The Hoya sat down with five of the six incoming Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service (GU Politics) fellows for the Spring 2025 semester Jan. 24 to discuss the 2024 election, young voters and trust in the media.
This semester’s fellows are Tony Fabrizio, chief pollster for Donald Trump’s 2016, 2020 and 2024 presidential campaigns; Quentin Fulks, the Biden-Harris and Harris-Walz campaigns’ principal deputy campaign manager; Don Graves (LAW ’95), former deputy secretary of commerce for the Biden administration; Cecilia Kang, a New York Times national technology correspondent; Meg Kinnard (SFS ’02), an Associated Press national politics reporter; and Heather Nauert, a former Trump administration State Department
spokesperson.
Kang was unable to attend the interview.
While at Georgetown University, the six fellows will host weekly discussion groups beginning Feb. 10 where they will examine various political issues, including the America First movement and trust in journalism, with student groups. Below is a partial transcript of the fellows’ discussion with The Hoya.
How do you think the 2024 presidential election will be remembered? What will it be defined by?
Kinnard: This was, among different cycles that I’ve covered and been part of the coverage for, something where there wasn’t a pause. We get through the primaries and then we’re into the general election, and then all of these other See FELLOWS, A7
COURTESY OF GU POLITICS
The incoming class of GU Politics fellows sat down with The Hoya Jan. 24 to talk youth voters and presidential transition.
GU Politics, MSNBC Host DNC Forum
Nora Toscano Senior News Editor
The Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service (GU Politics) and MSNBC partnered to host the fourth Democratic National Committee (DNC) leadership forum Jan. 30.
Mo Elleithee (SFS ’94), the GU Politics director, and five MSNBC correspondents moderated the forum, which allowed candidates for DNC leadership positions, including chair, to debate at Gaston Hall and answer student questions ahead of the Feb. 1 DNC
GU Recognizes Cardinal’s Global Impact With Honorary Degree
Vilda Westh Blanc
Special to The Hoya
Georgetown University conferred an honorary degree on a Catholic cardinal known for his focus on interreligious dialogue at a ceremony in Gaston Hall on Jan. 27.
Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe, O.P., known for his advocacy for human rights and disarmament throughout his time as a prelate, a highly-ranked clergy member in the Catholic Church, received the honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree. After leading the Dominican Order, a global Catholic religious order dedicated to preaching, education and theological scholarship, for nine years, Radcliffe became a cardinal in 2024. In his speech accepting the degree, Radcliffe said he feels a
shared sense of hope is essential to advancing the impact of education.
“Teaching is an act of love and compassion for those whose deepest thirst is for meaning,”
Radcliffe said at the event.
“Every college, every school, every university, should be a sort of seed bed of hope — all the ways in which we try to make sense of who we are and what we long for.”
Radcliffe, who visited Iraq in 2018 to support rebuilding efforts after the Islamic State group, a terrorist organization, lost control of the country, said hope can be found anywhere.
“I’ve been particularly struck by the hope-filled education in places that seem to be hopeless. My hopes have always been renewed when I’ve gone to
places of suffering.”
Robert M. Groves, Georgetown’s interim president, said the university chose to honor Radcliffe because his work exemplifies Georgetown’s values of faith in action and interreligious dialogue.
“At Georgetown, we find inspiration in Cardinal Radcliffe’s ministry and service to accompany people as they seek and question their own lives — as they deepen their faith, as they strengthen their ability to engage with others and build relationships across the global church,” Groves said at the ceremony.
Radcliffe helped found the Franciscan-Dominican representative offices at the See DEGREE, A7
elections. The next DNC chair will lead the Democratic Party and shape its voter messaging as it looks to rebound from losses in the 2024 election.
During the forum, chair candidates including Minnesota DemocraticFarmer-Labor Party Chair Ken Martin, Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler and former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley shared their visions for the future of the party.
Luke Russert, the MSNBC Live creative director and one of the forum’s moderators, said the forum offered both observers and party insiders the opportunity to profile the changes taking shape within the
Democratic Party after their losses in the 2024 general election.
