant. The program, which is run in partnership with the Office of Residential Living, provides students with secure drop boxes to send off their voter registration materials.

In the coming months, as the primaries begin taking place in states across the country, the Georgetown Office of Federal Relations will email students individualized letters explaining their state-specific deadlines and processes, according to Henry.

Going forward, GU Votes aims to continue encouraging students, especially those who have never voted before, to utilize the resources offered to them, according to Bryant.

“There’s lots of people on campus, especially within GU Politics, who are doing good work and are there to help students who maybe haven’t voted before, don’t know exactly how it works, but really want to,” Bryant said.

NEWS

FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2020

THE HOYA

A9

GU Politics Announces Spring City Displaces Tent Community 2020 Class of Visiting Fellows From K St Bridge Underpass CLARA GRUDBERG

ISHAAN RAI

Hoya Staff Writer

Special to The Hoya

The 10th class of the Georgetown University Institute of Politics and Public Service, which includes former Congressman Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.) and other veteran figures in political campaigns and media, will begin their new roles this semester.

Joining Crowley to make up the spring class of fellows are former Communications Director for Kamala Harris for President Lily Adams, BuzzFeed News Washington Bureau Chief Kate Nocera, co-founder of Torchlight strategies John Rogers and Head of Public Affairs for Facebook Robert Traynham.

The fellows will hold weekly discussion groups and office hours during which students can listen to them speak about their experiences in the political field, ask questions and seek advice. Each semester, GU Politics accepts applications for the next semester’s class of fellows. The spring 2020 GU Politics Fellows are the product of one of the most competitive applicant pools, according to GU Politics Executive Director Mo Elleithee (SFS ’94).

“We couldn’t be more thrilled with this class,” Elleithee wrote in an email to The Hoya. “If you’ve ever wanted to sit down and talk with political leaders about running for office, presidential campaigns, political reporting, or the intersection of tech and politics, this class has you covered.”

The GU Politics Fellows Program began in fall 2015 and has brought five distinguished figures to campus every semester since. Past fellows include former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley (D), former Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) and ABC News White House Correspondent Karen Travers (COL ’00, GRD ’03).

Crowley served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1990 to 2019, representing New York’s 14th congressional district. He became the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus in 2017 and remained in that role until his primary defeat by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), an upset that attracted national coverage.

Adams most recently served

City officials permanently cleared a homeless encampment under the bridge crossing over K Street NE on Jan. 16, displacing dozens of people experiencing homelessness and disposing of their belongings.

The city announced the scheduled encampment clearance by posting orange signage Jan. 3 that said the sidewalk under the bridge was a “pedestrian passageway” that could not be blocked by any private property, including tents, according to The DCist.

At 10 a.m. on Thursday, city officials, police and sanitation workers arrived at the encampment to clear anything that was left. After everyone vacated the underpass, sanitation workers swept and power washed the sidewalks, according to The Washington Post.

Officials made the decision to remove the K Street encampment after reports that the encampment was interfering with pedestrian traffic, which was a safety concern, D.C. Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Wayne Turnage said in an interview with WAMU. “We were noticing over time that pedestrians were stepping into the street to not interfere with the encampments,” Turnage said to WAMU. “We needed to address it before someone got hurt.”

Homeless encampments on K, L and M streets in NoMa, a neighborhood north of Capitol Hill, have been cleared biweekly, though people usually return afterward, according to The DCist.

Georgetown University’s Homelessness OutreachMeals-Education program oversees multiple homelessness outreach and education efforts through the Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching and Service. Members of HOME attended the clearance to aid people experiencing homelessness.

Students in the HOME program will assist members of the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, a local nonprofit that provides free legal assistance to people experiencing homelessness.

GU POLITICS, ILLUSTRATION BY SHEEL PATEL

The spring 2020 politics fellows are Lily Adams, Joe Crowley, Kate Nocera, John Rogers and Robert Traynham. as the communications director for the presidential campaign of Senator Kamala Harris (DCalif.), who withdrew from the race earlier this month. In 2016, Adams served as the spokesperson and Iowa communications director for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

Nocera is a veteran Washington, D.C. political journalist who has served as the D.C. Bureau Chief for BuzzFeed News since 2016. Prior to joining Buzzfeed, Nocera worked as a health care and congressional reporter for Politico. She received a 2014 National Press Foundation Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for distinguished reporting of a congressional resolution that authorized military action against the perpetrators of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Rogers is a co-founder of Torchlight Strategies, a company that produces political advertisements and documentaries for Republican candidates.

Before founding his company, he worked for the National Republican Congressional Committee for almost eight years, serving as the executive director from 2017-18.

Traynham is the head of public affairs for Facebook, a role he has held since 2018.

Prior to working at Facebook, Traynham worked as a political consultant at companies including Wamart and Comcast.

He served as an assistant dean at Georgetown from 2012-13 and remains a member of the university’s faculty.

The fellows have expressed

gratitude and excitement at their selection on social media.

To be a part of such a distinguished group is an honor, according to Traynham.

“So excited to be amongst so many legends,” Traynham wrote in a Dec. 16 tweet.

Discussion groups and office hours are not the only ways students will be able to interact with the fellows. Students have the opportunity to apply to be a part of a Student Strategy Team. Each fellow will be assigned a small group of students who will help them research for their discussion groups, promote their sessions and events, and connect them with the broader campus community, according to the GU Politics website.

The GU Politics team hopes students will take advantage of this opportunity to work closely with experts in the fields of politics, government and media, according to Paula Pecorella, GU Politics manager of fellows and career programming.

“We are thrilled to welcome this dynamic group of fellows to Georgetown next semester.

Their expertise and discussion topics could not be more timely and we know how valuable they will be to our students,” Pecorella wrote in an email to The Hoya.

“Signing up for a Student Strategy Team, where you’ll get to work one on one with the Fellows, or simply attending their weekly discussion groups and office hours, are some of the best ways to get involved with GU Politics and begin building your political network.”

WLCH and HOME plan on working together to advocate on behalf of people experiencing homelessness in the city, according to Associate Director of the CSJ Raymond Shiu.

“In partnership with WLCH, Hoyas will assist individuals experiencing homelessness during the clearances and advocate for their rights,” Shiu wrote in an email to The Hoya. “In this new development in the NOMA neighborhood, HOME will continue to be present and support the homeless community.”

HOME’s work in collaboration with WLCH reflects the program’s commitment to Georgetown’s Jesuit values, according to HOME Program Coordinator Brianna Ledshome.

