The Hoya: February 8, 2019

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Georgetown University • Washington, D.C. Vol. 100, No. 18, © 2019

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2019

Museums, Interrupted

Discover the lasting effects of the recent government shutdown on the District’s museums.

Students to Vote for President Amid Declining Trust in GUSA DEEPIKA JONNALAGADDA Hoya Staff Writer

As Georgetown University Student Association executive candidates seek to make their platforms relevant to students, trust in student government remains low, raising fears of low voter turnout.

Two percent of respondents rated their current trust in GUSA as strong, while 38.9 percent listed their trust in GUSA as weak, according to a door-to-door poll of 615 students conducted by The Hoya on Wednesday evening. 35 percent of respondents said

they were uncertain.

Outgoing GUSA President Juan Martinez (SFS ’20) also expressed concerns about how many students will go to the polls. 58 percent of respondents said they planned to vote in today’s election, while 42 percent said they are not planning to vote.

“I’m kind of worried for this vote count, just seeing the enthusiasm or the attention given to these elections,” Martinez said at The Hoya’s post-debate analysis Tuesday.

“I’m wondering how many people are going to turn out at the polls, how many people

EMILY SHAMBAUGH/THE HOYA

Students ranked sexual assault policy as the most important issue in today’s election in a Wednesday night poll by The Hoya.

are actually going to vote and how is that going to impact the person who gets elected, or how is that going to give more credence to this movement about abolishing GUSA or maybe just fundamentally restructuring GUSA.” Overall voter turnout was 39 percent last year and 38 percent in 2017, according to the GUSA Election commission.

In a campaign season dominated by outsider tickets and unprecedented circumstances, candidates are striving to engage students with relevant platforms.

The four tickets vying for the GUSA executive in today’s election are Norman Francis Jr. (COL ’20) and Aleida Olvera (COL ’20); Nicki Gray (NHS ’20); Sina Nemazi (COL ’21) and Roya Wolfe (SFS ’21); Ryan Zuccala (MSB ’20) and John Dolan (MSB ’20).

Gray is running for GUSA president without a vice presidential candidate after her former running mate, Sam Appel (COL ’20), removed his name from the executive ballot Feb. 4.

The previous two elected GUSA presidents, Sahil Nair (SFS ’19) See GUSA RACE ANALYSIS, A5

EDITORIAL Georgetown must complete its monthslong search for a full-time Title IX coordinator.

CHECKING THE BOXES The voting system used in today’s election can mystify candidates and voters alike.

OPINION, A2

NEWS, A7

Clinton Warns Against Weak Alliances in 3rd Visit Since 2016 SANA RAHMAN Hoya Staff Writer

The United States must engage more with the global community to rebuild weakening alliances in regions such as Europe and Asia, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said at an event in Gaston Hall on Wednesday.

Throughout her speech, Clinton said President Donald Trump’s administration’s decision to backtrack on previous international agreements and negotiations has strained relationships with other countries, putting the U.S. reputation at risk.

“At some point, as another nation, you think, ‘Can we trust them?’ It’s not just administration to administration, it’s the United States of America, it’s our government. It’s about giving our word, it’s about following through,” Clinton said. “We have to be smarter about how we sustain our involvements and commitments going forward.”

Clinton’s speech was a part of the “Future of Diplomacy” symposium hosted by the McCourt School of Public Policy and the School of Foreign Service as a part of the Lloyd George Centennial Lectures, which began in February 2018 to celebrate the upcoming SFS centennial anniversary. Clinton’s keynote was moderated by Bill Burns, former U.S. ambassador to Russia and U.S. deputy secretary of state.

Clinton’s keynote marks her

GU272 Referendum Set for April Vote

AMBER GILLETTE/THE HOYA

Former Secretary of State and presidential nominee Hillary Clinton called for deeper global cooperation at an event in Gaston Hall Wednesday. third return to Georgetown since she lost her bid for the 2016 presidential election. In her 2017 and 2018 appearances, Clinton presented the annual Hillary Rodham Clinton Award for Advancing Women in Peace and Security, which honors the peace-building work and empowerment efforts of recipients.

At a time when there is dissatisfaction with both the U.S. gov-

ernment and the governments of numerous European countries, there is a strong need for alliances between the two regions, Clinton said.

“Democracy is going through some growing pains. We are going through some growing pains, and so are the Europeans,” Clinton said. “When that See CLINTON, A6

RHO WORKERS FILE PETITION

GUSA senate approves resolution by 20-4 vote after delay WILL CASSOU AND YOLANDA SPURA Hoya Staff Writers

Students are set to vote on the creation of a semesterly fee that would go toward a fund to benefit descendants of the GU272 this April after the Georgetown University Student Association senate approved the proposed referendum Sunday evening.

The $27.20 reconciliation fee would be added to students’ tuition to support the descendant community of the 272 enslaved individuals sold by the Maryland Society of Jesus in 1838 to financially sustain Georgetown.

The referendum is set to coincide with GUSA’s senate election in April, the date of which has not been set.

If the referendum passes in April, the “Act of Referendum to Establish a New GU272 Legacy” would create the Reconciliation board of trustees, a group of students and descendants tasked with allocating funds toward initiatives to benefit descendant communities.

The Reconciliation fund could collect $405,987 each year from its 7,463 undergraduate students, should the referendum pass. The financial aid office indicated students receiving financial aid from the university would not have to pay the fee, according to former

FEATURED

GUSA Senator Sam Appel (COL ’20), who originally sponsored the resolution proposing the referendum; the board of directors has not made its stance on the referendum clear. The sale of the GU272 in 1838 raised $3.3 million, when adjusted for inflation.

With a 20-4 vote, the proposed referendum received the necessary support from twothirds of the 29 current GUSA senators. Five senators were not present.

The vote followed a Jan. 31 endorsement of the referendum from GUSA President Juan Martinez (SFS ’20) and Vice President Kenna Chick (SFS ’20).

The Hoya conducted a door-

to-door survey Wednesday of 615 students leading up to Friday’s GUSA presidential election. When asked how they intended to vote in the April referendum, 34.8 percent of respondents said that they approved of the fee, 34.7 percent said they were indifferent or unsure, and 16.3 percent said they do not support the fee. The remaining 3.4 percent said they did not plan to vote.

The push to hold the referendum began with the GU272 Advocacy Team, student initiative advocating for descendants on campus, who began looking into the possibility of allowing students to vote on the recon-

MASON MANDELL FOR THE HOYA

The GU272 Advocacy Team is planning town halls to facilitate dialogue with students after the GUSA senate approved the referendum Sunday.

ciliation fee early last semester.

Following the bill’s passage, the GU272 Advocacy Team plans to initiate education campaigns in advance of the referendum to inform the student body on descendant communities and their relationship to the university, according to Advocacy Team member and descendant Mélisande ShortColomb (COL ’21).

These plans include forums to facilitate dialogue, including town halls, though specific details have not yet been set, Short-Colomb said.

Before debating the bill, the GUSA senate approved an amendment GUSA Senator Dylan Hughes (COL ’19) introduced. Hughes proposed the amendment to clarify language referring to the GU272 Reconciliation board and add financial and accounting guidelines, such as prohibitions on using the fund for political purposes.

The reconciliation fee must be presented for the consideration of the student body because the GUSA senate does not represent the diversity of voices on campus, according to Advocacy Team members and senators supporting the referendum.

“We as the GU272 Student Advocacy Team believe the See GU272, A5

JULIA ALVEY/THE HOYA

After months of inadequate working conditions in the New South RHO, student workers await a permanent solution.

Story on A5.

NEWS

OPINION

SPORTS

Bracing for Brexit Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon called for a second referendum on Scottish independence on Monday.

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Candidates Uninformed on LGBTQ GUSA executive candidates have a limited understanding of the obstacles facing Georgetown’s LGBTQ community.

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Road Warriors The Georgetown men’s basketball team split two key road games, falling to No. 14 Villanova and beating Providence.

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NEWS

OPINION

SPORTS

Stop and Stair Georgetown’s Exorcist Steps were designated as a historical landmark after citizen advocacy.

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Looking Beyond Aesthetics Feminism cannot be reduced to short catchphrases that oversimplify the experiences of the oppressed.

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Victory Laps at Seton Hall The women’s swimming and diving team came out on top in a tri-meet at Seton Hall. The men earned a victory and a loss.

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Published Fridays

Send story ideas and tips to news@thehoya.com

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OPINION

THE HOYA

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2019

THE VERDICT

Over two months after Georgetown University abruptly announced a transition to live registration for classes, the university registrar has failed to respond to pressing student concerns about the new process. Instead, it has abandoned students to grapple with the change on their own.

Georgetown’s implementation of the new system replaces preregistration despite the overwhelming opposition of students. In a 2016 referendum held by the Georgetown University Student Association senate, 83 percent of students voted to keep preregistration.

To ease an already difficult transition, the registrar should address systemic flaws and increase transparency in its proposed live registration process.

Under the current preregistration system, students have two weeks to leisurely submit their preferred schedules, which are finalized based on other student entries. Under the new live registration system, students will sign up for classes on a first-come, first-serve basis. This method means that students will compete for classes in real time, creating a cutthroat system.

Georgetown made the switch to live registration because the current course selection software will no longer support preregistration, according to a campuswide email sent by the registrar Dec. 6.

While Georgetown made the switch to live registration because of looming software limitations, the university should address solvable issues to make the transition bearable for students.

Georgetown must address systemic flaws within the limited process it has designed. Under the registrar’s proposed system, registration may begin for some students when they are in class, posing a problem for students in classes that do not allow laptops.

Additionally, students are not guaranteed placement in certain classes they need to graduate, study abroad or stay on track for their majors. Preregistration algorithms prioritized seats for these students, but under live registration, they will need to compete to attend these critical classes.

Though the registrar indicated at a Jan. 17 Hoya roundtable that it might implement waitlists or restrictive capacities for students with declared majors, these measures are still uncertain — administrators have not yet made a concrete decision.

The current system will also disadvantage freshmen. With registration set to begin during summer for freshmen, students will have limited access to support, as deans and peer advisers may not be continu-

ally available. The lack of adviser availability will be especially acute for students in a different time zone.

In providing freshmen with sufficient support, Georgetown should replicate the live registration process at Princeton University, in which freshman registration occurs during New Student Orientation.

Though the switch to live registration may be unavoidable, Georgetown has failed to answer students’ urgent concerns. Providing answers and correcting systemic flaws could mitigate the anxiety that currently plagues campus discussions on the topic.

Since last December’s ambiguous email, the registrar has made little effort to explain the new system.

A dearth of information on the registrar’s website has left students dependent on each other to try and find answers. At the January student-led roundtable, live registration was discussed, among a multitude of other issues. Similarly, the School of Foreign Service Academic Council created a form for students to ask questions about the process and plans to eventually release a one-page document with answers.

Students shouldn’t be responsible for explaning the university’s decision to switch to live registration.

While Georgetown is unable to reverse its commitment to live registration, the university should ensure a smooth transition for students. The registrar should periodically and clearly communicate with students.

Georgetown plans to use “posters, lawn signs and email communications to educate students on the new process,” according to Annamarie Bianco, associate vice president and university registrar. Two months since the announcement of live registration, however, students still have little information directly from the administration.

More than transparency, the university must also ensure students have adequate support. Deans and advisers should be available in open forum settings during registration — rather than appointments — to maximize student assistance and account for the fastpaced nature of live registration.

Students did not welcome — or even expect — live registration. If the registrar seeks to smoothly transition away from preregistration, it must ease student frustrations by increasing transparency and correcting systemic flaws.

With graduation at stake in course selections, students take registration seriously. The university is long overdue in respecting student concerns and must start providing answers.

C

Y = mx + Bees — Researchers have found that bees can perform basic math problems by associating color with addition and subtraction. This adds to the belief that language is not a requirement for numeracy.

Mutually Assured Exposure — The National Enquirer threatened to release nude photos of Jeff Bezos if he continued financing an investigation into the organization and its political ties. This investigation was prompted when the National Enquirer published texts between Bezos and his reported girlfriend.

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Ease Live Registration Transition

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EDITORIALS

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Founded January 14, 1920

Phuket, Beer — Residents of a local village in Thailand crowded the streets after a truck carrying 80,000 cans of beer overturned while turning a corner. The truck was a mile away from reaching its destination — Phuket.

Obama’s Sweet Nothings — A New York man who broke the front window of a lingerie store to attack a Barack Obama mannequin is facing criminal charges.

The man claims his attack was prompted after the mannequin whispered something rude to him through the window.

Hot Potatoes — On Saturday, a Hong Kong potato chip factory found a World War I grenade in a shipment of potatoes it received from France. Although it was approximately the same size and shape as the other potatoes, it was nearly five times as heavy.

EDITORIAL CARTOON by Alexandra Bowman

Hire Title IX Coordinator Georgetown University wants its students to “be heard,” according to its marketing campaign for the 2019 Campus Climate Survey. And yet, the university’s delay in hiring a new Title IX coordinator indicates it has no intention to act on student voices.

Georgetown has not had a full-time Title IX coordinator since Laura Cutway abruptly left the position in June 2018. Eight months after Cutway’s departure, the university has hedged and obfuscated, but it has failed to provide students with a full-time coordinator or a concrete timeline about when one will be hired.

A Title IX coordinator is touted as the first point of contact for survivors looking to file a complaint. To mitigate the climate of sexual assault at Georgetown, the university must be more timely and transparent in selecting a full-time Title IX coordinator.

Georgetown students are not safe from unwanted sexual contact, as is evidenced by the abysmal results of the 2016 Campus Climate Survey; 31 percent of female undergraduates reported experiencing nonconsensual sexual contact since entering Georgetown — eight points higher than the average for more than two dozen peer institutions.

Further, about one in 10 male students reported being a victim of nonconsensual contact at Georgetown, a percentage double the national average. Though both the high statistics can indicate good reporting, these numbers are nonetheless disappointing.

The university is currently administering its second climate survey. But for these numbers to decrease, Georgetown must improve campus safety and hire a Title IX coordinator.

Without a full-time coordinator, Title IX investigator Samantha Berner has been serving in her own position as well as that of the Title IX coordinator since June. Fulfilling two different jobs presents a conflict of interest. As coordinator, Berner could potentially review an appeal for a case that she oversaw as investigator, hindering student rights to a fair process.

Moreover, the lack of a full-time Title IX coordinator means that Georgetown freshmen — the most vulnerable group to unwanted sexual contact — have not had necessary support for their first year of college: The sexual assault rate for female freshmen was twice the rate for seniors, according to the 2016 Climate Sur-

vey. Georgetown’s failure to hire a coordinator exacerbates freshman vulnerability to predators.

The university must also be more transparent about its efforts to fill the position. After Cutway’s departure, Georgetown failed to inform students the position was vacant. After learning about the vacancy through word of mouth, student advocates published a letter in August 2018 urging the university to hire a coordinator and publicly keep the student body updated.

Yet other than a Jan. 18 town hall, Georgetown has failed to be adequately transparent about the process.

Information about how close the university is to selecting a coordinator has largely been released by student leaders involved in the hiring process.

Georgetown should increase transparency by periodically sending campuswide emails with updates on the hiring process, posting public notifications and holding more town hall meetings.

Though the university has shown a willingness to solicit student feedback on the Department of Education’s proposed Title IX changes, it has refused to listen to student demands for an expedient hiring process.

Georgetown recognizes the importance of a Title IX coordinator, but the average time to recruit qualified individuals for the role lasts between six to 12 months, according to university spokesperson Matt Hill.

If the university truly prioritized hiring a coordinator, however, it would have already done so.

While Georgetown should hasten efforts and increase transparency, students must also participate in the campus climate survey. Data from these surveys are integral in understanding the need for more resources — such as a coordinator — that are critical to ensuring campus safety.

Improving the campus’s sexual assault climate is a clear priority for students; this 2019 GUSA executive election, three of the four tickets indicated they sought to revise the Title IX process or immediately hire a full-time coordinator.

Georgetown should align with student priorities and accelerate efforts to select a Title IX coordinator.

Gathering statistics is an important first step to counter Georgetown’s unsafe campus climate, but the university must resolve the issues behind its harrowing numbers. Stop delaying — hire a coordinator.

Maya Gandhi, Editor-in-Chief Yasmine Salam, Executive Editor Will Simon, Executive Editor Catriona Kendall, Managing Editor Will Cassou, News Editor Deepika Jonnalagadda, News Editor Danny McCooey, Sports Editor Faris Bseiso, Guide Editor Kiera Geraghty, Guide Editor Yumna Naqvi, Opinion Editor Harrison Hurt, Features Editor Amber Gillette, Photography Editor Samuel Nelson, Design Editor Emily Shambaugh, Design Editor Susanna Blount, Copy Chief Kate Rose, Social Media Editor Caroline Porterfield, Blog Editor Tarina Touret, Multimedia Editor

Karena Landler Amy Li Mason Mandell Yolanda Spura Cady Stanton Allie Babyak Brendan Dolan Sarah Cammarota Suna Cha Maddie Finn Dennese Mae Javier Timothy McNulty Sela Dragich Jonathan Wiersema Doris Zhang Will Cromarty Meena Morar Natalie Isé Sheel Patel Kiki Schmalfuss Amanda Van Orden Mina Lee Janis Park Eloise Owen Katherine DeMatteo Sarah Donofrio Chau Le Victoria Lei Madison Carter Barbara McDuffee Isabel Roemer Anne-Isabelle de Bokay Irene Chun

Graduate Desk Editor Campus Life Desk Editor Academics Desk Editor City Desk Editor Campus Life Desk Editor Deputy Sports Editor Deputy Sports Editor Deputy Guide Editor Deputy Guide Editor Deputy Guide Editor Deputy Guide Editor Deputy Guide Editor Deputy Opinion Editor Deputy Opinion Editor Deputy Opinion Editor Deputy Features Editor Deputy Features Editor Deputy Photography Editor Deputy Photography Editor Deputy Photography Editor Deputy Photography Editor Deputy Design Editor Deputy Design Editor Deputy Design Editor Deputy Copy Editor Deputy Copy Editor Deputy Copy Editor Deputy Copy Editor Deputy Social Media Editor Deputy Blog Editor Deputy Blog Editor Deputy Multimedia Editor Deputy Multimedia Editor

Editorial Board

Yumna Naqvi, Chair

Victor Gamas, Alexandre Kleitman, Juliette Leader, Maya Moretta, Rowan Saydlowski, Jenny Xu

Contributing Editors

Yasmeen El-Hasan, Caroline Pappas

.

HOYA HISTORY: Feb. 9, 1973

University Denies LGBTQ Organization The university administration has denied a request by a group of homosexual Georgetown students to form a gay organization on campus.

