The Hoya: Friday, Feb. 4, 2022

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Georgetown University • Washington, D.C. Vol. 103, No. 10, © 2022

Students Raise Concerns After Delayed GUPD Shooting Notification

KIRK ZIESER/THE HOYA

Following a fatal shooting on M St., students said the Georgetown University Police Department did not notify the community of the public threat in a timely manner.

Eli Kales

City Desk Editor

CW: This article discusses gun violence.

Please refer to the online version of this article on thehoya.com for resources.

Following a fatal shooting just blocks from Georgetown University’s main campus, students say the Georgetown University Police Department (GUPD) failed to notify the community of the threat in a timely manner.

The shooting occurred at approximately 6:13 p.m. at the intersection of M St. and 33rd St. N.W., near Georgetown Cupcake. When police officers arrived at the scene, the victim was reported unconscious but breathing.

The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) tweeted about the shooting at 6:40 p.m. The Hoya tweeted about the shooting at 6:53 p.m.

GUPD sent a HOYAlert — a message sent to the Georgetown community with guidance in the event of a threat — at 7:10 p.m, nearly one hour after the perpetrator shot the victim.

“There is a report of a shooting at 33 St and M St; avoid the area and follow instructions from authorities,” the HOYAlert reads.

Students expressed concerns for their safety as a result of the delayed notification.

Carly Comparato (COL ’22) was walking on M St. with two friends when the shooting took place. She hid in CB2, a nearby furniture store, until she thought it was safe to return to her house in the Georgetown neighborhood.

Comparato said her friend called GUPD at 6:42 p.m. and asked them to send out a HOYAlert. According to Comparto, GUPD told them the HOYAlert was coming shortly; 30 minutes later, the HOYAlert arrived on community members’ phones.

“In my opinion, emergency messages of this kind should be as close to instantaneous as possible,” Comparato wrote to The Hoya. “If it is time consuming to write the message or send it out, that is a safety problem.”

Mike Brodo (SFS ’22), who initially received word of the shooting through a text from a friend, said he also called GUPD to alert them of the news in hopes of compelling them to send out a HOYAlert.

“I decided to call GUPD and inquire, ‘Is there a plan to send See HOYALERT, A6

GEORGETOWN LAW

Georgetown University Law Center has placed incoming administrator Ilya Shapiro on leave Jan. 31 pending an investigation following racist and sexist tweets about President Biden’s looming Supreme Court nomination.

GULC To Investigate Racist Admin Paige Kupas and Caitlin McLean Senior News Editors

CW: This article directly references racist statements made on social media.

Please refer to the online version of this article on thehoya.com for resources.

T

he Georgetown University Law Center (GULC) placed Ilya Shapiro on administrative leave and will investigate his actions following racist and sexist tweets.

Shapiro, who was set to become executive director of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution on Feb. 1, posted tweets expressing his opposi-

tion to President Biden’s pledge to nominate the first Black female Supreme Court justice.

Shapiro wrote that the nominee would be a “lesser black woman.” Shapiro deleted the original posts and tweeted an apology, in which he called his original words “inartful,” on Jan. 27, before posting a tweet Jan. 31 expressing his confidence that he will be vindicated and begin his new position at the university shortly.

In a series of tweets posted on Jan. 26, Shapiro made racist comments about Black female lawyers and perpetuated harmful sentiments using the model minority myth, which opponents of the Civil Rights Move-

make comments like that even recognize how much of a miracle it is for students like me — who are first generation, who are Black and who are women — to even make it to a space to attend law school and to even have the confidence and support to make it through and finish that process,” Shropshire said in an interview with The Hoya. “It makes me feel like despite how hard I’ve worked to get myself here, I often find myself feeling imposter syndrome.”

Shapiro did not respond to The Hoya’s multiple requests for comment.

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Students Urge Uyghur Genocide Divestment

Photo of the Week

Kirit Minhas

Special to The Hoya

CW: This article discusses genocide and violence. Please refer to the online version of this article on thehoya. com for resources.

KIRK ZIESER/THE HOYA

University dining locations will gradually reopen for indoor dining at half capacity Feb. 7 and proof of GoCard or vaccination will be required.

Several students have signed a letter demanding Georgetown University investigate its endowment to screen for the presence of ties to human rights abuses in China.

The Jan. 23 letter, titled “An Open Letter Calling for Divestment from Ongoing Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity,” calls on Georgetown University to divest the university’s endowment from companies that are linked to the repression and forced labor of Uyghurs and other ethnic groups in China. The letter was co-authored by the Muslim Student Association (MSA) and the Hong Kong Student Association (HKSA), alongside individual students from across the campus community.

Georgetown has a duty to investigate any potential financial holdings related to the Chinese government’s abuse of Uyghurs, according to Christopher Boose (COL ’22), who helped to prepare the original letter.

“Even if the University thinks its investments are clean, they have a duty to check and publicly commit themselves against the Uyghur genocide,” Boose wrote to The Hoya.

“At a school as proud of its values as Georgetown, there’s no excuse for not taking a stand on an issue as fundamental as genocide.”

The letter was modeled after similar demands by students at the Catholic University of America, according to Boose, who also said students at universities across the country have also called upon their respective schools to cut financial ties with Uyghur human rights abuses.

The Chinese government has persecuted Uyghurs and other Turkic, Muslim-majority groups for decades in the Uyghur Region, which the Chinese government refers to as Xinjiang. China’s current policies include the arbitrary detention of up to one million people, mainly Uyghurs, severe restrictions on religious practice and repressive population control, including forced sterilization. Hundreds of international companies — including Apple and Microsoft, which Georgetown holds stock in — are at a high risk of taking part in the forced labor of Uyghurs.

Georgetown has a moral responsibility to divest and ensure it’s endowment is not tied to genocide, according to John Metz, executive director of the Athenai Institute, a bi-partisan student-led non-profit that seeks to limit Beijing’s influence on U.S. college campuses. The institute helped prepare the Georgetown letter.

“Divestment is a practical and

KIRK ZIESER/THE HOYA

Georgetown students have circulated a letter demanding the university investigate alleged financial ties between its endowment and the ongoing Uyghur genocide in China. moral necessity,” Metz wrote in an email to The Hoya. “By divesting, Georgetown has an opportunity to ensure its financial independence from a genocidal regime.”

The letter also urges the university to promote research and dialogue on the human rights crisis facing Uyghurs. Alongside the coauthoring student organizations, original sponsors of the letter include the Georgetown Bipartisan

Coalition (GBC), Georgetown University College Republicans (GUCR) and Georgetown University College Democrats (GUCD).

The university should consider human rights in all of its investments, according to a statement from the HKSA board.

“We encourage the University to consider the human rights See UYGHURS, A6

NEWS

OPINION

FEATURES

Disability Advocacy

GUSA 2022 Election

Systemic Oversight

Georgetown will hire an associate director for the Disability Cultural Initiative to promote inclusion and increase engagement.

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Both executive campaigns underwhelm with vague promises, out of touch platforms and infeasible ideas.

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Take Out Tuesday

FEATURED

ment created to justify racism against Black community by using the Asian Americans as a driving wedge.

“Objectively best pick for Biden is Sri Srinivasan, who is solid prog & v smart. Even has identity politics benefit of being first Asian (Indian) American,” Shapiro wrote in one of the now-deleted tweets. “But alas doesn’t fit into latest intersectionality hierarchy so we’ll get lesser black woman.”

Shapiro’s statement that Black female lawyers are not worthy of serving on the Supreme Court made students, like Drea Shropshire (LAW ’24), feel invisible.

“I don’t think that people who

For 10 weeks starting Jan. 25, restaurants on Wisconsin Ave. will offer takeout promotions on Tuesdays.

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Published Fridays

Uncovering Injustices

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SPORTS

Recognizing the importance of press freedom is an integral first step to taking action against injustice.

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The Hoya has identified a pattern of professors refusing or neglecting student disability accomodations.

Fanning Flames

Women’s basketball faces inequality in game attendance restrictions.

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Send story ideas and tips to news@thehoya.com

A2 | THE HOYA

THEHOYA.COM | FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2022

OPINION EDITORIAL

IN THIS WEEK’S ISSUE

GUSA Ballot Proves Pitiful For Georgetown students, Georgetown University Student Association (GUSA) executive elections ostensibly offer an opportunity for new, perhaps more promising leadership that best serves their interests.

Yet this campaign season has produced two underwhelming tickets that epitomize the failures of GUSA as an institution.

While Thomas Leonard (COL ’23) and Nirvana Khan (SFS ’24) seem to have a reasonable grasp of important issues, their specific plans for implementing policies to address these issues fall short. Conversely, Kole Wolfe (SFS ’24) and Zeke Ume-Ukeje’s (COL ’24) campaign has rightly been received as underwhelming, and the two have insufficient knowledge of issues facing the Georgetown community.

[Disclaimer: Kole Wolfe served as a Staff Writer for The Hoya in spring 2021.]

In light of these disappointing options, the Editorial Board refuses to endorse a ticket in the 2022 GUSA executive election and urges students to vote for community members they believe will make positive change on campus using the write-in option.

Wolfe and Ume-Ukejes’ platform is the more concerning of the two tickets, showing a lack of understanding of campus issues, as well as a lack of seriousness.

When The Hoya asked about their plan to prioritize campus safety following a string of dorm intrusions last semester, Wolfe responded that students should form a task force to look for danger.

“If there was just some sort of team who would scan the hallways for one minute every night on their different respective floors, just trying to keep in mind that, ‘okay, we’re probably going to be safe, but you know, safety is priority number one.’ And then, okay, I look down the hallway, I see some dude with a knife. That means it’s time to call some serious backup,” Wolfe told The Hoya.

Wolfe also exhibited a lack of understanding about GUSA’s operations and even told The Hoya that the organization restructured itself in November. This statement is not true: the GUSA restructuring referendum did not pass a student vote because of a lack of voter turnout.

When asked about more specific issues such as GU272, restructuring GUSA and public safety, they continued to defer specific stances until their platform release, which came several days later and only included vague statements on increasing transparency and improving club culture.

Certainly, the Leonard-Khan ticket is the more promising of the two options, though still disappointing. Leonard and Khan both have extensive GUSA experience, with Leonard serving as the current GUSA vice president and Khan as a senator.

Though the duo recognizes many of the major issues facing students — including but not limited to meal plan exemptions, housing and policies to assist low-income and students of color — the Leonard-Khan

platform still lags behind those of past administrations, offering less specific or innovative plans that make broad promises with no clear path for achievement.

In their interview with The Hoya, Leonard and Khan both emphasized the need for more accessibility. However, the proposed policies, such as institutionalizing “a reporting system for unmet student academic accommodation needs” merely state the obvious with no actual guidelines for implementation.

Their lack of transparency regarding their campaign advisory team is cause for additional concern, as the student body deserves to know who is both advising their campaign and wielding influence over policymaking.

Previous campaigns, like the 2020 FerrettiBadger campaign and the 2021 Blass-Sanchez campaign, have highlighted their team of advisors and defined their roles. Neither campaign in this race has done so, which we see as a troubling omission.

In recent weeks, the Leonard-Khan campaign has been muddled by three major controversies, including allegations of ableism, claiming credit for work done by organizations such as the Georgetown Scholars Program (GSP) and co-opting former speaker Melanie Cruz-Morales’ identity, according to a public Instagram story obtained by The Hoya.

The campaign has since released a statement clarifying the circumstances of these allegations and told The Hoya that they had met with the students who raised these concerns to apologize.

While Leonard and Khan indeed acknowledged their past mistakes, their statement proposed no new changes to prevent similar future conflicts.

While The Hoya cannot independently verify these allegations, the number of students within GUSA speaking out against the Leonard-Khan ticket certainly calls into question their touted relationship-building skills and ability to govern with integrity.

The Leonard-Khan campaign also prioritizes performativity while embodying the vast disconnect between GUSA representatives and the student body. Their use of “trendy” catchphrases to “gaslight” the administration and bizarrely “gatekeep” student rights — whatever that means, because it’s never explained — is further evidence of how out of touch they are with campus culture.

The profound weaknesses in both tickets is emblematic of GUSA’s continued failure to fix its own internal issues and external reputation.

For these reasons, the Editorial Board encourages students to use the write-in option instead. We call on students to reject both options for GUSA executive, and hope that new students with bold and specific policies will launch their own grassroots campaigns for the GUSA executive election. Students deserve honest, effective leadership capable of bringing about necessary change for both students and GUSA as an institution.

“

Access to true information is a human right. Freedom of expression is an equally important human right, and opinion journalists should be able to voice their views regardless of their political alignments. As students, staying informed and educated about the threats journalists face is also an important precursor to taking action.

Priyasha Chakravarti (COL ’25)

“The Dangers of a Restricted Press” thehoya.com

DEEP DIVE

Evaluating Unethical Investments This week, we’re diving into Ammar Hussain’s (SFS/MSB ’24) viewpoint on the university’s Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) Policy and the need for the university to divest from the atrocities perpetrated by the Chinese government. The SRI policy “exercises ethical management” of university investments made with the endowment. It follows four main strategies: Alignment, Integration, Engagement and Impact.

According to the SRI’s Alignment strategy, Georgetown does not invest in companies “that have demonstrated records of widespread violations of human dignity,” which include abortion services, weapons manufacturing and extreme environmental damage.

Integration ensures that the university works with companies that demonstrate better environmental, social and governmental performance. The instruments used to implement

this policy are outlined in Engagement, while the Impact strategy emphasizes the creation of positive social impact through investing in renewable energy, healthcare, etc.

Georgetown’s divestment from human rights violations is certainly a necessary and attainable goal. In the past, Georgetown divested from fossil fuels, an admirable initiative by the university that came after recommendations from faculty, staff and students on the Committee on Investments and Social Responsibility. Committees like this one demonstrate the ability for students to directly influence the ways in which the university uses its endowment. As Georgetown students, we can and should hold the university accountable for its actions, ensuring that it is making ethical investments and meaningful contributions to further the cause of human rights.

EDITORIAL CARTOON by Sophie Liu

The Hoya’s editorial board is composed of six students and is chaired by the opinion editors.

Editorials reflect only the beliefs of a majority of the board and are not representative of The Hoya or any individual member of the board.

HOYA HISTORY

Joke Candidates Run for SG Circus February 11, 1977 In addition to the Healy Basement politicos and the new faces earnestly seeking to revitalize student government, student voters have a third choice. This is the joke candidate, who with tongue in cheek and outrageous platform attempts to inject levity into an otherwise monotonous affair.

Ed Cavanagh and John Quinn have already captured the campus’ imagination with their back to Camelot campaign. Joining the good sir knights and their rivals is a ticket consisting of a reptile and a Gucci’s trade emblem — Alligator Joe and the Talking GG’s, soliciting votes on a platform of Chic.

Alligator Joe is not the first animal to run for SG’s top spot. Seniors will recall the ticket of Mr. Toad and a Spanish flea named Jorge Bordello, who finished a strong second to Jack Leslie

in the 1974 election.

Alligator Joe lacks the campus-wide organization that made Mr. Toad the most successful joke candidate in Georgetown history. However, the crocodilian contender makes up for his late start (and the fact he lacks the $50 filing fee to register officially) with his impeccable Hoya image — from his Topsider shoes to the Lacoste shirt with the little human sewn onto it.

Joe’s campaign proposals include: transforming the used book co-op into a Chic thrift shop offering crewnecks and Lacostes; changing the school colors to shocking pink and lime green; and solving the parking problem by allotting space only to Porches and other small foreign cars.

Also highlighting the Chic party platform is a proposal for sliding tuition. Students

LETTER TO THE EDITOR AND VIEWPOINT POLICIES The Hoya welcomes letters and viewpoints from our readers and will print as many as possible. To be eligible for publication, letters should specifically address a recent campus issue or Hoya story. Letters should not exceed 300 words.

Viewpoints are always welcome from all members of the Georgetown community on any topic, but priority will be given to relevant campus issues. Viewpoint submissions should be between 600-700 words. The Hoya retains all rights to all published submissions.

Send all submissions to: opinion@thehoya.com.

The Hoya reserves the right to reject letters or viewpoints and edit for length, style, clarity and accuracy. The Hoya further reserves the right to write headlines and select illustrations to accompany letters and viewpoints.

CORRECTIONS & CLARIFICATIONS If you have a comment or question about the fairness or accuracy of a story, contact Executive Editor Dalia Liu at dalia.liu@thehoya.com or Executive Editor Liam Scott at liam.scott@thehoya.com.

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will be billed according to their family incomes, with those below the poverty level (under $35,000 a year) receiving a free education.

Cavanagh and Alligator — two candidates for those dissatisfied with the present SG clique. The last time the GU electorate had two such unique characters to choose from was back in 1975, when Jim “Bozo” Chess and Ed Oriani threw their respective hats into the ring.

Chess was most noted for his firm commitment to keep GU out of the Middle East War. Though lacking experience in Healy Basement politics, “Bozo” listed among his credentials two years in the New South House Council, a Webelos badge earned as a cub scout and an eighth grade field trip to the dinosaur museum in Lincoln, Neb.

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OPINION VIEWPOINT • CHAKRAVARTI

The Dangers of a Restricted Press

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ournalists are tasked with an uphill pursuit: sifting through a mountain of research in order to explain significant information to the world and preserve the truth.