“HOME’s partnership with the Washington Legal Clinic exemplifies our Jesuit Mission of being men and women for and with others,” Ledshome wrote in an email to The Hoya. “Our programs’ values rely on recognizing human dignity and agency of people experiencing homelessness, and we believe that these values should be guiding forces when the city responds to the encampments.”

There are more than 6,500 people experiencing homelessness in D.C., making the District home to one of the largest homeless populations in the country, according to a 2019 D.C. census. About 9% of people experiencing homelessness live directly on the streets or in an automobile, according to the census.

Residents of NoMa have voiced concerns with the large population of people experiencing homelessness.

NoMa Business Improvement District President Robin-Eve Jasper penned an open letter last August recommending “pedestrian safe-passage zones” to address the underpass encampments in NoMa. “Many report that they have been harassed as they walk by the tent encampments, where people frequently engage in aggressive panhandling and occasionally menace passersby,” the letter read. “Used and bloody hypodermic needles and other drug paraphernalia, rotting food, trash, broken glass, public nudity, prostitution, sales of illegal drugs, and

human urine and feces are encountered by those whose routes take them by the encampments and pervade the space in which encamped individuals are living.”

In response to the letter, more than 30 NoMa residents wrote emails to Turnage to call for the removal of the K Street bridge encampment, according to the Washington City Paper.

Establishing pedestrian safe-passage zones in NoMa can quickly become a way to exclude vulnerable NoMa residents, according to a response to Jasper’s letter by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty.

“It is an act of dividing human beings into groups of people who are considered ‘illegally encamped’ and those who are not, those deemed worthy of safety and those who are not,” the response read. “We are falling into an ‘us versus them’ narrative, which sees the ‘other’ as a threat that must be strategically removed.”

The city’s decision to declare the sidewalks on K Street “pedestrian passageways” was not inspired by Jasper’s letter but rather by observations taken during regular encampment cleanups. Regardless, the city does endorse the creation of these safe-passage zones, Turnage said in an interview with WAMU. Currently, the Department of Human Services provides people experiencing homelessness with various resources, including homeless shelter services, transportation services and hypothermia alerts, according to the DHS website.

The Office of the Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services creates policies on homeless encampments with the well-being of all of its constituents in mind, according to the DMHHS website.

“The District of Columbia is focused on making homelessness rare, brief and non-recurring,” Turnage wrote. “Our protocol for cleaning public spaces is triggered when a site presents a security, health, or safety risk, and/or interferes with community use of such places. With this in mind, we provide resources to shelter, pathways to housing and access to behavioral health services to individuals at these locations.”

WMATA Announces Proposed Evans Resigns From DC Council Bus Route Changes, Fare Hikes Following Ethics Investigation ANNA FERRAZZI Hoya Staff Writer

Georgetown neighborhood residents have expressed concern about the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s December draft budget report for the 2021 fiscal year suggesting potential bus route changes and a fare hike ahead of a Jan. 16 WMATA meeting.

The December proposal suggested the complete elimination of bus routes servicing the Georgetown, Burleith and Glover Park neighborhoods, including Route D1 (Glover Park-Franklin Square Line) and Route 54 (14th Street Line), among others. Route G2 (P Street-LeDroit Park Line), which stops outside the main gates of Georgetown’s main campus, would be merged with Route D2 (Glover Park-Dupont Circle Line), according to WTOP. Metrobus base rush-hour fares would see a 25 cent increase for anyone paying with a Metro card or cash, according to the draft budget released in November. The draft also proposed a 10 cent base rush-hour price increase for those using the Metrorail. A December WMATA Finance and Capital Committee meeting proposed raising the 10 cent increase to 15 cents. The budget would also include a $2 discount for those transferring from bus to rail and vice versa.

Both proposed moves have been met with concern from community members, according to Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner 2E01 and Burleith resident Kishan Putta.

“In December, a few constituents and I traveled to downtown D.C. to testify before the Metro Board because we had seen proposed changes in conjunction with their budget proposal,” Putta said in an interview with The Hoya. “A lot of the constituents, they took the bus to get there — actually, they didn’t have any other way

of getting down there from our neighborhood. That’s the only way to get there via public transportation because there’s no Metro station.”

WMATA representatives said they would primarily cancel repetitive routes and customers currently relying on those services would continue to have access to the transportation by transferring to another bus or rail, according to WTOP. At least two possibly canceled routes would be terminated due to few riders.

The WMATA Board is set to discuss the proposals at its meeting Thursday. The board will also set dates for public hearings over the next few weeks when residents can voice concerns and give feedback on the draft proposal.

The proposed route changes would directly affect students who live off campus, according to Georgetown University student Jordan Brown (COL ’21), who lives in Petworth and commutes to campus for classes.

“The routes that comprise my daily commute, the 54 and G2, are both on the chopping block,” Brown wrote in an email to The Hoya. “These proposed Metrobus changes would severely affect my commute likely cause it to be even longer than it already is - forty-five minutes to an hour each way.”

If WMATA implements these changes, lower-income community members will be disproportionately affected, according to Brown.

“This will most directly impact low-income students, who are already at a disadvantage in this expensive neighbourhood,” Brown wrote.

“Low-income students like myself quite literally cannot afford to take rideshares every time we need to travel between Georgetown and another area.”

Logan Arkema (COL ’20), who commutes to Georgetown from East Burleith, reached out to Putta directly to

express his grievances.

“As a Georgetown University student without access to a personal vehicle, a budget to sustain rideshares, or easy access to a metro station, these five lines have been essential for me to access my internship, job, and city as a whole,” Arkema wrote in the email.

“One of the main reasons I decided to rent in East Burleith is its close proximity to the aforementioned bus lines, and I’m hoping they won’t go away with the next WMATA budget.”

Councilmember Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), who represents the Georgetown neighborhood on the council as well as other sections of the District, announced in a Jan. 7 letter that he will officially resign from the D.C. Council following accusations of ethical misconduct. A special election to fill Ward 2’s open seat will be held June 16.

Evans’ resignation announcement leaves Ward 2 without representation to voice community members’ concerns about WMATA’s proposed changes, according to Arkema.

“Ultimately, the decision rests with the city council at a time when Georgetown and all of Ward 2 has no city councilmember,” Arkema wrote in an email to The Hoya. “I hope the city council takes the concerns of his former (and now unrepresented) constituents into account, especially since the budget will be finalized before the election to fill his vacant seat.”

WMATA’s response to complaints has been slow, leaving residents dissatisfied and confused, according to Putta.