In a letter to the coordinators of the group, Director of Student Activities Susan Palmer Johnson said their request for university recognition had been denied because “Georgetown University has always had a tradition of Christian virtues and ideals.”

“Accordingly,” Johnson wrote, “we believe that the recognition of any homosexual group is completely inconsistent with the ideals and stated policy of the University.”

Refusal to recognize the gay organization blocks the group from university financing. It also prevents the group from requesting university facilities for meetings and activities.

In a related development, Executive Educational Vice President

Rev. Edmund Ryan, S.J., informed the group Wednesday they may appeal Johnson’s decision through the university administration.

Mike Garcia (SFS ’75), one of the group’s four coordinators, said he has requested a joint meeting with top university officials, including Georgetown President Rev. R.J. Henle, S.J., and Student Development Vice President Patricia Rueckel. If the meeting is arranged, it will be conducted with the group’s two lawyers.

Garcia cited a 1972 Supreme Court decision that colleges may not deny recognition to student groups “based on a mere disagreement with the philosophy of a group of persons.”

“We do have a good deal of legal counsel,” Garcia said. “The group’s two lawyers are members of the American Civil Liberties Union.”

The goal of the group “is to establish an organization in which

the cultural and social nature of homosexuality in America can be examined and discussed,” the four coordinators of the group wrote this week in a letter to Ryan. “An authoritatively accepted percentage of homosexual preference in the national population is set at at least 10 percent. Could the university honestly state that it is openly willing to ignore approximately 700 of its students?”

“Georgetown University has for almost 200 years, through subtle practices, propagandized and encouraged heterosexual relations while continually ignoring homosexual relations. In doing so, the university has succeeded in alienating its gay students, as well as promulgating an artificial concept of true masculinity and femininity.”

Hoya Staff Writer

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OPINION

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2019

THE HOYA

VIEWPOINT • BRAULT

A3

GENERATIONAL GAP

Vote Economic Inclusion

T

he four campaigns competing for the 2019 Georgetown University Student Association executive seek to represent a wide variety of students. Yet these candidates fall short in addressing problems that face low-income and first-generation students.

The socio-economic platforms of all tickets do not make actionable plans for their administrations and demonstrate one of GUSA’s largest failings — invalidating and taking credit for student activism.

Norman Francis (COL ’20) and Aleida Olvera (COL ’20) stand out as the most comprehensive platform.

They demonstrate an understanding of socio-economic difficulties, such as the high cost of textbooks and supplies, most likely due to Olvera’s first-generation background.

The pair also identify that people of color and members of marginalized groups are disproportionately of low socio-economic status.

The pair have also proposed specific policies to improve socioeconomic inclusivity. However, Francis and Olvera’s main proposals are either already underway or intangible and vague. Their only concrete suggestion — establishing a textbook and school supplies drive — was successfully completed last semester by the current socioeconomic policy team in partnership with Interhall Council, and they had no part in the process.

Unfortunately, GUSA candidates taking credit for student activists’ work proves to be a trend.

Sina Nemazi (COL ’21) and Roya Wolfe (SFS ’21) do not seem to understand the problems surrounding socio-economic inclusivity; the platform lacks depth and clarity on the topic. Their only proposed idea is to release textbook lists prior to course registration so students can find cheaper course materials.

However, the current GUSA socio-economic advocacy team and Vice President Kenna Chick (COL ’20) presented a proposal to the university in December 2018 on the topic, demanding course material costs be made available before preregistration and professors find low-cost alternatives to traditionally expensive course materials.

In adopting these exact advocacy efforts into their platform, Nemazi and Wolfe demonstrate the alarming tendency of candidates to take credit for current projects.

Nemazi and Wolfe also call for a change of “campus culture” to improve socio-economic inclusivity; however, this broad and vague proposal is unrealistic because it is unenforceable. A campus culture both within the faculty and administration and among students cannot be forced.

Further, the pair’s rhetoric on their Facebook campaign page, “Standing Up for Socio-Economics”, incorrectly labels the low-income and first-generation community. Socio-economics is not a label

or a group of people, but a study of the relationship between social and economic factors. It is patronizing to call the low-income student population “socio-economics,” and this simply demonstrates the ticket’s lack of knowledge on the issue.

Ryan Zuccala (MSB ’20) and John Dolan (MSB ’20) are more concerned with tuition than the other candidates. Still, in discussing financial burdens in attending Georgetown, they fail to discuss socio-economic disparities on campus. Often, students assume that a decrease in tuition would benefit low-income students the most, but Georgetown is need-blind and therefore generous with financial aid awards for low-income students. Instead, from a socio-economic standpoint, the creation of resources that equalize students’ experience at Georgetown is more useful than proposed tuition decreases, over which GUSA has little control.

Similarly, Nicki Gray (NHS ’20) has not mentioned socio-economic inclusivity or any policies related to it in her campaign. The lack of policy makes it difficult for students affected by economic disparity to understand her stance or wonder if this topic is even a priority for her.

None of the candidates have adequate socio-economic inclusivity advocacy platforms. Gray ignores the issue, while Zuccala and Dolan do not understand the real problems low-income students face on a daily basis. Nemazi and Wolfe take advantage of already established advocacy work to appear to be “in the know,” as do Francis and Olvera. However, Francis and Olvera at least recognize and seem to understand the issue.

In short, all candidates either present ambiguous and unactionable policies, or attempt to exploit student activists’ work in improving socio-economic inclusivity.

GUSA’s role is to equalize the student experience regardless of socio-economic status. While all tickets fail to present original ideas for socio-economic inclusion, understanding the problem makes change more likely. As diversity and inclusivity are inherently related to socio-economic issues, candidates running on these values will likely do their best for low-income and first-generation students.

Though lack of policy on the area make it difficult to vote according to platforms of socio-economic inclusivity, I highly encourage students to vote for candidates that value diversity and inclusion and understand the issues facing marginalized communities on campus.

GABRIELLE ELLIOTT BRAULT is

a sophomore in the School of Foreign Service. She is the GUSA Socioeconomic Advocacy Chair.

In all the instances I’ve mentioned, uniform feminist catchphrases build one-dimensional narratives that do not accommodate the diverse experiences of gender oppression.

Appreciating Nonaesthetic Feminism

Rachel Biggio

M

ost college students can point to one or more conduits through which they self-brand. My personal favorite is my yellow Hydroflask water bottle, where I display stickers revealing my Zodiac sign, my favorite boba chain and my allegiance to H*yas for Choice. Other venues you may use to display your personal image include laptop decorations, tattoos your employer will never see, social media accounts, public Spotify playlists and “maybe it’s vintage, maybe it’s Etsy” graphic tees.

In addition to these manifestations of self-aestheticization, the contemporary college student’s love of the marketable has coupled with a desire to outwardly display our political beliefs, creating a new and suddenly ubiquitous individual marketing genre: political selfbranding.

While I understand this urge, I do fear that, if done gratuitously and thoughtlessly, political self-branding can reduce some rather complicated ideologies to pithy quotes plastered on laptops.

The use of political stances to bolster self-brands has particu-

LONG-DISTANCE EDUCATION

Challenge Cultural Binaries

Seo Young Lee

I

ntroducing myself became a burden when I arrived at Georgetown University.

I opened my mouth to give a breezy response about where I’m from, just as others did, but I struggled to find the right words.

I was born in South Korea, but that’s not quite where home is.

I could say I’m from Singapore, where I went to high school, but I only lived there for three years.

I could say I’m from England, where I spent most of my childhood, but people would be confused by my Asian appearance and American accent.

At Georgetown, where many students are aware of the distinction between race and ethnicity, I still sense a gap of understanding.

International students are subject to the problematic assumption that they fall under the same cultural categories as Americans of different races or stereotypes of their own ethnicities.

My childhood was uncannily similar to that of Americans in America. Though I lived in multiple places, from Jakarta to London to Singapore, I have grown up in bubbles of American culture. Cobham, a quaint town in Surrey, is a hub for American expats, while Singapore is a cosmopolitan city where you can find individuals of almost any nationality. In my parallel “America” outside America, I lived through the fad of Tamagotchis and Silly Bandz and grew up watching “Hannah Montana” and “Zoey 101.” My middle and high schools across the sea even

felt the havoc wreaked by toxic social media platforms like Ask. fm and YikYak. But that steady flow of cultural similarity breaks when the theme song to “The Fresh Prince of BelAir” comes on, and I don’t know the lyrics. Or when I walk into Hoya Snaxa and am shocked that M&Ms now come with a novel pretzel center, to which I’m informed that it’s been that way for several years in America. Just the other day, my friend mentioned “grits” to me, and I couldn’t even grasp whether that word was a person or a place, a verb or a noun. I suppose some cultural artifacts, no matter how quintessentially “American” they may seem, simply do not bleed into American microcosms in the international sphere.

Given my American accent and exposure to American culture, people have asked me: “Wouldn’t you consider yourself KoreanAmerican then?” No. KoreanAmericans are Koreans who have grown up in America, whereas I’m a Korean who grew up internationally. The “America” that we’ve experienced is similar in generalities but skips the details that bond the people of a culture together. As a Korean-international, I don’t fit into the Korean-American trope or even the Korean-Korean trope. I’m either “not American enough” to Koreans born and raised in America or “too American” for Koreans who have spent their lives in Korea.

Many assume that race equals ethnicity and ethnicity equals culture — because I look racially Korean, I must be fully ethnically Korean, and Seoul must be my hometown. This is rarely the case, especially for international students. One of my best friends is a racially Indian woman who lives in Pittsburgh but calls Singapore her home. Another one of my close friends is Filipino-British,

her physical features just as beautifully ambiguous as the softness of her American-British accent.

My own culture is an eclectic fusion of the West and the East.

Musically, my taste spans from Japanese composer Joe Hisaishi to Otis Redding, American “King of Soul.” I use American slang, but my vocabulary is sprinkled with the occasional British phrase, such as “cling film” instead of “saran wrap.” I still get teased for the time I went to Trader Joe’s and asked my friend to push me the “trolley.”

I laugh along with my friends in these moments: I, too, see the humor. It is natural to feel surprised when someone has never heard of something that has been so central to your upbringing, but I see such cases not so much as an outright dismissal of other cultures as a mere absence of exposure. The unchanging truth of cultural differences is that there will always exist gaps in our understanding. Our responsibility, as members of a global community, is to bridge these gaps.

The issue festers when race, culture and ethnicity are lumped together as one; when expectations of one’s culture adhere directly to the texture of one’s hair, shade of one’s skin or the kind of clothes one likes to wear.

It would be foolish to pretend that there is a clear-cut formula to resolve the complexity of identity.

Even as I understand and live this truth, the sensitivity and awareness of these nuances for others is something I’m still working on as well. Still, it is time to see people as individuals rather than as projections of a greater generalization.

Seo Young Lee is a sophomore in the College. She is also a member of the International Students Association. LONGDISTANCE EDUCATION appears online every other Wednesday.

larly dire consequences for the political ideology in which I am personally most invested: feminism. Indeed, I fear our generational tendency to aestheticize the fight for gender equality has popularized a nonsubstantive reduction of a radical and robust philosophy.

The increasing popularity of feminist self-identification plays an integral role in the evolution of political self-branding.

As experiences of gendered oppression such as sexual misconduct, transgender rights and wage inequality have increasingly received media attention, and as feminism becomes less taboo, feminist political selfbranding has correspondingly skyrocketed.

A search for “feminist stickers” on Redbubble, the premier marketplace of graphic goods, yields over 43,000 results. Most of these decorations are different stylizations of similar ideas: “Empowered women empower women”; “Nevertheless, she persisted”; “The future is female.” Meanwhile, many college students’ social media accounts prominently feature pictures of signs from a Women’s March, feminist bios and woke retweets.

While I appreciate the increased acceptance of feminist self-identification, I believe the distillation of feminism into catchphrases oversimplifies the experiences of the genderoppressed and forces us into unfair narratives. In my experience of womanhood and feminism, living in resistance to the

patriarchy is complicated and difficult, and my exposure to the aforementioned maxims often aggrieves me rather than empowering me.

For example, when I find myself in conflict with another woman, I always grapple with my perceived betrayal of these feminist mantras and fear that my failure to empower that woman has transformed me into an agent of the patriarchy. Yet, I firmly believe feminism has no Ten Com-womandments for strict observance, and it accommodates interpersonal conflict. Sometimes, two women simply have conflict and don’t desire to empower each other at the moment.

I also admit that, sometimes, I feel competitive with another woman at work or in class. I also secretly have visions of the downfall of other women, courtesy of the patriarchal expectation of female cattiness.

Though I don’t follow through with my immoral fantasies, I believe that critical self-examination and self-forgiveness for my own susceptibility to the patriarchy evoke the spirit of feminism much more effectively than the obligatory empowerment subscribed by the sticker and Instagram bio.

Moreover, these catchy rules of feminist action do not react well with intersectionality.

Women and gender minorities who maintain additional marginalized identities have every right to haltingly and complexly configure their own conception of femme solidarity and

feminist action, particularly given feminism’s complicated history of exclusion.

In all the instances I’ve mentioned, uniform feminist catchphrases build one-dimensional narratives that do not accommodate the diverse experiences of gender oppression.

Yet, despite all my qualms with social justice self-branding, I have openly admitted my water bottle is covered in stickers — some political. I still retweet progressive content. I understand the pleasure of the aesthetic, the appeal of an image and the genuine empowerment that results from publicly taking a political stance.

I do, however, ask us college students to consider our desire to condense the complicated and contain the unruly and consider being more mindful when we use our political beliefs, specifically feminism, to bolster our self-brands.

The history of gendered oppression is long and messy, and the process of achieving gender equality will be complicated, uncomfortable and, more often than not, unpopular. While feminism in practice may not be suited for a sticker or a status, I still urge us to consider the beauty of embracing the nonaesthetic and how such an embrace of the unappealing might embody feminism most authentically of all.

RACHEL BIGGIO is a junior in the College. GENERATIONAL GAP appears online every other Monday.

VIEWPOINT • GU PRIDE & QPOC & THE MCDONOUGH ALLIANCE

Candidates Fail LGBTQ Students

W

hen it comes to LGBTQ issues, this year’s candidates for the Georgetown University Student Association executive offer little beyond the empty buzzword of “diversity.”

To provide insight into what these candidates can do for the LGBTQ community, a coalition of the major LGBTQ clubs on campus — GU Pride, Queer People of Color and the McDonough Alliance — united to create the 2019 LGBTQ Report Card. This measure scores each candidate on four categories — awareness, advocacy, vision and policy — based on their responses to a 10-question survey on LGBTQ issues.

To ensure transparency, we have published our complete methodology, including the anonymous grading process, on our website. There, students can read our score breakdowns and candidates’ original responses.

Ultimately, we saw a disheartening lack of vision for future policy and awareness of LGBTQ issues from all the candidates. Candidates who were the loudest in stating that they cared about LGBTQ issues were unable to even identify issues we face.

The quality of candidate responses varied from underwhelming to downright offensive. Nicki Gray (NHS ’20) received 81 percent; a B-, while decent, is a disappointing score to lead the pack.

The second-highest score, earned by Sina Nemazi (COL ’21) and Roya Wolfe (SFS ’21), was just 68 percent, a meager D+. Scores dropped with candidates Norman Francis Jr. (COL ’20) and Aleida Olvera (COL ’20), who received a 39 percent, an abysmal F. Ryan Zuccala (MSB ’20) and John Dolan (MSB ’20) brought up the rear at just 13 percent, which we felt compelled to give an F-.

Despite initially agreeing to participate and receiving half a dozen reminders over the span of two days, Francis and Dolan did not fill

out the survey. Thus, their default scores of 0 percent cut the FrancisOlvera and Zuccala-Dolan tickets’ scores by half.

Candidates’ responses revealed several concerning trends. First, many tickets failed to demonstrate actual plans for working with our community. Instead, candidates relied on buzzwords like “inclusion” to cover for their lack of actual policy. For example, while Zuccala claimed, “there is no other platform that is as committed... to helping the individuals in this group [The LGBTQ community],” he couldn’t accurately identify a single issue impacting our community, let alone how he would address it.

Responses also revealed condescending attitudes towards our community. When asked about the assets of the LGBTQ community on campus, Nemazi suggested it was our ability to “be open and heavily supported by the Georgetown community.” We failed to see how the need for support could be considered a strength.

More unnervingly, Dolan said our strengths were merely, “Diversity, inclusivity, and great fashion sense.” While we decided to treat this answer as the joke it was likely intended to be, we were disheartened that Dolan, among other candidates, struggled to name a single good thing about our community.

These patronizing attitudes rattle our faith in this year’s candidates’ ability to advocate for communities like ours.

Though we work through the lens of LGBTQ issues, we do not speak for the entire LGBTQ community. This report is not an endorsement or an attempt to tell students how to vote, but constructive criticism for current and future GUSA candidates.

To improve, candidates must foster genuine relationships with LGBTQ organizations before campaigning starts rather than attempting to do so after getting

elected. Many candidates acknowledged their lack of expertise regarding LGBTQ issues and their desire to reach out to student leaders.

However, not a single candidate reached out to our three groups’ leaders to learn about our work and community.

Despite the general mediocrity of this slate of candidates, there is hope. Candidates’ desire to support the LGBTQ community is evident, as is their willingness to engage with student leaders. Candidates also expressed genuine desires to uplift the voices of student leaders in their work.

In their responses, Wolfe and Olvera emphasized the importance of intersectionality when approaching LGBTQ advocacy. As both candidates expressed, our community is complex, and different forms of privilege exist that must be addressed for advocacy to succeed. As Aleida explains, “students of color and especially trans students of color may often feel scared and overshadowed by the white-ness of the school and the LGBTQ community.”

Additionally, Gray shows promise in her past work; she indicated that she has led peer mentorship within GERMS to educate crews on medical challenges specific to the LGBTQ community.

Nevertheless, we cannot be complacent in knowing our candidates merely claim to support our communities.

We hope that candidates in the 2019 election take our advice to heart; however, if we want to see better candidates in the future, it is essential that students of all identities vet their candidates to ensure they don’t conflate selfproclaimed passion with actual policy.

GU PRIDE, QUEER PEOPLE OF COLOR, and THE MCDONOUGH ALLIANCE are three undergraduate groups serving the LGBTQ community at Georgetown.

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INSIDE THIS ISSUE A project to aid relief efforts for natural disasters won $500 at the fourth annual Hoya Hacks hackathon. Story on A9.