Freedom of the press is a central tenet of democracy, but it is actively being threatened in various countries around the world. Despite this, journalists — whether they be students working in a college newsroom or professionals working at a top publication — must continue to resist unjust opposition and stand up for their rights.

Maria Ressa in the Philippines is a journalist who does just that.

The Philippines was ranked as the seventh most dangerous country for journalists in 2020, with more than 20 journalists being killed under the current regime.

A longtime target of incumbent President Rodrigo Duterte is the Rappler online news agency.

Founded by Ressa, the publication has been openly critical of the Duterte administration.

Rappler has been especially open about reporting the consequences of Duterte’s war on drugs, noting that the number of extrajudicial killings under his administration rose more than 50% during the COVID-19 lockdown. This includes persecuting and killing those without any clear link to drug usage and without pursuing the due course of law.

Criticizing the news outlet as a source of “fake news,” Duterte had Rappler’s license revoked. His government has openly criticized and arrested Ressa several times.

AsthefirstFilipinoNobelLaureate and a Time Magazine Person of the Year in 2018, Ressa has been outspoken about her disapproval of “how far the government will go to silence journalists.”

Rappler is not the only news platform that has come under fire during Duterte’s regime.

In the summer of 2020, the National Telecommunications Commission issued an order against ABS-CBN, the country’s

largest broadcast network, prompting the regime to shut the network down. 70 million Filipinos watch ABS-CBN programs weekly and there was tremendous backlash. After numerous hearings with most committee members being supporters of Duterte’s regime, the majority voted against renewing its franchise, forcing it to go off air.

Shockingly, the press in the Philippines is still mistakenly seen as one of the freest in Asia.

Perhaps Ressa’s relentless fight against the oppression of human rights in the Philippines and her tremendous achievements can be seen as signs of victory against Duterte’s regime.

Unfortunately, however, Duterte continues to refer to journalists like Ressa as “spies,” “vultures” and “lowlifes.” Outwardly targeting media companies and news platforms that are critical of the administration and forcing them to shut down is a blatant attack on freedom of speech and expression.

Access to true information is a human right. Freedom of expressionisanequallyimportant human right, and opinion journalists should be able to voice their views regardless of their political alignments. As students, staying informed and educated about the threats journalists face is also an important precursor to taking action. Here at Georgetown, we must advocate for the dissemination of truthful knowledge, while also ensuring that different perspectives are represented. Like Ressa, we must continue to make our voices heard, whether it be through news publications, comedy shows, or theater performances, and fight against any blatant attempts to silence the student body.

Priyasha Chakravarti is a firstyear in the College. Chakravarti currently serves as a news writer for The Hoya and has recused herself from writing news stories about the topics discussed in this Viewpoint.

ILLUSTRATION BY: TIMOTHY GOH/THE HOYA

UNSPOKEN OBSTACLES

The Effects of Unfettered Diet Culture Emma Wahl

Columnist

CW: This article discusses eating disorders. Please refer to the online version of this article on the hoya.com for resources.

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ren’t you going to eat that?” is a question I hear daily. One petite girl challenges another, daring her to chew, swallow and keep down the food in question. The most common response is more often than not: “Oh my god I ate so much earlier, I’m not hungry.”

It’s no secret that the pandemic has brought an onset of heightened anxiety and a new pervasiveness of eating disorders that plague America’s youth. However, what is less frequently discussed is the culture that these disorders create. You do not have to be personally afflicted with an eating disorder to be affected by one. In many ways, eating disor-

VIEWPOINT • HUSSAIN

ders are contagious.

It’s not uncommon for entire conversations to be dominated by discussions of weight loss and expressions of anxiety over upcoming events that may require “unflattering” outfits.

Anyone who finds themselves trapped in this echo chamber will inevitably end up asking themselves, “if she thinks she’s fat, then what am I?” Georgetown’s competitive culture reaches far beyond academic clubs, GPAs and soughtafter internships. Aesthetics are just another dimension in which girls compete. They use their accounting skills to calculate calories-in versus calories-out, how many weekly trips to Yates they should make, and the best time to drink their Celsius according to their metabolic activity.

College unites students in more ways than one; we find ourselves living together, learning together, and eating together. We unconsciously adopt each other’s habits — and that includes eating habits. “If she’s eating a salad, should I be eating a salad? She’s going for a run, so I have to go for a run.”

Girls skip meals before going out only to come back and purge their systems later, determined to avoid the dreaded “freshman 15.” But calories only count when it comes to added salad dressing, not tequila sodas.

You can never really win though. If you do feel like running, you will be met with scrutiny. If you opt for a salad — just because you want a salad — you will hear nothing but “Oh! Little miss skinny,” and “Look at you being so healthy.” A passivity that will drown you in doubt and insecurity, pressuring you to switch your order to a hearty plate of pasta instead. It is almost as if girls don’t want other girls to engage in diet behavior. As if the skinnier their friends are, the fatter they themselves become.

What happened to just eating what you want, when you want?

Excessive diet culture has created increasingly limited dining options, and ‘gluten-free’ or ‘dairy-free’ diets are pushed on those who don’t need them.

They are effortlessly skinny. You didn’t see them eat, but they assure you, they did — and a lot.

It breaks my heart to see so many beautiful, fit and healthy

girls frustratingly scowl at themselves in the mirror because they believe they are “fat.” So we must ask — why do they believe that?

Society has set an impossible standard; it preys on adolescent girls, hunting them down on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, all with a misleading promise of the perfect bikini body. But isn’t the only requirement for a bikini body simply just having a body?

As long as you are unhappy with yourself, the diet industry is making money. It is truly ironic that girls will spend more money on less food. The pursuit of “skinny” is expensive. And yet you will never be satisfied, no matter how many Chloe Ting at-home workouts you do, green juices you guzzle and meals you skip. Perhaps the silver lining, in an otherwise terribly distressing realization, is that everyone wishes they could change things about their bodies.

You want her hips, but she wants your arms.

Emma Wahl is a sophomore in the College. Unspoken

EYEING THE ADMINISTRATION

Divest From Atrocities in China Clarify Obscure COVID Decisions CW: This article discusses control measures, including genocide and violence. Please refer forced sterilizations. to the online version of this article The Newlines Institute on the hoya.com for resources. similarly found that the Chinese government is responsible for he following quote comes breaching the 1948 Genocide from Georgetown Univer- Convention by committing sity’s Socially Responsible genocide against the Uyghurs.

Investing Policy (SRI Policy) The Chinese government mission statement: claims that their detention camps “Recognizing that the are necessary to fight extremism. endowment shall not be used as a The government has explained tool to promote a political agenda, further that the camps are merely the University shall continue “vocational training” centers to integrate its commitment meant to re-educate the Uyghurs, to social justice, protection but the evidence overwhelmingly of human life and dignity, rejects that narrative. stewardship for the planet, and Detainees have provided promotion of the common good detailed descriptions of the into its investment management torture and humiliation they practices,” the SRI website reads. faced and footage posted online On Jan. 23, 2022, the GU reveals the terrible conditions Muslim Student Association and inmates are subjected to.

Hong Kong Student Association This is not a political matter — penned “An Open Letter Calling taking action transcends partisan for Divestment from Ongoing politics. The United States Genocide and Crimes Against government has continuously Humanity” with co-sponsorships indicated under both the Trump from the Georgetown Bipartisan and Biden administrations that Coalition, College Republicans it wholeheartedly rejects the and College Democrats.

Chinese government’s actions.

The letter aims to hold the In 2020, the Senate university accountable for unanimously passed the Uyghur its silence and compliance Human Rights Policy Act of 2020, regarding the Chinese which imposed sanctions on government’s genocide against certain individuals involved with Uyghurs and other ethnic the genocide. Then, in January groups. It calls on Georgetown to 2021, the U.S. became the first reject the actions of the Chinese country in the world to officially government and divest itself label the atrocities as genocide. from any investments that may More recently, President implicate the university in the Biden signed the Uyghur ongoing genocide in the Xinjiang Forced Labor Prevention Act Uyghur Autonomous Region. into law in December 2021; If Georgetown truly wants the bill banned imports of all to show its commitment to the goods whose supply chains protection of human life and potentially touched forced dignity, administrators must labor in the Xinjiang region. investigateGeorgetown’sholdings In an age of hyper-polarized to determine if the university is politics, this has been one issue complicit in genocide and then on which both parties have announce a pledge to divest from reached a consensus. the atrocities in China.

Georgetown would be in clear There is clear evidence that violation of its SRI Policy should the Chinese government’s it be complicit in the genocide abuses amount to genocide. The through its investments. The Chinese Communist Party has very first strategy Georgetown detained up to three million lists to implement the SRI people, consisting mostly of Policy is “Do No Harm.”

Uyghurs, a Turkic ethnic group As part of this strategy, the native to Xinjiang. Detainees website says that “the University have been subjected to torture, shall use reasonable efforts to enforced disappearances, forced avoid investments in companies labor and repressive population that have demonstrated records

T

of widespread violations of human dignity.” As such, it would be unconscionable to invest in any company whose products were directly or indirectly made by Uyghur forced labor in Xinjiang.

The university further explains that its SRI Policy “aligns the university’s investment strategy with its commitment to social justice, protection of human life and dignity, stewardship for the planet and promotion of the common good.”

Divestment is not a new concept for Georgetown. On Feb. 6, 2020, Georgetown’s Board of Directors announced a commitment to divest from all public securities of fossil fuel companies, given that fossil fuels are a detriment to the environment. Given this precedent for divesting from morally reprehensible sources, Georgetown should do the right thing and apply this same thinking to the Uyghur genocide.

Georgetown must take several steps to properly advocate for human rights. First, Georgetown must thoroughly investigate its holdings, funds and other financial instruments to determine whether any are connected to the genocide.

Second, the university should immediately pledge to divest from any investments that would make Georgetown complicit in the genocide. Third, Georgetown should publicly announce a commitment not to invest in any such holdings, funds and instruments in the future.

As students, it is imperative that we sign onto the open letter, pressuring the university to publicly confirm that it is adhering to its SRI Policy as it relates to the Uyghur genocide.

We constantly emphasize “never again,” but never again is happening right now.

Ammar Hussain is a sophomore in the SFS/MSB. Ammar is on the executive board of the GU Muslim Student Association and works as a Fellow for the Office of Muslim Life. The views expressed are his own and are not reflective of those of the MSA or OML.

I only ask that they be

This suspect method of

priorities and motivations behind such “half-closures” of campus spaces. If university leaders insist on these restrictions—now until February 11th, or again in the event of future surges in cases— they must let us know why.

Unfortunately, the university has not made such candid admissions in the past, though University President John J. DeGioia (CAS ’79, GRD ’95) always remembers to thank students for their continued flexibility in his announcements. To admit to financial considerations behind their decisions might legitimize any calls for partial refunds on boarding expenses and student activity fees, which may be why university leaders decided to reopen Yates Field House earlier than originally intended, albeit with meager hours.

However small those refunds might be, they add up. I imagine the university is not enthusiastic about such an idea after incurring financial losses in 2020, during earlier stages of the pandemic.

Given the lack of reasoning the administration has provided surrounding its selective choice of public health measures, I am left to assume these measures are meant to disincentivize students from using public spaces like Lau. Since students have their water bottles confiscated at the door, Lau 3 — unsurprisingly — looks as desolate during the week as it does on a standard Saturday night. All the while the administration avoids facing any blowback for failing to provide welcoming study spaces at all. Similarly, grab-and-go dining disincentivizes students from going to Leo J. O’Donovan Dining Hall if they have the means to cook in their apartments, yet the university offers no option for students with kitchens to temporarily opt out of the meal plan.

not new. Last October, in response to a spike in cases, the university reduced the density of seating in Leo’s, which added difficulty to the process of finding a table and, once again, discouraged many students from venturing to the dining hall at all. Early this January, in a follow up to the announcement of remote learning, Chief Public Health Officer Ranit Mishori (MED ’02) and Jeanne Lord, interim vice president for student affairs and dean of students, sent an email outlining arrival testing, quarantining, isolation procedures and more.

While the message did not explicitly discourage students from returning until Jan. 31, it read to me as if university leaders would prefer students stay away from campus until then. Stressing that students don’t have to return avoids the financial fallout that partial boarding refunds would entail if the campus was closed altogether.

Ideally, an honest administration would admit community transmission is more dependent on social gatherings and not the mask compliance of students eating and drinking in the library. While the university’s selectively stringent public health measures continue without transparent reasoning, I can only assume their intentions are to prevent students from utilizing campus spaces while continuing to collect the tuition and fees that fund those spaces.

If my request for increased transparency seems unreasonable, I would gladly invite President DeGioia or Dr. Mishori to join me for a meal in the tent on the Southwest Quad, an — ironically — enclosed space where I would be happy to hear more about their motivations.

Jack Healy transparent regarding their COVID-19 policymaking is Columnist

I

t wouldn’t be another month of the new year at Georgetown without the smiley-faced signs in the Leavey Center warning students to comply with the no food or drink policy throughout the building. The signs are a warm reminder of the university’s continuation of strict public health measures through Feb. 11 that Provost Robert Groves announced in a Jan. 24 message.

Although we resumed classes in person this week, on-campus dining remains grab-and-go while communal eating areas remain almost nonexistent. Campus recreational facilities are now open with limited capacity, but student basketball courts stay closed and some club sports teams are still prohibited from holding practices. Lauinger Library sits barren, inhospitable to anyone who might prefer to drink water while studying. I am not sure when the Healey Family Student Center will ever fully reopen.

I have previously argued that Georgetown’s public health team needs to embrace the efficacy of vaccines in preventing severe disease, hospitalization and death instead of subjecting in-person instruction and campus life to the volatility of case numbers. To reiterate, I do not believe in the necessity of the public health measures I have discussed here and want to see campus as open as possible given the protection vaccination offers our community. If university administrators are set on continuing the same, arbitrary public health measures, however, there may be nothing we can do as students to change their minds.

Jack Healy is a junior in the School of Foreign Service.

Eyeing the Administration is published every other week.

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THEHOYA.COM | FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2022

FEATURES

“A Clear Violation of the Law”: Professors Reject Student Disability Accommodations Across several departments, Georgetown professors have denied students their ARC-approved disability accommodations, despite legal protections from the ADA.

Mia Rasamny

Senior Multimedia Editor

C

aitlin McDermott (COL ’23) was hoping for a Zoom class environment that was educational, interesting and respectful of her identity as a deaf student when she began taking the course “Forensic Linguistics” in spring 2021. What she ended up with was a professor who refused to adhere to her accommodations, which the Georgetown University Academic Resource Center (ARC) had granted her that same spring.

Professor Natalie Schilling, who taught the course, failed to provide McDermott with adequate access to her interpreter — whom McDermott has as part of her ARC-provided accommodations — during class and in office hours.

“She always failed to put my translator in breakout rooms with me, so I could rarely participate. That sucked a lot, so that limited my participation,” McDermott told The Hoya. “She also didn’t let my translator come into office hours.”

Students have the right to receive accommodations and have them respected by professors, according to Ron Hager, managing attorney for education and employment at the National Disability Rights Network.

“If there has been an agreed-to accommodation between the university and the student, and individual faculty don’t honor that agreement, that’s a clear violation of the law,” Hager said in an interview with The Hoya.

Across several academic departments, The Hoya has identified a pattern of professors ignoring, neglecting and rejecting disabled students’ accommodations, suggesting a lack of university oversight in ensuring professors respect students’ legal right to academic accommodations.

Repeated Refusals, Negligence The Hoya spoke with five students who reported incidents of professors failing to meet their ARC disability accommodations. The Hoya has independently verified the enrollment of all students named in the courses discussed.

According to a university spokesperson, the ARC strives to be an inclusive environment that helps students succeed.

“Every accommodation is individualized, based upon the student, their demonstrated needs, and the nature of the courses in which they are requesting accommodation,” the spokesperson wrote to The Hoya.

However, some accommodations are not considered reasonable, according to the university spokesperson.

“Accommodations that significantly compromise essential academic requirements or curricular goals of the course are not considered reasonable,” the spokesperson wrote.

When asked if the university permits professors to reject accommodations approved by the ARC, the university spokesperson did not comment.

Throughout the spring 2021 semester, Schilling neglected to provide some of McDermott’s accommodations, including an interpreter, trigger warnings and sending the syllabus before the semester began, McDermott told The Hoya.

Furthermore, immediately before presenting her final presentation for the class, McDermott said another student in the class presented the exact triggering content that her accommodations specifically state she must be warned about beforehand. Schilling provided her with no such warning.

“She was very much like, ‘It’s not my problem if you don’t get it or if you can’t keep up,’ so I was like, ‘How am I supposed to do my final, which is

45% of my grade, right after a very triggering presentation?”

McDermott said.

When The Hoya contacted Schilling, she refused to provide a specific comment on the situation.

“I am not permitted to comment on individual student cases,” Schilling wrote in an email to The Hoya.

Individual student information is protected by law and cannot be disclosed, so the university nor professors can comment on specific cases under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. Under the 1973 Americans with Disabilities Act, both private and public colleges and universities must provide equal access to education for students with disabilities. Georgetown’s ARC assesses individual students’ need for accommo-

for taking tests, but over Zoom, the professor did not accommodate this, she said.