“They said they would be putting more details out after the holidays. So we waited,” Putta said. “There was a community meeting last week and Metro was supposed to come, and they pulled out at the last minute because they said we would have more details and would be able to react to that.”

CLARA GRUDBERG Hoya Staff Writer

Washington, D.C. Councilmember Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) officially resigned from the council in a Jan. 7 letter following accusations of ethical misconduct.

Evans’ resignation comes after investigations into allegations that he used his council position to facilitate corrupt private legal and consulting work. A report commissioned by the council that outlined 11 ethical violations since 2014 was released Nov. 4, prompting Evans’ colleagues to call for his resignation.

Evans, who represents the Georgetown neighborhood on the council as well as other sections of the District, announced his intent to resign effective Friday, Jan. 17, in a letter to Council Chairman Phil Mendelson.

“After nearly 30 years of public service to the District of Columbia, I have advised the Board of Elections that I resign my position as Ward 2 Councilmember on the Council of the District of Columbia,” Evans wrote.

Evans has been accused of using his council position to promote the interests of clients of his consulting company since spring 2018. The FBI also raided his Georgetown home in June as a part of a federal investigation after allegations that Evans used his position as chairman of the Metro Board to help a company that was privately paying him $50,000 each year, according to The Washington Post.

Council leadership had long faced public scrutiny for failing to take action to penalize Evans, Councilmember David Grosso (I-At Large) wrote in a news release. His resignation will allow the council more time to focus on issues pertinent to constituents, according to Mendelson.

“I think this is the right de-

cision for Mr. Evans to have made. It saves the council from going through more of this time and distraction from the business we ought to be doing. It’s also important in a step in restoring integrity of the institution and the trust of the public,” Mendelson said in a public address. “It’s very sad that we’ve come to this point.”

The council affirmed its intent to address Evans’ misconduct by voting unanimously to oust Evans from office Dec. 3. Evans’ resignation halts the expulsion process, which, if successful, would have made Evans the first lawmaker to be removed from office in D.C. Council history, according to The Washington Post.

Termination from the council was the only appropriate way to reprimand Evans, according to Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie (D-Ward 5).

“His resignation is a necessary step that brings to a conclusion this unfortunate episode in the history of the District of Columbia,” McDuffie wrote in an email to The Hoya. “This process has reached what has become the only acceptable outcome and Councilmember Evans will no longer serve on the District of Columbia council. With this now behind us, the council can begin to rebuild the public’s trust.”

The scandal brought increased strain to the Council and damaged its reputation, according to Councilmember Mary Cheh (D- Ward 3), who led the Ad Hoc Committee tasked with scrutinizing the accusations against Evans.

“As the Chair of the Ad Hoc Committee tasked with investigating the allegations of his ethical violations and as a member prepared to vote in favor of his expulsion from the body, it was right of Mr. Evans to resign. This has been an especially painful and difficult time on the Council, and it is time for stability to be returned and the public’s trust in the in-

tegrity of the body restored.”

Despite the ethics inquiries, Evans has sat on the council since 1991, making him the longest-serving councilmember in the history of Washington, D.C. Since then, Evans has served on the Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety, the Committee on Transportation and the Environment, and the Committee on Business and Economic Development, among other committees, according to the council website.

Evans’ has taken pride in the work he has done serving on the council, which has helped support the District, he wrote in the letter announcing his resignation.

“I believe Washington, DC to be the pride of the nation and I am proud of the contributions I have made in helping create a vibrant city,” Evans wrote.

“It has been an honor and a privilege to serve the District of Columbia and the residents of Ward 2.”

Evans did not respond to The Hoya’s request for comment.

A special election to fill Ward 2’s open seat will be held June 16, with the victor serving out the rest of Evan’s term, which ends in January 2021, according to WAMU. Additionally, the Democratic primary for the Ward 2 seat will be held June 2.

The race has already drawn six candidates. Evans is not barred from entering either race.

Georgetown University College Democrats is pleased with Evans’ resignation and awaits responsible representation on the council, according to AJ Williamson (COL ’21), chair of GUCD. “Our organization is glad to see Councilman Evans resign.

The councilman’s ethical violations were entirely unacceptable, and we strongly condemn them,” Williamson wrote in an email to The Hoya. “We look forward to Ward 2 having representation that reflects our community’s values.”

A10

SPORTS

THE HOYA

FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2020

MEN’S BASKETBALL

COMMENTARY

Men’s Basketball Season GU Loses 80-66 to Conference Points to an Uncertain Future Rival Villanova on the Road MATT SACHS AND BEN GAVER

DANNY MCCOOEY Hoya Staff Writer

Hoya Staff Writers

The Georgetown men’s basketball season has been a rollercoaster ride of inconsistency and adversity through four games of conference play. With high hopes entering the campaign, Head Coach Patrick Ewing (CAS ’85) and his squad, featuring sophomore trio Mac McClung, James Akinjo, and Josh LeBlanc, along with highly praised senior transfer Omer Yurtseven, aimed to make the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2015.

Despite these expectations, Georgetown (11-6, 1-3 Big East) looked far from spectacular to start. In the season opener, the Hoyas had to surmount a 19-point second-half comeback to knock off a mediocre Mount St. Mary’s team.

Following a similarly unimpressive win against Central Arkansas, Georgetown fell flat and lost considerably to Penn State in a Gavitt Tipoff Game.

With a 4-1 record entering the 2k Empire Classic at Madison Square Garden, uncertainty surrounded the Blue and Gray as it would potentially face two ranked teams. Against No. 22 Texas, the Hoyas rose to the occasion and won by 16, shooting 50% from the field behind 19 points from McClung.

In its matchup against the No. 1 Duke Blue Devils a day later, the Hoya offense operated smoothly again, holding their own for much of the game. Turnovers, missed open shots and bad calls down the stretch, however, led to an 81-73 loss. Many fans hoped Yurtseven’s 21-point second-half performance would be a sign of things to come.

On Dec. 2, three days after a four-point loss to UNC Greensboro, the administration announced breaking news: Akinjo and LeBlanc would be leaving the men’s basketball team immediately to enter the transfer portal. The news came amid civil complaints of burglary, theft and sexual harassment involving LeBlanc and two other men’s players, later revealed to be junior forward Galen Alexander and freshman forward Myron Gardner.

Many thought the loss of Akinjo, the team’s second-leading scorer, along with a major defensive and transition presence in LeBlanc, would be a devastating blow. To make matters worse, the university went on to announce the departures of Gardner and Alexander on Dec. 12, both of whom had been listed in the civil complaints with LeBlanc.