Your news — from every corner of The Hoya.

verbatim

IN FOCUS LANDRE SWORN IN

“

Everyone always says D.C. statehood is ‘never going to happen,’ but that is only true as long as no one is talking about it.”

GU College Democrats Chair Rebecca Hollister (COL ’21) on Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) supporting D.C. statehood.

Story on A8.

from our blog

AMBER GILLETTE/THE HOYA

Anna Landre (SFS ’21) was sworn in to a seat on the Advisory Neighborhood Commission, a governing body that passes legislation affecting the Georgetown area Feb. 5. Landre was elected along with Matias Burdman (COL ’21) in a Nov. 4 election.

NOT-SO-SUPER BOWL Underwhelmed by this week’s Super Bowl? So were we. Check out 4E to read our Super Bowl LIII recap to catch any moments you may have missed! blog.thehoya.com

Voting Rules Complicate GUSA Campaign JOSHUA LEVY Hoya Staff Writer

As election day for the Georgetown University Student Association executive approaches, the four campaigns are focused not only on their policies, but also the rules and processes of the race.

In Friday’s election, the ballots will offer voters the opportunity to rank candidates by order of preference. Unlike the United States’ electoral college voting process, the single transferable voting used by GUSA allows for a form of an instantaneous runoff election.

If no ticket initially wins an absolute majority of first-choice votes, the ticket with the fewest first-choice votes is eliminated and has its votes redistributed according to the second-choices indicated on those ballots.

Through this process, the instant runoff election continues until one ticket has the support of 50 percent of all voters.

In general, few tickets earn a majority in the first round and most GUSA elections last until the second or third round.

Voters will rank their choices between the tickets of Norman Francis Jr. (COL ’20) and Aleida Olvera (COL ’20); Nicki Gray (NHS ’20); Sina Nemazi (COL ’21) and Roya Wolfe (SFS ’21); and Ryan Zuccala (MSB ’20) and John Dolan (MSB ’20).

The STV election system, intended to ensure wide support for a victorious ticket and improve efficiency, may also have implications for the strategies of tickets and their campaigns. This year’s candidates shared their opinions about how GUSA’s election rules affect campaigning and the possibility of cross-endorsements between tickets in interviews with The Hoya.

In the 2017 executive election, the ticket of Kamar Mack (COL ’19) and Jessica Andino (COL ’18) won after a crossendorsement with the pair of John Matthews (COL ’18) and Nick Matz (COL ’18).

While none of the current candidates expressed an intent to cross-endorse, several noted various grievances with the voting process and GUSA’s election culture, such as the pressure to focus on a laundry list of policy issues.

REFORMING REPRESENTATION

GUSA uses STV rules to strike a balance between an expedient election and ensuring that winning tickets achieve broad

support, according to GUSA Election Commission Co-Chair Grant Castle (SFS ’21).

“This was the best system we thought of to make sure that whoever won had a broader base of support as well as preventing people from having to vote multiple times,” Castle said.

Along with improving efficiency, STV may also stimulate voter engagement, according to professor Roger Lagunoff, an economist specializing in voting processes.

“If anything, STV should encourage participation,” Lagunoff said. “That was one of its virtues when it was implemented in many jurisdictions — in, for instance, school board election.”

GUSA adopted a rankedchoice voting system in 2006, according to former GUSA historian Ari Goldstein (COL ’18). The reform replaced a plurality-based election system, where the candidate who earns the most votes wins even without a majority. The reform was partly in response to the fact that no ticket received an outright majority of votes for several consecutive years leading up to 2006.

The 2006 GUSA reforms also shifted the representation of the GUSA senate from a system of representatives for each class to representation by residential areas. That reform was overturned in February 2018 after failing to improve voter turnout, according to current GUSA historian Henry Westerman (SFS ’22).

“This move was made in an effort to boost voter turnout, but as you may remember [it] was overturned in a recent referendum after it failed in its stated goals of boosting participation and promoting personal representation for different areas of campus,” Westerman wrote in an email to The Hoya.”

PLATFORM PRESSURES

The implementation of STV, however, also puts pressure on campaigns to create a platform that can appeal to everyone rather than targeting specific constituents.

“Centralization. That’s the flip side of polarization, isn’t it?” Lagunoff said. “Either you have candidates who are taking extreme positions or you have candidates who are moderating

their positions. If you have candidates moderating their positions, they start to look alike.”

With their narrow policy platform focused exclusively on three issues, Zuccala and Dolan see themselves as different from the other executive tickets. Ranked choice voting may disadvantage unorthodox tickets, as voters may reserve their top ranks for platforms that have more in common, according to Zuccala.

“That voter ranking you have to do obviously makes it difficult if you’re so far different from everybody else,” Zuccula said. “You’re not going to be able to get other people’s votes.”

Before his current presidential run, Nemazi worked on the campaign of Josh Sirois (SFS ’20) and Casey Doherty (COL ’20) in the 2018 GUSA executive election. He argued that single transferable vote is an ineffective mechanism because it encourages votes toward unorthodox or “joke” tickets that may affect the outcome, citing the 2018 election as an example.

In that election, Sirois and Doherty carried the most votes in the first round out of all four tickets in the field, including a satirical ticket.

Sirois and Doherty lost in the third round to Sahil Nair (SFS ’19) and Naba Rahman (SFS ’19) after the bottom two tickets were eliminated and their votes redistributed by rankings.

“People voted for Batman as a joke, and then those votes went to Sahil and Naba,” Nemazi said. “It’s tricky, because if these people were voting for the purpose of making campaign better and improving it, then Josh and Casey seemed to have the support.”

Gray, running as a solo presidential candidate, indicated that other factors, including a general lack of understanding about GUSA’s role, have forced candidates to take a stance on all campus issues, regardless of their relevance.

“I think that, far more than rules, precedent and a lack of understanding on the part of the student body (through no fault of their own) has forced executive campaigns to form and state opinions on almost every single campus issue,” Gray wrote in an email to The Hoya.

Nemazi agreed with the idea that campaigns were pressured to focus on a similar, broad range of issues.

Regardless of the campaigns’ similar policies, however, there is still room for candidates to separate themselves from the pack, according to Francis.

“I would say that folks could definitely distinguish themselves based off of the thoroughness of their research and reaching out to groups themselves and how they would enact those policies,” Francis said.

In their run for the GUSA executive, Francis and Olvera believe their proposed policies reflect their convictions.

“I don’t believe that we have moved too far to the middle ground from where a lot of our beliefs and policies lie,” Olvera said. “We’ve made sure to stay straight with what we believe in and not try to compromise too many of our beliefs.”

CONSIDERING ENDORSEMENTS

In recent years, GUSA elections have been decided on tight margins. Last year’s

presidential election saw voter turnout of 39 percent, marking the win of Nair and Rahman by a margin of 36 votes. The 2017 presidential election led Mack and Andino to win with an even tighter margin of just 34 votes.

In the past, candidates have attempted “cross-endorsing” each other, or giving recommended second choices for the ranked ballot. This year, however, no candidates have declared their intentions to cross-endorse.

While not signaling an intention to give a cross-endorsement, Nemazi emphasized dialogue between the campaigns as of Feb. 1.

“At this stage, no, we don’t have any endorsements of other campaigns,” Nemazi said. “But, I will say that I’ve spoken with a lot of the other candidates to just talk about policy. At the end of the day we’re all running to try and make campus better.”

Francis and Olvera also expressed the importance of communication and cooperation across campaigns, though both felt unprepared to cross-endorse any of their

competitors as of Feb. 2.

Zuccula said other tickets would need to convince him and Dolan of the similarity of their platforms to earn a cross-endorsement.

“If someone came to us and made a valid argument as to why we should tell our voters to vote for them second, and maybe they incorporate part of our platform into their platform and make promises about how they will make sure things get done, maybe.”

Zuccula said.

“But we haven’t had that kind of conversation yet and we’re not ready to make that kind of decision.”

Gray did not indicate whether she would crossendorse another ticket and instead highlighted the experience she has gained by interacting with other tickets throughout the campaign.

“The time that I have spent in campaign-mode thus far has been so rewarding as has allowed me to meet and learn about various issues from so many people with whom I’d have been unlikely to come into contact or get-to-know otherwise,” Gray wrote.

AMBER GILLETTE/THE HOYA

Clockwise from top left: Norman Francis Jr. (COL ’20), right, and Aleida Olvera (COL ’20); Nicki Gray (NHS ’20); Sina Nemazi (COL ’21), right, and Roya Wolfe (SFS ’21); and Ryan Zuccala (MSB ’20) and John Dolan (MSB ’20).

NEWS

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2019

THE HOYA

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GUSA Presidential Candidates Title IX Policy, Affordability Call for Increased Student Input Top Priorities for Likely Voters CADY STANTON Hoya Staff Writer

Four presidential candidates for the Georgetown University Student Association executive shared their varying policy approaches at Tuesday night’s presidential debate, expanding on issues ranging from the GU272 referendum and student advocacy recognition to the flaws of GUSA. Norman Francis Jr. (COL ’20), Nicki Gray (NHS ’20), Sina Nemazi (COL ’21) and Ryan Zuccala (MSB ’20) detailed their policies on Title IX regulations and tuition during the event. The executive election is set for Friday, Feb. 8.

In his opening statement, Nemazi discredited his opponents for their lack of previous GUSA experience and policy proposals that he said were unrealistic.

“We’re just offering very tangible goals that will make GUSA relevant and actually impact the lives of students,” Nemazi said. “We all want to lower tuition, we all want to make dining better, but actions speak louder than words.”

Zuccala responded in his opening statement that the simplicity of his campaign’s policies are a strength and a result of his GUSA outsider status.

“My answer to him, ‘Why is GUSA inefficient?’ is because GUSA has all these insiders that introduce 20-point, 30-point plans and really don’t get anything accomplished,” Zuccala said. “We just have three points, they’re pretty simple and I think we can accomplish all three of them.”

In her introduction, Gray said her campaign raises relevant student concerns that cannot be ignored.

“I initially decided to run because I saw issues that needed to be addressed on this campus,” Gray said. “I am staying in this fight because I believe those issues are too important to go unresolved.”

Francis began the debate by describing how he and his running mate Aleida Olvera (COL ’20) plan to be open and honest about their achievements and shortcomings.

“We want to make sure that we are very transparent with you,” Francis said. “We want you to know where we are failing, and where we are getting our work from, and also how we’re succeeding.”

As the debate progressed, candidates offered policy proposals they plan to push if elected. Nemazi’s campaign aims to create a Zen Den meditation room in Lauinger Library for students, while Gray intends to advocate for pro bono legal representation for students pursuing Title IX cases. Francis pushed for the creation of a women’s and gender studies department,

and Zuccala’s policy focused on improved responses to facilities requests and increasing the value of student meal plans.

Gray and Zuccala also shared their contrasting views on the upcoming GU272 referendum set for April. The vote will give students the option to support or reject the creation of a semesterly reconciliation fee that would go toward a fund to benefit descendants of the 272 enslaved individuals sold by the Maryland Society of Jesus in 1838 to financially sustain Georgetown.

In reference to the reconciliation fee, Gray argued students have a responsibility to acknowledge the university’s previous wrongs.

“We all attend a university that was built in large part from the work of enslaved people, and it is our duty as members of this community to recognize that,” Gray said to loud applause from the crowd. “It’s not an ill that you or I committed, but it is something that actively affects our time here.”

In response to a question from the Georgetown Heckler, an on-campus satirical publication, Gray also said she would install 272 benches across campus in memory of the number of slaves sold.

Zuccala argued against a mandatory fee and said his platform includes an “optout” option for the GU272 fund.

“Georgetown itself made the mistake, not the current students that attend. As a result they should not be forced to pay for the mistakes of their school,” Zuccala said.

“The school should be making sacrifices, not the students.”

The candidates also spoke about the importance of incorporating the voices of student advocates in their policy and legislation discussions if elected.

Francis advocated for more student activist input in GUSA policies and legislation.

“Personally, I believe that student activism should be better incorporated into the policy pillars and chairs,” Francis said. “The activists are the best people because they are the ones doing the work.”

Gray said she aims to serve as an avenue for student activists to achieve their policy goals.

“Like so many of us have said, the job of the GUSA executive is to be an advocacy wing for the student body,” Gray said. “Allowing students and allowing the people who are trying to make change to do it in a way that is most productive for them and for their goals is absolutely my goal.”

Nemazi’s campaign seeks to work with student advocates by supporting their ongoing policy efforts.

“A lot of getting advocacy groups involved is actually

pushing forward a platform that these advocacy group are also interested in pushing forward,” Nemazi said. “When it comes to our platform for standing up for women’s rights and feminine hygiene products, there are already student advocacy groups on campus who are trying to do that, so we would work with them.”

Despite acknowledging the flaws within GUSA, especially amid the student-led Abolish GUSA campaign, the candidates also spoke about the strengths and accomplishments of previous administrations.

Francis said many of GUSA’s previous achievements have gone overlooked, and this oversight gives the organization a bad reputation.

“I think GUSA does a lot of great work that normally a lot of people just don’t know about or other people might have taken credit for,” Francis said. “I was recently speaking with a GUSA senator and I realized that the GoCard came about because of GUSA.” Nemazi commended the current GUSA President Juan Martinez (SFS ’20) and Vice President Kenna Chick (SFS ’20) for their commitment to amplifying student voices but highlighted the need for the administration to be held accountable for its advocacy promises.

“I really have the utmost respect for Juan and Kenna for coming in such a disillusioned time and holding everyone together,” Nemazi said. “They did a lot of great work in the sense of empowering advocacy groups to do what they’re best fit to do.”

During audience questions, one student asked Gray to shed light on the reason her former running mate, Sam Appel (COL ’20), dropped out of the campaign. Gray replied she and Appel reached the decision that he should step down from the campaign independently. Gray did not share specific reasonings behind Appel’s departure.

“My former running mate decided on his own to leave this campaign because he was no longer a good candidate for the vice presidency, and that was a decision I made independently also,” Gray said.

The GUSA election commission organized the debate, which was hosted in the Healey Family Student Center Great Room. Representatives of campus media outlets, including The Hoya, the Georgetown Voice, the Georgetown Heckler and the Georgetown Review asked questions, along with Hayley Grande (COL ’21), chair of the GUSA senate’s finance and appropriations committee; outgoing executives Martinez and Chick; and students, both on Twitter and in the audience.

GU272 Advocacy Team Prepares Educational Forums on Referendum From GU272, A5

entire undergraduate community should have the opportunity to have this conversation together, as we in this room can’t and shouldn’t speak for the student body,” Aly Pachter (COL ’19) said at the meeting. (Full Disclosure: Pachter formerly served on The Hoya’s Board of Directors.)

Four senators opposed the referendum. Senators Sam Dubke (SFS ’21) and Evan Farrara (COL ’19) objected to placing the financial responsibility on students to atone for the university’s sale of the GU272.

“It’s manifestly Georgetown University’s obligation to make financial commitments regarding its legacy with slavery, not students’,” Farrara said at the senate meeting. “Additionally, student money should only be used towards student’s purposes, even if non-student purposes are meaningful, as in today’s referendum.”

The university should seek to institute more of the recommendations made by the Working Group on Slavery, Memory and Reconciliation; however, students should not bear this burden, Dubke wrote in an email to The Hoya.

“As the Working Group on Slavery, Memory, and Recon-

ciliation made clear in 2015 – these are obligations of the university and not of its students,” Dubke wrote. “I would ardently support any lobbying of our administration to live up to its own promises and recommendations, but I do not feel comfortable making the same demands of individual students.”

“I look forward to working with senators and other students as we dig deeper into relearning our understanding of Georgetown’s history regarding slavery.”

HANNAH MICHAEL (SFS ’21) Member, GU272 Advocacy Team

Georgetown University President John J. DeGioia formed the Working Group on Slavery, Memory and Reconciliation, a group of faculty and Georgetown Alumni, to address the university’s legacy of slavery in September 2015. The Group submitted its recommendations to the university in the summer of 2016. Though Georgetown has offered preferential ad-

missions consideration to descendants of the GU272, among other recommendations it has met, multiple recommendations still remain unaddressed, including financial aid for descendants.

Following the vote, supporters of the bill celebrated the bill’s passage. The GU272 Advocacy Team is prepared for the next steps after the vote, according to Hannah Michael (SFS ’21).

“I look forward to working with senators and other students as we dig deeper into relearning our understanding of Georgetown’s history regarding slavery and move forward with educating and empowering descendant communities,” Michael said in an interview with The Hoya.

Though she objected to the referendum, Lexie Gutierrez (COL ’20) was glad Sunday’s meeting gave students a chance to speak their mind.

“It’s the student’s choice at this point,” Gutierrez said in an interview with The Hoya.

“I’m going to vote no on the referendum but I’m glad tonight everybody spoke their mind. I have some inherent problems with the referendum but at this point it’s in the students’ hands.”

Special to The Hoya Casey Ferrante contributed reporting.

From GUSA RACE ANALYSIS, A5

and Kamar Mack (COL ’19), had no prior GUSA experience and branded themselves as outsider tickets.

Sexual assault policy was the most important issue in the executive election for approximately 22 percent of poll respondents, with affordability and diversity and inclusivity ranked as the next relevant issues in the race.

The student focus on sexual assault policy marks a change from last year’s election, where affordability was the primary concern of respondents.

Three of the four tickets have specific policies addressing sexual assault in their campaign platforms. Zuccala and Dolan’s platform does not reference any sexual assault policy or Title IX changes.

While the three tickets who stressed initiatives on Title IX cited the importance of pressuring the university administration during the ongoing search for a Title IX coordinator, Gray’s platform was the only one that included university collaboration on the issue. All three tickets pushed for student outreach, but Francis-Olvera had the most comprehensive plan to engage with student groups.

Students who ranked sexual assault policy as the most relevant issue in this campaign season expressed preference for Gray, followed closely by Francis and Olvera.

Francis and Olvera aim to mandate training on sexual assault prevention and bystander intervention for all GUSA executive officials. The pair also plans to build relationships with student advocacy groups to combat sexual assault through the introduction of Title IX training for leaders of campus clubs and organizations, according to Francis.

“We want to incorporate learning Title IX into bystander training to curb sexual assault or hinder it within club culture,” Francis said at Tues-

day’s presidential debate.

“There is a lot of ignorance around sexual assault and Title IX on this campus.”

The Nemazi and Wolfe ticket seeks to implement a training program within the Student Advocacy Office, which assists students in navigating the university’s disciplinary policies. The trained student officers would serve as resources to inform survivors on recent Title IX changes as well as the Title IX process.

If elected, Gray plans to make information on Title IX policy and procedures easily accessible for students through the dissemination of videos. Gray also seeks to push the university administration for more comprehensive interpersonal violence trainings for Georgetown University Police Department officers and faculty members.