“I can’t be in a Zoom room with a bunch of other students. That’s not a nodistraction space,” Murphy said. “Despite the fact that I told them that, they didn’t understand and actually trapped me without me knowing that I’d be on a Zoom call with other people and start the exam.”

During the final exam, Murphy said she began to have a panic attack and had to take her medication on Zoom in front of all the other students.

The Hoya reached out to the department of Spanish and Portuguese for comment. While department chair Emily Francomano initially provided comment, she later contacted The Hoya to rescind her statement, stat-

The Hoya.

“You need to stop. You need to stop,” Tian told Frazier during their breakdown.

“I can’t stop,” Frazier said.

“I want to learn, too, but it’s hard,” they continued, after Tian threatened to remove them from the Zoom class.

Tian muted Frazier’s microphone. She emailed them later that day saying she was working on their case.

“I am sorry that I had to mute your microphone. I was hoping that it will give you some time to take a deep breath and it will allow me to continue with my lecture,” Tian wrote in the email obtained by The Hoya.

Five days later on April 6, Assistant Director of OffCampus Student Conduct Victor Lopez notified Frazier that they had allegations of violating the Code

ILLUSTRATION BY: ROSY LIN/THE HOYA

The Hoya spoke with five students whose professors neglected or refused to enact their ARC disability accommodations, demonstrating the university’s failure to ensure professors provide students with a fair and inclusive class environment. dations based on documentation from medical professionals and are determined on a case-by-case basis.

After submitting documentation, students are required to meet with an ARC administrator within the first few weeks of each semester, during which they receive accommodation letters for their professors.

Gwyneth Murphy (SFS ’23) met with the ARC during her first-year fall semester and secured 10 accommodations, including double time and a private room for exams. That same fall, Murphy met with one of her professors in the economics department to discuss these accommodations, but he immediately threw the accommodations letter in the trash, she told The Hoya.

“He read it over, and then he just threw it out in front of me while I was standing there,” Murphy said in an interview with The Hoya.

“I just remember being like, ‘Alright, this is my first academic accommodation meeting ever as a college student,’ and I thought this was just how it was going to be.”

Murphy requested to withhold the name of the professor because she hopes to improve the treatment of disability accommodations on campus instead of subjecting professors to judgment, she said.

“I believe in restorative justice. I don’t think they need to be publicly scrutinized,” Murphy said. “They are all good people at the end of the day, but it’s just a massive oversight. They have a lot to learn, and they caused harm.”

The following spring, Murphy once again faced a professor — this time in a Spanish class — who failed to adhere to her accommodations. One of Murphy’s accommodations is to have a private, no-distraction space

ing that the university had advised her to refer The Hoya to the Media Relations Office.

That same spring, Ace Frazier’s (MSB ’24) accounting professor, Xiaoli Tian, ignored their ARC accommodations, which they received for diagnosed bipolar disorder.

Despite repeatedly requesting they receive extensions on assignments and excused absences — both of which are listed in their ARC accommodations letter — Tian refused to provide these accommodations, according to Frazier.

Without these accommodations, Frazier had difficulty attending class and completing assignments.

“These issues are getting to the point where things are about to spill over, and I’m gonna spill them over,” Frazier said in an interview with The Hoya. “That’s just what it’s like being disabled sometimes. Everything just hits you all at once. You can’t catch a break, because you don’t have the systems in place to help you.”

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

On April 1, 2020, Frazier requested an excused absence from the accounting class for mental health reasons. Despite Frazier’s ARCgranted accommodations including excused absences, Tian told Frazier they must still attend the Zoom class.

In the same email thread, obtained by The Hoya, Frazier proceeded to detail the challenges they were facing due to their bipolar disorder.

“Every day is agony for me,” Frazier wrote to Tian.

Frazier attended the April 1 class but had a mental breakdown in the middle of it, which another student recorded. The video has been obtained and reviewed by

of Student Conduct made against them resulting from the April 1 incident. Charges included: “Disorderly Conduct,” “Disruption of Official University Functions,” “Incivility — University Official,” and “Violations of University Regulations,” according to the sanction letter obtained

by The Hoya.

Lopez stated that Frazier was required to attend a meeting that same day with the Office of Student Conduct, ending the letter with a final recognition of Frazier’s emotional struggles.

“We want to recognize that your participation in today’s meeting may be stressful for you and that you may find yourself needing to connect with resources for support or assistance,” Lopez wrote in the letter. “We encourage you to do so and to take care of yourself at this time.”

Frazier said they were extremely distressed after receiving the letter and felt at the time that they could be forced out of the university.

“It made me feel terrible,” Frazier said. “It was a really rough time, and I actually ended up in the hospital at the end of that same week.”

The university eventually dropped all potential conduct violations after Frazier sent medical documentation from their therapist and psychiatrist.

With more student advocacy and awareness on campus, community members can work to make the university aware of the accessibility and ADA violations, which will ultimately improve the experience of students with disabilities, according to Frazier.

A Pattern of Mistreatment After starting at GeorgetoWhile some professors have completely rejected or

neglected students’ accommodations, others have been slow to communicate with students regarding how accommodations affect course requirements.

In October 2021, Nino Barbati (COL ’24) received a diagnosis for an active flare of Ulcerative Colitis, an inflammatory bowel disease, and obtained ARC accommodations shortly after which included flexible attendance, the ability to take class fully on Zoom and extended deadlines.

Even with a doctor’s note describing the nature of his illness and his ARC accommodations letter, one of Barbati’s economics professors still failed to adequately communicate with him about course requirements when Barbati was in the hospital for over a month, Barbati told The Hoya.

“He was very negligent in his communication with me, and I had to reach out several times and to get my dean involved in order to get a response from him, because he basically ignored me for six weeks when I was trying to figure out how I was supposed to finish the course, after I’d been in the hospital for six weeks,” Barbati said in an interview with The Hoya. “It was just a lot harder than I thought it should have been in order to be able to get my schoolwork done.”

The professor’s negligence to communicate has caused Barbati significant stress on top of his medical issues, he said.

“Managing a chronic illness is quite fatiguing on its own, and it’s an extra burden to have to be tracking down my professors for guidance about how I’m supposed to proceed,” Barbati wrote in a message to The Hoya.

Barbati is still completing the course and will receive a grade from the professor at the end of the spring semester. As such, Barbati asked The Hoya to withhold the name of the economics professor for fear of retaliation.

The economics department supports students with ARC accommodations, according to economics department interim chair Roger Lagunoff.

“Our department’s policy is that it strongly supports ARC disability accommodations, and any student who feels their ARC accommodations are not being appropriately honored can come to the Department Chair,” Lagunoff wrote to The Hoya.

According to Murphy, it is crucial to educate professors on the importance of accommodations.

“Ultimately the university would also be legally responsible. They’re the ones that have to ensure that students with disabilities rights are not discriminated against.”

RON HAGER MANAGING ATTORNEY FOR EDUCATION, NDRN

view with The Hoya.

In the classroom, Rifkin is sure to accommodate all students regardless of their accommodation status.

Throughout the semester, Rifkin meets with each student individually to discuss their access needs, and ensures that in every class there is a designated notetaker to alleviate the pressures off of other students.

“This idea of building in an awareness that people learn differently and approach a space differently, and to try to account for that, through these structures that can be helpful to lots of different people,” Rifkin said.

Professors are not the ones to determine what accommodations students receive, and should not choose which to accept and which to reject, according to Hager, of the National Disability Rights Network.

“They should be embarrassed, frankly, to just ignore the requirements and accommodations that have been agreed to that the student needs,” Hager said.

“Even if they think, ‘Well, that student doesn’t need it,’ they’re not the ones that have been put in the position to make that determination. That determination has already been made.”

It’s not only professors that are violating the ADA, but also the university, which is failing to properly oversee the implementation of ARC accommodations, according to Hager.

“Ultimately, the university would also be legally responsible,” Hager said. “They’re the ones that have to ensure that students with disabilities rights are not discriminated against.”

Despite ADA requirements to adhere to accommodations, some professors have cherry picked accommodations, according to LaHannah Giles (COL ’23), who had this experience when she was enrolled in “U.S. Latinx History” with Mike Amezcua this semester.

“Before the class had started, I sent him my accommodations, because I do receive them from the Academic Resource Center,” Giles said in an interview with The Hoya.

“He didn’t quite accept my accommodations — a few he did, a few he didn’t.”

Giles did not want to name specific accommodations she receives for privacy reasons. She has since dropped the course.

The long and formal application process can disqualify some students from seeking accommodations, according to Giles.

“Georgetown has to do a better job of supporting students with disabilities, and also taking this mental health crisis that we’re having seriously. I think everyone knows there’s a crisis happening but no one’s talking about it.”

Amezcua told The Hoya he cannot comment on Giles’ specific situation.

“If a student is concerned about anything in my class, we have to use the appropriate channels to protect student privacy,” Amezcua wrote in an email to The Hoya. “So, I can’t offer any comment on your story, and I unfortunately won’t have an opportunity to share my perspective with a larger community.”

These incidents students have described to The Hoya are not the first accusations about Georgetown’s failure to adhere to accommodations and ADA law. In 2014, the ARC refused to provide an interpreter for a hearing impaired student during the Georgetown University Student Associationsponsored Law School Admission Test prep class.

A year later, students called on the university to improve accessibility and ADA compliance in the wake of ADA class action lawsuits at other top universities. In spring 2016, an external review was submitted to Georgetown’s Division of Student Affairs, describing deficiencies of the ARC, including an inaccessible location and small staff.

By rejecting or negligently ignoring students’ disability academic accommodations, the university and professors are directly violating students’ civil rights, according to Hager.

“The faculty need to realize that these are the civil rights of their students,” Hager said. “How could they even think about violating one of their students’ civil rights?”

“It’s not necessarily that they all just throw out my accommodations,” Murphy said. “It’s just that some people really aren’t educated and don’t understand that that’s really rude and illegal.”

Accommodations should be given to students with disabilities without difficulty, according to Libbie Rifkin, founding director of Georgetown’s program in disability studies.

“It shouldn’t be the burden on an individual student necessarily, even to have to get an accommo- Liana Hardy and Claire Stowe dation to have their access contributed reporting. needs met. I mean, that’s the law,” Rifkin said in an inter-

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PAGE FIVE

Inside Look at English Association

Your news — from every corner of The Hoya

VERBATIM

INSIDE THE ISSUE

I want to hear from them what their experience with CAPS has been.”

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY

Professor Ricardo Ortiz will serve as president of the Association of Departments of English, aspiring to make literacy and cultural studies more accessible and inclusive.

DC COVID Centers provide DURRIYA MEER, free vaccines, tests and new CAPS director, on her masks. Story on A7. goals. Story on A9.

Georgetown Awards “Legacy Interdisciplinary Program To Launch Of a Dream” to Non-Profit CEO For Biomedical Science Students Priyasha Chakravarti Special to The Hoya

Khari Brown, local nonprofit CEO, has received the “Legacy of a Dream” award from Georgetown University.

Brown, CEO of Capital Partners for Education (CPE), a nonprofit that provides mentorship for lowincome students in Washington, D.C., received the award from President John J. DeGioia (CAS ’79, GRD ’95) on Jan. 17. Since 2003, the John R. Thompson Jr. “Legacy of a Dream” award has been granted to local leaders who have completed meaningful civil rights, children’s rights or humanitarian work in their community. The award, which is presented to recipients on Martin Luther King Jr. Day each year, is named in honor of John Thompson Jr., former Georgetown head basketball coach.

Brown said that it is a privilege to receive an award associated with prominent civil rights leaders.

“This award is the greatest honor I’ve ever received, and it’s also extremely meaningful for our organization,” Brown wrote to The Hoya. “To be associated with leaders like Martin Luther King, and John Thompson is beyond my wildest dreams, and I hope this special recognition helps us bring more attention to the need for promoting economic mobility for Black and Brown young people in our community.”

Mentorship has proven to be an essential component of Brown’s work, according to DeGioia.

“His leadership shows the power of mentorship as a tool to bring out the very best in our young people and enable them to thrive,” DeGioia said during a live virtual presentation of the award.

Under Brown’s leadership, CPE expanded from mentoring 50 students annually to work-

ing with nearly 500 students.

Nearly 61% of students who work with CPE graduate from college — triple the national average among similar students — and 88% of its 2020 high school class enrolled in college within one year of graduating from high school.

Despite these successes, disparities in education continue to rise, often influenced by socioeconomic factors beyond students’ control, according to Brown.

“Educational outcomes are too often determined by zip code, race and family income,” Brown wrote to The Hoya. “Change is needed in

“I believe education is the great equalizer, and it makes an invaluable difference in the lives of young people who can dream of a better future.”

MOISÉS ALVAREZ SFS ‘23

many areas, including at a national policy level in addressing the systemic inequities in our country and the DC community that make educational success and economic mobility so hard to achieve for the young people we serve.”

CPE initially started as a scholarship program for lowincome students looking to attend private schools. It soon turned into a mentorship and career-focused program that saw growing demand from D.C. public and charter schools. Brown’s priority then shifted to focus on first generation college students who remain affected by unequal

opportunities in the District.

Brown identified a group of underserved students known as the “academic middle” — students whose grade point average fell between 2.3 and 3.1 and have the potential to go to college but lack the resources and support — to receive CPE mentoring.

Education and equal opportunities for all students are essential components of building a more equitable society, according to Moisés Alvarez (SFS ’23), a student who was involved with CPE throughout high school.

“Khari’s work is social justice, with a focus on income inequality and racial disparities in the education system,” Alvarez wrote to The Hoya. “I believe education is the great equalizer, and it makes an invaluable difference in the lives of young people who can dream of a better future. In our DC community today, we see so much unrealized potential in students who do not have the resources and access to take the next step at a college education, if that’s what they want to pursue.”

Khari’s work continued at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, when CPE began conducting their programs virtually and increased its funding by more than 500%, providing monetary resources for students and their families to help them pay rent and buy essential items.

CPE and Brown continue to change students’ lives even after they graduate from the traditional mentorship programs, according to Alvarez.

“My education is a stepping stone for me to go on into the professional world and make an impact in my community,” Alvarez wrote.

“CPE has been a pivotal player in all this. When I joined at 14 years old I was paired with a mentor, with whom I keep in touch today.”

Samantha Sinutko Grad Desk Editor

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded Georgetown University a grant that will launch an interdisciplinary training program for biomedical science graduate students Feb. 1.

The program, titled the Georgetown University Initiative for Maximizing Student Development (IMSD), is a five-year program that combines coursework, thesis research labs and cross-disciplinary mentorship in an effort to expand enrollment of individuals from racial and ethnic groups that are nationally underrepresented in the health sciences.

The training grant will enroll 20 students in total, with recruitment beginning this month and the incoming cohort beginning in July. The IMSD principal investigators and co-directors are Kathleen Maguire-Zeiss, Caleb McKinney and Ronda Rolfes.

The program will provide the space for biomedical science students to connect with individuals inside and outside of their specific program, according to Rolfes, professor and director of graduate studies in the biology department at Georgetown.

“Students selected for this training grant will become part of a supported cohort that extends beyond the department or program that they join,” Rolfes wrote in an email to The Hoya. “In other words, they will form connections to other students and faculty outside of their own PhD program.

The interdisciplinary community is a unique aspect of this training grant relative to the other existing training grants.”

Students are eligible to apply for the program if they are enrolled in one of seven participating Georgetown doctoral programs: biochemistry and molecular biology, biology, chemistry, pharmacology

and physiology, neuroscience, physics, and tumor biology.

Maguire-Zeiss, McKinney and Rolfes submitted their training program proposal to the NIH during winter 2021.

The idea for the IMSD stemmed from the professors who envisioned an opportunity to create a network between the main campus and graduate programs, according to McKinney, assistant dean of graduate and postdoctoral training and development at Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC).

The ability to interact professionally with programs not within a student’s discipline will allow doctoral students to think of biomedical sciences in broader ways, according to McKinney.

“Another hallmark of the program is the professional development component,” McKinney wrote in an email to The Hoya.

“We want our trainees to develop the career self-efficacy needed to pursue the scientific career of their choosing down the line after graduation. Therefore we will be providing them with interprofessional experiences such as project management training, and an opportunity to conduct an internship in an area outside of their research project.”

GUMC looks forward to training people who are underrepresented in medicine through this program, according to Edward B. Healton, executive vice president for health sciences at GUMC and executive dean of the School of Medicine.

“We are especially pleased to have the support of this NIH grant in recognition of the work we have planned for building a more inclusive environment across the university, thus allowing us to better train an array of talented individuals who are underrepresented in these critically important fields,” Healton wrote in a GUMC news release.

The first year of the program will consist of coursework in the student’s discipline, with the opportunity for interdepartmental electives. During the second year, students will join crossdisciplinary mentorship teams and thesis research laboratories to allow students to pursue their professional goals related to their individual discipline while also broadening their scientific skills across programs.

By combining departments, the program will also support students in their holistic learning, according to Maguire-Zeiss, chair of the Georgetown neuroscience department.

“It’s a unique program because it brings together faculty from 7 different departments/PhD programs and will provide an array of professional training opportunities for individuals underrepresented in the biomedical sciences,” Maguire-Zeiss wrote in an email to The Hoya. “For me, this program is representative of the way that Georgetown’s research mentors strive to support the whole student — in the classroom, in research, and in personal development.”