With only seven scholarship

FILE PHOTO: KIRK ZIESER/THE HOYA

After senior center Omer Yurtseven explored draft options in the NBA during his time at North Carolina State, it remains uncertain whether he will return to the team next season. players left on the roster, many expected the Hoyas to flounder. Instead, the Blue and Gray played some of their best basketball of the year behind McClung in the final games of the nonconference schedule. McClung lived up to his star potential in that stretch, taking over the end of the first half against former Big East rival Syracuse with 26 points on the day for a convincing home win.

Over the six-game stretch, McClung averaged 19.8 points per game and the team shot 49.6% from the field. What the team seemed to lose in depth, they gained in defined role allocation that allowed for McClung’s success and gave players like graduate student guard Terrell Allen and freshman center Qudus Wahab more time on the court.

With a respectable 10-3 finish in nonconference play, the Hoyas kept their heads high entering their Big East opener against a Providence team that had struggled at the opening of the season, losing to multiple unspectacular opponents.

With McClung sitting out due to an eye injury suffered against American University, the Hoya offense fell short, managing only 23 points in the first half and finishing with a 76-60 loss in a game which saw their deficit grow to as many as 33 points. Despite a blowout win over St. John’s, double-digit losses to Seton Hall and Villanova, coupled with the Providence game, left the Hoyas’ season forecast more bleak than before conference play.

Unfortunately, the rest of the season does not get easier. With a deeper 2018-19 squad, the Hoyas went 9-9 in conference play last season, and this season’s conference looks more dangerous, with nine of 10 teams sitting in the top 75 in the country in the Jan. 16 NET rankings.

The Hoyas have yet to face No. 2 Butler, nor No. 21 Villanova at home. Georgetown also will have to face Seton Hall again and

play Xavier and Marquette twice, with the three teams all within the top 100 rankings. Looking ahead, Georgetown’s future does not look as promising as it once did when Ewing stepped on campus.

Shortly after the transfers of Akinjo and LeBlanc in December, ESPN 100 forward and Washington, D.C. native Terrance Williams announced his decommitment from Georgetown. Shortly afterward Williams committed to Michigan.

For Williams, the uncertainty over the program’s future outweighed the thought of succeeding in the short term for hometown fans.

Specifically, Georgetown may lose Yurtseven, who tested the NBA Draft waters when he played at North Carolina State.

Many NBA Draft experts, including those at NBC Sports, felt Yurtseven had first-round NBA Draft potential following his sophomore season.

In 2020, Georgetown still has forward Jamari Sibley, an ESPN 100 and four-star recruit from Oak Hill Academy. Unranked point guard Dante Harris from Alcoa High School in Alcoa, Tenn. will also join Sibley.

The task is tall, however, to revamp the roster to compete in a star-studded Big East. Senior guard Jagan Mosely and Allen, who has started every game since Akinjo’s departure, are in their last season.

Ewing’s job security will also be in jeopardy if the team fails to make the NCAA Tournament this season. Ewing has done fairly well without much depth on the roster and in spite of the loss of four of his major recruits, but his time on the Hilltop was meant to return the program to the prominence of his playing career. Ewing’s three years as head coach, unlike his four in the 1980s, have been average.

Time will tell if the team can turn this season around with success in the bulk of Big East play.

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

Georgetown Defense Falters Late in 85-64 Loss to Xavier TIAN SHI

Hoya Staff Writer

Sophomore guard Nikola Kovacikova and graduate student guard Brianna Jones’s combined 27 points against Xavier University could not keep the Hoyas within striking distance as the Georgetown women’s basketball team lost 85-64 to the Musketeers on Jan. 10 at McDonough Arena.

In their fifth Big East matchup of the season, the Hoyas (4-12, 1-4 Big East) kept the game close with the Musketeers (2-13, 1-3 Big East) through the first two quarters but were ultimately unable to contain Xavier’s offense.

Following tipoff, the teams exchanged baskets before the Musketeers grabbed the lead off three unanswered two-pointers with just over four minutes remaining in the first quarter.

Jones scored five points over two consecutive possessions to close the gap, but the Hoyas were still unable to secure a substantial lead over the Musketeers.

Senior forward Anita Kelava sunk five points to bring the Blue and Gray up to 16 points, which was soon countered by back-to-back threepointers from Xavier. The Musketeers’ success from behind the arc gave them a six-point lead headed into

the break as the first quarter finished with the Hoyas trailing 22-16.

Georgetown opened the second quarter with a 9-1 run to secure their first lead of the game at 25-23 with 6:43 remaining. The Blue and Gray sustained its lead until the three-minute mark when Xavier made a threepointer followed by a layup to give the Musketeers a 3027 lead which they would rapidly extend to 36-28.

To start the third quarter, the Blue and Gray hit a layup and a jumper to bring the score within four. However, Georgetown’s four-point deficit would be the closest the Hoyas would get to challenging the Musketeers’ lead for the remainder of the game.

Following Georgetown’s four points, Xavier went on a 14-5 run in the subsequent five minutes to lead by 16 points through the end of the third quarter.

Starting at a 57-41 disadvantage in the fourth quarter, the Hoyas managed to put up 23 points compared to Xavier’s 28 in the final frame. The win, however, remained out of reach for the Blue and Gray as the Musketeers maintained their double-digit advantage throughout the final quarter, leading by as many as 23 points in the final minute.

Despite a final basket in the paint by freshman forward

Graceann Bennett, Georgetown dropped the matchup to Xavier 85-64.

Kovacikova led the Hoyas with 14 points on the day and was supported by Jones, who recorded 13 points. Bennett recorded a team-high seven rebounds, followed

by Kelava with six and Kovacikova with five.

Behind 24 bench points, the Hoyas finished the game with 43.5% field goals, 26.7% three-pointers and 50% free throw accuracy. The Blue and Gray was able to take the lead once in the second quarter at the five-minute mark, with the largest lead margin of four points.

Xavier bested Georgetown in transition, scoring 16 points off turnovers compared to Georgetown’s 12 points. After shooting only 43.8% from the field in the first half, the Musketeers sunk 60% of their field goals in the second half to finish the day with 50.9% shooting. Xavier found its most success behind the arc, going 13-for-20 for three-pointers on the day.

The Hoyas dominated in second chance points, putting away 15 points to the Musketeers’ eight while Xavier outshot Georgetown 20-6 in fast break points.

Despite the Blue and Gray’s efforts, its loss to the Musketeers marks the Hoyas’ third consecutive conference loss this season.