Gray hopes to connect sexual assault advocacy efforts of various administrative centers, including the Academic Resource Center, the LGBTQ Resource Center and the Women’s Center.

Though voters indicated affordability as the second most relevant issue, it has not been a major theme in the runup to today’s election. All four of the tickets offer policy elements related to reducing student expenses, ranging from decreasing textbook costs to offering stipends for internships to more broadly lowering student tuition. One of Zuccala and Dolan’s three policy areas focuses primarily on reducing tuition prices for students through decreased club expenses.

Voters’ concerns regarding diversity and inclusion dominated the conversation in both executive debates, with candidates calling for greater outreach to student advocacy groups.

During the Jan. 31 vice presidential debate, Olvera stressed how her and Francis’ experiences as members of marginalized communities have shaped their platform and outreach efforts. Wolfe echoed her opponent, emphasizing GUSA’s role as the link

between student activists and university administrators.

The candidates also urged greater student input in Tuesday night’s presidential debate. Gray said she hopes to serve as a resource for student activists to achieve their policy goals and streamline the legislative process among GUSA policy teams. Nemazi aims to support the ongoing policy efforts of student advocacy groups who are already pushing initiatives including accessibility of feminine hygiene products.

With declining trust in the ability of GUSA to address student concerns and four tickets facing a two-week campaign season that came earlier than in past years, the race is expected to be won by a narrow margin.

Gray leads Francis by a 6.6 point margin for GUSA president, according to The Hoya’s poll.

The poll’s narrow margin suggests no candidate will receive a majority of votes in the first round of voting. If no ticket receives an outright majority in the first round, an instant runoff is conducted between the top performing tickets, per GUSA’s single transferable vote system. In this ranked choice system, the ticket with the lowest vote total is eliminated, and their votes are redistributed to the remaining candidates based on voters’ indicated second preferences until one ticket receives a majority.

In past years, election results have been tipped by which candidates are ranked second by other candidates’ supporters. Nair’s 36-vote victory margin in the fourth round of voting followed the 2017 election where Mack won in the fourth round by 34 votes after coming in second place in the first round — one of the closest in recent memory.

Students can vote in today’s executive election online using HoyaLink or at polling stations designated by the GUSA Election Commission in the Leavey Center.

New South RHO Workers Push University to Fix Heating ASHLEY ZHAO

Special to The Hoya

Following several months of heating concerns in the New South Residential Hall Office, several RHO student workers filed a petition to the Office of Residential Living urging it address these concerns and to work with the Office of Planning and Facilities Management to develop potential solutions for the heating issue.

The recorded temperature of the RHO was over 20 degrees lower than the temperature control range of 68 to 76 degrees Fahrenheit recommended by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration of the U.S. Department of Labor, prompting over 60 student workers to sign the petition.

Students sent the petition to Residential Living and university administrators last Friday. It received a response from Residential Living staff members within two hours.

New South RHO Assistant Emily Schluper (COL ’21) said the students decided to draft the petition because working in such conditions was becoming unbearable.

“We were just kind of getting fed up because it got to the point where, when I went to work, I had to bring gloves and scarves because it was almost colder inside the RHO just sitting there working,” Schluper said.

The demands outlined in the petition are not unreasonable, according to New South RHO Assistant Allie Williams (SFS ’19), who spearheaded the petition. (Full disclosure: Williams previously served on The Hoya’s editorial board.)

“It’s pretty straightforward—all we are asking for is that Residential Living complies with laws and provide us with a healthy and safe workplace that meets the minimum temperature standard,” Williams wrote in an email to The Hoya.

The petition outlined a few demands for Residential Living, which included purchasing more space heaters and providing New South RHO management and staff with regular updates from Facilities about any findings related to the heating and insulation of the New South lobby.

JULIA ALVEY/THE HOYA

The Office of Residential Living has not yet resolved the concerns of student workers in the New South RHO. Residential Living responded to the petition, assuring students that they are working on a solution with Facilities.

“The health and wellness of students is a top priority,” Vice President of Facilities and Planning Management Ben Kuo wrote in an email to The Hoya. “We take their concerns very seriously and have taken prompt action to ensure a safe and comfortable temperature in New South.”

Following the demands of the petition, Residential Living has installed a large heater in the lobby area to provide supplemental heating. Residential Living also recommends that residents avoid deploying the electronic doors — which allows for excess cold air to enter the lobby — unless for accessibility purposes.

While student workers appreciate the university’s current efforts to address the heating issue, they are frustrated over the lack of response from Residential Living prior to the release of the petition, according to Williams.

Although Residential Living has started to address the heating issue in the short term, determining how a more long-term solution can be put in place is difficult, according to New South RHO Assistant Andy Marquez (SFS ’21).

“They have been trying to help us with short-term solutions by giving us more heaters, but the long-term solution is, at the moment, complicated and ambiguous because this type of solution requires changes in the infrastruc-

ture of the building,” Marquez wrote in an email to The Hoya.

The RHO temperature concerns have been brought up with Residential Living several times over the course of the past few months and have only now been fully addressed, New South RHO Assistant Andrei Bonano (COL ’19) said “We’ve been in communication with the Office of Residential Living since October, and it’s kind of frustrating that it takes us to make a petition and to send something to departmental heads in order to get some action,” Bonano said.

Many RHO workers feel Residential Living must now meet students halfway and begin addressing issues that are affecting their student workers, according to Williams.

“RHO workers have done everything we can to communicate with Residential Living,” Williams wrote. “The onus is now on them, as our employer, to protect our health and safety and communicate what they are doing to meet legal standards going forward.”

Residential Living has assured students it will communicate with them on a more frequent basis to keep them updated on the status of the RHO heating issue.

“We are continuing to monitor the temperature, investigate sources of the problem, and address the issue. We will provide updates to the New South community as we continue making progress,” Kuo wrote in an email to The Hoya.

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THE HOYA

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2019

Clinton Rebukes President’s Trump Decries Partisanship Treatment of U.S. Alliances During State of the Union CLINTON, from A1 happens we need our friends.

We need people who we have worked with and counted on, and I think the division that is being unfortunately driven between the United States and Europe is going to haunt us.”

At the NATO summit meeting last July, Trump threatened the United States’ withdrawal from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization — a military alliance of 29 countries in North America and Europe — if allies resisted his demands for additional military spending. Over the course of 2018, Trump told senior administration officials multiple times that he wanted to withdraw from the alliance, according to The New York Times.

Clinton warned against the Trump administration’s rhetoric on NATO, which puts the longstanding alliance between the United States and Europe at risk.

“When you look at what is happening in Europe, it should be a great concern to any American,” Clinton said. “The fact that our current administration is almost egging on the breakup of NATO and to be in a hostile relationship with people who share a lot of our values, who we have gone through a lot with, strikes me as counterproductive, and as I said, essentially dangerous.”

The United States is not only neglecting its European allies, but is also allowing its allies in Asia and the developing world to falter, Clinton said.

For the United States to re-

pair weakening relationships in Asia, it must refocus attention to restore balance in a way that includes long-term U.S. engagement, according to Clinton.

“We are not doing everything we should to have this kind of balance that I think we need,” Clinton said. “We talked about pivoting to Asia, to rebalance, but all of this means that you got to stay engaged for the long run, not just sporadically.”

A lack of U.S. involvement across Asia, Latin America and Africa has allowed China to become a frontrunner in influencing these regions, Clinton said.

“We are losing the influence contest to China,” Clinton said. “They are engaged in an enormous amount of cultural diplomacy, of funding projects in Latin America, in Africa and elsewhere, and we are not competing.”

Clinton specifically noted that Beijing’s “Belt and Road Initiative” is enjoying a growing influence in global politics. Also known as “One Belt, One Road,” the initiative is a strategy by the Chinese government to develop infrastructure and investments across four continents, linking China to the nations of Southeast Asia, the Gulf countries and North Africa.

Maintaining developmental and financial aid in Central American countries could not only improve diplomatic ties with countries such as Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, but also help decrease the effects of drug trafficking in the region, Clinton said.

“If we spent even a relatively minor amount of money of the federal government’s budget in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, dealing with some of their problems and working against corruption, then all of this talk about poor, desperate people fleeing gang violence and drug traffickers would change into a different conversation,” Clinton said.

The Trump administration pushed to end Temporary Protected Status for El Salvadoran immigrants and refugees. TPS allowed Salvadorans to live and work legally in the United States after it was enacted in 2001 following the devastating earthquakes in El Salvador. However, an injunction from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in Oct. 2018 blocked the Department of Homeland Security from implementing and enforcing Trump’s plan.

Clinton remains optimistic, however, that young people who engage in careers in public service can both help shape the future and reassert the importance of supporting diplomacy.

“There’s a lot of hard work that has to be done, but there’s also a lot of room for imagination,” Clinton said. “It’s one of the most exciting times to be looking at a career in public service. I would hope that what we’ve done today will lead to an even longer conversation so that even more students will understand the importance of supporting diplomacy.”

Republicans ‘Fed Up’ After Shutdown, Durbin Says RILEY ROGERSON Hoya Staff Writer

Congressional Republicans are likely to cooperate with Democrats even without obtaining provisions for President Donald Trump’s border wall to avoid another government shutdown, Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) (SFS ’66, LAW ’69) said at an event Monday.

The sole path towards preventing another shutdown is Senate Republicans defecting from Trump’s position on border wall funding, according to Durbin.

“The only way to avoid another shutdown is if Republican senators will join Democratic senators and say, ‘We’re just not going through with this again,’” Durbin said. “I think we’re close to that. I think there are enough Republicans that are just fed up with it.”

The event was hosted by the Georgetown University Institute of Politics and Public Service and moderated by the institute’s executive director, former spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee Mo Elleithee.

After a 35-day shutdown, the longest in U.S. history, Trump signed a spending bill Jan. 25 to reopen the government for three weeks. The shutdown began after House Democrats and Trump sparred over funding for his proposed wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

The spending bill will fund the government until Feb. 15.

However, the bill did not include the border wall funding that Trump initially demanded from Congressional Democrats.

Durbin also said Republicans are likely to renege on their loyalty to Trump and stop supporting the border wall to prevent another shutdown Feb. 15.

“It will be hard as heck for the President to keep his ranks solid among Senate Republicans if he tries to go for another shutdown,” Durbin said. “I’ve got my fingers crossed that that will avoid the possibility.”

Trump is blocking the two parties from reaching a comprehensive immigration agreement, according to Durbin. In 2017, Trump ordered an end to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protected young immigrants without documentation who entered the United States as children from deportation.

“There is room for compromise on border security and on immigration, once we believe people are coming at this with goodwill,” Durbin said. “Currently, some of the statements made by President Trump in the campaign make people in the immigration commu-

MEREDITH MILLER Hoya Staff Writer

President Donald Trump called for unity across party divides while remaining firm on hardline stances on immigration in his second State of the Union speech before a joint session of the U.S. Congress on Feb. 5.

Members of Congress can move the country forward if they mend division along party lines and agree to cooperate on issues like immigration and border security, Trump said.

“Together, we can break decades of political stalemate,” Trump said.

“We can bridge old divisions, heal old wounds, build new coalitions, forge new solutions and unlock the extraordinary promise of America’s future. The decision is ours to make.”

The State of the Union followed the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, which lasted for 35 days. The speech itself was originally scheduled for Jan. 29 but was delayed for a week after Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) retracted Trump’s first invitation to speak on the House floor until the government reopened.

Despite the bipartisan sentiment present in his address, Trump portrayed Democrats who opposed funding for a border wall and supported further investigation into his administration as uncooperative and out of touch.

“No issue better illustrates the divide between America’s working class and America’s political class than illegal immigration,” Trump said. “Wealthy politicians and donors push for open borders while living their lives behind walls and gates and guards.”

The partial government shutdown began after Trump refused to sign legislation passed by Congress to fund the government unless it provided for construction of a wall on the border with Mexico.

On Jan. 25, Trump signed legislation that reopened the government until Feb. 15. If Congress does not pass a spending bill that receives Trump’s signature by that time, the government will shut down again.

Trump and Democratic law-

THE WHITE HOUSE/FACEBOOK

President Donald Trump reiterated his demands for border wall funding during his State of the Union address Tuesday night. makers found agreement on the increased representation of women in Congress. In his address, Trump celebrated the record number of women currently serving in Congress than ever before — a line that received celebration from female lawmakers, many of whom wore white suits to honor suffragettes.

An historic 117 women were elected to serve in the 116th Congress during the 2018 midterms. A total of 127 women now hold seats on Capitol Hill, 106 of whom are Democrats.

Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) attended as a guest of Pelosi. In a news release before the speech, Bowser urged Congress to pass legislation preventing gun violence. The federal government needs to address gun violence because state laws are not effective in solving the issue, according to Bowser.

“In places like Washington, D.C., where we have some of the strongest gun laws in the nation, we know better than anyone that this is a matter that won’t be solved state by state,” Bowser said. “Firearms can travel across state lines and so can those who use them.”

The official Democratic response to the State of the Union came from Stacey Abrams, the 2018 Democratic candidate in Georgia’s race for governor. Bipartisanship is key to overcoming current divisions caused by President Trump, Abrams said.

“The shutdown was a stunt engineered by the president of

the United States, one that defied every tenet of fairness and abandoned not just our people but our values,” Abrams said. “In this time of division and crisis, we must come together and stand for, and with, one another.”

On campus, GU Politics hosted a State of the Union watch party in collaboration with the College Republicans and College Democrats.

Trump’s speech touched on bipartisan concerns, such as the fight against HIV/AIDS and lowering health care costs; however, the Trump administration’s actions have not lined up with his rhetoric, AJ Williamson (COL ’21), Director of Campaigning and OffCampus Affairs for GU College Democrats.

“His comments on healthcare are bizarre given his administration and party’s repeated attempts to undermine the Affordable Care Act and take insurance from millions of Americans,” Williamson wrote in an email to The Hoya.

The State of the Union watch party helped promote conversations across the aisle, according to Jake Lyons (COL ’21), a former president of GU College Republicans who helped organize the event.

“It’s important for Hoyas to be able to interact and talk to people who think differently than them,” Lyons wrote in an email to The Hoya. “Having joint events with GUCR, GUCD and GU Politics breaks down those barriers and provides a forum to have those conversations.”

Scottish First Minister Pushes for Independence MAX LEVINE

Hoya Staff Writer

KIRK ZIESER/THE HOYA

Republicans will break with President Donald Trump over the border wall, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) (SFS ’66, LAW ’69), predicted Monday. nity wary of whether he’ll ever reach an agreement and I’m one of them.”

The Trump administration also pushed to end a humanitarian program in 2018 that was enacted in 2001 following the devastating earthquakes in El Salvador that allowed Salvadorans to live and work legally in the United States.

Democrats need to confront their party’s weakness in the Midwest in the upcoming 2020 Presidential election by improving their economic message, Durbin said.

The party connect to Midwestern voters by focusing on health care and highlighting provisions from the Affordable Care Act that protect individuals with pre-existing medical conditions from discrimination, according to Durbin.

“We discovered that those words were killer words when it came to the Republican position on the Affordable Care Act, because there is hardly a person alive that doesn’t know someone with a pre-existing condition, and they are usually in their family and the notion that they would be tossed into a marketplace, an unforgiving marketplace, was unacceptable,” Durbin said. “It was more than just an economic issue, it was an issue of justice and fairness.”

Enacted in 2010, The Affordable Care Act, also commonly known as Obamacare, made health insurance available to more people by providing consumers with subsidies and expanding the Medicaid program to cover all adults with incomes below 138 percent of the federal poverty level.

Democrats marketed the Affordable Care Act with the promise that insured Americans could keep their present healthcare plan. That promise diminished the credibility among Democrats, according to Durbin.

“You’ve got to make sure that in the process people feel that they are not being hurt, they are not being forced into decisions about their medical care that they don’t want to make and don’t want to get caught up in,” Durbin said.

Under the Affordable Care Act, insurance companies cannot keep selling plans that do not cover prescription drugs and maternity care. This restriction resulted in hundreds of thousands of subscribers who previously chose to purchase plans without prescription drugs and maternity care receiving notices saying that their insurance plans were no longer available, according to The Washington Post.

After the 2018 midterm elections, the Democrats picked up 40 seats in the House of Representatives. The diversity of these new representatives will reinvigorate the Democratic Party, according to Durbin.

“What I like about the cast of new characters among the Democratic Caucus in the house is the diversity and variety,” Durbin said. “Diversity, to me, sends a message out that this Democratic Party is open for business. No matter what you look like, what your background is, what your personal or religious beliefs might be, we are open to sit down and talk and make you part of who we are.”

Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon called for a second referendum on Scottish independence from the United Kingdom at an event hosted by the School of Foreign Service on Monday. Sturgeon renewed calls for Scottish independence because of rifts between the Scottish and British Parliaments exacerbated by differing views on Brexit.

As the U.K.’s exit from the European Union, scheduled for March 29, draws nearer with no agreement in sight, Scotland must decide how to deal with a forced removal from the EU. However, a majority of Scots who participated in the 2016 Brexit referendum voted to remain in the EU. Sturgeon, who as first minister is the head of the Scottish Government, said the disagreement leads her to believe Scotland’s interests would be best served if it were an independent country.

“I will set out my thoughts and the timing of another independence referendum in the next few weeks, once the terms of Brexit have become clearer,” Sturgeon said. “But amid the confusion and the uncertainty of Brexit, one thing is clearer, I think, than ever: Scotland’s national interests are not being served by a Westminster system that too often treats Scotland an afterthought, or too often sees our interests as not being material.”

Sturgeon is the first woman to hold the office of first minister in Scotland, ascending to the position in 2014. Sturgeon spoke in Riggs at the Feb. 4 event, which was co-hosted by the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security.

While the U.K. as a whole voted in favor of leaving the EU with 52 percent of the vote, a majority of Northern Ireland and Scotland voted to stay. The voices of the 62 percent of Scottish voters who voted against leaving the EU have been disregarded by the U.K., according to Sturgeon.

“The U.K. government could

have led discussions with the devolved nations and others about how to leave the EU. It could have considered and made compromises that took account of the differing views across different parts of the United Kingdom,” Sturgeon said. “But instead of that, the vote in Scotland has been ignored, and over the two-and-ahalf years since it took place, our interests have been sidelined.”

The U.K. held the referendum to decide whether to leave the EU on June 23, 2016, with 71 percent voter turnout.

The 52 percent vote in favor of leaving the EU was attributed to factors such as economic stagnancy within the EU and rise in U.K. nationalism, according to BBC News.