The opportunity for different Georgetown campuses to interact among a cohort of students in the biomedical sciences is a distinctive feature of this program, according to McKinney.

“The IMSD funding opportunity really gave us a chance to come together as a campus around this key area, take an inventory of our collective strengths in training, and break down silos so that we could take a unified approach toward recruiting excellent students from diverse backgrounds and providing them with a unique interdisciplinary and interprofessional training experience that incorporates strong mentorship and cohort development components,” McKinney wrote.

Georgetown To Hire Associate Director for Disability Cultural Initiative Samuel Yoo

Student Life Desk Editor

Georgetown University will hire an associate director for the Disability Cultural Initiative to increase engagement in disability culture and improve inclusion on campus.

The Disability Cultural Initiative aims to promote social justice and support disabled community members. The new associate director will help guide the initiative and oversee efforts to create a Disability Cultural Center (DCC), which would organize programming, including educational, social and support initiatives for disabled students and allies who want to get involved. The push for a DCC on campus began in 2015 and was reginited last year.

A DCC would offer various programs, including social events, inclusion trainings, guest panels, mentoring and office hours in an effort to support the disabled community at Georgetown.

The establishment of a DCC would fundamentally improve the Georgetown expe-

rience for current and future disabled students, according to Gwyneth Murphy (SFS ’23), Georgetown University Student Association (GUSA) Accessibility Coordinator.

“I’ve been dreaming of a DCC since I was a freshman and encountered my first instance of discrimination as a disabled person,” Murphy said in an interview with The Hoya. “I couldn’t get it out of my mind, because there are so many ways my own life would improve.

I would feel accepted and included and heard in ways that I really haven’t felt my whole time at Georgetown.”

The GUSA Accessibility Policy Team, with support from student organizations including the Georgetown Disability Alliance, began formally advocating for a DCC last winter.

Since Dec. 2020 the petition for the center has garnered over one thousand signatures, including from alumni, faculty, student organizations and other universities.

Murphy is optimistic that filling the position would advance progress towards creat-

ing a disability cultural center.

“We want to make sure that the position is filled with someone who’s highly qualified and reflects the diverse student body,” Murphy said. “That is our next main goal, and I think genuinely once the position is filled with someone who can dedicate their time to projects, I imagine that it’s really just going to require finding the right space and making sure that the space is accessible.”

The university’s search for a new associate director is a step in the right direction but is just the beginning of advocacy efforts, according to GUSA Accessibility Policy Team Chair Nesreen Shahrour (NHS ’23).

“I think there’s a lot of ways we can improve accessibility.

We should continue moving forward and I’m thankful for this step forward,” Shahrour said in an interview with The Hoya. “This is simply a search for someone. We haven’t started the hiring process, and there are a lot of steps moving forward that we need to work on. But I think I’m very appreciative of this step by the university.”

The Disability Cultural Initiative, along with future plans for a DCC, are examples of Georgetown’s commitment to accessibility and equity, according to a university spokesperson.

“The goal of the Disability Cultural Initiative is to build the foundation for the eventual establishment of a fullyfledged disability cultural center that will coordinate and integrate the educational, academic, social, and support programming for disabled students, faculty, staff, allies, and people interested in learning more about disability,” the university spokesperson wrote to The Hoya.

The GUSA Accessibility Policy Team received guidance from Georgetown English professor Libbie Rifkin, who was the founding director of the Program in Disability Studies from 2017 to 2020. Rifkin is also a special advisor to the vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion for disability.

The university’s decision to search for a new associate director marks a fundamental

shift in the university’s approach to campus culture, according to Professor Rifkin.

“This initiative moves beyond the deficit model of disability and beyond strict compliance to celebrate disability as an identity, a dimension of diversity and a cultural community,” Rifkin wrote to The Hoya. “I think the effects of this hire will be felt in all areas of University life, in, and importantly, well beyond the classroom: from admissions to residence life to

club culture to employment to technology to the broader culture of belonging.”

According to Murphy, when a DCC becomes a reality, it will be a turning point for disabled members of the Georgetown community.

“I think a DCC is finally going to rightfully put the spotlight on this community and allow them a safe space to be themselves and give them an opportunity to finally have a host for their wants and needs,” Murphy said.

KIRK ZIESER/THE HOYA

Georgetown University began its search for an associate director of the Disability Cultural Initiative.

A6 | THE HOYA

THEHOYA.COM | FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2022

Delayed Notification About Georgetown Students Call on GU To Investigate Neighborhood Shooting Raises Concerns Possible Ties to Uyghur Genocide UYGHURS, from A1

KIRK ZIESER/THE HOYA

Students expressed concern after a HOYAlert was sent out almost an hour after a fatal shooting in the Georgetown neighborhood on Monday evening.

HOYALERT, from A1 something out? People are concerned, since there’s an active situation, especially with the helicopter with a spotlight,’” Brodo said in an interview with The Hoya. “I called at 6:53, and usually they pick up pretty fast. But it just kept ringing for at least 35, 45 seconds.”

Brennan George (SFS ’23), a resident assistant in Loyola, Xavier and Ryder Hall (LXR), said he took it upon himself to notify his residents at 6:37 p.m. of the potential safety concern after he saw police officers scanning the yards in between houses near campus and heard from people who were returning from the scene that someone had allegedly been shot.

“I hadn’t seen an alert from the university yet, so I thought it was important to notify them in case the suspect was still in the area,” George wrote to The Hoya. “At that point, the details of the shooting hadn’t fully emerged, so for all I knew it could have been a random shooting. For that reason, I wanted to make sure residents knew to take steps to ensure their own safety.”

According to Phoebe Chambers (COL ’25), who found out about the incident via the “Free Food On Campus” GroupMe, a mobile group messaging chat, students were relying on word of mouth from one another for information.

“It’s really disturbing that Georgetown students have to rely on each other to communicate information

regarding threats to student safety, but since the University never sends time-sensitive information out quickly, we don’t have a choice,” Chambers wrote to The Hoya.

Comparato, who lives in an offcampus house only blocks away from the site of the incident, said she and her housemates were uncertain about the proper safety precautions to take without clear guidance from the university.

“The uncertainty and lack of information made us, especially those of us in my house who had just seen the situation firsthand, want to take all possible precautions to stay safe,” Comparato wrote.

Last semester, students expressed concerns that GUPD failed to notify the campus community of multiple dormitory intrusions, including a Sept. 19 intrusion in which an unknown perpetrator with a pocketknife entered a women’s bathroom in New South Hall and followed a resident through the hallway.

GUPD sent a HOYAlert as it found out about the public safety concern, according to a university spokesperson.

“Upon the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) making the Georgetown University Police Department (GUPD) aware of the incident on Monday night, a HOYAlert was sent advising students to avoid the area,” the university spokesperson wrote to The Hoya.

Brodo said he was concerned about the lack of information in the HOYAlert message that was eventu-

ally sent out about 55 minutes after the shooting.

“It was just very plain and lacking substance,” Brodo said. “Based on even what was sent out 30 minutes before that by the D.C. Police, they were providing a little bit more info, they provided a preliminary description of the suspected perpetrator. I felt that maybe Georgetown should have done that.”

Jay Gruber, GUPD chief of police, sent an email to members of the Georgetown community the following morning with an update on the shooting and safety reminders.

Georgetown will increase security around campus in response to the incident, according to a university spokesperson.

“When there is an increase in safety incidents anywhere on campus, GUPD increases patrols out of an abundance of caution and takes appropriate steps to respond to ensure the safety of the community,” the spokesperson wrote.

The lack of communication surrounding this incident raises additional concerns about community safety in the event of an active shooting situation, according to Brodo.

“I think what it does show is that they’re unprepared for some of the worst situations,” Brodo said. “It does strike a question to me of what if this were a shooting on campus, like an active shooting situation, where it was not a targeted incident? What if it was someone that wanted to engage in a mass shooting, would the response be this pathetic?”

implications of all its investments, programs, and activities — whether this be in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, or anywhere else in the world,” the HKSA statement read.

The Muslim Student Association did not respond to The Hoya’s request for comment.

Georgetown students should support efforts to investigate the endowment, according to Matteo Caulfield (COL ’23), president of GBC. “Holding China accountable for its violations of basic human rights is a cause we should all get behind no matter our political background in the United States,” Caulfield wrote to The Hoya. “As Georgetown students, we have the responsibility to reflect on our global impact and eradicate any connection we bear to international crimes.”

The Georgetown University Student Association (GUSA) Senate unanimously passed a resolution at a meeting held Jan. 31 requesting the university to provide more transparency about the endowment.

GUSA Senator Dominic Gordon (SFS ’24), who co-sponsored the resolution after signing onto the letter, said any ties to the Chinese govern-

ment’s atrocities against the Uyghurs is unacceptable.

“This issue is important to me because as a Jewish American, I firmly believe that no ethnic group should ever face an attempt to eliminate it.

I believe that the Chinese government’s behavior points to that direction,” Gordon wrote to The Hoya.

It’s essential that students raise this issue whenever possible because a sustained dialogue will be critical to find ways to respond to these atrocities, according to Peter Irwin, a senior program officer at the Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group the Uyghur Human Rights Project.

“The first step for Georgetown — or any institution for that matter — would be to meticulously review their investments to ensure there is no connection to the treatment of Uyghurs,” Irwin wrote in an email to The Hoya.

The composition of endowments sends a message, according to Jeffrey Ngo (GRD ’24), a doctoral candidate studying history, who signed the letter.

“How an educational institution allocates its endowment sends a powerful message about the social values it endorses,” Ngo wrote in an email to The Hoya. “Our university community is diverse. Many mem-

bers — including Hong Kongers like me — are directly facing the repression of the Chinese government every single day.”

Human rights and values already guide Georgetown’s investment practices, according to a university spokesperson.

“Georgetown’s Socially Responsible Investing Policy (SRI Policy) aligns the university’s investments to protecting human life and dignity, as well as social justice and the promotion of the common good,” the spokesperson wrote in an email to The Hoya.

The SRI policy, which was put into effect in June 2017, was established by these guidelines, according to the spokesperson.

The push for the university to investigate the endowments offers students the ability to protest the actions of the Chinese government within the campus community, according to Ngo. “The divestment campaign offers a potential for me to make an impact for a cause that’s personal to me — in this case, protesting genocide perpetuated by the Chinese government against Uyghurs in Xinjiang — while focusing on my own university community. That’s why I’m doing my part to push the letter forward by signing it and spreading it,” Ngo wrote.

KIRK ZIESER/THE HOYA

Students urged the university to investigate its financial holdings for any possible ties to atrocities committed against Uyghur people and other ethnic minority groups.

GULC To Investigate Ilya Shapiro for Racist Tweets Following Student Activism SHAPIRO, from A1 During the 2020 presidential campaign, Biden committed to nominating a Black woman to the Supreme Court. Justice Stephen Breyer announced plans to retire Jan. 26, leaving an open Supreme Court seat for President Biden to fill; it was this news that prompted Shapiro’s Jan. 26 tweet.

William Treanor, dean of GULC, emailed GULC community members Jan. 27 condemning Shapiro’s words. Following outrage expressed by community members, including a Jan. 28 statement released by the Georgetown Law Black Law Student Association (Georgetown BLSA), Treanor announced Jan. 31 that Shapiro has been placed

on administrative leave and will be investigated in accordance with university policies.

In the statement, Georgetown BLSA urges GULC to rescind Shapiro’s job offer, commit to a more thorough hiring process, properly staff the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, ensure the representation of Black students when it comes to hiring decisions and fund an endowment to support Black GULC students. The statement has garnered over 1,000 electronic signatures as of Feb. 1.

Georgetown BLSA immediately began drafting the statement following Shapiro’s tweets, according to Deon McCray (LAW ’22), president of Georgetown’s BLSA chapter.

“Our community really was

instantly outraged after the tweet. And even more importantly the belief and the stance that the tweet represents,” McCray said in an interview with The Hoya.

When asked for a comment, a GULC spokesperson said they cannot comment on “personnel matters” and referred The Hoya to Treanor’s Jan. 31 email.

Students of color at GULC continuously face racist comments from professors, faculty or staff, McCray said.

“One of our big responses really was, in a few words, ‘here we go again, here we go again,’” McCray said. “This is my third year on our executive board, and this is the third time I’ve been a part of a process like this.”

This is not the first time Sha-

piro has expressed racist sentiments toward Supreme Court nominees. In a 2009 opinion piece he wrote for CNN after President Barack Obama’s nomination of current justice Sonia Sotomayor, Shapiro said she would not have been picked if she were not Hispanic.

Last year, Sandra Sellers, an adjunct professor at GULC at the time, complained about the academic performance of her Black students in a video shared via Twitter on March 10. GULC terminated Sellers following the incident and student backlash.

Kalli Joslin (LAW ’22) said that Sellers’s — and now Shapiro’s — comments point to deeply institutionalized racism at GULC. “I worry that there are a lot of

GEORGETOWN LAW OFFICIAL/INSTAGRAM

Georgetown Law administrators placed administrator Ilya Shapiro on administrative leave following racist and sexist tweets about President Biden’s pledge to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court. The Georgetown Black Law Student Association released a petition in response, which garnered over 1,000 electronic signatures.

faculty members that secretly harbor very similar opinions and beliefs about their Black female students and fellow faculty members and just aren’t saying them out loud,” Joslin said in an interview with The Hoya. “The fact that these similar events have happened in the last year shows that these aren’t isolated incidents.”

Lauren Harris (LAW ’22), who signed BLSA’s petition, said she was not surprised by Shapiro’s racist tweet.

“Unfortunately, I have come to expect situations like this, and Georgetown is no different,” Harris said in an interview with The Hoya. “So I won’t say that I am let down. I will say that is on par with a lot of experiences that I have had in my career personally and professionally. And the expectation, again, as a leader in the legal industry of the nation’s capital is to do better.”

Furthermore, Treanor’s Jan. 27 email did not adequately address the magnitude of the tweet, according to Harris.

“It seemed to separate the act from the actor, and the language that was used about the tweets, having discriminatory language, and it completely removed the act from the actor,” Harris said. “That just kind of told to a lack of accountability and a lack of awareness.”

Anti-Black racism is historically common in the field of law, Harris said.

“There is anti-Black racism running rampant everywhere,” Harris said. “When you go into sectors such as law, which has historically been white maledominated, it is going to be a pattern until we get down to accountability and I think accountability goes beyond losing a job or firing somebody.”

Despite making up 13.4% of the population, Black individuals make up only 5% of all lawyers in the United States, and that percentage has not increased in the last decade.

Rujuta Nandgaonkar (LAW ’22) said it is unacceptable that Shapiro’s tweets pitted Asian Americans and Black Ameri-

cans against one another.

“I unequivocally reject this division that he fomented, especially between my affiliated community and the Black community, but especially Black women,” Nandgaonkar said in an interview with The Hoya.

“Our fellow staff members, our classmates, our colleagues fully deserve their places in our legal community, and that’s from Georgetown Law all the way to the Supreme Court.”

Division between communities of color harms the fight for racial justice by perpetuating the incorrect belief that systematic racism can be overcome by individual effort, especially the effort of one group over another.

The National Black Law Students Association (NBLSA) stands in solidarity with the Georgetown BLSA, according to a statement written by NBLSA National Chair Simone Yhap and Vice-Chair Richard Garzola.

“Mr. Ilya Shapiro’s abhorrent tweets regarding Black women being ‘lesser’ were not only denigrating, but also a direct reflection of the ingrained racism within the legal profession,” the statement to The Hoya reads.

The university’s inadequate response to Shapiro’s tweets makes it difficult for Shropshire to trust that GULC will be a good experience for other aspiring lawyers.

“When I’m talking to other prospective Black law students, it’s really difficult to encourage them to come to the school that I attend because of these egregious comments that are made about Black people,” Shropshire said. “It’s hard for me to encourage Black people to put themselves in a situation that could cause them emotional trauma.”

The university must rescind Shapiro’s employment offer, according to Shropshire.

“If they let him skate by considering the circumstances, that sends a message to students, to professors, to the general public of what the university is going to tolerate and that they would essentially be sweeping racism under the rug,” Shropshire said.

“I can’t defend that.”

THE HOYA | A7

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2022 | THEHOYA.COM

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Georgetown Professor Receives Georgetown Course Highlights Diverse Classical Arabic Poetry Award Perspectives on COVID-19 Pandemic Brooke DeLucia Hoya Staff Writer

A Georgetown University professor has received a prestigious honor for her work in the field of classical Arabic poetry.

Suzanne Stetkevych, Sultan Qaboos bin Said Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies in the department of Arabic and Islamic studies, was named a 2022 King Faisal Prize laureate for Arabic language and literature by the King Faisal Foundation, which aims to benefit the field of Islamic studies. Stetkevych will be formally recognized in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in March 2022.

This year’s King Faisal Prize specifically focused on works of Arabic literature in English, which is where Stetkevych’s expertise and experience lies.

“All of my work has been in classical Arabic poetry for many years now, so that’s primarily what they’re looking at,” Stetkevych said in an interview with The Hoya. “I have publications in Arabic, as well as in English, that are fairly well known in the Arab world.”