The Georgetown men’s basketball team dropped another conference game to the No. 16 Villanova Wildcats 80-66 on the road Saturday in Philadelphia, Pa., to fall to 1-3 in conference play.

The Hoyas (11-6, 1-3 Big East) had four players finish with double figures, with freshman center Qudus Wahab’s careerbest 13 points leading the way.

Wahab’s game was especially impressive considering he came off the bench early in the first, with senior center Omer Yurtseven struggling with foul trouble, and played only 15 minutes, shooting 6-for-7 from the field.

Junior forward Jamorko Pickett scored 12 and pulled in six rebounds while Yurtseven grabbed a team-high seven boards and ended the game with 10 points. Senior guard Jagan Mosely played all but three minutes in the game trying to lock up one of Villanova’s better scorers in sophomore forward Saddiq Bey. The Blue and Gray’s attempts to contain the Wildcats’ offense were unsuccessful, however, as Villanova’s (13-3, 3-1 Big East) Bey had a career day, dropping 33 points on the Hoyas with 8-for-10 shooting from beyond the arc.

The Hoyas struggled early and fell into a six-point deficit.

Down 10-4, back-to-back threepointers by Pickett and graduate student guard Terrell Allen knotted the contest at 10. Allen also spread the ball around with a team-high six assists, though he struggled with ball security as he committed three turnovers.

Trailing by eight late in the first, the Hoyas garnered four buckets capped off by an andone from Wahab to tie the game at 34. Another Wildcat run led by Bey put Villanova back up 39-36 at the break.

Playing in front of a crowd of over 15,000, Villanova came out firing in the second half.

An 8-0 run by the Wildcats through the first three minutes of the half forced a Georgetown timeout. Head Coach Patrick Ewing (CAS ’85) spoke after the game about the Blue and Gray’s rough start to the second half and its difficulty in overcoming the deficit at the beginning of the half.

“We came out flat. We can’t just make mistakes the way that we did,” Ewing said. “Two quick mistakes and a turnover.

We were right there at three points then went to eight and it was an uphill battle after that.”

Georgetown turned the ball over eight times on the day, a collection of mistakes that would prove critical against rival Villanova. After pulling ahead by 10 following their 8-0 run, the Wildcats increased their advantage behind success-

ful outside shooting. They finished the game shooting 51.7% from behind the arc to defeat the Hoyas 80-66, reclaiming the rivalry victory after the Hoyas defeated the Wildcats 85-73 at Capital One Arena last season.

Georgetown struggled from deep, sinking 31.3% of its threepoint attempts and also shooting 44.1% from the field, short of Villanova’s 47.4% field goal shooting. Villanova dominated in transition with 15 points on turnovers to Georgetown’s 10, despite turning the ball over three more times than the Hoyas.

The Hoyas have stuck to their seven-man rotation throughout conference play to this point, consistently fielding Pickett, Yurtseven, Allen, Wahab, Mosely, sophomore guard Mac McClung and junior guard Jahvon Blair.

The team’s leading scorers, Yurtseven and McClung, both struggled from the field against Villanova. McClung played 32 minutes but converted only two for 15 of his shots to record eight points. He also went 0-for4 from the three-point line. Defensively, the strict seven-man rotation seemed to weigh on the tired Georgetown team late in the game, leading to its third loss in Big East play.

Georgetown will round out regular season play with a rematch against the Wildcats at home on March 7 for a chance to reclaim the rivalry victory.

FILE PHOTO: KIRK ZIESER/THE HOYA

Junior guard Jamorko Pickett possesses the ball outside the arc and looks down court. Pickett was Georgetown’s second-leading scorer against Villanova with 12 points in 31 minutes of play.

IN TRANSITION

Is Tanking Still a Viable Strategy in the NBA?

Vikram Sud One of the most promising talents in the NBA, 76ers center Joel Embiid has asked to be referred to as “The Process.”

The nickname derives from the phrase “Trust the Process,” which was coined by the 76ers franchise a few years ago when the team’s general manager at the time, Sam Hinkie, implemented a strategy to turn the team around by trading stars and tanking. For Hinkie’s three seasons from 2013-16, the Sixers lost games at a historic rate but were able to accumulate several top-five picks. Among those picks were two of the best young talents in the league, Embiid and Ben Simmons, who have helped establish the Sixers as one of the top teams in the East today.

Perhaps even more surprising is the fact that the Sixers could have used this strategy to become even better, as three topsix picks were used on Nerlens Noel, Jahlil Okafor and Markelle Fultz, who were all subsequently traded for marginal talent or pick compensation. Ultimately, however, the Sixers’ owners grew impatient with Hinkie’s strategy, and pressure from the organization forced Hinkie to resign in April 2016.

Hinkie and the Sixers exposed an underlying problem

in the NBA — the lack of a viable method for mediocre teams to contend with increasingly star-studded powerhouses and a perception that tanking is the only solution. The lack of opportunity to build a championshipquality team has created a situation in which there is a belief that teams who are not one of the three to five championship contenders, especially those in smaller markets in which recruiting a top free agent is nearly impossible, essentially have to tank to turn their fortunes around. This method seems to be the only practical way of acquiring a star or two through a top five draft pick.

Hinkie embraced this solution and led an organization with the mentality of doing whatever he could to stockpile as many top picks as possible from opposing teams in trades while keeping all of their own.

Hinkie hoped that with five to seven of these picks he would maximize the Sixers’ chances of drafting a few star players.

While Hinkie surely did not invent tanking, no coach has done it as overtly and as defiantly as he did. Consequently, in recent years, tanking has become far more prevalent.

Hinkie’s leadership has forced the league and its fans to address the viability of tanking, turning the strategy into one of the most polarizing issues in the NBA. Fans of bottom teams in the NBA are taking pride in their team’s losses, with the realization that the worse their team’s record, the higher their chance of getting the coveted draft prospect to turn the team around. Tanking has been

around in the league since the early 1980s, indicating a longheld belief that tanking is the most effective and most necessary way to turn a franchise around. It is a bad look for the NBA, however, when five to 10 of its 30 teams are encouraging losses to increase their chances at a top pick. The method contradicts the inherently competitive nature of sports and challenges the core purpose of winning.

As the Sixers have proved, however, tanking is far from a guarantee for success. While they have been a formidable team the past few seasons, they have yet to advance past the second round of the NBA playoffs despite drafting two of the top players in the conference and leveraging their other assets such as Jimmy Butler, who was replaced in free agency by Al Horford. The Sixers gave themselves as much of an opportunity as possible to stockpile assets and still remain outside the top tier of championship contenders.