The U.K. Parliament rejected Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit plan 10 weeks prior to the scheduled departure date.

May survived a vote of no confidence in Parliament on Jan. 16 that could have removed her from the role of prime minister; however, the 325 to 306 rejection of the no-confidence motion showed diminishing support for May, according to The New York Times.

The U.K. Parliament’s lack of reception to Scottish concerns undermines the foundation of governance in the U.K., according to Sturgeon.

“It throws up the fundamental question about the way in which political decision-making is exercised in the United Kingdom, and indeed about the nature of the United Kingdom itself,” Sturgeon said.

Scottish independence movements have long sought for removing Scotland from the U.K. and become an independent country. Fifty-five percent of Scottish voters opted against leaving the U.K. in a 2014 referendum, with the uncertain ramifications of Scottish independence on its membership in the EU a major topic of discussion leading up to the November vote.

Now, Scotland’s support for staying in the EU has fueled renewed requests for Scottish independence.

Arguments that leaving the EU will put more money in

the pocketbooks of British citizens are unfounded, according to Sturgeon.

“By impeding free trade in order to end freedom of movement, the U.K. is in the bizarre, absurd position of doing something that will harm the U.K. and Scotland in order to do something else that will harm the U.K. and Scotland — that is the absurdity of the position we find ourselves in,” Sturgeon said.

Brexit would create serious economic implications for the U.K., as they would no longer be able to participate in the EU’s single market, resulting in a £125 billion loss. In addition, leaving the EU could hurt the U.K.’s credibility in the international economy, according to the Economist.

Although Brexit will decrease immigration by ending freedom of movement between the U.K. and the rest of the EU, Sturgeon does not believe ending the freedom of movement policy is a good course of action, especially not for Scotland, whose aging population benefits highly from foreigners who come to Scotland for study and work.

Immigration contributes to cultural diversity and is necessary to support the aging Scottish population, according to Sturgeon.

“Immigration has been good for our culture, our economy, and our society as a whole,” Sturgeon said. “Without it, our population will start to decline, and everyone knows the consequences of that.”

The results of the Brexit referendum were evidence of an economic anxiety that’s better addressed through measures reducing income inequality, Sturgeon said.

“Brexit is the wrong response to inequality, because it’s likely to make people’s living standards worse rather than better,” Sturgeon said.

“Scotland’s economic strategy has, for several years now, emphasized so strongly the notion that of inclusive growth: growth which benefits everyone, and growth to which everyone has the opportunity to contribute.”

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FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2019

THE HOYA

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Medical School Launches Campaign to Reduce Bias SANA RAHMAN Hoya Staff Writer

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY

The African American studies department, founded only three years ago, lacks the infrastructure to offer comprehensive courses confronting issues like microaggressions, according to Steven Botsoe (COL ’20).

Students of Color Recount Campus Microaggressions ANGELA PEREZ Hoya Staff Writer

Often unnoticed, uncomfortable and perhaps unintentional, microaggressions are a common offense to people of color. At Georgetown University, minority students regularly encounter microaggressions despite university efforts to build a diverse community, according to several students in interviews with The Hoya.

Leslie Hinkson, an assistant professor of sociology at Georgetown, defines microaggression as “an indirect, subtle, sometimes unintentional act of discrimination against a member or members of a marginalized group.”

For students of color, microaggressions can appear unexpectedly in conversations and classrooms.

Minority students at Georgetown recounted a range of microaggressions that frustrate their daily lives, from being assumed to be an international student with surprisingly good English to being wrongly identified as another student of color. The indirect nature of microaggressions can make them even more difficult for students and communities at Georgetown to grapple with.

CHALLENGING TRANSITION

Hinkson highlighted the frequent and subtle nature of microaggressions, which can compound their effects.

“Dealing with multiple microaggressions over the course of a day or a week can cause significant emotional and psychological distress to an individual – both because their effects can be additive and because their subtlety often leads one questioning whether they should be experiencing distress over them in the first place,” Hinkson wrote in an email to The Hoya.

White students constitute 56 percent of Georgetown’s student body, according to the Department of Education’s college scorecard. 6 percent of the student body is black, and 10 percent is Asian.

For incoming students of color from diverse communities, microaggressions can exacerbate the difficult adjustment to a predominantly white college.

Onrei Josh Ladao (COL ’21), a student intern at Georgetown’s Center for Multicultural Equity and Access, found it difficult to assimilate to Georgetown’s environment as a student of color.

“It was definitely a culture shock coming into Georgetown,” Ladao said. “I grew up in a predominantly [person of color] neighborhood, so the reality for me was that I looked different from the majority of the school demographic.”

Multiple times, faculty and staff confuse students of the same ethnicity, according to resident director of La Casa Latina Joseph Gomez (SFS ’19).

“I can say with 100 percent certainty that I have been microaggressed on campus,” Gomez wrote in an email to The Hoya. “My first year at Georgetown, so many people (other students, professors, admin, staff and others) would confuse me for other Latinx men.

This happened multiple times a week.”

La Casa Latina, a CMEA student program, opened in 2016 and provides a residence for several Latinx students and a broader communal space for the Latinx members of campus to share their narratives and confront issues commonly faced by the Latinx community.

People also sometimes assume Asian students are international students, according to Lin Yuan (MSB ’20), vice president of the Asian American Student Association.

“I was talking about landing an internship with a friend who I have known since freshman year,” Yuan wrote in an email to The Hoya. “This person immediately said ‘Oh, it must have been hard for you as an international student

since you need [visa] sponsorship.’

I have lived in neighborhoods 30 minutes away from Georgetown for more than 10 years.”

Steven Botsoe (COL ’20) serves as a representative for the African Society of Georgetown to the Students of Color Alliance, an umbrella organization sponsoring various multicultural student groups on campus. (Full disclosure: Botsoe is a staff writer for The Guide).

Students of color can feel burdened to speak on behalf of their entire race, according to Botsoe.

“I’ve often been asked to speak for the black community or explain certain aspects of blackness, regardless of whether or not I have experienced it,” Botsoe wrote in an email to The Hoya.

Students felt particularly burdened by microaggressions because of their power to diminish their identities and abilities, according to Gomez.

“It bothered me a lot because I felt unrecognized for my accomplishments at the beginning of my Georgetown career,” Gomez wrote. “There aren’t that many people at Georgetown who look like me, so I basically was feeling like just a number or box Georgetown could check for diversity purposes.”

Ladao felt microaggressions reduce complex identities to common stereotypes.

“What’s particularly bothersome is that microaggressions perpetuate a certain stereotype for an identity,” Ladao said. “In reality, our identities are much more than that.”

INSTITUTIONAL ADVANCEMENT

Despite its reputation as a predominantly white institution, Georgetown has made several efforts to create inclusive spaces and encourage diversity on campus.

The School of Medicine has recently introduced a campaign that seeks to educate medical students about how microaggressions can arise in the field of medicine and how to respond to them.

The university also encourages members of the Georgetown community to report incidents of bias such as microaggressions through Georgetown’s online bias reporting system, according to Vice President of Institutional Diversity and Equity Rosemary Kilkenny.

“Georgetown has many resources and support available for community members to explore reporting options if they experience or witness a microaggression or other form of bias, harassment, or discrimination,” Kilkenny wrote in an email to The Hoya.

The Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship also offers workshops and training sessions for faculty, staff and graduate students involved in teaching, with an explicit focus on reducing bias, according to Senior Associate Director for Inclusive Teaching and Learning at CNDLS Joselyn Schultz Lewis.

“Throughout the year, CNDLS offers more than 10 inclusive pedagogy-focused workshops, events, and trainings where 400-500 faculty and staff members convene to strengthen their understanding of diversity and inclusion, equip them with the knowledge and skills to address critical issues and unconscious biases in the classroom, and empower them to enhance the student learning experience,” Schultz Lewis wrote in an email to The Hoya.

Additionally, the Center for Multicultural Equity and Access runs a series of multicultural programming for ethnically and racially underrepresented students at Georgetown. Examples include Young Leaders in Education About Diversity, a pre-orientation program that provides a space to discuss diversity and critically reflect upon various facets of identity, including race and ethnicity.

Outside of institutionalized forms of support, student-run clubs also serve as a way to combat

stereotyping and reliance on generalizations.

Not all student groups confront the issue of microaggressions directly: African Society of Georgetown prefers to emphasize what brings students closer, according to Botsoe.

“ASG works more to be celebratory and build community rather than try to have its members conduct themselves in potentially microaggressive spaces,” Botsoe wrote.

The Asian American Student Association tries to educate its membership through cross-cultural partnerships with other clubs, according to Yuan.

“AASA tries very hard in educating its members in terms of respecting other POC cultures by co-sponsoring events with other culture clubs,” Yuan wrote. “For instance, its Political Awareness Committee did collaborate with Black House to talk about the after effects of the LA Riots to both the Korean American community and black community.”

BROADER COMMITMENT

Despite the assistance of CMEA and the Georgetown Scholarship Program, which provides scholarships, mentorship networks and other resources to first-generation college students, Ladao feels the Georgetown community should participate more broadly in efforts to promote inclusivity.

“Being in spaces like the CMEA and the GSP office helped me significantly in acclimating to Georgetown,” Ladao said. “Without these resources, navigating Georgetown’s campus as a first year would have been much more difficult, [but] fostering inclusion and diversity doesn’t stop with the presence of a multicultural resource center and with the programs it offers. It is an active mission that requires everyone, including faculty and professors, to be on board.”

Gomez praises Georgetown’s New Student Orientation diversity training, as well as the CMEA, but still believes more should be done to compensate students of color who help run these programs.

“Georgetown has the responsibility to ensure that every student feels welcome on campus, and I think the university understands that responsibility,” Gomez said.

“However, a lot of these programs and initiatives are run by students (often students of color) who receive little to no compensation for their work.

I think the next big step is to properly compensate students who take [this] on.”

Botsoe said course offerings at Georgetown have not expanded enough yet to combat issues such as microaggressions, even with the recent addition of the African American studies department.

“The African American studies department is so new, relatively small, and has [few] courses. In a way, it’s an additional afterthought, where Georgetown’s PWI [predominantly white institution] status can contribute to microaggressions where you need to assert yourself as a non-white person if you want to be given space or be recognized.”

Georgetown’s department of African American studies has only existed for about three years. While the university has recently begun to offer an introductory course on Asian American studies, an Asian American studies department has yet to come to fruition.

“Georgetown owes it to its students to actively engage in this goal by having classes, organizations, and faculty directly involved in dialogue that addresses these issues,” Ladao said.

A campaign aimed to educate and spread awareness about microaggressions in the medical field launched at the Georgetown University School of Medicine this week.

The campaign will include 17 educational posters on microaggressions: brief, oftenused phrases that are degrading either intentionally or unintentionally. The posters will be placed around the medical school and define microaggressions as well as propose a plan to deal with such interactions.

The campaign posters will encourage a “Take A.C.T.I.O.N.” approach in response to encounters with microaggressions, inspired by an approach based on research on microaggression and diversity in college classroom.

The plan’s title refers to asking, carefully listening, telling others, considering the impact of one’s comment, owning your response, and looking to take subsequent steps when responding to a microaggressor.

Combating microaggressions helps debunk stereotypes that obscure the diversity that exists within the field of medicine, according to Director of Faculty Development at the University of Nebraska Medical Center Linda Love, who has publicly endorsed the program.

“When our patients don’t recognize our women experts as ‘the doctor,’ it takes a reassuring voice, or two, to help educate patients about their valuable health care team,” Love wrote in an email to The Hoya.

“Every day, we are called to elevate the conversation. Preparation and alertness are key.”

The initiative is developed by the School of Medicine’s Office

of Diversity and Inclusion but was inspired by the medical school’s student-based Council on Diversity Affairs, according to Senior Associate Dean for Diversity and Inclusion Susan Cheng.

“They wanted to both educate and engage our medical school community in dialogue around what microaggressions are, how these commonplace statements, jokes, or actions can occur at anytime and anywhere, and how best to respond to them,” Cheng wrote in an email to The Hoya.

The campaign comes as the medical school is preparing to launch its Bias Reduction Improvement coaching program.

The program aims to educate faculty and staff who would be responsible for holding sensitivity awareness sessions in the medical school. The medical school is in the process of identifying coaches for the program and plans to have the program operational later this year.

Spreading awareness about how to handle microaggressions in the medical field and workplace is an important part of educating students beyond their traditional clinical training, Cheng wrote.

“We train students to be doctors, and that goes beyond anatomy and physiology,” Cheng wrote. “We want our future physicians to have the tools they need on campus and in the workplace to deal with challenging situations whether that be in the various hospitals/ clinic settings over the course of their training, or later when they become care managers and physician leaders.”

The microaggressions campaign drew attention in January after several right-wing publications criticized the program as unnecessary, and rejected the concept of mi-

croaggressions. Georgetown’s microaggression campaign is meant to help students navigate situations where they feel uncomfortable so they can to handle these interactions in real life, Cheng wrote to The Hoya in response to these criticisms.

“Our goal is to give all our medical students a range of tools to choose from that they’ll need to address situations that they find uncomfortable or inappropriate,” Cheng said. “We want our students to be prepared with communication tools to effectively interact with and navigate these distressing situations and to practice responding in real time.”

Learning how to effectively communicate and interact with people of different backgrounds is a crucial skill for medical students to learn, Council on Diversity Affairs member Hamsini Rao (MED ’21) wrote in an email to The Hoya.

“In a rapidly changing world with our communities (and patients) flourishing with diversity, we as providers should learn to communicate effectively, and understand the impact and barriers microaggressions pose to that communication,” Rao wrote. “It’s important that medical students get involved in this process because we are the next generation of leaders.”

As the campaign develops, discussions regarding microaggressions will be incorporated into existing dialogue surrounding diversity in the medicine program, Cheng wrote.

“In the future, the Microaggressions in Medicine Campaign will be integrated into our diversity dialogues in medicine program where our medical students engage each other in conversations around issues of inclusion and diversity,” Cheng wrote.

University Establishes 40 Gender-Neutral Bathrooms MYROSLAV DOBROSHYNSKYI Hoya Staff Writer

Georgetown University began designating 40 single-stall, gender-neutral bathrooms in public buildings throughout campus, an initiative pushed by members of LGBTQ student advocacy groups.

Before the start of the semester, the Office of Planning and Facilities Management received the signs, which are set to identify the new gender-neutral bathrooms, and is in the process of placing them throughout public buildings on campus, according to a university spokesperson.

The LGBTQ Resource Center and Facilities have been working for a year to conduct inspections of single-stall bathrooms in public buildings to ensure that they can be designated as all-gender, according to Director of the LGBTQ Resource Center Sivagami Subbaraman.

Some buildings, such as the Rafik B. Hariri Building and Regents Hall, do not have single-stall bathrooms. Although they do have multi-stall bathrooms with handicap-accessible stalls, assigning multi-stall bathrooms as allgender is not common practice, according to Subbaraman.

The LGBTQ Center used an external consultant to identify which single stall bathrooms in public buildings on campus would satisfy the regulations to be considered all gender, Subbaraman wrote.

The Georgetown University Student Association LGBTQ Inclusivity policy team began the initiative to make single-stall restrooms in public buildings on campus gender-inclusive as well as compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act in March 2017.

The university had already converted many of the larger family bathrooms, such as the bathrooms in the Intercultural Center, into the new gender-neutral bathrooms on campus, according to GUSA LGBTQ+ Policy Chair MacKenzie Grimm (COL ’21).

Still, the university could communicate more openly about its progress on designating genderneutral bathrooms, Grimm said.

“My first semester, I only knew two gender-neutral bathrooms,” Grimm said. “Even though there has been some progress, the university is not super transparent where they are in the stages of development.”

While most single-stall bathrooms comply with the rules for being assigned as all-gender,

not all meet the regulations for handicap access, Subbaraman wrote.

Many of the old buildings met all regulations in place at the time of their construction but have not changed to reflect evolving regulations, according to Grimm.

“A lot of the buildings were made in the fifties, or the sixties, and the stalls are cramped together so it’s not even accessible for anyone at all,” Grimm said.

Although recently the university has been more responsive to students wanting access to singlestall bathrooms, this was not the case last semester, according to Al Castillo (SFS ’22), deputy communications director of GU Pride.

“During my first semester at Georgetown, the option to even access the single-stall bathrooms were unavailable for me,” Castillo wrote in an email to The Hoya. “The single-stall bathroom in the HSFC was always closed, so I was reduced to using the female restrooms. The single-stall bathrooms in Lau were never to be opened.”

In the past, LGBTQ students have voiced concerns over inaccessibility to some gender-neutral bathrooms. Students reported that the single-stall bathrooms meant for all genders were sometimes locked, causing inconveniences for some students.

Using a gendered bathroom has become a source of fear and discomfort for Castillo, who said he tries to avoid gendered bathrooms after experiencing unpleasant stares in both restrooms.

“The last time I used the men’s restroom on campus, the one occupant there quickly stormed off when he caught sight of me,” Castillo wrote. “I feel much more comfortable using the single-

stall restrooms because they allow me to not feel pressure from any other occupants for using the ‘wrong’ bathroom.”

The administration has been receptive to student advocacy on gender-neutral bathrooms, according to Crossroads Living Learning Community faculty adviser April Sizemore-Barber.

Crossroads is a living learning community centered on gender and sexuality located in Village C East.

“Gender neutral restrooms have been a priority for LGBTQ students on campus for quite some time now,” Sizemore-Barber wrote in an email to The Hoya.

“It is great that the university has been responsive to the concerns of students who, essentially, just want to be able to pee in peace.”

The decision to install genderinclusive signage comes amid reduced national protections for trans students. In recent years, the federal government has overturned previous legislation regarding rules on bathrooms for transgender students. In 2017, President Donald Trump rolled back federal protections for transgender students in public schools, reversing former President Barack Obama’s policy.

The expansion of the genderneutral restrooms helps to fight the marginalization of trans identities on campus, SizemoreBarber wrote.

“The university’s action expresses solidarity with and concern for its trans/non-binary students’ wellbeing,”SizemoreBarber wrote. “The visibility of gender neutral bathrooms will hopefully further normalize trans presence on campus and make trans/non-binary students feel more comfortable and supported while at Georgetown.”

ASHLEY CHEN/THE HOYA

The Office of Planning and Facilities Management began designating 40 new gender-neutral bathrooms in public buildings across campus.

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THE HOYA

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2019

DC Circulator to Provide Free Georgetown Exorcist Steps Receive Transportation in February Historic Landmark Designation MAXWELL SHEREMETA Hoya Staff Writer

The D.C. Circulator system of public buses is free of charge for all riders between Jan. 28 and Feb. 28 as part of Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser’s (D) “#FairShotFebruary” initiative.