Stetkevych was honored because of her ability to connect Arabic studies to a wide range of concentrations, according to Abdulaziz Alsebail, secretary general of the King Faisal Prize.

“Her research approach is renowned for its solid theoretical base and its application of varied methodologies drawn from anthropology, literary theory, structuralism, post-structuralism, folklore studies and the history of religions,” Alsebail wrote to The Hoya. “This approach resulted in the renewal of the critical perspective and methods of studying Classical Arabic ode culminating in the establishing of a distinguished and distinct school in the study of Arabic literature.”

Her extensive work in the field includes looking at ritual patterns and applying ideas from other topics, such as mythology, comparative religions and poetry, Stetkevych said. She has published research and poetry collec-

tions in both Arabic and English.

Colleagues within the department of Arabic and Islamic studies were excited — but not surprised — that Stetkevych is receiving this elite honor, according to Elliot Colla, chair of the Arabic and Islamic studies department.

“While Prof. Stetkevych has been a leader in the field of classical Arabic studies for many years now it is not just because of her pathbreaking scholarship,” Colla wrote to The Hoya. “She has been

“Drawing upon anthropology and performance studies, Prof. Stetkevych pioneered a method for seeing poems not as a collection of lines but as coherent, integrated works.”

ELLIOT COLLA DEPARTMENT CHAIR

a tireless teacher, mentor, and colleague. Her generosity is well known by anyone who has studied with her or worked with her.

I can’t think of a better person to receive such an important award.

The King Faisal Foundation presents awards in five categories: service to Islam, Islamic studies, Arabic language and literature, medicine and science.

Eligibility requirements for the Arabic language and literature award include publishing an original work on the announced topic of the prize, having knowledge of the subject and meeting at least one criteria set forth by the selection committee.

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Reflected in the King Faisal Foundation is an increasing global interest in Arabic literature, as well as other Islamic studies in the humanities, according to Stetkevych.

“There’s an interest now, especially with the King Faisal Foundation, in encouraging the Arab Islamic world on one side, but also the broader world and Western world and others to build more bridges and to engage with each other much more in the fields of humanities,” Stetkevych told The Hoya.

“With the idea that this is kind of the basis for what I would call civilized human exchange. Cultural exchange is really a foundation for human interaction.”

Prior to 2022, only one American scholar had received the Arabic language and literature award. This year, Stetkevych is being honored for the award alongside Muhsin Al-Musawi of Columbia University. Stetkevych is the first woman to receive the award since 1994.

Stetkevych is a revolutionary force in the field of Arabic poetry because she analyzes texts in their original, performative context, according to Colla.

“Prof. Stetkevych is that rare scholar who doesn’t merely work within a field, but creates a new one in the process. Before Stetkevych, it was common for scholars to approach classical Arabic poetry as a collection of beautiful lines, each one worthy of admiration in its own right,” Colla wrote.

“Drawing upon anthropology and performance studies, Prof.

Stetkevych pioneered a method for seeing poems not as a collection of lines but as coherent, integrated works.”

Stetkevych, who spent time in Arab regions throughout her career, believes that Arabic poetry is something that can be appreciated by everyone.

“This is a literature that’s part of the universal human heritage,” Stetkevych said. “Therefore, it is open for anyone to study and anyone to contribute to.”

GUMC

“How To End A Pandemic,” a class offered in the fall 2021 semester, highlighted how individuals from different profesional communities played a role in pandemic responses.

Minoli Ediriweera Special to The Hoya

A course offered in fall 2021, titled “How To End A Pandemic,” highlights the impact individuals from various sectors had on the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rebecca Katz, a professor at the Georgetown University Medical Center and the Walsh School of Foreign Service, covered the role of individuals from communities students may not expect to have a role in pandemic responses. Katz teaches courses on global health security, health diplomacy and emerging infectious disease and serves as the Director of the Georgetown University Center for Global Health Science and Security. The course was offered to undergraduate and graduate students.

It is critical to emphasize the unrecognized heroes, including local politicians, journalists and CEOs, who helped slow the spread of COVID-19, according to a press release on the course.

“There’s this narrative that there are a handful of heroes or heroines in the story of this pandemic — I want to challenge that,” Katz said in the press release. “In actuality, there are tens of thousands of people from all over the world, from all walks of life, who all play a role. So why wouldn’t we highlight the experiences of people from a variety of communities and industries?”

Katz said the course featured speakers from different sectors

to share their roles in the pandemic response.

“There were three parts to the course,” Katz wrote to The Hoya.

“Guest speakers from different disciplines speaking about what they have done to ‘end the pandemic,’ a group project to propose to the President’s office how Georgetown could memorialize those from our community who we have lost to COVID-19, and a reflection by students on what they were going to do during the next pandemic.”

Guests invited to speak to the class include Matt Maddox, CEO of Wynn Resorts, a hotel chain; former Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan; Ed Young, a science journalist for the Atlantic; Maria Van Kerkhove, PhD, the COVID-19 technical lead for the World Health Organization; and Joneigh Khaldun, the vice president and chief health equity officer of CVS Health, according to the press release.

All interviews with guests were recorded and posted to the Georgetown University Center for Global Health Science and Security website in a new project called “How To End a Pandemic: Oral Histories.”

Sara Gómez Trillos (GRD ’21), who also participated in the course, said the speakers opened her eyes to the ability all individuals have to become leaders during a global health crisis.

“Something that all of the speakers had in common was that none of them had planned to become leaders in pandemic

response,” Gómez Trillos wrote to The Hoya. “Rather, they found themselves in a position where something was needed and they saw an opportunity to bridge the gap by either applying their skills or using their positions of power to make informed public health decisions that would benefit the country and world.”

The course is relevant to all students regardless of their studies or if they are graduate or undergraduate students, according to Trillos.

Lucien Carbonneau (COL ’22), who participated in this class, said the course allowed students to learn about the behind the scenes research that went into the pandemic response.

“While we have all been inundated with various information regarding the novel coronavirus and its spread over the past two years many of us have not had the opportunity to hear directly from the people charged with researching the virus, communicating the findings, and designing policies to alleviate its impact,” Carbonneau wrote to The Hoya.

The course enabled students to understand how they can best apply their skills, according to Trillos.

“I thoroughly enjoyed listening to all of the stories that speakers had to share with us. I was surprised that I could relate to all of them in one way or another and felt inspired by their achievements,” Trillos wrote, “This, to me, reinforced a deep conviction to always use my skills and power for the public good - and, in my case, to improve health.”

Georgetown Bipartisan Coalition Releases Statement on Polarization Adora Zheng

Student Life Desk Editor

In collaboration with four collegiate bipartisan organizations, the Georgetown Bipartisan Coalition (GBC) published a statement on bipartisanship in the United States.

The statement, published Jan. 27, features the conversations students had at the first annual Collegiate Bipartisan Discourse Summit, which was hosted on Zoom by the GBC in November 2021. The summit included Harvard Undergraduates for Bipartisan Solutions, George Washington Bipartisan Women’s Supper Club (GWBWSC), Dartmouth Political Union and Left, Middle, Right, a national bipartisan student media group.

Compassion is at the core of bipartisan discourse, according to the statement.

“In order to create this bipartisan space, we are committed to empathy and community, incorporating not only respect for each other as people, but also respect for each other’s arguments themselves,” the statement reads.

One year after the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill insurrection, Americans are more likely to say political violence is justified, and 34% of Americans say violent action against the government is sometimes justifiable.

The groups involved hope the statement addresses rising polarization and improves the culture of bipartisan relations, according to GBC President Matteo Caulfield (COL ’23).

“We’re trying to create a culture where we can bring people from across the political spectrum together to interact with each other in order to create a culture where we can decrease political violence, increase political

cooperation and create better policy,” Caulfield said in an interview with The Hoya.

Political division and violence in the U.S. are serious issues the organizations hoped to address at the summit, according to Luke Henkel (COL ’23), GBC Director of Off-Campus Affairs.

“The opportunity to get people together who have differing political beliefs and just be able to talk to one another and see each other as human beings is an enormously positive step in the right direction,” Henkel said. “That’s something that we were able to do at the conference and that’s something that we all committed to as organizations.”

Planning for the summit began in the summer of 2021, Henkel said.

“A few of us at the Georgetown Bipartisan Coalition got the idea that we wanted to convene some similar organizations together to talk strategy and discuss areas in which we could improve the state of bipartisan discourse on college campuses and in the country more broadly,” Henkel said. “That was the mission we had going in.”

It is important for students from different universities to speak about politics, according to GWBWSC’S Right Wing Co-Chair AJ Manandic, who attended the summit.

“We all have our own different political environments in D.C. — GW is probably different to Georgetown and Georgetown is probably different to GW,” Manandic said in an interview with The Hoya.

“I think it’s really important for us to get a gauge of other people’s universities.”

GBC invited Brian Stelter, CNN’s chief media correspondent and one of the Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service

fall 2021 fellows, to speak at the summit, according to GBC Director of Communications Courtenay KimWhite (COL ’24) “We were very, very lucky and very blessed to have CNN’s Brian Stelter come speak about the nature of bipartisanship and partisan division in the media and he was fantastic and I think that everyone really took a lot away from what he had to say,” Kim-White said in an interview with The Hoya.

Kim-White said the summit and statement establish channels of communication the groups hope will translate to the future political landscape.

“At the schools that we’re bringing together through the Bipartisan Summit, we are bringing together the future leaders of this country. Maybe not all of them are going to be in government, but a lot of them are going to be in politics,” Kim-White said in an interview with The Hoya.

Caulfield said the GBC hopes to make the summit an annual event.

“This is the first summit ever that we know of for bipartisan-oriented student organizations, and we want Georgetown to be the face of that,” Caulfield said. “We want to be able to host a bipartisan-oriented conference every year.”

GBC hopes to include more schools in the future, according to Henkel.

“We only had five organizations attend this event, but we’re really proud of that and we think that’s a great start,” Henkel said. “We’re looking to make progress on this in the future and to continue advocating for these goals and supporting the ideals that are so central to our mission as an organization at the Georgetown Bipartisan Coalition.”

A8 | THE HOYA

THEHOYA.COM | FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2022

NEWS

Q&A: Leonard/Khan Ticket Discusses Election Platform

Q&A: Wolfe/Ume-Ukeje Ticket Discusses Election Platform

@WOLFEUME22/INSTAGRAM

COURTESY BOBBY CHANEY JR.

Thomas Leonard (COL ‘23), who is running for GUSA President, and Nirvana Khan (SFS Kole Wolfe (SFS ’24), who is running for GUSA President, and Zeke Ume-Ukeje (COL ’24), ‘24), who is running for GUSA Vice President, discussed their plans and priorities if elected. who is running for GUSA Vice President, discussed their plans and priorities if elected.

Paige Kupas and Caitlin McLean Senior News Editors

The Hoya sat down with Thomas Leonard (COL ’23), who is running for Georgetown University Student Association (GUSA) President, and Nirvana Khan (SFS ’24), who is running alongside Leonard for GUSA Vice President, to discuss their plans if elected. Voting opens Feb. 10 and closes Feb. 12.

If elected, what are your top priorities?

Leonard: First is the basic needs of all students, because we want to make sure that your residential living and dining experience is the best one that it can be and that our mental health pandemic is taken as seriously by the administration as it possibly can be.

The second core area of focus for us is fostering an equitable community and making sure that the voices of all of the different identities on this campus are reflected in the decisions that we make as an administration.

Our third focus is really emphasizing the student voice, working with other campus organizations to make sure that our platform and the work that we’re doing is in line with what their needs are and that GUSA stands as an ally to the broader student body and no longer will exist as an organization that doesn’t do everything in their power to make sure that every voice is accounted for.

Khan: I really want to be a voice for the AAPI [Asian American Pacific Islander] community on campus and work on things such as creating more cultural safe spaces on campus, creating a residential community for the AAPI community, working on the race, ethnicity and migration studies

Your platform calls for the reinstatement of student guards in residence halls.

Do you think this is truly the most effective solution to addressing the residential safety issue and those concerns?

Khan: The people we’ve spoken to feel just a little bit safer when we recognize the person working at the desk, or when we know there is another student that just adds a layer of safety.

We definitely want to make sure that in increasing residential safety, we don’t make anybody Many students in the cam- feel uncomfortable by the prespus community are con- ence of additional guards. fused about GUSA and feel that it is ineffective. What How do you plan to presdo you think sets you apart sure the university to act from previous GUSA presi- on the GU272 referendum?

Leonard: Nirvana and I both dents and vice presidents?

Khan: COVID really did act as a had the privilege of taking setback. It erased a lot of institu- part in a revitalization of the tional history and knowledge and pushes for the GU272 Advoraised questions about GUSA’s cacy Team movements, and we presence on campus and how to have overseen the creation of bring that back. We want to ramp a grant review committee that up the social programming for is currently being overseen by GUSA members and become a the Office of the President in more tight-knit community. We conjunction with Nirvana, mywant to do a complete overhaul of self and other members of this our communications. We want to current GUSA administration.

Financial reparations set up formal meetings with student organizations, which hasn’t are not enough. And having screens in Sellinger with ever been a part of GUSA. names … it’s not enough. We How do you hope to change, want to work very closely if at all, interaction between with President DeGioia to the GUSA exec and the ad- make sure that the university faces its history in a much ministration?

Leonard: Nirvana and I are in more meaningful way. We a particularly unique position in want to work very closely that we have existing relation- with the master planning ships with campus administra- consortium to make sure that tion. It’s much easier for us to pres- we have physical spaces on ent the needs of the student body campus dedicated to reconand work collaboratively with ciliation with our history, not them and make sure that every- only with the horrible nature thing they’re doing is in line with of slavery, but the Jesuits’ role in the global space. what the student body needs. program that’s been proposed by a number of campus groups, as well as increasing our coordination with local mutual aid organizations.

Something else that we’re both really prioritizing on our platform is accessibility. A lot of campus spaces are inaccessible.

A lot of professors don’t really face long-term consequences for not meeting accommodations. That’s something we really want to support, because it’s crucial that everybody has an equal access to the Georgetown experience.

Paige Kupas and Caitlin McLean Senior News Editors

The Hoya sat down with Kole Wolfe (SFS ’24), who is running for Georgetown University Student Association (GUSA) President, and Zeke Ume-Ukeje (COL ’24), who is running alongside Wolfe for GUSA Vice President, to discuss their plans if elected.

Voting opens Feb. 10 and closes Feb. 12.

[Disclaimer: Kole Wolfe served as a Staff Writer for The Hoya in spring 2021.]

If elected, what are your top priorities?

Ume-Ukeje: We have a couple ideas about general GUSA meetings, like every once in a while opening it up to students on campus by just allowing them to come into the meetings and give their ideas and voice their concerns. That way, people can actually come in and tell us what they want to see changed, what’s going on in their dorm, what’s going on at Leo’s [Georgetown’s primary dining hall], whatever it might be, so we can hear it.

Wolfe: There is one thing that we actually had a lot of thoughts about: club culture. We’re working on getting in contact with the Center for Social Justice about a plan to create low barrier to entry clubs targeted on direct impact in the Georgetown community.

Many students in the campus community are confused about GUSA and feel that it is ineffective. What do you think sets you apart from previous GUSA presidents and vice presidents?

Ume-Ukeje: We feel like we represent a good portion of the

student body, and we don’t really know what’s going on with GUSA. We weren’t really too aware of how their work is affecting our day to day life. We wanted to just bring complete transparency, whether that’s weekly emails, whether that’s a more active social media page, whether that’s putting more stuff on our own personal Instagram accounts to let students know about what’s going on.

Wolfe: I think part of it is just there needs to be a more streamlined way of getting things done.

I know there are referendums that they put through, I just think there needs to be a lot more direct student input instead of getting bogged down in the bureaucratic ways of sort of governing.

How do you hope to change, if at all, interactions between GUSA exec and the administration?

Wolfe: We’ll go into it looking to establish a positive relationship early and often. I think part of it is putting up some resistance when needed and speaking for what students actually want, because there is obviously sometimes an apparent disconnect between the administration and the student body and some policies that they’re implementing.

Ume-Ukeje: I think sometimes when GUSA speaks with the administration, the administration sees it as speaking with just another organization, as opposed to just a couple people who represent the student body and what the students really want to see happen on campus. At the end of the day, we’re just two normal students. We’re not trying to put ourselves on a pedestal by being GUSA president and vice president, we’re just there to speak for how the students feel.

I think that’s sort of something that’s not really there right now.

What do you think is the most effective solution to addressing residential safety issues?

Wolfe: I think one of the things that could definitely be done is forming an association of students who live in each dorm, not to actually take direct action but to be vigilant. Obviously the RAs have a lot of responsibility already, but if there was just some sort of team who would scan the hallways for one minute every night on their different respective floors, just trying to keep in mind that, ‘Okay, we’re probably going to be safe, but you know, safety is priority number one.

And then, okay, I look down the hallway, I see some dude with a knife. That means it’s time to call some serious backup.’

Ume-Ukeje: There could be resources devoted to hiring professional security guards, obviously taking a hands-off approach and not really being too present, but in case the need arises where there’s a clear threat to students’ safety, they have the training and the wherewithal to step in and make sure that no one gets hurt.

How do you plan to pressure the university to act on the GU272 referendum?