“We’re all students of politics in some form or another,” Russert wrote to The Hoya. “This forum will help the audience understand what Democrats see as a winning message and what changes need to be made internally within the party going forward.”
“When parties tear themselves down to the studs and rebuild, it provides a pretty good lesson in the art of organizing and persuasion,” he added.
Elleithee said the forum connected Georgetown University students interested in politics with a behind-
“This is a great opportunity to understand how a major political party operates, how its leaders are selected, how its grassroots leaders are involved in that process,” Elleithee
Ari Citrin Student Life Desk Editor
Activists gathered at Georgetown University for the twenty-sixth annual Cardinal O’Connor Conference on Life (OCC), the largest student-led anti-abortion conference in the United States, Jan. 25.
This year’s conference, titled “Life and Dignity: A Global Commitment,” aimed to illuminate international perspectives against abortion. Lila Rose, an anti-abortion activist and podcast host, headlined the conference, which also featured panelists Melissa Ohden, director of the Abortion Survivors Network, which supports individuals born despite an attempted abortion, and Brian Clowes, director of education and research at Human Life International, a Catholic anti-abortion advocacy organization.
Maria Victoria Almeida Vazquez (SFS ’25), director of this year’s OCC, said the conference’s organizers sought to platform a diverse panel of voices during the conference, including academics, activists and religious leaders.
“The presence of these different voices at the OCC is proof that the pro-life movement isn’t owned by any single group — it belongs to all of those who believe in the dignity of every human life and feel a strong conviction to defend life from the culture of death,” Almeida Vazquez wrote to The Hoya.
The Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service (GU Politics) partnered with MSNBC to host
forums Jan. 30 for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) ahead of its February
ARI CITRIN/THE HOYA
in the United States.
VILDA WESTH BLANC/THE HOYA
Gaston Hall on Jan. 27.
Prioritize Hilltop Campus Concerns
With the opening of its new branch location in Jakarta, Indonesia this month, Georgetown University has expanded its footprint to its third country.
In Jakarta, Georgetown School of Foreign Service (SFS) graduate students can now participate in new Asia Pacific policy labs, while leaders based in Asia can enroll in a new executive master’s degree program — no doubt enhancing Hoyas’ educational experiences and opening new professional pathways.
In comparison to the spacious Georgetown facilities in Indonesia — to say nothing of the new Capitol Campus in downtown Washington, D.C. — the first of Georgetown’s four locations seems to have lost its luster.
While Georgetown’s ambitious expansion will provide new opportunities for students, the Editorial Board is concerned that the flurry of newly-constructed buildings and newly-established degree programs in far-off cities detracts from the university administration’s focus on its largest and oldest campus — the only Georgetown campus actually in Georgetown.
Georgetown clearly does not lack for funding, as the new campus and the recent announcement of a tuition increase outstripping inflation demonstrate. Before spending money 10,000 miles away from Washington, the Editorial Board urges the administration to consistently commit to addressing student issues and follow through on proposed funding initiatives on the Hilltop Campus.
Here in The Hoya’s pages are reports of student protests over Georgetown’s political ties, recurring facilities issues — including major, repeated flooding in first-year dormitory Harbin Hall — ongoing labor issues surrounding student resident assistants (RAs) and a data leak which threatened students’ and graduates’ data. Lauinger Library even caught fire Jan. 29.
In response, Georgetown promises it will work to address student concerns before inconsistently acting on these issues.
A university spokesperson said Georgetown has and will continue to focus on the main campus’ needs.
“Georgetown regularly invests in improvements to strengthen the University’s educational and research mission and enhance campus life,” the spokesperson wrote to The Hoya. “We value input from students, and will continue to work with students to provide appropriate venues for discussion and outreach, including engaging the Provost’s Student Advisory Committee, which is made up of leaders from undergraduate and graduate student organizations as well as at-large student representatives.”
However, Mira Banker (CAS ’27) said that the university needs to focus its energy on improving its facilities.
“With tuition increases, required on-campus housing and mandatory meal plans, we pay George-
HOYA HISTORY
town so much money for low-quality facilities,” Banker told The Hoya. “Though the Indonesia program and other new initiatives are exciting, Georgetown shouldn’t be expanding before they can effectively run their first campus.”