The Circulator is a six-line system of buses that connect major tourist, business and cultural attractions in D.C. and Rosslyn, Va. Ordinarily, trips cost a flat $1 fare. Making the Circulator free is a way to increase economic opportunity for D.C. residents, according to Bowser.

“We’re kicking off Fair Shot February by making it easier for Washingtonians to get where they need to go and connect to opportunities across DC,” Bowser wrote in a Jan. 25 news release.

“A free Circulator is one way we can use our resources to break down barriers to opportunity.”

Fair Shot February is a campaign launched by the mayor’s office to improve access to city services for working class D.C. residents. Fair Shot February comes on the heels of Mayor Bowser’s October investments in infrastructure and affordable housing among other public services as part of her Fair Shot budget, which she introduced in March 2018.

Georgetown students can access the Circulator via the Blue line, with stops located along M Street, and the Yellow line, with stops along Wisconsin Avenue.

Though the initiative will ease transportation costs for riders,

the campaign could have been better publicized, Grace Ring (COL ’21) wrote in an email to The Hoya.

“I love the Circulator because it is cheap, easy and fast but there was not a lot of advertising so I did not pick up that it was free for the whole month,” Ring wrote.

With no Metro stops, Georgetown has a limited selection of public transportation options for its residents. The Circulator, as well as the city bus, provides Georgetown residents access into Washington, D.C. When the District officially began plans for the Metro in the early 1960s, a proposed Georgetown stop was left on the drawing board due to opposition from residents as well as concerns with the feasibility of construction.

The free ride program roughly coincides with similar efforts from Maryland’s MARC commuter rail and Montgomery County’s Ride On shuttle system, both of which became free to ride for government workers during the 35-day government shutdown last December and January, according to The Washington Post.

The cost of the program has not yet been determined by the Mayor’s office, and funding sources remain unclear. These details are likely to be clarified when the city finalizes its new budget later this year, according to the news release.

The campaign also includes a series of budget engagement forums. These forums will give

Washingtonians an opportunity to voice their opinions about D.C.’s municipal budget before it is finalized, according to the news release.

In addition to the Circulator free ride program and budget engagement forums, Mayor Bowser has also held town halls under the Fair Shot February branding to discuss various city services and programs.

As part of Fair Shot February, the city has also announced a $100,000 grant to assist District residents seeking to apply for citizenship. In partnership with the National Immigration Forum, the program will provide up to $725 to workers in both the government and private sector who are seeking U.S. citizenship.

The money would help offset the costs from application fees, English classes and legal counsel, which can often be a cost burden for prospective immigrants, according to a Feb. 4 news release.

The fund enables immigrants to pursue citizenship while providing advantages for the city as well, according to Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum.

“This fund will help new Americans reach their full potential as U.S. citizens, and all District residents will benefit because of its positive effects on the community and economy,” Noorani said in the news release.

“We are proud to partner with Mayor Bowser on this initiative that’s a win-win for Washington, D.C., businesses and employees alike.”

DUSTIN HARTUV Hoya Staff Writer

The Georgetown Exorcist Steps became recognized as a historic landmark after the Washington, D.C., Historic Preservation Review Board approved their application Jan. 24.

The Prospect Street Citizens Association, a local group that advocates for the neighborhood, filed the application Sept. 25 of last year, citing the historical significance of D.C.’s streetcar system to its designation as a landmark.

The steps, which were originally built in 1895 during the construction of the Car Barn, gained their fame from the 1973 film “The Exorcist,” one of the most profitable horror movies ever made, according to Forbes.

The application was reviewed by the Historic Preservation Review Board, which communicates with the mayor on matters of historic preservation and designates historic property, created its own report citing the steps’ history as the main reason why they should be designated a historic landmark. Instead of the stairs’ appearance in “The Exorcist,” the report points to the stairs’ history as part of the Capital Traction Company Union Station, where it served as a station and barn for streetcars until 1950. The building, now known as the Car Barn, houses many of Georgetown’s

undergraduate and graduate academic programming.

In addition to the steps, the adjacent Car Barn and retaining wall were also given historic status.

While the neighborhood of Georgetown has already been designated a historic neighborhood, the additional designation would acknowledge the specific importance of the steps, according to Jacqueline Drayer, the D.C. Preservation League’s outreach and grant manager.

“Being designated an individual landmark conveys that the site has a high level of significance on its own, not just in the context of the neighborhood,” Grant wrote in an email to The Hoya. “The other important thing that individual designation does for the site is to document its history and appearance in greater detail.”

The official recognition of the steps also helps draw public attention to the Georgetown community, according to D.C. Office of Planning Communications Officer Mekdy Alemayehu.

“The historic landmark designation of the Car Barn and its adjacent walls and steps recognizes the unique architectural qualities of the complex and its various uses over a long span of history,” Alemayehu wrote in an email to The Hoya.

The Prospect Street Citizens Association filed the applica-

tion to ensure the protection of the steps while condos are being built at the former Exxon Mobil station on M Street, according to DCist. The Historic Landmark and Historic Preservation Act of 1978 ensures that any tampering with historic landmarks requires approval from the mayor.

In light of this new status, the steps are set to receive several benefits, including additional protections and tax incentives, according to Drayer.

“As a historic landmark— and previously, as contributing resources to Georgetown Historic District—these resources’ exteriors cannot be significantly altered without review,” Drayer wrote. “Designation of a site also opens up the possibility for owners to take advantage of incentives, such as the National Rehabilitation Tax Credit, for qualifying projects.”

Although the steps did not gain their landmark status due to their portrayal in “The Exorcist,” the film has been influential in public knowledge of the landmark, Matthew Hua (COL ’22), a Georgetown student and D.C. native, said.

“Growing up just outside of D.C. and going to Georgetown men’s basketball games, my father would always mention the Exorcist Steps every basketball season,” Hua said. “The film has shaped the stairs’ fame. Everything I know about the steps starts with the movie.

Polar Vortex Temperatures Hurt DC Homeless Community ERIKA GEBHARDT Special to The Hoya

ELIZABETH WARREN

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), second from left, launched a petition in support of D.C. statehood Jan. 28. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D.C.’s delegate to the House, introduced a D.C. statehood bill Jan. 3.

Presidential Candidate Warren Voices Support for DC Statehood TAYLOR KAHN-PERRY Special to The Hoya

Presidential candidate and U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) supported statehood for Washington, D.C., in a tweet calling on followers to sign her petition to make D.C. the 51st state Jan. 28.

Warren’s petition for D.C. statehood comes on the heels of her Dec. 31 launch of her presidential exploratory committee and amid a strong push from local politicians to increase autonomy for the District.

Warren’s support for D.C. statehood, however, is not a new development. Warren cosponsored legislation aimed toward achieving D.C. statehood in 2014, 2015 and 2017.

Residents of the District are a significant disenfranchised population, Warren wrote in a tweet.

“700,000 people is more than the populations of Wyoming or Vermont. But DC residents don’t have an equal voice in our government – despite paying federal taxes,” Warren tweeted.

Washington, D.C., operates as a district under federal jurisdiction rather than as a traditionally represented state. D.C. voters regularly participate in mayoral and city council elections and elect a delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives. The delegate can only participate in procedural votes, however, and cannot vote on the House floor.

Eleanor Holmes Norton, D.C.’s delegate to the House, introduced a D.C. statehood bill H.R. 51, the D.C. Admission Act, to the 116th Congress on

Jan. 3. The bill has gained more support than previous statehood efforts, and currently has 194 cosponsors in the House, all of whom are Democrats.

Norton announced the bill in a joint press conference Jan. 4 with D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, who is an active proponent of statehood for D.C. Bowser frequently cites the nearly 80 percent of D.C. voters who supported a 2016 D.C. ballot advisory referendum in favor of statehood. Norton’s bill is part of a series of bills called “Free and Equal D.C.” that aim to increase the District’s independence and seek statehood.

However, because D.C. votes overwhelmingly Democratic in presidential elections, support for D.C. statehood tends to track closely with political party affiliation, according to Hans Noel, a professor of government at Georgetown, whose research focuses on political parties, polarization and ideology.

“Completely separate from any sort of merits of whether or not D.C. should be a state, the partisan division has been pretty clear for some time now,” Noel said in an interview The Hoya.

Warren’s endorsement of D.C. statehood makes sense because of its large popularity among Democratic voters, Noel said. He sees D.C. statehood as a likely point of consensus among Democratic presidential primary candidates.

“A lot of Democrats have long thought that this would be a great idea to address what Democrats see as in imbalance in the Senate over representing rural states. Republicans

have likewise been opposed because they see it as a way of giving extra votes to the Democrats,” Noel said.

The issue fits as a component of the larger narrative Democrats are crafting about voting rights and voter disenfranchisement, according to Noel.

“It’s a very different issue technically from, say, voter ID laws, but they’re both very similar in they let us get more representation and worry about the folks that are disenfranchised,” Noel said. “It’s hard to make a really good case against representation of people who are Americans and should be able to vote.”

Discussion of D.C. statehood and even representation within American territories ought to be encouraged, Georgetown College Democrats Chair Rebecca Hollister (COL ’20) wrote in an email to The Hoya.

“Everyone always says DC Statehood is ‘never going to happen,’ but that is only true as long as no one is talking about it,” Hollister wrote. “I’m very pleased to see big-name candidates discussing this issue and hope that it continues.”

Navigating the constitutional requirements for bringing a new state into the union and changing the District’s representation and role are complicated legal questions, and it may be a long time before efforts surrounding D.C. statehood culminate into actual policy change, according to Noel.

“There may well be progress on it, but it’s an uphill fight for Democrats and for the district,” Noel said.

People experiencing homelessness in Washington, D.C., faced increased risk of hypothermia from freezing temperatures and extreme wind chill brought by last week’s polar vortex.

The Arctic cold front plunged 72 percent of the continental U.S. population into recordbreaking freezing temperatures, according to CNN. In D.C., temperatures dropped to a low of 10.4 degrees Fahrenheit on Jan. 29 and a low of 12.02 F on Jan. 30.

Polar vortexes — wide expanses of cold air swirling around the North Pole — usually remain stable, resting 60,000 feet high in the atmosphere. However, when the vortex is disrupted, it can bring large amounts of Arctic air to the Northern Hemisphere, according to The Washington Post.

These freezing conditions are of particular concern for those experiencing homelessness in the District due to prolonged exposure to the cold. The recent polar vortex put them at an increased risk for experiencing hypothermia.

Homeless shelters in the District have taken extra measures to accommodate these especially low temperatures, according to a spokesperson for the D.C. Office of the Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services.

“We have more capacity for hypothermia nights and extreme cold nights, which is the highest level of concern,” the spokesperson said in an interview with The Hoya. “We plan

for increased numbers during times like the polar vortex to accommodate those that don’t normally seek out shelter in other conditions.”

As of Feb. 1, 1,765 beds were occupied in D.C. shelters by individuals seeking safety from the conditions outside, according to the Office of the Deputy Mayor spokesperson. Last winter, the city estimated its homeless population to be at approximately 7,000 people.

The District government activated a cold weather emergency alert Jan. 31 due to the temperature and wind chill drop.

When the alert is activated, all low-barrier shelters — shelters that house individuals without requirements such as sobriety or a drug test — remain open 24 hours a day for the duration of the extreme weather conditions.

The Washington, D.C. Congregation of the Church of Christ, which provides shelter for up to 30 women on a nightly basis, experienced an influx of individuals seeking shelter during the recent polar vortex, according to church spokesperson Kevin Bryant.

“The operation of the shelter continued through the polar vortex to provide maximum support during those most brutal days,” Bryant wrote in an email to The Hoya. “Attendance at the shelter did increase beyond the norm on those days.”

Bryant said that he had spoken with individuals who feared for their safety and knew others who had died during the polar vortex.

The Department of Health and Human Services has a call

center that works to increase accessibility to shelters by providing rides to individuals who either contact the center themselves or are identified by a member of the public as needing assistance.

Using this resource, the public can play a role in aiding those experiencing homelessness, according to a spokesperson from the Office of the Deputy Mayor.

“We call on members of the public to be our partner to call a shelter hotline when the see someone who needs help outside,” the spokesperson said in an interview for The Hoya.

Georgetown students can volunteer for the Homelessness Outreach, Meals and Education program through the Center for Social Justice. The program promotes advocacy campaigns and service opportunities, according to the program website.

The program includes a Hypothermia Outreach Team that focuses on aiding those experiencing homelessness during the winter months, according to the HOME program coordinator.

HOT teams walk in and around Georgetown on cold nights when individuals staying outside might be in danger of hypothermia and frostbite.

The students call the shelter hotline to request a transportation service for anyone who wants to go to a shelter, provide warming supplies to those who wish to stay outside and call emergency services for those experiencing illness or hypothermia.

COMMUNITY CHURCH OF CHRIST

Temperatures dropped to 10.4 degrees Fahrenheit on Jan. 29. The city gave a cold weather emergency alert because of the low temperatures, opening all low-barrier shelters during the extreme weather period.

NEWS

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2019

THE HOYA

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Activists Oppose GU Solar Project Norton Moves To Create DC Local Prosecutor

JOSH METZGER Hoya Staff Writer

Georgetown University’s plans to build a solar power facility in Maryland that would clear-cut 240 acres of forest have drawn calls from local environmentalists to change the location of the proposed solar panels.

While the project would contribute to the university’s goal of halving greenhouse gas emissions by the 2019-20 academic year, it would also deforest 240 acres of land that act as a carbon sink, preventing the gas from going into the atmosphere.

Clearing the forest to install solar panels may tarnish popular support for renewable energy, according to Bonnie Bick, an activist in the Southern Maryland chapter of the Sierra Club, a national environmental preservation organization.

“This is counterproductive for solar in general because it gives solar a bad name,” Bick said in an interview with The Hoya.

“This is not where solar should be located. And by locating it here, they are doing a disservice to solar because the negative impacts are unacceptable.”

A university spokesperson declined to comment on whether the university was changing the location of the solar project.

Georgetown first partnered with Origis Energy USA, a solar energy company, in September 2017 to build the La Plata, Maryland 32.5-megawatt off-site solar power system. The panels would produce 75,000 megawatt hours of power each year and provide for about 50 percent of the university’s energy needs in the 2019-20 school year, according to a company press release. Origis estimates the project will be operational by June 2019.

Georgetown should have included student voices more in the development of its solar project, as many are unsure of their support of the placement of the panels, according to Samantha Panchèvre (SFS ’19), Georgetown University Student Association senior sustainability chair.

“If the University had been intentional about engaging students and communicating the rationale for choosing La Plata

CONNOR THOMAS Hoya Staff Writer

FILE PHOTO: ANNA KOVACEVICH/THE HOYA

Local environmentalists have called for Georgetown University to change the location of its proposed solar power facility in La Plata, Md. The project would deforest 240 acres of land. as well as the benefits this specific site would bring, then I think students would feel a lot more comfortable with this project — but most of us are in the dark, so we can’t fully support it,” Panchèvre wrote in an email to The Hoya.

The Georgetown Environmental Leaders Network, managed by the GUSA Sustainability division, is set to hold a public forum to gather more student perspectives on the project Feb. 10.

Georgetown is committed to halving its greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 and will conduct ongoing reviews of the project, according to a university spokesperson.

“We’re engaging a third party expert to assess the existing, extensive studies and review of this offsite solar project to ensure it is conducted in an ecologically responsible way,” the spokesperson wrote in an email to The Hoya.

The project’s reduction in greenhouse gas emissions would be similar to planting 429,000 trees, the spokesperson wrote. This estimate was found using the Environmental Protection Agency’s emissions reduction calculator.

While installing renewable energy is important, efforts should not be implemented

without regard to other environmental considerations, Sierra Club member and nearby resident Ben Hance wrote in an email obtained to GU Fossil Free, a club pushing for the university to divest from non-renewable energy, “Renewable energy is the future, but its growth must be the result of a thoughtful process that accounts for more than just the carbon balance sheet for electricity usage,” Hance wrote in an email obtained by The Hoya.

The area has been named “the best of the best” by the Department of Natural Resources, and was designated as an Important Bird Area for its role as a habitat for the state’s rarest plants and animals, according to the Maryland Audubon Society, a group that works to protect the habitats of birds.

Origis plans to permanently limit use of more than half of the 537 acres it purchased for conservation purposes. The company also plans to conserve that land through building a habitat and protecting waterways, according to the company’s proposal to the Maryland Public Service Commission.

Origis chose the location because the land was unfarmed, the company could gain a permit to install solar panels and power lines were nearby, ac-

cording to Origis spokesperson Glenna Wiseman.

The proposal was unanimously approved by the Charles County Board of Appeals, though a motion for reconsideration was denied, Wiseman wrote in an email to The Hoya.

As part of the agreement, Origis plans to contribute to scholarships for low-income undergraduate students with demonstrated financial need.

The project is critical to Georgetown’s sustainability and carbon emissions goals, according to Robin Morey, vice president of Planning and Facilities Management.

“This strategic partnership with Origis supports Georgetown’s carbon footprint reduction goals while providing long term energy price stability,” Morey said in a Sept. 18 statement announcing the project.

Still, Georgetown should change the location of this solar project due to the environmental harms of deforesting land, Lisa Redding, a resident near the planned site who has been vocal of her opposition, wrote in an email to The Hoya.

“Georgetown University can direct their contractor to find a better location,” Redding wrote. “It may be cheap for Origis to destroy forests but the loss to society is not.”

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) introduced a bill to establish a local prosecutor for Washington, D.C. on Jan. 31 as part of a larger push for autonomy in the District.

Currently, federal prosecutors from the Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia handle criminal cases in the District. These prosecutors are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate with no input from D.C. residents. D.C. is the only current U.S. territory without a local prosecutor.

The U.S. Attorney should be focusing on prosecuting federal crimes instead of pursuing local matters, Norton said.

“A U.S. Attorney has no business prosecuting the local crimes of a jurisdiction, an out-of-date status quo that harkens to pre-home-rule D.C.,” Norton said in a Jan. 31 news release. “My bill simply gives D.C. the same authority that the states and U.S. territories enjoy as an essential element of self-government.”

In every other U.S. city, prosecutors of serious local crimes are either elected or appointed by local officials. Local crimes comprise the majority of U.S. Attorneys’ cases in D.C., according to a press release from Norton’s office.

The Office of the Attorney General has the capacity to prosecute additional adult offenses, and a local prosecutor would afford D.C. a welcome amount of autonomy, D.C.’s current Attorney General Karl A. Racine said.