With reduced lottery odds for the league’s worst teams and the randomness of the top of the NBA draft lottery, it remains unclear if tanking is as viable as proponents like Hinkie make it out to be. The tanking remains an important issue and forces the NBA to address how it can maintain its competitive nature and appeal to its fans while providing opportunities for average teams to elevate themselves to title contenders.

Vikram Sud is a senior in the College. IN TRANSITION appears online and in print every other Friday.

SPORTS

FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2020

MEN’S BASKETBALL

THE HOYA

A11

TRACK & FIELD

Georgetown Bests Hoyas Take Home 7 Victories at PSU No. 25 Creighton NITTANY LION CHALLENGE, from A12

CREIGHTON, from A12

Yurtseven on a fast break to grab a 24-22 lead with 7:33 left on the clock.

The Blue Jays answered with a shot from beyond the arc to retake the lead from the Hoyas.

Creighton would accumulate a four-point advantage with just under five minutes remaining in the half. Both teams continued to trade buckets until a layup by junior guard Jahvon Blair, who finished the game with 12 points, shortened Creighton’s lead to just one at 37-36 going into the half.

Georgetown concluded the first half shooting 46% from the field compared to Creighton’s 42%. Yurtseven led the way for the Blue and Gray with 10 points and three rebounds in the opening period, supported by seven points and three rebounds from McClung.

Creighton’s offense came out strong to open the second half, pulling ahead 45-40 in the first three minutes. The surge was led by Creighton guard Marcus Zegarowski, who tied with Yurtseven for a game-high 20 points on the day. Georgetown, however, responded with a 9-0 run to regain the lead at 49-45.

Creighton refused to let the Hoyas run away with the game as they continued to sink crucial three-pointers down the stretch with 13 total for the game. With under 12 minutes to play, Creighton cut its deficit to one to bring the score to 5655. Blair’s jump shot and free throw, however, capped off a 7-2 Hoya run that left the Blue Jays at a six-point disadvantage.

Yurtseven’s consecutive inside buckets gave the Blue and Gray a 70-61 lead and marked

their largest advantage of the night with 5:48 on the clock.

After three consecutive Creighton baskets to shorten the lead to one, McClung iced the game with a left-hand jumper from the corner with 38 seconds left.

While Creighton remained competitive throughout the game and threatened Georgetown’s lead late, senior guard Jagan Mosely acknowledged his team’s ability to hold off a tough competitor to earn the result.

“Today, I think we were up nine and they went on an 8-0 run, but we didn’t break after that. We kinda came together and closed the game out,” Mosely said.

Georgetown topped Creighton 83-80 behind 56% shooting from the field in the second half compared to the Blue Jays’ 44% shooting. Georgetown also outrebounded Creighton 41-29 on the day and outscored the Blue Jays in the paint 31-28. Creighton dominated the Blue and Gray in fast-break points with 23 points to the Hoyas’ eight.

The win was made possible by contributions from the entire team, Ewing said, pointing specifically to the performances of junior guard Jamorko Pickett and Mosely who combined for 22 points and 10 rebounds.

“This was a great team win.

Jamorko played his butt off.

Both he and Jagan. Jamorko, he got maybe a minute or two of rest. Jagan played the whole game,” Ewing said.

The Hoyas seek to defend Capital One Arena again and maintain their perfect Big East home record when they welcome the Marquette Golden Eagles on Saturday at 2 p.m. The game can be viewed on FS1.

and commended the runners’ abilities to perform so early in the season.

“Rowe combined with teammates Wilson, Leake and Padhal all ran one of the fastest 4x400-meter relays the squad has ever run this early in January, while also taking the lead in the Big East conference standings,” Culley said in an interview with GUHoyas.

Graduate student Alie Fordyce secured the women’s team’s first-place finish with her performance in the 1000m. Fordyce finished with a time of 2:51.42, followed by junior Olivia Arizin in third place with a time of 2:57.83.

Culley spoke about Fordyce’s finishing time in comparison to her previous races, noting her performance in the event as her best this season.

“Graduate student Alie Fordyce was paced to a great start in the 1000-meter run before ultimately running herself to win with a season best of 2:51, which is just a few seconds shy of her lifetime best,” Culley said in an interview with GUHoya.

The women’s team recorded several top-three finishes, including freshman Maya Drayton’s third-place finish in the 400m with a time of 56.38.

After besting her opponents

SUDOKU

Delafosse helped the Hoyas in the field events by starting off her collegiate jumping career with a third-place finish in the long jump event.

The Hoyas will return to action in the Hokie Invitational hosted by Virginia Tech starting Jan. 24 in Blacksburg, Va.

GUHOYAS

Junior Ruach Padhal completes his leg of the relay during one of Georgetown’s indoor meet. Padhal ran the third leg of the second-place 4x400 relay at the Nittany Lions Challenge in Pennsylvania.

NHL Fails To Address Head Injuries WELCH, from A12

and the long-term effects of CTE, it did introduce a modernized concussion protocol in 2016. There are now spotters at each game, as well as at the NHL headquarters in Toronto, watching so they can tell teams to initiate concussion protocol. The league’s commitment to this measure, however, has yet to be seen given the amount of head injuries that are not properly addressed. In the 2018 Stanley Cup playoffs, there were several instances of players sustaining head injuries and not undergoing concussion protocol. Then Golden Knights left winger James Neal, after taking a shoulder to the head and falling to the ice, appeared to wave off a trainer questioning him.

Capitals’ defender Brooks Orpik, after colliding with Neal a separate time, stayed down on the ice clutching his head and seemingly argued to officials that he was hit in the head. Neither entered concussion protocol, and both were on the ice for their next shift without extra rest.

While recovering from my concussion, I had plenty of time to watch hockey. I have a subscription to NHL.TV, which has some commercials produced by the league for its exclusive content. One such commercial is for its compilations of hits called “Collision Course.” Since physicality is such an integral part of hockey and adds to the excitement, it seems obvious the NHL would want to advertise these hits. However, based on the montage in the commer-

cial, the NHL is advertising some of its illegal hits. These commercials show players getting hit into the boards or players leaving their skates to make hits. Both of these actions have been made illegal to protect players, yet the league uses these hits as marketing material.

The NHL makes the NFL seem progressive when it comes to head injuries, which is hard to do. Perhaps as a less popular sport, the NHL tries to fly under the radar, as Will Smith will not soon be starring in a movie exposing the NHL’s treatment of concussions as he did for the NFL in the 2015 movie “Concussion.”