Sam Lovell (CAS ’25), the interim chairperson of the Georgetown Resident Assistant Coalition (GRAC), the organization representing RAs as they negotiate with the university, said the university needs to focus on making the Hilltop Campus more financially accessible.
“Make no mistake: expansion projects like those in Jakarta serve an important function in making our campus one that is truly global,” Lovell wrote to The Hoya. “Yet when working- and middle-class students struggle to afford a Georgetown education at home — not to mention the 50% of students ineligible to receive financial aid — one must ask: Do such missions truly align with our history, our Jesuit character and our imperative to reduce barriers in higher education?”
Academically speaking, too, Georgetown has failed to fund programs centered on the Hilltop Campus. Even as departments in the arts struggle for funding, students are preparing to move downtown, though not as many as predicted, for high-profile undergraduate programs hosted at the Capitol Campus.
Indeed, even some ambitious initiatives at the Hilltop Campus have not succeeded. In 2018, for one example, in advance of the SFS’s centennial, the school promised “ambitious investments in faculty and curriculum, learning experiences, global reach and physical space” through a campaign aimed to “redefine foreign service.” Other than establishing Centennial Labs — classes that allow students to study in other countries — it is unclear which, if any, of these areas have seen university investment.
This does not mean all Georgetown initiatives here on the Hilltop fail. For example, the university has redeveloped the former Henle Village site to serve as upper class student housing to open this fall while beginning renovations to Lauinger Library. The Editorial Board commends these actions.
Yet to truly serve its students, particularly its students here in D.C., Georgetown must fund such initiatives more consistently. The university must be proactive and efficient in pursuing its goals, prioritizing real and tangible progress above all and addressing student concerns in an ongoing manner. Before developing an SFS campus in Jakarta, Georgetown administrators should turn their attention back to the corner of 37th St. and O St.
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.
Since its first issue in 1920, The Hoya has served to inform Georgetown’s campus dialogue. The following article is a glimpse into The Hoya’s rich history, allowing readers to appreciate the evolution of college journalism.
Communications II
November 15, 1960
In early March of last year the Class of 1960 were individually and collectively incensed at the Administration. Word that an announcement had appeared in the Georgetown Alumni Magazine to the effect that Alumni returning to the Hilltop for reunions that year would be able to occupy rooms in Copley during their class reunions, reunions that were scheduled at the same time as the seniors’ graduation week festivities, had flashed through the class. Neither the class officers nor the Yard officers had been consulted or even notified about this decision. We wrote an editorial at that time in which we laid most of the blame for the acrimony and friction which flowed out of this situation to the crucial lack of communication which then existed between the Administration and the student body. We are writing this a full nine-months later, and the situation remains largely uncorrected. The situation remains at such a point that the president of one of the classes was able to get up at the special Student Council meeting of last Monday night and talk about the frustrations engendered by the fact that his role in Administration decisions which affected every members of his class was usually limited to picking up his telephone and being told of a decision which had been reached without consulting his opinion or the opinions of any member of his class. And as a rule the reasons behind the decision would be unexplained. This lack of communication is not, however, limited just to classes and the Administration.
The problem is often evident in areas of general interest to the student body. The Student Council set up a committee before the end of the last school year to consider, at the recommendation of the Administration, the possibilities of putting some sort of meal-ticket system into effect. This committee talked with one of the top executives of the HardingWilliams Corporation at its headquarters in Chicago and came up with a flexible meal-ticket arrangement which was agreeable both to the students and to the Harding-Williams executive. When the committee’s chairman presented this plan to the Administration he was informed that the Chicago executive did not have the information on the Georgetown food service program necessary to formulate an efficient meal-ticket system; the chairman was confronted with a system which would, among other disadvantages to the student, require that breakfast, the most frequently missed meal at Georgetown, be paid for whether eaten or not. We could cite more examples like the last one, but we would prefer to look at what happens when Administration student communication is effective. If the Student Council’s committee to set up a meal ticket system had ceased functioning at the point when its proposal had been thrown out and that of the Administration advanced, another point of friction between students and Administration would have been established. This situation was avoided, however, because the chairman of the special SC committee was
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
also the chairman of the Campus Facilities Committee, and as such sits on the University Food Council. He is now working out the possibility of a compromise plan which would work to the student’s benefit and still block the very real possibility that the food service program might operate in the red. At this point it looks as though both parties, the students and the Administration, will be benefitted by this discussion and that a minimum of friction will result.