“Congresswoman Norton’s proposal would give the District’s more than 700,000 residents a further measure of self-governance that we currently lack and deserve,” Racine wrote in an email to The

Hoya. “The bill would implement the will of District voters in a 2002 referendum to create a local prosecutor’s office.”

In 2002 D.C. residents passed a referendum advising that the Home Rule Act should be amended to establish an Office of the District Attorney for the District of Columbia, headed by a locally elected, independent district attorney. No bill has been passed regarding a district attorney in the District since this referendum.

Norton’s bill is the latest in her “Free and Equal D.C.” series of legislation, which aims to give D.C. citizens more equality and autonomy while pursuing statehood.

As part of “Free and Equal D.C.,” Norton also introduced a bill allowing the Washington, D.C. Council to pass laws without waiting for review from Congress on Jan. 24. The bill would eliminate the congressional review periods of 30 and 60 days from civil and criminal legislation, respectively, during which Congress can pass a resolution effectively vetoing the law in question.

The 1973 D.C. Home Rule Act, which established the D.C. Council, was the last major expansion of district autonomy from the federal government.

Norton introduced H.R. 51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act, which would make the district the 51st state in the union, Jan. 3. The bill earned a record 155 original cosponsors, a number which has now grown to 194.

“We are gratified by the overwhelming support from my Democratic colleagues as we seize this new moment for statehood and press our bill in the 116th Congress with unprecedented momentum,” Norton told the Washington Examiner on Jan 3.

Disaster Relief Program Wins at Hoya Hacks ALEXANDRA BOWMAN Hoya Staff Writer

A group of students that created a program to aid relief efforts for natural disasters won $500 at the fourth annual Hoya Hacks, which lasted from Friday evening until Sunday afternoon.

The 36-hour event invites undergraduates from any university to compete on teams to design projects and programs consistent with a particular theme. This year, students were encouraged to create projects focused on social impact. The competition offers multiple, more specific subdivisions of the general theme of the event, allowing students to tailor their projects to specific goals.

The winning group, The Plastic Chickens, created Project Reach, a program aiming to make it easier for potential donors to find charities and resources for those affected by natural disasters, according to the team’s website.

The Plastic Chickens is comprised of Alyssa Schilke, a junior at Loyola University Maryland; Sarah Kiel, a junior at Lehigh University; Collins Nji, a freshman at Frederick Community College and Adeeb Abbas, a freshman at Drexel University. Though many groups come to the competition formed already, the winning group met for the first time and formed at Hoya Hacks.

The project originated from the group’s desire to help those who were eager to provide for people in need, according to Nji. INDEX “We know in Chicago, it’s so cold, and hospitals must be reallyMISCELLANEOUS overworked,” Nji said. “It all comes down to wanting to help people who you want to help but don’t know how. It’s hard when you have the resources and money and want to help people but don’t know how you can help.”

The website works by connecting people with charities, allowing them to track organizations by location and donate money.

“You can get close to the disasters happening. There’s a map in our program, where you can find the disaster and find charities where you can send money,” Kiel said.

The team competed in Hoya Hacks simply to enjoy a new experience, according to Nji. “Honestly, it was more

KIKI SCHMALFUSS/THE HOYA

Approximately 250 people from various universities attended the fourth annual Hoya Hacks event at Georgetown last weekend. about just having fun. It was a learning experience, where we all learned something new related to web development and helping people in need,” Nji said. “This event is about working on a team in general, and also just having fun.”

Though proud of their finished work, the team ran into major problems after a glitch caused their entire program to stop working, according to Nji. “We had made the whole application by 3:30 a.m., when I went to sleep. I woke up around 7:15, and I came back, did some minor changes, and the whole application broke,” Nji said. “We left 39 minutes to submission, and we literally figured out the problem five minutes before the submission deadline.”

One of the virtues of this particular hack-athon is the fact that students from multiple universities can meet for the first time and collaborate on a project for 36 hours together, according to co-director of Hoya Hacks Brandon Herren (COL ’21). Hoya Hacks reaches out to students at other universities by reaching out to student computer science organizations, Herren said.

Hoya Hacks was attended by around 250 people and sponsored by companies including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Verizon and Google, according to Herren. Representatives from major sponsors attended the event and provided insight to student hackers, Herren said.

Participants in the event also had

CLASSIFIEDS

the opportunity to network with and have their resumes reviewed by sponsors of the event, some of which were prepared to offer internships to participants.

The hack-athon finds many of its participants through connections its established at universities around the country, according to co-director Aleida Olvera (COL ’20).

“We reach out to departments at other schools and their communication services,” Olvera said. “We contact every school in the D.C. area and the big schools on the East Coast. We have an established presence here in D.C. People know that Georgetown has a hack-athon and are interested in what it is.”

Hack-athons have been around for around 14 years, with the first hack-athon taking place in Calgary, Canada. The goal of a hack-athon is to bring programmers and designers together to complete a functional project in the time allotted. The Bay Area, which is home to companies such as Google and Apple, hosts hundreds of hack-athons. Hoya Hacks was founded four years ago to bring the culture of hackathons to Georgetown, according to Herren.

“I’m personally from the Bay Area — I grew up in a culture of hack-athons,” Herren said. “We kind of wanted to bring the same kind of spirit to Georgetown. We wanted to give opportunities to all of these people who came to make projects and make them happen.”

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SPORTS

THE HOYA

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2019

MEN'S BASKETBALL

TRACK AND FIELD

Hoyas Earn Top-10 Finishes Ewing Lands Another Star Big Man in Qudus Wahab At BU,Villanova Meets JOANNA LACOPPOLA

SEAN HAGGERTY

The Georgetown track and field team spread themselves between Massachusetts and New York last Saturday, with some runners competing in Staten Island in the Villanova Invitational, and others running in Boston in the Scarlet and White Invitational.

At the Villanova Invitational, the women’s team performed well in several events, including the 200-meter dash, in which graduate student Taylor Williams came in first place, finishing with a season’s best of 24.43 seconds.

Track and field Associate Coach Alton McKenzie was pleased with Williams’ race, along with her impressive performance in the 60-meter dash.

“Taylor came off a season's best earlier in the meet running the 60-m, and it was a perfect set up for her to run a good 200m,” McKenzie said. “[Our] goal for the rest of the season is just to keep her healthy and be ready for more big performances during the championship portion of the season.”

Sophomore Lexi Del Gizzo ran strong in her first 800-meter race of the season, finishing in the top 10 with a time of 2:13.19. Her classmate, sophomore Cassidy Palmer, also performed well, finishing the 60-meter dash with a personal best of 7.73 seconds before qualifying for finals, in which she finished sixth place overall.

The men’s team had a robust performance in the 200-meter dash, with sophomores Nate Alleyne and Lawrence Leake snagging third and fourth place respectively, followed closely by freshman D’Andre Barriffe in fifth place. These three underclassmen now hold the top three times for the 200 in the Big East.

After witnessing solid performances from the team, McKenzie speculated about the future of these Hoyas.

“Our depth in the men's 200-meter was on full display,” McKenzie said. “I'm looking forward to seeing what we can do later in the year with Nate, Lawrence

Qudus Wahab, a 6-foot-10 center and four-star ranked recruit, announced he would be taking his talents to Georgetown on Jan. 30. Wahab — a Nigerian native and current senior at Flint Hill School in Ashburn, Va. — is a major addition for the Hoyas to replace current star senior center Jessie Govan.

Head Coach Patrick Ewing (CAS ’85) has demonstrated his success in building and developing the frontcourt at Georgetown, and recruits are seeking the coaching of Ewing, an NBA Hall of Fame center.

Wahab chose the Hoyas over a number of top-tier programs including Louisville, Clemson, St. John’s, Pitt, Seton Hall and Syracuse, an archrival of the Hoyas. Wahab was the seventhranked player in the state of Virginia and the 31st-ranked center in the nation, according to The Washington Post.

Wahab immigrated from Ni-

Hoya Staff Writer

Hoya Staff Writer

GUHOYAS

Senior Spencer Brown finished eighth overall in the mile event at the Villanova Invitational with a time of 4:04.35. and D'Andre."

Further up the east coast in the Scarlet and White Invitational, the Hoyas performed well in a series of events. Senior Spencer Brown finished in eighth place overall in the mile event with a time of 4:04.35, tightly followed by junior Jack Salisbury, who came in ninth place just four milliseconds behind Brown.

Salisbury and Brown have room for improvement before racing again, track and field Assistant Coach Brandon Bonsey said.

“The race just went out really really slow. There was a pacer in there, but no one went with the pace. The first 200 was the slowest 200 of the race, which is not normal,” Bonsey said. “They ran really hard from 200 to 1400 [meters] and then the last lap the wheels fell off a little bit, but if they can just get in a race that’s a little bit more evenly paced, then I think that they can run quite a bit faster than what they ran.”

Junior Joshua Bell, along with freshmen Ian Delgado and Ethan Delgado, ran strong in the 800.

Bell finished in eighth place over-

all with a time of 1:51.34, followed closely behind by Ian Delgado, who came in ninth place with a time of 1:51.72.

Bonsey was pleased with Ian Delgado’s race and his poise so early in his collegiate career.

“I think Ian is a really talented runner coming out of high school. This is his first collegiate 800-meter race, [so] I think he can get a lot better,” Bonsey said. “He was one of the top middle-distance recruits in the country and can certainly develop into one of the best middle distance runners in the NCAA.” He was equally impressed with Bell’s 800 race.

“Bell won the heat in that race [with a new] PR in the 800, so I think he’s in great shape,” Bonsey said. “Ethan Delgado ran a twosecond PR in the 800 as well, so I thought the 800 overall was a very good event for us,” Bonsey said.

The teams will now prepare for their upcoming races this weekend, which will begin Friday, Feb. 8. They will be traveling to Ames, Iowa, to compete in the Iowa State Classic.

geria to Virginia four years ago.

He played his freshman and sophomore seasons at Virginia Academy before transferring to Flint Hill. Wahab certainly made his mark during his time at Flint Hill, as his high school coach Rico Reed recently spoke glowingly of his center in an interview with The Washington Post.

“I’m just extremely excited for a young man who set his sights on getting better and improving, I know that his better days are ahead of him,” Reed said.

“Proud is probably not the right term to use. I am ecstatic and almost emotional at the opportunities that is ahead for him.”

His height and athletic frame enable him to run the floor well and be a strong rim protector on the defensive end. He has an explosive jump and great instincts as a shot blocker. On the other end of the floor, Wahab is excellent at finishing around the rim, especially out of the pick and roll. He has also worked on his right-handed hook shot — a low-post play that Govan has

lived off of during his time at Georgetown.

Wahab has stood out among other high school talent for his strong defensive play and ability to block shots and rebound.

Wahab has revealed an outstanding combination of size and athleticism on the offensive side and has developed significantly since moving from Nigeria. Last summer, Wahab led his AAU team to the Under Armour tournament championship, proving he could play at a high level against the best in the nation. Wahab averaged over 20 points and 10 rebounds in the tournament.

With the addition of Wahab to Georgetown, the Hoyas now rank inside the top 50 for class recruiting rankings and fourth in the Big East. Although Govan graduates this spring, Georgetown now has a plethora of big men including Wahab, North Carolina State transfer Omer Yurtseven and other two center signees Malcolm Wilson and Timothy Igohoefe to join the team’s young guards.

@DMVELITE80/TWITTER

Four-star center Qudus Wahab from Flint Hill School in Ashburn, Va., chose to commit to play for the Hoyas next season Jan. 30. GU now ranks inside the top 50 in 2019 class recruiting.

WOMENS BASKETBALL

FREE KICK

GU Bounces Back With 2 Road Wins Recent Higuaín

BEN GAVER

Hoya Staff Writer

After consecutive losses on the road to St. John’s and Seton Hall last week, the Georgetown women’s basketball team returned to McDonough Arena last weekend for backto-back games of conference play. On Friday, led by an outstanding performance from graduate student guard Dorothy Adomako, the Blue and Gray defeated the Creighton Blue Jays 62-53. They followed that win with another 61-56 victory over Providence on Sunday.

The Hoyas (11-11, 5-6 Big East) got off to a slow start over Creighton (10-12, 4-7 Big East), failing to score in nearly the whole first four minutes of regulation. However, the play of Adomako propelled the Hoyas to a 12-7 lead by the end of the first quarter, which the team expanded to a 10-point lead by the end of the first half due to stellar play from the bench. Freshman guard Nikola Kovacikova hit two three-pointers midway

through the quarter.

After halftime, the Blue and Gray continued to build on their lead, which grew as large as 17 points during the third quarter. Georgetown finished the quarter with a 45-30 cushion after a three-pointer from senior guard Brianna Jones dropped in with three seconds on the clock.

Georgetown maintained their lead throughout the final frame. A late-scoring run

by Creighton cut the deficit to just four with 30 seconds remaining on the clock. However, Creighton brought too little, too late as Georgetown went on to win 62-53.

Georgetown’s leaders stepped up in order to claim the victory. Adomako finished with a double-double that included 23 points and 12 rebounds, while senior guard Dionna White finished with 13 points and eight rebounds of her own. The Hoyas were outrebounded by the Blue Jays 41-38, but they managed to shoot almost 10 percent better from the field. This performance was key to their success.

Several Hoyas also came up big on the defensive end, including junior guard Morgan Smith. Head Coach James Howard commented on her performance.

“Morgan Smith did a great job defending Audrey Faber and her defense really helped us, holding her to less than 20 points,” Howard said.

The Hoyas took to McDonough Arena again on Sunday against Providence (13-10, 5-6 Big East) in another crucial Big East matchup. In the first quarter, the Hoyas clung to a tight lead and finished the quarter with a two point lead.

White scored 11 of the Blue and Gray’s first 19 points. After opening the second quarter with another quick five points from White, the Friars closed the gap and trailed by just one going into halftime.

The game would continue to be a hard-fought affair. The Hoyas found themselves leading 39-36 entering the final quarter. A quick run by Providence early in the fourth put the Hoyas down two with 6:28 left on the clock. However, behind efficient scoring from

Adomako and graduate student guard Mikayla Venson, Georgetown went on to recapture the lead and win the game 61-56.

Adomako finished with 20 points, while Venson finished with 16. White also chipped in 19 points of her own. The Hoyas outrebounded the Friars 43-38, and despite shooting at a slightly lower percentage overall, the team managed to shoot 38.5 percent from behind the arc compared to Providence’s 28.6 percent.

After the contest, Howard was impressed with his team’s performance to close out the game.

“For us to be able to pull away and get the stops at the end I'm proud of them,” Howard said in a postgame interview with GUHoyas. “Fourth quarters have been our Achilles heel and tonight we were able to do that which will help us going forward."

The women’s basketball team will return to hardwood Feb. 8 as they travel to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to face Marquette University as a part of a three-game road stretch.

KIRK ZIESER/THE HOYA

Senior guard Brianna Jones, center, closes out a Villanova shooter at the three-point line. In their two road wins, the Hoyas were led by graduate student guard Dorothy Adomako, who had back-to-back double-doubles, including 23 points and 13 boards in a win over Creighton.

Signing Renews Chelsea's Hopes Dean Hampers

Gonzalo Higuaín’s reputation in the world of soccer could hardly be more mixed.

The enigmatic Argentine striker is famous for his misses on large stages, including a golden chance in front of the goalkeeper at the 2014 World Cup Final that could have brought the most prestigious soccer trophy back to one of the world’s most passionate fan bases.

His failures to convert opportunities the following year in the Copa America Final, both in regulation and during the decisive penalty shootout, certainly did not help his standing in his home country or among critics.

Despite his struggles on the international scene, Higuaín is a highly talented finisher who has enjoyed a successful career in Italy’s top league, Serie A, over the past 5 and a half seasons.

His best statistical season to date came with Napoli in 201516, his last season before being traded to Juventus, when he notched a remarkable 36 goals in 35 appearances.

The manager presiding over Higuaín’s career year that season was Maurizio Sarri, who now holds the top job at Chelsea. So when Chelsea was in need of a striker in the middle of this season, Higuaín appeared to be a natural fit and signed a loan deal with the club worth 31.3 million British pounds.

In only his second league appearance for Chelsea on Saturday, Higuaín scored two goals — a first-time finish at the near post in the first half and a stunning curler from outside the box in the second half. He led Chelsea to a 5-0 win over Huddersfield.

The value of a striker with

a keen eye for goal cannot be overstated, particularly for Chelsea. In the first 23 games of the season before signing Higuaín, the team’s two strikers Olivier Giroud and Alvaro Morata combined for a weak six total goals.

It is frankly surprising that such poor performance in the penalty area did not cause more harm to the team’s record, but an in-shape Eden Hazard on the wing and an incredibly wellrounded N’Golo Kanté in midfield have kept Chelsea in contention for the Premier League top four this season.

Chelsea still faces a difficult battle for the top four with a surging Manchester United squad under newly appointed manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer sitting only two points behind and an Arsenal team that recently handed Chelsea a 2-0 defeat only three points outside the top four.

The challenge is amplified by the fact that the team has shown serious vulnerability on the defensive side, most notably in an abysmal 4-0 loss to Bournemouth on Jan. 30. The play of the club’s keeper Kepa Arrizabalaga has also been subpar.

However, Chelsea have more than enough talent in their lineup to compete with the best English clubs. If Kanté can focus primarily on defending, and if center backs David Luiz and Antonio Rudiger can drop back and defend counterattacks, Chelsea should hold up defensively.

If Higuaín is utilized properly, he will continue to link up with Hazard on one-two passes and receive crosses from fast players on the edge like Willian Borges da Silva. Such attacking interplay should create plenty of offensive opportunities, and Chelsea finally have a player in Higuaín who can convert them into goals.

Fans can only hope the demons of the World Cup do not come back to haunt Higuaín.

Dean Hampers is a junior in the College. FREE KICK appears every other Friday.

SPORTS

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2019

MEN’S BASKETBALL

Pats Crowned Champs in Defensive Battle

SHEEL PATEL/THE HOYA

Sophomore guard Jamorko Pickett, right, looks to senior forward Trey Mourning, left, in the post. Mourning had 12 points against Villanova.

Georgetown Sits at 3rd In Big East Following Latest Road Trip

coming from Rams punter Johnny Hekker. On his team’s eighth consecutive punt since the game’s beginning — a Super Bowl record — Hekker booted a 65-yard punt: another Super Bowl record. He finished the game with five punts downed within New England’s 20-yard line, giving his team a field position advantage to stay in the game.

On Los Angeles’ next possession, Goff was able to drive the Rams into their opponent’s territory. The team was able to secure its first third-down conversion of the day and almost found the endzone on a Goff pass to wide receiver Brandin Cooks that was broken up at the last second by the Patriots’ Jason McCourty.