Ume-Ukeje: We want to make sure that the university is holding up their end of the bargain, whatever that might be. I don’t know what that bargain was, I don’t know what deal they struck. But it feels like this issue is being avoided a little bit too much. So we want to, number one, pressure for transparency. Once you step up the noise levels, then they’re going to be forced to make a move to correct their lack of movements so far.

Technology and Society Initiative DC Opens 8 COVID Centers Gifted $10.5 Million Donation Supplying Vaccinations, Testing Samantha Sinutko Graduate Desk Editor

The Georgetown University Technology and Society Initiative, which supports the intersection of government, ethics and technology, received a $10.5 million gift from a graduate and her husband.

The donation will allocate $5 million to the establishment of a technology, ethics and society chair in the College, $5 million to an endowed scholarship fund in the College to provide financial aid and support student research, and $500,000 to support Georgetown’s Ethics Lab to create undergraduate courses focused on technology, ethics and society (TES).

The gift will provide opportunities for students who wish to study computer science (CS) and TES, according to Mark Maloof, a professor in Georgetown’s computer science department.

“I am most excited about how the gift will impact undergraduate education at Georgetown,” Maloof wrote to The Hoya. “We are in the process of launching a new CS major that integrates CS with applied ethics and policy.

The gift will endow a chair in the College who will be a prominent scholar in technology, ethics, and society (TES). The recipient will offer undergraduate courses for this new major.”

The donation will help to expand courses offered at the Ethics Lab, according to Maloof.

“The Ethics Lab will also use funds from the gift to create

undergraduate courses on tech, ethics, and society, which also will support the new major and two additional undergraduate programs, a minor in TES and a TES concentration for CS majors,” Maloof wrote.

Due to the gift the Ethics Lab will be able to offer new pilot courses and integrate ethics and computer science courses together, according to Margaret Little, philosophy professor and director of the Ethics Lab. “With the support of this gift, Ethics Lab has been able to serve as a design platform — mounting pilot courses, bringing together faculty and students in design sessions, and developing new models for integrating ethics into computer science courses — for the new suite of undergraduate programs in Tech, Ethics, & Society that will launch this fall,” Little wrote in an email to The Hoya.

Applicants for the courses that are yet to be created were encouraged to apply to three new tenure positions in early 2022: two endowed professorships and one assistant professor appointment.

Each would have a research appointment position in the Center for Digital Ethics, a graduate research unit launched in late 2021 that fosters collaboration between humanities and data science researchers.

The lab is excited to be recruiting for the new chair position, according to Little.

“We are actively recruiting now for the new Chair and Director in Tech, Ethics, & Soci-

ety,” Little wrote in an email to The Hoya. “The candidates are extraordinary, drawn to Georgetown’s vision.”

Maloof said that the most significant integration related to technology and society in past classes was in his course titled “Artificial Intelligence,” which he taught in the fall of 2019.

“With funding from the Mozilla Foundation, I worked with a team from the Ethics lab to develop three in-class activities designed to help students understand the ethical implications of AI technologies,” Maloof wrote. “In one exercise students designed a hypothetical system that used machine learning to make admissions decisions at Georgetown. They thought critically about how such a system might exhibit bias in its decisions.”

The Mozilla Foundation is a nonprofit that works to keep the internet a public resource accessible to everyone.

The donation will help to support students, faculty, and curriculum related to the technology and science initiative student, faculty and curriculum needs, according to Maloof.

“The most notable impact that I see is how the gift supports Georgetown’s efforts to strengthen our prominence in technology, ethics, and society on multiple fronts,” Maloof wrote. “Certainly, financial aid, faculty hiring, and curriculum development are important as individual initiatives, but I was most gratified to see that the gift will support all three.”

Noelle Cook

Hoya Staff Writer

Washington, D.C., will open eight COVID Centers located in each of the eight wards to serve as hubs for District residents to get tested, vaccinated and boosted.

Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) announced the establishment of the COVID Centers on Jan. 18 as the District experiences a surge of COVID-19 cases due to the highly transmissible omicron variant. The Centers will provide residents with free COVID-19 vaccinations, PCR tests, at-home testing kits and KN95 masks.

The Centers will serve as a source of stability to District residents who have had to deal with ongoing changes in the locations of testing and vaccination sites since the start of the pandemic, according to Bowser.

“We said from the beginning if you need a test, you can get a test and we are going to be having centers like this across the district that will make sure that residents know exactly where they can go in their communities, to a more permanent facility that is going to be supported by D.C. Health,” Bowser said at a Jan. 18 press conference.

The increased accessibility to testing and vaccinations that the new COVID Centers provide will foster community safety and health in the District, according to Erik Salmi, communications director for D.C. Councilmember Charles Allen of Ward 6.

“The COVID Centers are fantastic,” Salmi wrote in an email to

The Hoya. “It’s important to create places where people can go and simply get any need met as it relates to this pandemic. Vaccines?

Check. Masks? Check. Tests?

Check. The fewer steps we ask residents to make to keep safe, the more successful we can be as a community.”

Access to rapid tests is essential for children under the age of five who are not yet eligible for vaccination, according to Kelly Whittier, communications director for Councilmember Mary Cheh of Ward 3.

“It’s important for all families to have access to these rapid tests, so they can keenly check to make sure that when they send their children to school they’re sending them to a safe environment and so that their child isn’t putting others at risk,” Whittier said in an interview with The Hoya.

Seven of the eight wards have successfully opened their respective COVID Centers as of Feb. 2, with the city planning to wrap up lease negotiations to open the Ward 3 COVID Center on Friday, according to Whittier.

Testing will continue to play a vital role in keeping District schools open for its youngest students, Whitter added.

“They’ve gotten really great feedback,” Whittier said.

“It’s great because you can come in, say you wanted to get a booster, and you could leave with multiple testing kits and masks. If you came in with a partner or family member or friend, essentially

whatever your need is can be met right in the community, and so that level of accessibility is super important.”

Providing indispensable resources to the local communities, the COVID Centers are the newest installment in the District’s plan to fight COVID-19, ac-

“The fewer steps we ask residents to make to keep safe, the more successful we can be as a community.”

ERIK SALMI Ward 6 Communications Director

cording to Whitter. The centralized nature of the sites’ locations make them valuable tools for combating rising positivity rates, Whitter said.

Although the changing nature of the virus and the spread of new variants will continue to be an ongoing concern, the new COVID Centers are prepared to adapt and adjust, according to Salmi.

“We don’t know what the future will look like with this virus,” Salmi wrote. “We have no idea if we’ll need additional boosters, different tests. But having the infrastructure to be able to respond quickly as we need to is really important.”

THE HOYA | A9

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2022 | THEHOYA.COM

NEWS

McCourt’s Program for Veterans Will Expand After Donation Samantha Sinutko Graduate Desk Editor

A $200,000 donation to the McCourt School of Public Policy’s scholarship program will help expand the program to support nine military-connected students.

Craig Newmark Philanthropies (CNP), a non-profit that works to advance grassroot organizations, donated the funds in January 2022. Craig Newmark founded CNP, as well as Craigslist, and is an inaugural member of the McCourt School Advisory Board. CNP established the school’s Craig Newmark Veterans Scholarship Fund in April 2021 through donations. The program will support five additional students with $20,000 scholarships in masters programs in international development policy, policy management, public policy and data science for public policy.

The donation will help McCourt recruit more militaryconnected students and students who are currently serving on active duty, according to Maria Cancian, dean of the McCourt School.

“This funding will expand the Craig Newmark Veterans Scholarship Fund this year to include five additional student scholarships, enabling us to recruit and support more veterans and military-connected students at McCourt, where they contribute to the diversity of experience and perspectives that enrich our community,” Cancian wrote in an email to The Hoya.

In 2021, there were around 19 million veterans in the United States, less than 10% of the total U.S. population, according to the Department of Veteran Affairs. In 2017, 9% of student veterans were enrolled in graduate programs.

The scholarship helps cover costs of the program that would otherwise make it impossible to participate in other unpaid opportunities, according to Shyla Alam (GRD ’22), one of the four 2021-2022 Newmark scholars.

“This scholarship has given me the option to pursue work that aligns more with my interests in public service despite many of these positions being unpaid,” Alam wrote in an email to The Hoya. “Without this scholarship, it would be difficult for

me to easily accept unpaid opportunities or volunteer in my free time.”

Alam enlisted in the Minnesota National Guard for six years as an intelligence analyst. She was deployed in 2018 to Kuwait in her intelligence role.

The Newmark scholarship has helped close gaps that have made pursuing education after deployment difficult for some veterans, according to Samuel Grantz (GRD ’23), a 2021-2022 Newmark scholar.

“I became involved in the Newmark Scholars program when my GI bill was insufficient to cover school costs,” Grantz wrote in an email to The Hoya. “As a reservist, my GI Bill benefits are significantly smaller than those who served on active duty for their entire time of service. Even if they never deploy, my combat deployment as a reservist does not make up for that gap.”

Established in 1944, the GI Bill benefits help veterans pay for graduate school, college,and training programs.

Grantz was in the Marine Corps Reserve Infantry for seven years and served in Afghanistan from October 2017 to April 2018.

MCCOURT SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY/LINKEDIN

Craig Newmark Philanthropies donated $200,000 to the McCourt School of Public Policy’s scholarship program to support military-connected students’ academic pursuits.

Differences in financial support among certain groups of veterans has made it difficult to further education as well, according to Grantz.

“Active Duty personnel receive 100% of the limit and then are also given access to the ‘Yellow Ribbon Program’ which provides assistance in closing the gap at private institutions whose cost may be higher than the cap for the GI Bill,” Grantz

wrote. “Essentially, despite my combat deployment, I was not given a full GI Bill nor do I have access to the Yellow Ribbon Program. Therefore I was in dire need of financial assistance, and this is the major motivating force for getting involved with the Newmark Scholarship.”

The Yellow Ribbon Program helps veterans to pay for higher private, out of state, foriegn or graduate school tuition fees.

This program will expand support to more veterans in their studies and other opportunities, according to Alam.

“I’m glad that the program has expanded to offer more military-connected McCourt students the chance to pursue different opportunities they may not otherwise be able to, which will help scholars become better policymakers and leaders in the future,” Alam wrote.

McDonough School of Business Ranked Second Georgetown Restaurants Supported by Take Out Tuesday Campaign Julia Kelly Staff Writer

The Georgetown University McDonough School of Business (MSB) jumped up three spots from last year among undergraduate business school rankings on Poets&Quants, an online publication covering business education.

The MSB ranked second, only behind the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, and came in first in alumni experience, fourth in admissions rank and second in career outcomes. The school’s climb in ranking is likely due to robust opportunities for networking and career development.

Exceptional professors and administrators coupled with an array of career programming provide a sound foundation for student success in the MSB, according to Talia Schatz, assistant dean of the McDonough Undergraduate Career Development Center.

“We’ve made it a priority to be a people-first program where opportunities are tailored to each student and their individual career aspirations,” Schatz wrote in an email to The Hoya. “Every student is encouraged to create an academic experience that is unique to their own interests, and they have an entire school of faculty, staff, and alumni available to support them along the way,” The McDonough Undergraduate Career Development Center presents students with a variety of networking opportunities. Students can shadow an alumni through the Host

a Hoya program, workshop their career path and conference with undergraduate peer career advisors from a range of industries about resumes and interview advice.

The MSB supports students in school, the workplace and life, which makes them more successful in general, according to Patricia Grant, senior associate dean of the MSB. “Overall, everything we do is underpinned by our commitment to students as people, so we support our community in a holistic way — not just in relation to their academic journey,” Grant wrote in an email to The Hoya. “So, the alumni experience rank is a reflection of the academic and experiential learning our students engage in, the advising and support they receive, and their ability to feel prepared for the world beyond the Hilltop.”

The MSB career center and alumni network allowed her to successfully find internships and career opportunities, according to Sneha Santosh (MSB ’24).

“The MSB has had great major programs supported by fantastic professors and faculty for a substantial amount of time,” Santosh wrote in an email to The Hoya. “I think now this is translating to the workplace, where alums are finding that the soft skills and technical knowledge they’ve gained in the MSB is directly applicable to their careers after graduation.”

Students in the MSB have access to an arsenal of industry knowledge from professor research to graduate guid-

Eli Kales

City Desk Editor

KIRK ZIESER/THE HOYA

The Georgetown McDonough School of Business was ranked second in undergraduate business school rankings. ance, according to Erin Connery (MSB ’24), who obtained internship opportunities at a healthcare logistics startup and a venture capital firm.

“I’m always so impressed by my professors’ research and work in their respective fields, and I really enjoy connecting with Georgetown graduates,” Connery wrote in an email to The Hoya. “We have Georgetown graduates in basically every industry within business, and I love hearing about their career paths and experiences on the hilltop.”

Education is always evolving and Grant anticipates that the MSB will continue to support students to succeed in a changing world.

“We are constantly updating our curriculum and experiential opportunities, seeking new ways to engage with our alumni, and adding advising and career support,” Grant wrote. “We know that entry into Georgetown means that you will be part of our community for life, and we are here to support you every step of the way.”

Durriya Meer Starts as New CAPS Director Adora Zheng

Student Life News Desk Editor

Durriya Meer, a licensed psychologist, is the new director of Counseling and Psychiatric Service (CAPS), Georgetown’s primary mental health agency that helps students overcome difficulties that may interfere with the definition and accomplishment of their educational, personal and career goals.

Meer started her role as CAPS director Jan. 24 following a yearlong search that began in December 2020. The search process focused on finding a candidate whose expertise in the field included work with university age students and who would be interested in enhancing services CAPS offers, according to a university spokesperson.

According to Kathryn Castle, the assistant vice president for Student Health, Meer’s extensive experience in university counseling centers made her the right candidate for the role.

“Dr. Durriya Meer is a thoughtful and empathetic clinician who has spent more than 20 years in university counseling centers,” Castle

wrote in an email to The Hoya.

“Dr. Meer is inclusive and collaborative in her approach which I see as a marvelous fit with Georgetown University’s values.”

Meer said one of her priorities is to connect with students and understand their experiences so that she can help them in the best way possible.

“I want to hear from them what their experience with CAPS has been; through the grapevine I have heard varying opinions,” Meer wrote to The Hoya. “I aspire to be a bridge between the different stakeholders.”

According to Meer, gathering student input and improving channels of communication are key to improving the services that CAPS offers in the future.

“Without truly hearing what students have to say, I do not believe that there can be positive change,” Meer wrote. “I hope that I can listen to the different stakeholders and carry messages across and between so that there is greater understanding and empathy for the different perspectives.”

Meer specializes in counseling and psychology for college students and has 20

years of experience between her time at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Michigan. She previously served as the associate director for the doctoral psychology internship and as a staff psychologist at Johns Hopkins University.

Meer will focus on making all students aware of the scope of CAPS services in order to reach the most students possible, according to Castle.

“Dr. Meer will spend more time in the Georgetown University community educating about the services offered at CAPS and listening to the mental health needs of students,” Castle wrote.

“She will think creatively about the provision of mental health care on campus to expand the reach of CAPS across all campuses.”

The university also hired six new clinicians across all CAPS sites to provide direct services to students, according to the university spokesperson.

“These new hires have a wide range of clinical expertise, some of which include trauma work, group work, mindfulness and meditation and identity work,” the spokesperson wrote.

“They also have extensive experience working with BIPOC

communities, international students, immigrant populations, refugees, asylum seekers and sexual assault survivors.”

CAPS announced their spring 2022 counseling groups in a Jan. 27 email to community members, including groups for understanding self and others, LGBTQ support, international students, Black Indigenous People of Color, interpersonal mindfulness, coping with loss and trauma recovery.

According to the spokesperson, CAPS services will continue to be provided free of charge this semester, and the university will hire clinical staff as student need arises.

As demand for counseling services rises, Meer commits to maintaining high standards of care for members of the Georgetown community.

“University counseling centers across the nation are seeing unprecedented demand and strained resources, yet I have seen therapists go above and beyond,” Meer wrote. “It is not just the 45-50 minutes that we spend faceto-face with the student, it is everything that goes on behind the scenes as well—the phone calls, the meetings, the check-ins, the consultations.”

Georgetown Main Street has relaunched its Take Out Tuesday campaign for the second consecutive year.

The 10-week campaign, organized by Georgetown Main Street, promotes small business on Wisconsin Avenue in the Georgetown neighborhood. The return of this campaign comes as restaurants in Washington D.C. have seen a decline in sales because of the surge of COVID-19 cases caused by the highly transmissible Omicron variant. The event kicked off Jan. 25 and highlights two local restaurants each Tuesday, which are asked to offer promotions for takeout orders, such as discounted prices or a free add-on.

Georgetown Main Street decided to relaunch Take Out Tuesday due to the impact COVID-19 has had on restaurants, according to Rachel Shank, Executive Director of Georgetown Main Street.

“We weren’t thinking that we were going to bring it back this year because things seemed like they were slowing down — we didn’t build it into the budget, and then Omicron hit and we realized that this winter may be just as difficult as last winter was,” Shank said in an interview. “So we decided to not break something or remake something that wasn’t broken, and so we brought it back.”

The surge of COVID-19 cases has financially impacted many small businesses, with 58% of restaurants reporting a loss in more than half of sales this past December, according to a survey conducted by the Independent Restaurant Coalition.