Finally, we would cite the early successes of the StudentFaculty Relations Committee in this area. Through the work of this committee study conditions on the freshman and sophomore corridors have been improved and a more liberal late-lights policy for these corridors obtained. Coming up on the committee’s agenda within a few weeks is a complete evaluation of the effectiveness of the orientation and hazing programs. The Student Council as a whole is also assisting this project of the Student-Faculty Relations Committee. Although we may be prejudiced in this matter, since we are privileged to have a seat on this committee, we believe that the function of this committee as a two-way channel of communication has shown a great potential value and that it will achieve its full potential. It would be most unfortunate if the success of this committee did not serve to increase the exchange of ideas and opinions between the student body and the Administration.
The Editorial Board
Before developing an SFS campus in Jakarta, Georgetown administrators should turn their attention back to the corner of 37th St. and O St.”
The Editorial Board “Prioritize Hilltop Campus Concerns” thehoya.com
On Jan. 16, Georgetown University officially opened the School of Foreign Services’ branch in Jakarta, Indonesia. While Georgetown continues expansion efforts in other countries and at the downtown campus, some students feel as though Georgetown needs to focus more on the main campus.
The Hoya conducted a poll to gauge students’ opinions on whether they are satisfied with how the university balances expansion projects and Hilltop needs. Of the 94 respondents, 92.6% that they were dissatisfied, 5.3% responded they were indifferent and 2.1% were satisfied.
EDITORIAL CARTOON by Lauren Beck
Founded January 14, 1920
Evie Steele, Editor in Chief
Patrick Clapsaddle, Maren Fagan and Aamir Jamil, Executive Editors
Rohini Kudva, Managing Editor
Nora Toscano, News Editor
Jack Willis, News Editor
Catherine Alaimo, Features Editor
Paulina Inglima, Features Editor
Annikah Mishra, Opinion Editor
Maya Ristvedt, Opinion Editor
Elizabethe Bogrette, Guide Editor
Caroline Woodward, Guide Editor
Caleigh Keating, Sports Editor
Sophia Lu, Sports Editor
Isabel Liu, Science Editor
Shivali Vora, Science Editor
Heather Wang, Design Editor
Aria Zhu, Design Editor
Grace Bauer, Copy Chief
Madeleine Ott, Copy Chief
Toni Marz, Social Media Editor
Aspen Nguyen, Social Media Editor
Fallon Wolfley, Blog Editor
Kate Hwang, Multimedia Editor
Michael Scime, Multimedia Editor
Meghan Hall, Photo Editor
Board of Directors
Clayton Kincade, Chair
Jasmine Criqui, Lauren Doherty, Paulina Inglima,
Oliver Ni, Georgia Russello, Erin Saunders
Peter Sloniewsky, General Manager
Riley Vakkas, Director of Business Operations
Sophia Williams, Technology Director
Open Admin’s Closed Doors
In the past year, writers for The Hoya have covered a variety of student issues, including but not limited to a myriad of campus dining health violations, a data leak that threatened thousands of current and former students and administrative actions that limited student life. Georgetown University’s communications have been silent on the vast majority of these issues, largely electing instead to use official press releases either to celebrate the achievements of graduates and faculty or to highlight the university’s expansion.
The problem isn’t that these accomplishments aren’t worth acknowledgement; it’s that administrators don’t feel the need to answer student concerns in any sort of public way, even when they’re published through legitimate, university-recognized channels (such as its newspaper of record). This lack of response is only sustainable with an insulated administration that’s shielded itself from direct contact with students who might hold it accountable. But it’s also aided and abetted by a student body who has become too accustomed to taking the university at its word. Maybe that’s not fair. Students at Georgetown have a number of options to express their voices. We protest in Red Square, a “designated space for free expression and speech” meant to be “a symbol and reminder of the right to free expression that belongs to Georgetown students.”