Ultimately, if the NHL can’t find a reason to care more about the players suffering from their injuries or who have died by suicide, it should

at least be interested in protecting its most skilled and therefore valuable players.

The Penguins forward Sidney Crosby has missed the equivalent of nearly two seasons with head injuries, and the careers of stars of the past were cut short by concussions, like former Flyers’ centerman Eric Lindros, former Sabres centerman Pat LaFontaine and former Bruins centerman Marc Savard. At the end of the day, the NHL does have a moral duty to care for its players, and its attitude toward the dangers of head injuries represents a failure of the league in what should be one of its foundational concerns.

Maddy Welch is a senior in the School of Foreign Service. ON THIN ICE appears online and in print every other Friday.

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

GU Falls to Butler in Final Minute of Play BUTLER, from A12

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of a second faster than her season opener and finishing in third place,” Culley said.

The women’s 4x400, made up of sophomore Tamiya Roberts, junior Chelsea Smith, Drayton and Del Gizzo finished in third place with a time of 3:50.10. Freshman Aniella

ON THIN ICE

FILE PHOTO: KIRK ZIESER/THE HOYA

Senior center Omer Yurtseven towers above an opponent as he drives toward net. Yurtseven had 20 points in the win against the Blue Jays.

in the last 200 meters of the 600m, junior Lexi Del Gizzo claimed second place with a time of 1:33.93.

“Maya Drayton continued the great start to her collegiate career with another indoor best in the 400-meter dash by running four-tenths

game with 16 points on the day, the most for the Blue and Gray.

The Hoyas ended the quarter down just five points, trailing the Bulldogs 32-37, as they headed into the fourth.

Barnes continued to lead the Hoyas in the fourth, hitting two more three-pointers to help fuel the Hoyas’ comeback efforts. Georgetown grabbed its first lead since the first minute of play with about 5 1/2 minutes left on the clock.

McDonough Arena was suddenly filled with energy and excitement as the Hoyas fought their way back into the game. After Butler reclaimed the lead, Georgetown tied the game at 46 with just over two minutes remaining.

After a turnover by sophomore guard Cassandra Gordon, Butler’s senior guard Kristen

Spolyar was able to draw a foul by driving into junior forward Tatiana Thompson, who injured her shoulder on the play.

Spolyar made just one of her free throws, leaving the score at 47-46 for Butler in what would prove to be the final points of the game.

Georgetown then took its final timeout to draw up a play.

When play resumed, graduate guard Brianna Jones missed a jump shot, but senior guard Marvellous Osagie-Erese was able to grab the offensive rebound. She turned around and quickly fired off a put-back attempt, missing the net entirely.

Players from both teams then hit the deck trying to get the rebound, resulting in a held ball and possession for Butler, which called a timeout.

With just 34 seconds left in the game, the Bulldogs ran out the shot clock, shooting and missing a three-pointer with

just four seconds left. The Hoyas grabbed the rebound, but with no timeouts, they were unable to get a shot off before time expired.

Regarding the decision not to foul Butler on the final possession, Howard elaborated on his coaching staff’s plan to run a final play in the last five seconds of the game.

“The coaches felt we had about four to five seconds left on the clock. We wanted to get a quick pass up the sideline to see if we could get something,” Howard said. “In hindsight, we probably could have gotten a quick foul and put their worst shooter on the line and be down three.”

The Hoyas bested Butler in shooting percentage on the day as Butler converted on 28.1% of shots from the field and 14.3% of three-pointers, while Georgetown sunk 35.4% of its field goals and 38.5% of its attempts

from behind the arc. Despite Georgetown’s greater shooting accuracy, it was bad turnovers, in Howard’s opinion, that cost the Hoyas the game.

“Our turnovers cannot lead to transition points,” Howard said.

On the day, Georgetown finished with 21 turnovers compared to Butler’s 14, allowing the Bulldogs to record 16 points off turnovers while only tallying seven transition points itself.

The outcome marks the Hoyas’ fourth straight loss, although the result is the team’s closest of its recent games.

Heading into the game, Howard altered the rotation with hopes of breaking the Blue and Gray’s losing streak. Despite the loss, Howard hopes that the game was “the start of something different.”

Georgetown’s next game is at Villanova (9-7, 4-2 Big East) on Jan. 18. Tipoff is scheduled for 6:00 p.m.

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KIRK ZIESER/THE HOYA

Senior forward Anita Kelava possesses the ball in front of a Butler defender as she looks down the court. Kelava recorded 8 points and a game-high 14 rebounds to power the Hoyas’ second-half comeback against the Bulldogs.

Sports

Men’s Basketball Georgetown (12-6) vs. Marquette (12-5) Saturday, Jan. 18, 2 p.m.

Capital One Arena

FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2020

NUMBERS GAME

TALKING POINTS

TRACK & FIELD At the Nittany Lion Challenge, the men’s and women’s teams earned 17 top-three results, seven of which were first-place finishes.

See A10

“

In hindsight, we probably could have gotten a quick foul and put their worst shooter on the line.”

Women’s Basketball Head Coach James Howard

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Rebounds for senior center Omer Yurtseven against the Creighton Blue Jays.

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

MEN’S BASKETBALL

Hoyas Top Blue GU Comes Up Short in 47-46 Loss to Butler Jays 83-80 in 5th Big East Matchup AUSTIN BARISH Hoya Staff Writer

The Georgetown women’s basketball team lost a close game to Butler University on Jan. 12 after putting together a late comeback in the second half. After tying up the score with 2:29 remaining, the Hoyas fell short by just one point at the buzzer, losing 47-46.

The Hoyas (4-13, 1-5 Big East) hosted the Butler Bulldogs (11-5, 3-2 Big East) in a Sunday matinee game in their sixth Big East matchup of the season. Last season, the Hoyas dropped their first game against the Bulldogs at home but went on to defeat them by 30 points in India-

napolis later in the season.

Butler’s size challenged Georgetown’s defense from the tipoff. The Hoyas struggled to keep the Bulldogs off of the glass as Butler racked up six offensive rebounds in the first quarter.

The Hoyas also struggled with physicality early on, giving up six points at the free throw line, including two and ones, during the first half of play. After giving up eight unanswered points, the quarter ended with Georgetown down 16-8.

Georgetown entered the second quarter still struggling to score, missing its first four attempts on net and turning the ball over once before putting away its first

basket three minutes into the quarter. The Hoyas ultimately failed to cut the deficit, and Butler extended its lead to 11 points on a three-pointer by junior guard Genesis Parker with just seconds left in the half. At the half, Georgetown found itself down 30-19. The Blue and Gray headed to the locker room shooting just 7-for-28 from the field, while the Bulldogs shot only 11for-33 in a game of offensive struggles.