The campaign has been successful so far in increasing traffic to featured restaurants, according to Shank.

Take Out Tuesday was created through a collaboration in early 2021 between Georgetown Main Street and Advisory Neighborhood Commission 2E (ANC2E) commissioner Elizabeth Miller, according to Shank. who was working alongside Main Street America, a nonprofit that works to revitalize historic districts in the United States, according to Shank.

Miller, who worked alongside Main Street America, a nonprofit that works to revitalize historic districts in the United States, said it was important that local residents joined together to provide support to small businesses.

“Georgetown is a special place,” Miller wrote in an email to The Hoya. “Our community looks out for one another and our community includes the full-time residents, the students, the shops, the restaurants, and everybody in between. When we found out our restaurants needed our help, our village mobilized to support them.”

Last year the campaign received national recognition and earned third place in the American Express Shop Small Order In, Help Out Innovation Challenge run by Main Street America.

Juan Dromgoole, Director of Operations for Chaia Tacos, a popular vegan taco restaurant in the Georgetown neighborhood, said the rise in COVID-19 cases resulted in reduced sales in the restaurant during December.

“We definitely saw a huge decrease in sales around mid-December,” Dromgoole wrote in an email to The Hoya. “People were simply not eating out, and, if they did, it was just to pick up an order.

No one was eating indoors.”

Chaia was one of the two restaurants featured in the first week of this year’s Take Out Tuesday campaign and saw increased sales as a result, according to Dromgoole.

“So much busier than a regular Tuesday,” Dromgoole wrote.

“Tuesdays are usually a pretty chill day, but not yesterday! We had pretty busy lunch and dinner rushes. So grateful for everyone’s business!”

Peacock Cafe, another restaurant in the Georgetown neighborhood, was also featured in the first week.

“We just needed to remind the community that these businesses are only going to exist if we support them.”

Rachel Shank Georgetown Main Street

Shank said local businesses are facing even more challenges this winter than they did last year.

“The numbers are pretty startling, just like they were last year, only the restaurants are struggling with a little bit more than they were last year even,” Shank said. “So there’s the staffing shortages, and then there’s the supply shortages, it’s kind of everything is compounding on itself. We just needed to remind the community that these businesses are only going to exist if we support them.”

Georgetown Main Street incentivizes customers to make takeout sales through discounts offered by each business as well as ordering through an online form that enters them in a giveaway for a $50 gift card, according to Shank.

This form also allows Georgetown Main Street to track the increase in orders due to the Take Out Tuesday campaign, Shank said.

Take Out Tuesday builds the community between businesses and residents of the Georgetown neighborhood, according to Dromgoole.

“We are able to support each other, lift each other and be each other’s fans,” Dromgoole wrote. “It is incredible what you can accomplish when you have such a great sense of community amongst businesses. What makes Georgetown unique, in my opinion, is having such a great combination of people visiting at all times.”

A10 | THE HOYA

THEHOYA.COM | FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2022

SPORTS

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

WOMEN’S TENNIS

Georgetown Adds Two Losses On Weekend Road Trip

Hoyas Downed by Musketeers 67-70 In Overtime Thriller

Robbie Werdiger

Ritika Mandavilli

The Georgetown women’s tennis team failed to capture its first win of the season this weekend on a road trip to Lynchburg, Virginia. The Hoyas faced off against Liberty University on Saturday, Jan. 29 and Campbell University on Sunday, Jan. 30.

Georgetown came up short against Liberty, losing 6-1.

Sophomore Avantika Willy was the only Hoya to win her singles match. The Hoyas were also defeated in all three doubles sets, giving Liberty the single doubles point, which is awarded to the team that wins a majority of the three doubles matches.

On Sunday, Georgetown started off the match strong against Campbell. At number two doubles, sophomore Chloe Bendetti and graduate student Nadine Del Carmen decisively rolled past their opponents 6-1. At number three doubles, Willy and junior Agata Mikos edged out their match 6-3. Despite losing first doubles, the Hoyas won the doubles point and started the match up 1-0.

Though there were a couple of tight three-setters the Hoyas had a chance to win, they could not carry the doubles momentum into their singles matches. Willy bounced back after losing the first set and won the second 6-4, but ran out of steam in the third. Sophomore Morgan Coburn also lost a heartbreaker 6-4 in the third set. The Hoyas lost at all six positions and now fall to 0-4 on the season.

Willy and Coburn reflected on their losses in an interview with The Hoya.

Down by just three points with seconds left in overtime, Georgetown looked to set up a final shot to tie the game against Xavier.

The Hoyas strategically put the ball into the hands of graduate guard Milan Bolden-Morris, who had already racked up 21 points and was shooting daggers all game from beyond the arc.

With suspense building, Bolden-Morris got a good look to send up a 3-point shot. But then the ball bounced off the rim, cementing the final score of 70-67.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, fans weren’t allowed to pack the stands for the Jan. 28 game. Even so, both teams brought unmatched intensity to McDonough Arena.

With both teams looking to snap five-game losing streaks, the Hoyas (7-11, 2-8 Big East) entered the first quarter aggressively. Xavier (7-13, 2-9 Big East) won the tip-off, but Bolden-Morris put Georgetown on the scoreboard first, quickly setting the game to 5-0.

The Hoyas were very active on both ends of the court, increasing their lead to 10-4 halfway into the first quarter

Hoya Staff Writer

Hoya Staff Writer

ILLUSTRATION BY LUKE ROSENBLUM/THE HOYA

With consecutive losses to Liberty University and Campbell University Jan. 30, Georgetown women’s tennis fell to 0-4 on the season.

“In the first set of the match, I wasn’t converting too well on important deuce points. However, I was able to stay in it and reset for the second set. I started to play smarter which helped me come back and take the second set. Overall it was a fun and challenging match,” Willy said.

Coburn also spoke about the evolution of her play throughout her match.

“That was definitely a tough loss. I was the last one on the court and at that point really wanted to put another point on the board for my team. My opponent served and volleyed and was able to get that to click more for her in the third. I was very proud of the way that I fought and ultimately it ended up being a few deuce points that flipped it in her favor,” Coburn said.

Learning to deal with injury has made players more versatile, according to Head Coach Freddy Mesmer.

“I think our women have learned to be adaptable and understand their role in the team, and that everyone needs to be able to play at any point during the weekend,” Mesmer told The Hoya.

Coach Mesmer also remarked that the Hoyas have a better sense of what they need to work on after this weekend and are looking forward to a productive week of practice.

“Going into this week of training, we will look to continue our momentum on the doubles court and try to build on a few things singles-wise.

I think the biggest thing for our team is to keep the match play up, and the experience we have been lacking will come over the course of the season,” Mesmer said.

Georgetown looks to end its four-match losing streak next weekend when it faces off against the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland on Sunday, Feb. 5.

behind a strong post game by first-year forward Brianna Scott. With just under four minutes left in the period, sophomore guard Kelly Ransom went for a layup to give Georgetown a double-digit lead.

The Hoyas then went on a 10-2 run, breaking down Xavier’s defense. The Musketeers responded with a small 6-0 run to end the first quarter with a score of 20-12.

For the first half of the second quarter, the Hoyas again started off strong on both sides of the ball — getting rebounds, putting their hands in passing lanes and setting up strategic scoring opportunities. Just like in the first quarter, the Musketeers again stepped up their intensity and executed a 7-0 run.

With Xavier spreading the ball, converting and rebounding well, Georgetown’s earlier 14-point lead was unpromising. The halftime score was 32-30 with the Hoyas’ lead thinning.

After a competitive first half, the second half started off slow with no shots falling.

Soon though, the third quarter became the turning point of the game as Xavier gained its first lead, forcing Georgetown Head Coach James Howard to call a timeout.

Georgetown racked up

WHY IT WAS SPECIAL

The Soccer Tournament You’ve Never Heard Of Jack Lonergan Columnist

I have never seen a soccer match played in worse conditions.

I came home from school in February 2015 and turned on the TV to watch something, anything, that would brighten up the dark afternoon of a British winter. A soccer match in Equatorial Guinea did the trick. I was no stranger to the Confederation of African Football (CAF) Africa Cup of Nations before this tournament, but watching Zambia and Cape Verde play out a 0-0 draw in rain so violent that they could hardly see made me realize why it was so special.

Though European clubs look down on it, commentators unfairly criticize the athletes, and the lack of funding often makes for low-quality productions, the Africa Cup of Nations is a hidden gem.

An international soccer tournament every other February between members of the Confederation of African Football, the Africa Cup of Nations simultaneously features some of the best players as well as some of the lowestranked teams in the world. It has beautiful kits with lions, elephants and traditional fabric patterns embossed on the players’ chests. It has fans who paint their entire bodies and dance for the full 90 minutes, regardless of their team’s result. It has nicknames recognizable the world over, such as Cameroon’s Indomitable Lions, Egypt’s Pharaohs and Tunisia’s Eagles of Carthage.

But most importantly of all, it has captivating soccer.

Unique as it might be, the Africa Cup of Nations does not exist without resistance.

It overlaps with the middle of the season of every major European league, often causing the public to overlook it. Furthermore, some European clubs are very reluctant to release their players midseason to participate in the

tournament, which is held in February. Players are thereby denied the high honor of representing their countries at a major tournament by this managerial objection.

African athletes’ technical skills are also unfairly scrutinized in the media. European commentators often praise white players for their versatility and intelligence while criticizing Black players for a purported lack of technical understanding or discipline. Singling out Black players for their physical strengths without acknowledging their intellectual attributes plays into racist stereotypes that diminish perceptions of athletes’ abilities.

Despite the disproportionate criticism they face, players of African descent are integral to major international contest titles. For example, the French squad that won the 2018 FIFA World Cup featured upwards of a dozen players with African

“The talent the African Cup showcases is truly world-class —it’s just packaged in a different way.”

JACK LONERGAN Columnist

roots. In addition, one of the best players in the world, Mohamed Salah, hails from Egypt.

Unlike other international tournaments, the African Cup does not have seemingly limitless funding, which causes pitch quality and broadcasting capability to be pushed to the side. The lack of funding, however, does not mean these nations cannot compete on a global scale. The talent the African Cup showcases is truly world-class –– it’s just packaged in a different way.

Most European clubs, for example, are relatively homogenous. Differences are

very rare, whether it’s uniforms, training routines or even styles of play. Good ideas spread like wildfire in elite soccer. The Gegenpress, for example, started as a niche tactic used by a few teams in Germany. It has since been adopted by every league across Europe.

This is not to say that every European match and team is exactly the same, but there seem to be more similarities than differences across the continent. The African Cup of Nations, however, has thus far maintained its own identity rather than adopting the mechanical nature of its European sibling.

In Africa, the soul of soccer is alive and well. Teams often sing on the way to matches and celebrate every goal with dancing, a passion mirrored by their supporters in the stands.

Despite the neglect shown to the tournament, it has been a diamond in the rough compared to its over-polished contemporary, the Euros.

Underestimated teams make up the real heart of the tournament. Teams like Comoros which, making its first-ever appearance at the tournament, knocked out the giant that is Ghana. This was the first time Ghana had failed to make the knockout rounds since 2006. Or, perhaps the real star of the show is Malawi, who only called up two Europe-based players and still qualified for the round of sixteen. Malawi led pre-tournament favorites Morocco for 40 minutes before ultimately falling 2-1.

In the knockout stages so far, there have been three matches decided by penalty kicks and 13 red cards issued.

Full of magic from superstars, rain-soaked games and referees who end matches prematurely, the Africa Cup of Nations is an event to pay attention to. Semifinals began Feb. 2 when Burkina Faso fell to Senegal 1-3 and will continue Thursday, Feb. 3 when Cameroon takes on Egypt.

GUHoyas

Georgetown women’s basketball took the Xavier Musketeers to overtime but fell 67-70 in a nailbiting home game.

seven turnovers in the third quarter alone. Eventually, Georgetown ramped up its offensive attack and showed a strong response after Xavier took the lead, led by Bolden-Morris’ impressive sharpshooting skills.

The Hoyas headed into the fourth quarter with a fourpoint lead. Both teams continued to battle it out with neither gaining much of a lead. With 1:43 to go, Musketeers guard Nia Clark hit a 3-pointer to tie the game at 55.

Ransom responded with three points of her own, but Clark drained another 3-pointer with 15 seconds left. Ransom missed a potential game-winner, sending the game to overtime.

Georgetown junior forward Graceann Bennett employed her post moves to sink the first points in overtime. Xavier immediately attacked back and tied the game at 60. But while deep shots got both teams to the extra period, it was the free throws that played a huge role in swaying the outcome of the game.

Bolden-Morris sank one of her free throws, followed by the Musketeers knocking down two more. Xavier’s onepoint lead was short-lived as Ransom came in clutch with a huge play, hitting a twopoint shot on a fast break and drawing the foul for an and-one. This three-point play put Georgetown in the lead, 64-62.

With a minute remaining in overtime, the Musketeers regained a small lead. Xavier guard Kaelynn Satterfield ended up on the line again, improving to 10-for-10 in free throws. Georgetown graduate guard Kaylin West hit a crucial 3-pointer to slice Xavier’s lead.

In the intense final seconds, Bolden-Morris went for the game-tying threepoint shot, but it was no good. Despite Georgetown’s relentless efforts, Xavier clinched the 70-67 victory.

Bolden-Morris was Georgetown’s standout player, leading all scorers with 21 points, including six three-pointers.

Ransom tacked on another 16 points, and Bennett chipped in a double-double with 13 points and 13 rebounds.

The Hoyas will face a major conference foe in a strong Villanova team on Sunday, Feb. 6 at 2 p.m. at the Finneran Pavilion.

MEN’S BASKETBALL

GU Falls to Butler 53-56, Extends Disheartening Losing Streak Aiden Penry Hoya Staff Writer

The Georgetown men’s basketball streak lives on — but it’s hardly a streak the team wants. After falling to the Butler Bulldogs 53-56, the Hoyas have lost eight games straight and now sit in last place in the Big East standings.

Georgetown (6-14, 0-9 Big East) entered the Jan. 29 game hoping to avenge the 72-58 thrashing the Hoyas took the previous time they squared up against Butler (11-11, 4-7 Big East). In this latest matchup, the game was competitive throughout, but Georgetown failed to come up big in the final minutes to win their first Big East contest.

In the first half, the Hoyas jumped out to an early 4-0 lead and dominated the paint. Eight of Georgetown’s first 10 points came from layups. An and-one layup by first-year center Ryan Mutombo put the Hoyas up 11-8 with 11:56 left in the first half, but Butler did not stay down for long.

Thanks in part to a lull in Georgetown shooting, the Bulldogs fought back and went on an 11-0 run to take an 11-19 lead. Butler guard Simas Lukosius hit a big 3-pointer coming off a screen Jack Lonergan is a first-year to ignite his team’s offense. in the College. Why It Was Georgetown then reSpecial appears online and sponded with a 9-2 run of in print every six weeks. their own, highlighted by a

vicious slam from first-year guard ​​Aminu Mohammed.

As the dust settled over the half, the Hoyas found themselves down 26-32.

Both teams entered the second half needing to shoot better from the field. Butler shot only 37.5% on first-half field goals, while Georgetown converted just 36.7%.

However, capitalizing on first-half momentum, the Bulldogs started the second half right where they left off.

Two minutes in, a dunk by forward Bryce Nze and a layup by forward Bryce Golden pushed Butler’s lead to 10.

For a significant part of the half, Butler’s lead hovered around this 10-point differential. A combination of porous defense and imprecise scoring attempts by the Hoyas prevented them from making a dent until almost seven minutes had elapsed.

Ignited by a layup from graduate guard Donald Carey, Georgetown took off on a 10-3 run to get the game within one possession. Part of the Hoyas’ success can be attributed to the coaching decisions of Head Coach Patrick Ewing (CAS ’85), who helped the Hoyas slash Butler’s lead by implementing a full-court press.

In the last 10 minutes of the half Georgetown’s defense locked in against Butler, holding them to only nine points. At one point, the

Bulldogs went over four minutes without scoring.

This stretch is especially impressive considering the way the Hoyas have struggled on defense this season. Entering the matchup, Georgetown had allowed 86 points per game in Big East play, by far the worst in the conference.

After a layup by Mohammed gave Georgetown a 5352 lead with 1:24 to play, the Hoyas’ first Big East win of the season seemed within reach. However, a quick 4-0 run put Butler up for good, and Georgetown was unable to hit a game-tying three.

Mohammed led Georgetown with an efficient gamehigh 16 points, shooting 50% from the field and making four out of five free throws.

Butler rode the hot shooting of Lukosius, who hit three of his eight three-point attempts and finished with a team-high 13 points. Nze contributed a double-double for Butler with 12 rebounds and 12 points, along with three blocks.

Georgetown was able to counter multiple Butler runs throughout the game to help keep the score close, yet were ultimately unable to eke out a victory in the final few minutes.

The Hoyas again attempted to snap their losing streak Feb. 1 against Seton Hall (137, 4-6 Big East) but ultimately fell 70-63 in the first meeting between the two programs this season.

THE HOYA | A11

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2022 | THEHOYA.COM

SPORTS WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

BEWARE THE HYPE

Bucks: Contenders or Pretenders?