We elect a Georgetown University Student Association (GUSA) executive ticket every year to represent the student body directly to the administration. Students in conflict with the administration can turn to the Student Advocacy Office, or perhaps the Ombuds. But all of these pathways are harder to access than they should be, can be difficult to start for dayto-day campus issues or require middlemen that lack an obligation to report student grievances to the proper authorities.
Students accept day-to-day struggles and concerns as a condition of the Georgetown experience, partly due to the difficulty of reaching administration. For example, did any students protest, in Red Square or otherwise, when dorms in Harbin Hall were filled with sewage last semester? They could have, but students looking to air their concerns turned to student media instead. Did the university address or even acknowledge the serious issues in Harbin, as articulated in The Hoya? If they didn’t, then what else could the students have done to reach administrators with their concerns?
THE MYTH OF
This leads us to an important question: Who should be able to make direct contact with the administration? Should every GUSA senator have a direct line to university vice presidents? Should club presidents be able to book meetings with the administrators and advisors that govern them?
We don’t need to draw any arbitrary lines of student hierarchy. Every student deserves to have their voice heard, and no student should settle for that right to be limited to Red Square or a quote in The Hoya. If administrators don’t hear student concerns, it should be because the student body hasn’t brought it to their attention. More accessibility would place the burdens of proof and protest on the student body and would enable us to take the quality of Georgetown’s student life into our own hands.
Direct accountability could come in a variety of forms. Professors are required to hold regularly scheduled office hours; why shouldn’t vice presidents be also, or even the provost and president? Georgetown would not be the only university with such a policy. If the concern is overflow, could administrators not open up appointment calendars for students to book at select times or even hold regularly scheduled town halls?
Better yet, camaraderie between administrators and students could do wonders to make us feel at home. Why don’t more administrators write Viewpoints or press releases to be published in The Hoya? Why can’t a vice president join in on a running club workout, or make an appearance at an orchestra concert or even drop by an election night watch party hosted by the College Democrats or Republicans? To lead a university which actively promotes its club culture as a central aspect of campus life yet treat it in practice as an entity separate from the functioning of the school does nothing short of building an adversarial relationship with students. With an adequate degree of direct accountability for the administration, the student body would need to answer for failing to articulate their concerns. Once the option for communication is there, the relationship between administrators and students will be what we make it. But students will set the tone of their campus life and have the ability to seek answers to their concerns. Georgetown will be better for it.
Peter Sloniewsky is a sophomore in the College of Arts & Sciences. He is The Hoya’s general manager and served as senior Opinion editor in the Fall 2024 semester.
Continue Fight Against Starbucks’ Labor Violations
n September 2023, Georgetown
Students Against Starbucks (GSAS) began fighting to pressure Starbucks to end its ruthless union-busting campaign against its own workers. Earlier that year, the U.S. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), a government agency that regulates collective bargaining and prevents unfair labor practices, found that Starbucks had committed hundreds of unfair labor violations, including withholding benefits, closing stores and firing workers.
Despite Starbucks’ “egregious and widespread” violations of labor laws and “employees’ fundamental rights,” according to an NLRB judge, Georgetown University maintains its financial and symbolic investments in the coffee conglomerate, implicitly supporting illegal attacks on workers in the process.
Georgetown’s funding of Starbucks and the company’s union-busting practices inspired GSAS to launch a petition Oct. 10, 2023, calling for the termination of the university’s relationship with Starbucks. Over 500 community members supported bringing an alternate coffee supplier to campus and divesting from the company.