The matchup became a tale of two halves for Georgetown as the Hoyas began the third quarter as a completely revitalized team.

Despite turning around play offensively and defensively, Head Coach James Howard

noted the Hoyas did not change their strategy from the first half.

The team simply “followed what the game plan was from the beginning,” Howard said in an interview with The Hoya.

Georgetown dominated Butler on the defensive end, conceding just two baskets from the field in the third quarter. Offensively, they finally found momentum after making 25% of their field goal attempts in the first half.

Graduate guard Taylor Barnes led the way, capitalizing during the Hoyas’ 11-1 run with seven points off a layup, three-pointer and two free throws. Barnes closed out the See BUTLER, A11

FILE PHOTO: KIRK ZIESER/THE HOYA

Sophomore guard Mac McClung drives down the court on a fast break.

McClung tallied 19 points and five rebounds in the win over Creighton.

SEAN HAGGERTY Hoya Staff Writer

With five Georgetown men’s basketball players finishing the day in double figures, the Hoyas defeated the 25th-ranked Creighton Bluejays 83-80 Jan. 15 at Capital One Arena. Senior center Omer Yurtseven led the Hoyas with 20 points and a game-high 13 rebounds, securing his ninth double-double of the season.

Sophomore guard Mac McClung also added 19 points of his own on 7-of-14 shooting to go with five rebounds and five assists.

Georgetown’s (12-6, 2-3 Big East) victory over Creighton (135, 2-3 Big East) marks the Blue and Gray’s second defeat of a ranked team this season following its win over No. 22 Texas

at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 21. The win is Head Coach Patrick Ewing’s (CAS ’85) fourth victory over a ranked team in his three-year tenure.

The game began with a backand-forth battle with both teams exchanging baskets through the first five minutes of play. Neither team was able to accumulate more than a three-point advantage until Georgetown took the 13-8 lead with 15:20 remaining in the first.

The advantage did not last long for the Hoyas as the Blue Jays claimed a 20-16 lead with 10:51 left in the first. Georgetown responded effectively with an 8-2 run that ended with a slam from

KIRK ZIESER/THE HOYA

See CREIGHTON, A11

Graduate student guard Taylor Barnes faces off with a defender as she scans the court for an open teammate. Barnes was the Hoyas’ leading scorer against Butler, tallying 16 points and six rebounds in Georgetown’s one-point loss.

ON THIN ICE

TRACK & FIELD

Georgetown Takes 1st in 7 Events JOANNA LACOPPOLA Hoya Staff Writer

Last weekend the Georgetown track and field teams brought home a collective seven first-place finishes and ten more finishes within the top three at the Nittany Lion Challenge in State College, Pa. The men’s team recorded six event wins, the most notable of which came from sophomore Maazin Ahmed, who notched a personal record time of 2:25.25 in the 1000-meter run at the team’s second meet of the 201920 season. Director of Track

& Field Julie Culley pointed to Ahmed’s performance as one of the Blue and Gray’s most impressive finishes of the day while recapping the meet to GUHoyas.

“Ahmed’s performance in the 1000-meter run was one of the highlights of the meet with him going to the wire with a Penn State competitor, who he was ultimately able to hold off while running a lifetime best by three seconds en route,” Culley said.

Also running a personal best was freshman Parker Stokes, who led his 400x8 to a thirdplace finish by splitting the fastest 800 meters. The relay

crossed the finish in 7:57.94 as Stokes topped his personal record by nearly five seconds.

Sophomore Tristan Forsythe won in the one-mile run with a time of 4:10.16, giving him his first collegiate mile win. The Hoya men’s team gained four more first-place finishes with the performances of graduate student Spencer Brown in the 3000m, sophomore Ethan Delgado in the 800m, senior Quincey Wilson in the 400m, and senior Kenny Rowe in the 600m.

The men’s team also earned second place in the 4x400, recording a time of 3:14.00 with

the efforts of Wilson, Rowe, junior Ruach Padhal and junior Lawrence Leake. The relay led the third-place finisher, the United States Military Academy, by almost five seconds and fell short of first place by just over a tenth of a second. The Hoyas’ upperclassmen 4x400 relay team was followed by the Blue and Gray’s two other 4x400 teams that grabbed eighth and 10th place in the meet with times of 3:23.89 and 3:25.70. Culley expressed satisfaction with the topperforming relay team’s finish See NITTANY LION CHALLENGE, A11

GUHOYAS

Junior Lawrence Leake carries the baton for his leg of the relay during an indoor meet. At the Nittany Lion Challenge on Jan. 11, Leake ran the last leg of the Hoyas’ 4x400 relay to secure a second-place finish with an overall time of 3:14.00.

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Maddy Welch

Professional Hockey Neglects Pervasive Concussion Problem Ice hockey has a concussion problem. Though I am going to focus on the NHL, I should note concussions are unfortunately prevalent across all levels of the sport. In fact, for youth players, hockey has the second-highest concussion rate of any sport after rugby and more than double the concussion rate of youth American football. For adults, women’s ice hockey has significantly more concussion incidents than men’s hockey and a higher concussion rate than American football at the collegiate level for practices.

Potential explanations for this gender difference include different reporting rates for men and women, that men are introduced to physicality in the sport at an earlier age or that women have physiological differences that make them more prone to concussion.

Although concussions in the NHL are commonly reported and discussed, I have personally developed a new perspective on the issue by sustaining my first concussion over winter break because of my lack of advanced skiing skills.

I was lucky — my concussion was very mild, and I had few symptoms. But I will not soon forget the feeling of my head hit-

ting the ground, the stars I saw upon impact, the difficulty and fogginess I had getting up and the headache that lingered long after the injury. Most importantly, facing the risk of a more severe head injury multiple times per week as a part of a career is now unthinkable to me.

Now, science is showing us that the concussion is not the worst of it. Repeated head trauma, even trauma that does not reach the level of concussion, increases the risk of chronic traumatic encephalopathy. People affected by CTE can lose their memory and become aggressive or depressed with age, among other debilitating symptoms.

Unfortunately, the NHL has been historically hesitant to acknowledge the science of CTE or its responsibility for the safety of its players. This year, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman called the evidence linking multiple concussions and CTE “anecdotal.”

In 2018, 300 former players sued the NHL and won a $19 million settlement, but the league did not admit liability for these injuries.

Although the NHL has denied the link between head injuries See WELCH, A11