BALDARI, from A12

GUHOYAS

Despite a strong effort from graduate guard Mary Clougherty, the Hoyas couldn’t overcome the Pirates.

Georgetown Routed by Seton Hall, 62-91 SETON HALL WBB, from A12

nothing on the offensive end for the Bucks. Allen, on the other hand, is a serviceable offensive player, averaging 11.8 points per game on an elite 39.2% shooting from 3-point range. His deserved reputation as a dirty player is a legitimate concern, but if he contains his temper, Allen could be a valuable shooter for the Bucks down the stretch in tight games.

Even without starting center Brook Lopez, who has missed all but one game this season due to a back injury, the Bucks have maintained their groove, slotting Bobby Portis into the starting center role, where he has had a career year as a scorer, averaging 14.9 points per game.

Of course, role players like Allen and Lopez can’t get it done alone. To win an NBA title, you need a superstar, and the Bucks’ homegrown hero, Giannis Antetokounmpo, is playing some of his best basketball. The “Greek Freak’s” box score numbers alone — 28.9 points, 11.3 rebounds, and 6.0 assists per game on 56.4% field goal shooting — rival the averages that earned him two consecutive MVPs in 2019 and 2020.

While he stuffs the stat sheet, the advanced stats — third in the league in player efficiency rating and second in win shares

— provide another perspective to Antetokounmpo’s dominance. Needless to say, he is at the peak of his powers.

On offense, Antetokounmpo’s ferocious drives to the basket drag defenders into the paint, giving Milwaukee’s shooters space to catch and shoot. Antetokounmpo’s driveand-kick mastery means the Bucks take 3-pointers more often — and more accurately — than almost any team in the league; the Bucks are fourth in the league in points from 3-pointers per game.

On the other side of the ball, the Bucks have the 9thbest defensive rating. Though their defensive numbers are middling, Antetokounmpo’s hulking presence in the paint as a help defender combined with Khris Middleton and Jrue Holiday’s pesky perimeter on-ball defense should strike terror in opposing offenses, especially in the playoffs, when teams tend to lock in on defense more than they did in the regular season.

Milwaukee is fourth in the Eastern Conference as of Feb. 2 but just one and a half games back from the first seed. As the Bucks continue their quiet climb to the top, other top contenders are starting to reveal signs of fragility.

Even the teams currently sitting atop both conferences

@BUCKS

The defending NBA champion Milwaukee Bucks have been wrongfully overlooked as title contenders.

ing led to a final score of 62-91 in — the Suns and Miami Heat might only need to wait a favor of Seton Hall. The Pirates — were handily beaten by the few more months for anSeton Hall had its own high- nailed nineteen 3-pointers, setBucks in the 2021 playoffs and other one. octane offense, much to George- ting a Big East conference record should fear another matchup with the reigning champs. town’s chagrin. The Pirates’ guard- for the most 3-pointers in a game Christian Baldari is a sophomore Bucks fans waited 50 in the College. Beware the forward Andra Espinoza-Hunter and making it impossible for the years in between the seemed incapable of missing. In Hoyas to catch up. team’s first and second Hype appears in print and the first quarter, she sank all five of The Hoyas allowed 24 points off championships, but they online every other week. her shot attempts from the field, turnovers to the Pirates’ 10. While three of which were 3-pointers. this was a glaring issue — and one The quarter came to a close with that can be actively addressed — Georgetown trailing 17-23.

Georgetown also might have just MEN’S BASKETBALL The Pirates started off the sec- played the wrong team on the ond quarter red-hot, draining wrong day. three 3-point shots right off the Seton Hall simply could do no bat. But Clougherty did not give wrong on offense. They logged a up, responding with 5 straight season-high in points scored, field points and appearing everywhere goal percentage, 3-pointers made on defense. Georgetown struggled and 3-point percentage. They also to cash in with its additional at- had 5 more assists than they have tempts despite crisp passes, hus- recorded in any other game so tle and stamina. Seton Hall scored far this season. Their top scorers, 30 points in the second quarter, Espinoza-Hunter and Park-Lane, owed in large part to an impres- are usually deadly from beyond sive stretch from guard Lauren the arc but shifted into a new Park-Lane. At the half, the Pirates gear against the Hoyas, shooting a led 53-32. combined 10-13 from 3-point land.

Unrelenting, the Hoyas began Georgetown, meanwhile, the third quarter angry. They capi- couldn’t generate an outside prestalized on rebounds and main- ence offensively. They usually tained control of the ball. From shoot around 33% from 3-point nifty bounce passes to incredible range but went just 4-16 against steals, the Hoyas began to regain the Pirates. their footing in the game. Senior This loss marked a setback for forward Shanniah Wright drove a Georgetown team that has won to the hoop for a swift layup and only two conference games this was fouled on her way up, com- season, especially against a team pleting the and-one play with 3:29 that has a win percentage below left in the third quarter. The Hoyas .500 on the season. slowly crept back to a 17-point defThe Hoyas will look to put this icit, outscoring the Pirates 20-16 in loss behind them on Sunday as the period. the team travels to Villanova, Pa. GUHOYAS However, Georgetown’s prog- to square off against the Villanova In a home contest against Seton Hall, Georgetown men’s basketball failed to establish an offensive ress stalled in the final quarter. Wildcats (13-6, 7-3 Big East) in an- rhythm and eventually lost 63-70. The Hoyas are still winless in the Big East conference.

Defensive laps and spotty shoot- other conference contest.

SETON HALL MBB, from A12 Donald Carey hit back-to-back the run with a pair of 3-point- cess in the Hoyas’ last game 3-pointers. Then sophomore ers from forward Tray Jackson, against Butler — but did little last possession of the half, guard Dante Harris and first- which gave the Pirates a 55-53 to slow Seton Hall’s offense.

Georgetown graduate forward year guard Aminu Mohammad lead and kicked off a 14-3 Seton The Pirates converted their Kaiden Rice sunk a desperate, converted clutch shots to re- Hall run that saw its lead bal- free throws, and Georgetown off-balance three at the buzz- duce the deficit to 2 points. loon to 7 points. Jackson was was unable to muster a spark 1 7 6 8 3 4 er, cutting the deficit to 28-35 The best stretch of the game marvelous on offense, finish- to bring them back. Ultimately, heading into halftime. came from first-year center ing with a game-high 21 points. the Hoyas fell 70-63.

Unfortunately, the Hoyas’ Ryan Mutombo. Reminiscent 4 2 9 1 6 Georgetown simply could In a postgame press conferfirst-half struggles were also of his father Dikembe Mu- not make up lost ground down ence, Ewing said that the combitheir latter-half struggles. More tombo (SLL ’91), he blocked the stretch. The unfocused nation of the inability to rebound, 6 8 7 3 unforced errors, including three shots in just one min- play that plagued the Hoyas untimely fouls and clutch shots another shot clock violation ute, leading to eight points at the end of the first half re- from Jackson was insurmount1 3 2 7 9 three minutes in, contributed off a Mohammed layup and turned. Turnovers, an inability able for Georgetown. to the Hoyas failing to score successful jumpers by Carey to control the glass, and un“Those rebounds hurt. Jackuntil the 15:03 mark. They also and Harris. Georgetown took a timely fouls hindered George- son hit two big threes, those 8 2 1 struggled to generate an inside 5-point lead. town’s ability to get back into hurt. The fouling when we presence, as Seton Hall center This explosion capped off a the game. don’t need to foul,” said Ewing.

2 9 7 6 3 8 Ike Obiagu finished the game 18-5 Hoyas run, fueled by defenIn a final effort, Georgetown “That all hurts.” with 5 blocks. sive tenacity that forced the Pi- Head Coach Patrick Ewing The Hoyas will return to the Georgetown somehow found rates into costly turnovers that (CAS ’85) employed a full- court in Capital One Arena Sun4 7 3 8 life halfway through the second the Hoyas converted on offense. court trap defensive scheme day, Feb. 6 to take on the Provihalf. Rice and graduate guard Seton Hall responded to — which had relative suc- dence Friars (19-2, 9-1 Big East).

8 6

Hoyas Drop Close Game to Seton Hall

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ATHLETICS

GU’s Unequal Fan Bans Draw Ire MCDONALD, from A12

an email to The Hoya.

“I think there needs to be an emphasis on action rather than words,” Ransom wrote.

“We appreciate the celebration of women in sports, but when there’s an obvious disconnect between what is said, and the actual intention to follow through, it’s disheartening.”

Dealing with gender inequality is nothing new for Ransom.

“Doing the same things as men, working as hard, and not feeling support from the community is deflating,” Ransom wrote. “As a team, we see and recognize the same people who support us each game and

each season, and we love it, but I wish we and other women’s sports were supported as unconditionally as men’s sports.”

Also raising concerns in an email to The Hoya was Rachel Cherelstein (COL ’22), the current president of Hoya Blue.

“We hope that the university and collegiate athletics across the country take note of disparities like we experienced in January to do better moving forward,” Cherelstein wrote in an email to The Hoya. “Our goal is and has been to pack McDonough for both games.”

Jaden Cobb (COL ’25), GUSA’s Director of Student Inclusion and Equity, said students receive much more informa-

tion promoting men’s games in an interview with The Hoya.

“We get almost weekly emails whenever the men’s team has a home game,” Cobb said. “But you never hear information about the women’s games — nothing.”

Cobb stressed that both teams feature student-athletes who deserve support from the university.

“This isn’t the WNBA versus the NBA,” Cobb said. “This isn’t some popularity contest.

These are students that the university should be able to promote and encourage regardless of their gender or other identities.”

The university was not avail-

able for comment at the time of The Hoya’s request.

Members of the women’s basketball team met with Lee Reed, Georgetown’s director of intercollegiate athletics, on Jan. 31.

Ransom explained how she thought this could prompt necessary change.

“We did and we will continue to point out inequalities,” Ransom wrote. “I’m happy that this made people uncomfortable, and that now there’s an opportunity to create change.

I hope we encourage women in all sports and women not in sports not to settle and to express their discontent, and to push for answers and change.”

Sports

WBB

Georgetown (7-11) vs. Villanova (13-6) Sunday, 2 p.m.

Villanova, Pa.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2022 TALKING POINTS

WOMEN’S TENNIS Georgetown women’s tennis suffered tough consecutive losses to Liberty University and Campbell University.

See A10

NUMBERS GAME

I wish we and other women’s sports were supported as unconditionally as men’s sports.”

Sophomore guard Kelsey Ransom

3

First-year center Ryan Mutombo blocked three shots in one minute in a loss to Seton Hall.

MEN’S BASKETBALL

Costly Mistakes Hurt Hoyas Against Seton Hall Pirates Sam Wirth

Hoya Staff Writer

Despite fighting hard, Georgetown men’s basketball extended its Big East losing streak as repeated offensive and defensive mistakes cost the Hoyas a Feb. 1 loss to Seton Hall, 63-70.

Out of the gates, Georgetown (6-14, 0-9 Big East) and the Pirates (13-7, 4-6 Big East) looked evenly matched, with the game within one possession up until the 14th minute of the first half.

The rest of the half, however, was emblematic of Georgetown’s struggles so far in conference play.

Unable to control the glass, the only aspect of the Hoyas’ game that remained consistent in this final stretch was their sloppy play, as they allowed Seton Hall to convert on multiple second-chance opportunities.

Georgetown also struggled to control the ball in the rest of the first half, committing multiple costly turnovers. Perhaps most symbolic of their struggles was junior center Timothy Ighoefe, who could not corral a rebound early on, even though there was not a blue Seton Hall jersey in sight.

Other first-half mental mistakes included a possession where the Hoyas unknowingly dribbled out the shot clock, turning the ball over to the Pirates.

Even when they could maintain possession, Georgetown repeatedly failed to convert their multiple great scoring looks. This culminated in a 1-of-11 shooting streak for the Hoyas, and the team even went four and a half minutes without a bucket as the period wound to a close.

Down by double digits for the See SETON HALL MBB, A11

GUHOYAS

Georgetown women’s basketball players and students expressed frustration over unequal fan attendance policies compared to the men’s team.

ATHLETICS

Disparate Basketball Policies Spark Backlash Carrie McDonald Hoya Staff Writer

Georgetown women’s basketball players and students took to social media this week, advocating for equal treatment and expressing frustration over ongoing inequality following the university’s Jan. 20 announcement that fans would be permitted at the Feb. 3 men’s basketball game at McDonough Arena. In contrast, university guidelines prohibited fans from attending women’s games at McDonough throughout January.

When Georgetown institut-

ed a policy suspending in-person, on-campus events to prevent the spread of the omicron variant, fans were barred from attending any of the women’s team’s five January home games played in McDonough, according to a statement issued Jan. 7 from Georgetown University Athletics.

However, fans have been permitted at Capital One Arena for every men’s basketball game, since off-campus locations do not fall under the jurisdiction of the university’s public health policies.

Georgetown Athletics intended to provide an off-

campus opportunity for the women to play a home game at the Entertainment and Sports Arena for their Jan 1. faceoff against University of Connecticut, according to Barbara Barnes, the associate athletic director for communications.

However, this game was canceled because of COVID-19 and was never rescheduled.

The university planned to extend the suspension of all oncampus indoor events — “with limited exceptions explicitly approved by university leadership” — until Feb. 11, according to a Jan. 24 email from University Provost Robert M. Groves.

Despite their strict adherence to the guidelines for the women’s team, Georgetown University made an exception for the men’s game Feb. 3. Georgetown Athletics announced in a Jan. 30 email to student season ticket holders that a limited number of students would be allowed at the men’s basketball game versus St. John’s.

The game had been moved to McDonough after the initial New Year’s Day game at Capital One Arena was postponed because of COVID-19 issues within the Georgetown program.

Fans will also be able to attend the women’s upcoming home game Feb. 9 against Seton Hall in McDonough, according to the email.

However, women’s basketball players and students alike expressed concern about the unequal attendance policies throughout January, especially amid the launch of the university’s year-long “Georgetown Women in Sports” campaign.

One of these outspoken athletes was sophomore guard Kelsey Ransom, who discussed her frustration in See MCDONALD, A11

BEWARE THE HYPE

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

Georgetown Hammered by Seton Hall Can the Bucks Go Back-to-Back?

Kate Berkery Hoya Staff Writer

The Georgetown women’s basketball team fell 62-91 to the Seton Hall Pirates on Feb. 2 at Walsh Gymnasium in South Orange, N.J. Coming off a 16-point win against the Butler Bulldogs on Sunday, the Hoyas (7-11, 2-8 Big East) came out strong against Seton Hall (9-10, 4-7 Big East).

Junior forward Graceann Bennett immediately made her presence felt with strong drives to the basket, scoring the first bucket of the contest.

Transition offense quickly became central to the Hoyas’ gameplay. Five minutes into the first quarter, sophomore guard Kelsey Ransom lunged to intercept a critical pass and darted down the court with the ball. Ransom shrewdly dished the ball to firstyear forward Brianna Scott, who drained a 3-pointer from the top of the key.

The Hoyas continued to hustle back on defense and patiently select high-quality shots on offense. Coming off an inbound, graduate guard Mary Clougherty brilliantly weaved through the Seton Hall defense for a layup, showing tactical diversity from her normal style as a catch-and-shoot player.

Christian Baldari Columnist

GUHOYAS

The Georgetown women’s basketball team suffered a blowout loss to Seton Hall on See SETON HALL WBB, A11 Feb. 2. Seton Hall set a Big East conference record for made 3-pointers with 19.

Visit us online at thehoya.com/sports

With the All-Star break rapidly approaching, the time has come to separate the contenders from the pretenders. While the storylines have focused on the Brooklyn Nets, Golden State Warriors and the Los Angeles Lakers, the league’s strongest title challenger might also be its most underrated team — the Milwaukee Bucks.

The chatter surrounding the Nets, Warriors, and Lakers is understandable, yet overstated.

The Nets do have the best big three in basketball in Kevin Durant, James Harden, and Kyrie Irving, but the team has been plagued by injuries to Durant and Harden and chemistry issues stemming from Irving’s part-time playing status, which has prompted reports that Harden wants to leave this summer in free agency.

The Warriors own the league’s best defense and have only improved since Klay Thompson’s return from injury, but Steph Curry’s historic shooting slump and defensive fulcrum Draymond Green’s back injury should give Warriors fans pause.

As for the Lakers, even though it would be silly to write off a LeBron Jamesled team in the Playoffs, the team has looked like a dumpster fire for large parts of the season, as many of their bigname stars, notably Russell Westbrook, have failed to make a positive impact.

It may come as shocking that the defending champions are being neglected, but it makes sense. Some fans often prefer a new champion every year for the sake of excitement and novelty. More importantly, winning any championship consecutively is one of the most difficult feats in all of sports. Plus, the Bucks started off their season 6-8, giving their detractors an opportunity to dismiss them as credible challengers. Still, the Bucks have all the ingredients to defend their title.

In a league where roster turnover can change a team’s title chances overnight, the Bucks’ continuity is favorable. Milwaukee returns four of its five starters from the championship team that beat the Phoenix Suns in the 2021 Finals.

Their sole replacement, Grayson Allen, is actually an upgrade over P.J. Tucker. Although Tucker was a sturdy, multi-positional defender, he offered virtually See BALDARI, A11