A 9-yard sack of Goff two plays later forced Los Angeles to settle for a 53-yard field goal by Greg Zuerlein. By the grace of their special teams, the Rams were able to enter the fourth quarter tied with the Patriots 3-3.

After both teams traded punts in the fourth quarter, the Patriots were able to put together the game’s first and only touchdown drive. With two big completions to tight end Rob Gronkowski, Brady led his team to the Rams’ two-yard line, where rookie running back Sony Michel was able to punch it in for the score. Michel, who, like Gurley, is a former firstround pick from the University of Georgia, finished the game with 18 carries for 94 yards to

go with his single touchdown.

The Rams got the ball back with seven minutes left, and Goff completed a series of long completions to take them all the way down to the Patriots’ 27-yard line. The young quarterback threw a beautiful pass to Cooks, who was nearing the end zone, but Goff could only watch as the ball slipped right through his receiver’s hands.

Facing an overwhelming blitz, Goff heaved up an ill-advised shot to Cooks again, but instead found Patriots cornerback Stephon Gilmore.

From their own four-yard line, the Patriots put the ball in the hands of Michel and fellow back Rex Burkhead. Both backs easily charged through huge holes created by the Patriots’ offensive line against an exhausted Rams front, and the Patriots drove — eating over three minutes of precious clock along the way and the Rams’ final two timeouts — until Gostkowski narrowly made a 41-yard field goal.

Although the Rams were able to give Zuerlein a chance to make it a one-score game with just eight seconds on the clock, the kicker was unable to convert a 48-yarder, solidifying a Patriots victory. Red and blue confetti fell from the rafters of Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz stadium as Brady, Belichick and Patriots owner Robert Kraft hoisted their sixth Lombardi Trophy.

Even before this win, the New England Patriots were an unquestionable dynasty. Their victory in the 2019 Super Bowl

solidifies their position as one of the greatest dynasties that the NFL has ever seen. For comparison, the Joe Montanaled San Francisco 49ers in the 1980s and early 1990s appeared in five Super Bowls and came away with five rings. Although there has been speculation for years that the BradyBelichick years were beginning to wind down, this win shows that they’re certainly not over yet.

Despite this setback, it’s clear the the Rams have a bright future ahead of them.

Their head coach, Sean McVay, is the youngest coach to lead a team to a Super Bowl at just 33 years old. The struggles of his usually high-flying offense do not diminish the fact that he’s one of the game’s best at this time. With young stars like Goff, Gurley and reigning twotime Defensive Player of the Year Aaron Donald all signed for at least one more season, this Super Bowl appearance seems like the first of many chances for this Rams team to leave its mark on the league.

The game’s MVP was Patriots wide receiver Julian Edelman, a former seventh-round pick who actually played college ball against McVay. Although he was held without a touchdown, Edelman hauled in 10 catches on 12 targets for 141 yards. A reliable outlet for Brady throughout the season, he gashed the Rams consistently and especially in key thirddown and long-yard situations.

Gronkowski also contributed six catches on seven targets for

Friars by a wide margin of 50 to 33. The Hoyas played fast, scoring 15 points on fastbreak opportunities and 15 points off Friar turnovers.

The win marked the first time Georgetown had defeated Providence in Rhode Island since 2012. The victory also improves the Hoyas’ Big East record to 5-5, which sits the squad tied for third in the conference.

Following their win, the Hoyas will head home to host the Butler Bulldogs (13-10, 4-6 Big East) this Saturday.

Georgetown started its Big East season with an 84-76 victory over Butler on Jan. 2.

Televised coverage for Saturday’s matinee can be found on Fox Sports Network and MASN2 starting at noon. The game will also be aired locally on The Team 980 FM.

With 9:27 to play, freshman guard Mac McClung hit a three-pointer, extending the team’s lead to 12.

With 5:40 to play and Georgetown’s lead at a comfortable nine points, Pickett nailed a high-arching three pointer to put the Hoyas up 12. Georgetown cruised to the finish line, eventually defeating Providence 76-67.

All five Georgetown starters scored in double figures. Freshman forward Josh LeBlanc led with a double-double of 17 points and 11 rebounds. Govan and McClung scored 13 points each, while Pickett scored 12 and Akinjo added 10.

For the game, Georgetown held Providence to 18 percent shooting from three-point range and outrebounded the

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SUPER BOWL COMMENTARY

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MEN’S BASKETBALL, from A12

THE HOYA

87 yards.

Brady, who finished 21/35 with 262 yards, zero touchdowns and one interception, certainly didn’t put together his best Super Bowl performance. However, he does become the oldest quarterback to win a Super Bowl, and his legacy is hardly in question.

He’ll be a first-ballot Hall of Fame candidate as soon as he retires, but it doesn’t look like he’s planning on stepping away any time soon.

Belichick is the same; he didn’t need another championship to make his case as one of the all-time coaching greats, but this certainly helps the case that he’s the best to ever do it.

To the joy of some and the disappointment of many, another NFL season has passed with another Lombardi Trophy going to the New England Patriots. This Super Bowl match certainly won’t be remembered as the most exciting game. After a season defined by scoring and what was perhaps the most entertaining conference championship round ever played, the season’s finale lacked excitement and quality of play.

This Super Bowl, however, will most definitely go down in history for the number of records, both good and bad, that were set over its course, and for its role as another extension of the Patriots’ dominance of the league over the course of the 2000s. The NFL will return in a little over seven months, when the regular season kicks off Sept. 5.

NFL

New England Patriots cornerback Stephon Gilmore had a crucial interception late in the fourth quarter of Super Bowl LIII. Gilmore picked off a pass intended for Los Angeles wideout Brandin Cooks inside the Patriots five-yard line with 4:17 remaining in the game.

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Hoyas Impress Against Conference Rivals SWIMMING AND DIVING, from A12

Rieker took another win for the Hoyas in the 200 individual medley, finishing over one second faster than the Seton Hall runner-up in what was otherwise a close race.

Senior Michael Wheeler captured the first win for the men’s squad in the 1000 freestyle.

Sophomore Drew Carbone was reliable in both the 100 and 200 backstroke and touched the wall four seconds ahead of

the Seton Hall runner-up in the 200. Carbone also placed first in the 200 individual medley.

Freshman Brett Sherman finished first in the 500 freestyle and followed teammate Carbone in the 200 individual medley for second place.

Carbone’s race secured the lopsided win over Providence 229-62, but it was not enough to outlast Seton Hall. The men lost a close meet 173.5-123.5 to the Pirates.

On the women’s diving side,

sophomore Riley Fujioka won first place in both the 1-meter and 3-meter events. Teammate Elizabeth Miller came in second in the 1-meter for the Hoyas.

In men’s diving, Griffin Edmonds placed first in the 3-meter event with a score of 251.8 and finished second in the 1-meter event.

In a few weeks, the Hoyas will travel to East Meadow, N.Y. for the Big East championships taking place Feb. 20 to Feb. 23.

The Georgetown women have

earned second place for five consecutive seasons, while the men’s team placed third last year.

The swim season is a long one. Competitions span the entire year. For the Hoyas, this year started Sept. 28 with the Potomac Relays at American University. After the Big East championships later this month, the team has little offseason before heading to Austin, Texas, for the NCAA championships in late March.

UNDER REVIEW

Porzingis Shipped Out of New York

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For the Knicks, this deal was about clearing cap space to attract free agents in the summer of 2019 while adding the talented young point guard Smith.

Two years ago, the Knicks passed on Smith in the NBA draft in favor of incumbent point guard Frank Ntilikina.

Ntilikina has demonstrated defensive prowess but is still adjusting to the NBA on the offensive end. The Knicks are buying low on Smith, who is a dynamic scorer that has taken a step back in his sophomore campaign after being surpassed by Doncic.

Matthews and Jordan were acquired primarily because they have expiring contracts that will allow the Knicks to pursue two star free agents after the season and offer them maximum contracts. Now, the onus

is on the Knicks’ front office to demonstrate that they have the ability to lure top free agents in a stellar class headlined by Kevin Durant, Kawhi Leonard and Kyrie Irving.

plagued by a long history of ineptitude and mismanagement.

The last superstar in New York was forward Carmelo Anthony, who was acquired via trade before signing an extension.

The Porzingis trade radically altered the trajectory of both franchises. The Mavericks have attained more certainty regarding the composition of their team, but the Knicks have potential for a higher upside.

JEFF SWANSON

Currently, Knicks fans are dreaming about the possibility of Durant and Irving teaming up in Madison Square Garden.

However, the recruitment process for the Knicks may prove to be more difficult than anticipated. The Knicks have been

The Anthony era produced three playoff appearances that never progressed past the second round.

This poor performance began a downward spiral defined by losing and a soap opera of quarrels between Anthony and the front

office.

Since then, the Knicks have hired a new general manager and coach. Yet free agents will have to weigh the benefits of playing in New York against the Knicks’ penchant for mediocrity.

For the Knicks to truly rise out of their doldrums, it may require a new duo who believe they can resurrect the franchise. One star may not be enough.

In summary, the Porzingis trade radically altered the trajectory of both franchises.

The Mavericks have attained more certainty regarding the composition of their team, but the Knicks have the potential for a higher upside, albeit with a greater chance for disappointment.

Jeff Swanson is a senior in the McDonough School of Business. UNDER REVIEW appears every other Friday.

Sports

Women’s Basketball Georgetown (11-11) vs. Marquette (19-3) Friday, Feb. 8, 8 p.m.

Al McGuire Center

FRIDAY, FEBR UARY 8, 2019

Sophomores Nate Alleyne, Lawerence Leake and freshman D’Andre Bariffes now hold the top three conference times in the 200.

See A10

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Women’s Basketball Coach James Howard

Hoya Staff Writer

GUHOYAS

The women on the Georgetown swimming and diving team outscored Seton Hall and Providence by a combined score of 394-202.

Hoya Women Beat Conference Rivals Just ahead of the Big East championships later this month, Georgetown swimming and diving faced conference rivals Seton Hall University and Providence College in a tri-meet on Friday and Saturday. The Hoya women came out on top, defeating both Seton Hall and Providence, while the men defeated Providence but fell to Seton Hall.

The women’s team defeated Seton Hall by a score of 168-131 and dominated Providence 226-71 due to performances like that of junior Christina Barrett, who got the Hoya women off to a solid start by securing a victory in the 1000-yard freestyle. She also placed first in the 500yard freestyle with a time of

5:05.09 and came in second in the 200-yard butterfly.

Freshman Noelle Fimbres followed Barrett in second place in the 1000 freestyle, and fellow classmate Grace Chen took another win in the 100 backstroke. In the 200 butterfly, Georgetown filled the top two spots with junior Lauren Henasey leading in first and Barrett in second.

Sophomore Belinda Donohoe swam a tight race in the 50 freestyle, winning with a gap of just .01 seconds. Sophomore Evie Mauze led the competition in the 200 backstroke with a time of 2:04.97.

In the 100 butterfly, freshman Gabriella Meringolo placed first with Henasey in second, the two separated by .7 seconds. Sophomore Alexandra See SWIMMING AND DIVING, A11

Sitting at third in the Big East conference, the Georgetown men’s basketball team fought hard in two crucial tests, splitting two road contests against the No. 14 Villanova Wildcats on Sunday and the Providence Friars on Wednesday.

The Hoyas (15-8, 5-5 Big East) gave the defending national champion Wildcats (19-4, 10-0 Big East) a tough fight in their Sunday clash.

At the end of the first half, the Hoyas led 34-33 after freshman guard James Akinjo nailed a three-pointer at the buzzer. Akinjo led Georgetown in scoring, with 19 points in 35 minutes of play, earning him Big East freshman of the week honors.

With 7:27 left in the game, Georgetown and Villanova were tied at 53-53. However, the Wildcats dashed the Hoyas’ hopes with an 8-0 run in the next three minutes.

Villanova led by 14 points with 2:28 remaining and cruised to the finish line, defeating Georgetown 77-65.

Georgetown struggled to stop some of Villanova’s top scorers in the game. Sophomore guard Colin Gillespie crushed the Hoyas, hitting six three-pointers and scoring a career-high 30 points. Senior forward Eric Paschall also chipped in 24 points for the Wildcats’ win.

For the game, the Hoyas shot under 34 percent from the floor. Senior center and leading scorer Jessie Govan was scoreless for the first time all season and played only

seven minutes as he struggled in foul trouble.

Senior center Trey Mourning, who played 27 minutes in relief of Govan, scored 12 points and secured six rebounds off the bench.

Following the chance to upset one of the nation’s best, Georgetown visited Providence (13-10, 3-7 Big East), trying to sweep the season series after defeating the Friars on Jan. 12.

The Hoyas came out strong, racing to a 11-4 lead after a three-point jumper by sopho-

more forward Jamorko Pickett in the opening minutes.

After Providence led by one with 8:26 left, the teams combined for a four-and-a-half minute scoring drought before Georgetown senior forward Kaleb Johnson made a layup to give the Hoyas the lead.

After another tie game with 1:46 left in the half, Georgetown ended the first half on a 7-0 run, capped by a dunk and three-pointer by Govan. The Hoyas went into the break leading 34-27.

For the sixth time in 18 years, the New England Patriots are Super Bowl champions. On Sunday, the Patriots defeated the Los Angeles Rams to win the 2019 Super Bowl. With this sixth win, New England ties the Pittsburgh Steelers for the most championships among any franchise.

At the helm of the team for each of these six victories was the Patriots’ star quarterback, Tom Brady, who has won the most titles in NFL history. Prior to kickoff, New England Coach Bill Belichick had already held the most championships of any head coach, with this win further solidifying his spot in the record books.

These records weren’t the only ones set in the 2019 Super Bowl. In a game that pitted two high-powered offenses against each other, the defenses stepped up to steal the show.

The score at halftime was 3-0.

This is the lowest mark since 1975, when the scoreboard read 2-0 after two quarters. On top of this, the game’s final score of 13-3 was the lowest amount of total points secured in Super Bowl history.

As the scoreboard indicates, the game got off to a slow start.

The Patriots’ offense was effective on their first two drives, reaching Rams’ territory both times, but an interception by Rams’ linebacker Dante Fowler Jr. and a missed field goal prevented them from capitalizing on either possession. The Rams

also struggled early on, as quarterback Jared Goff missed key throws in the face of heavy pressure from the Patriots’ defensive line. The first quarter left both sides scoreless.

The Patriots were the first team to break the draw. Placekicker Stephen Gostkowski scored a 42-yard field goal five minutes into the second quarter. After this, though, both teams continued to flounder, with each quarterback struggling to find open receivers and move the ball down the field.

Notably insignificant was the Rams’ first team All-Pro running back Todd Gurley, who was held to 10 yards on just three carries in the first half.

There has been much speculation that he hasn’t recovered from a late-season knee injury,

See MEN’S BASKETBALL, A11

KIRK ZIESER/THE HOYA

UNDER REVIEW

New England Captures 6th Title in Atlanta Hoya Staff Writer

In the second half, the Blue and Gray soon gained a double-digit lead, going up 10 points after Govan’s layup with 18:55 left. The Friars cut the deficit right back to single digits and soon to 47-43 with 12:56 left.

Thanks to 44 percent shooting from three-point range in the second half, the Hoyas extended their lead again to double digits and took a strong grip on the contest.

Sophomore guard Jamorko Pickett, right, takes the ball from the top of the key. Pickett had 10 points in a loss to Villanova on the road Feb. 3. He followed this with 12 points in a win over Providence on Jan. 6.

SUPER BOWL COMMENTARY

HENRY MIHM

7

Recent Hoya commit Qudus Wahab ranks as the 7th-best player in Virgina in the class of 2019.

Georgetown Splits Big East Road Battles MATT SACHS

Hoya Staff Writer

For us to be able to pull away and get the stops at the end, I’m proud of them.”

MEN’S BASKETBALL

SWIMMING AND DIVING

SIDNEY LEE

NUMBERS GAME

TALKING POINTS

TRACK AND FIELD

although the Rams and Gurley himself have insisted otherwise. However, the results of this game seem to give greater credence to those rumors. He finished the game with 10 carries for 35 yards.

The Rams needed Gurley, regardless of the circumstances surrounding his ability to play.

Throughout the game, they opted to pass on third and short.

In all, the Rams entered the first half without converting a single third down and only 57 yards of total offense.

After an underwhelming halftime show, both teams stumbled into the second half.

The first four possessions of the half all ended in punts, with the lone highlight of this sequence See SUPER BOWL, A11

NFL

Super Bowl-winning quarterback Tom Brady celebrates his sixth championship as the confetti falls down at Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta. Brady completed 21-of-35 passes for 262 yards and an interception as the Patriots defeated the Rams for their third title in five years.

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Jeff Swanson

New York, Dallas Agree to Deal Before Deadline

T

he New York Knicks and Dallas Mavericks executed a mega-deal ahead of the trade deadline. The key piece in the deal was Dallas’ acquisition of center Kristaps Porzingis, who is lauded for his impressive combination of skill and size. The deal is a gamble for both New York and Dallas, but for different reasons.

The Knicks previously regarded Porzingis as a franchise cornerstone, but he is currently in rehab from an ACL injury and is not expected to play this season. In a recent team meeting, Porzingis revealed his desire to be traded, which provided the impetus to the deal that materialized shortly after.

The Knicks received guards Dennis Smith Jr. and Wesley Matthews, center DeAndre Jordan and two future first-round draft picks in the deal. Meanwhile, the Mavericks acquired guards Tim Hardaway Jr., Courtney Lee and Trey Burke in addition to Porzingis. This trade is interesting because both teams entered it with ambitions of laying the groundwork to build a team that can grow into a strong future contender, rather than an immediate one.

From the Mavericks’ perspective, the trade is about pairing Porzingis with rookie star Luka Doncic, who has averaged 20 points, seven rebounds and five assists per game this season. The Doncic–Porzingis pairing will form the Mavericks’ most lethal guard-forward combo since Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzki from 1998 to 2004. Dallas will try to keep the young European sensations together for the long term, as Porzingis is a restricted free agent after the season and Dallas appears poised to offer him a max contract.

Hardaway and Lee are solid players who can provide wing depth and contribute on both ends of the floor. However, their combined $32 million in cap space will limit the Mavericks’ future flexibility for the 2019-20 season.

The Mavericks also gave up a first-round pick to the Atlanta Hawks in exchange for Doncic in June, leaving them owing three future first-round picks.

Thus, the next era in Dallas basketball will likely be defined by the success of the pairing of Doncic and Porzingis.

See SWANSON, A11