While Georgetown’s food service provider, Aramark, officially operates the Leavey Center Starbucks through a licensing agreement,
Step Back From Hustle Culture at GU
The phrase “I need a break” is a familiar one, especially on campus, where there are few restful moments for students. Even when there is a chance for a break, thoughts of your next assignment or internship application circle your head. It’s true: Georgetown University is known to have a “hustle culture.” But when does the hustle stop? Social life. We throw the phrase around, expecting it to encompass any part of our lives that exists outside the academic or professional space. As someone who looked to her social life as an escape, I noticed that it wasn’t a break from anything at all. It didn’t feel like I was recharging from the constant pressures of school and work. Even when I had a moment to myself, I was thinking about the people who I hadn’t seen, the coffee dates I needed to schedule and the meals I needed to plan. Truthfully, my packed Google Calendar didn’t reveal that I could balance my stress. Social stress is still stress. At Georgetown, weekends aren’t all about Greek life, and social events aren’t always rooted in a strong sports culture. As someone whose sister and best friends all attended Big Ten
schools known for their party culture, this reality was an adjustment for me. Filling my schedule became trying to compensate for how Georgetown’s social scene differed from the “college experience” I had subconsciously learned to expect. However, by truly understanding Georgetown, I realized my life wasn’t going to look like how I’d originally pictured it. It was going to be better. Georgetown is not a Big Ten school known for its party culture. Instead, people find where they belong through the various groups and communities they can join. Whether it’s political clubs, activist organizations, student newspaper groups, musical extracurriculars or pre-professional programs, there is something for everyone. The likeness of passions translates into the crowds you run in.
Adjusting to the unique Georgetown social scene, I assumed the “go, go, go” mindset and idealized the packed GCal look. But this mentality took its toll. My body wasn’t thanking me for letting go of academic stress for a few hours just to pick up social stress. My mind wasn’t charging when I forced myself to hang out at a function I didn’t want to
go to. I realized that, although I want to go out with my friends, I also want to curl up in my own bed and unplug. It’s okay to go on a three-day bender of being wild and feeling untethered. It’s also okay to eat lunch alone and take a minute for yourself. When you learn to settle into Georgetown’s culture, don’t take the “hustle” with it. If you are going to categorize your life into academic, professional and social spheres, I encourage you to be cognizant of how you approach them. It’s okay to make intentional time to be with yourself. Go for a walk and listen to your favorite podcast. Read a book (not your assigned readings), journal, reflect on your day or watch your favorite show. Hang out with your friends because you want to, not because you think you have to. Recognize the “hustle culture” on this campus, and make an effort to escape it. Your social life should not be a part of the hustle. Even hustlers need breaks.
Mansi Peters is a sophomore in the College of Arts & Sciences. This is the first installment of her new column “The Myth of the College Experience.”
the administration has input about which company is housed in this location. With the current Aramark contract ending in 2027, the university must commit to replacing Starbucks with a unionfriendly coffee company. In doing so, Georgetown will send a powerful message to companies that students will not tolerate their suppression of worker unionization.
Our GSAS campaign sent proposals to Georgetown’s Advisory Committee on Business Practices (ACBP) and Committee on Investment and Social Responsibility (CISR) to cut Georgetown’s ties with Starbucks in February 2024. Our advocacy efforts to both groups were promising, and we were close to reaching an agreement with Georgetown’s administration when Starbucks finally agreed to come to the bargaining table in March 2024.
At the time, we believed Starbucks would fulfill its commitment, and the Georgetown administration believed they could use their shareholder power to hold Starbucks accountable. Unfortunately, and unsurprisingly to GSAS, Starbucks has failed to uphold its promise to bargain in good faith, jeopardizing workers and inhibiting the contract negotiation process foundational to U.S. labor law.
Since Starbucks’ good-faith
bargaining commitment, negotiations between Starbucks and Starbucks Workers United (SBWU) have deteriorated so significantly that an estimated 5,000 baristas went on strike in the lead-up to Christmas. Despite spending $200 million on a new CEO, Starbucks claims the union’s proposals to give baristas a livable wage are “unsustainable.”
As a result, SBWU has filed an additional 36 claims of unfair labor against Starbucks, alleging the company “engaged in bad faith bargaining over economic issues.” More notably, Georgetown’s investments in Starbucks have increased significantly since our campaign was first launched, from 49,957 shares worth $4,498,740 in August 2023 to 117,453 shares worth $11,450,493 in November 2024.
Our university has not only maintained but also increased its investments in a corporation that, according to the NLRB, violates labor rights, contradicting the Jesuit values Georgetown holds as guiding principles. GSAS paused our campaign last February because we believed the company had heard nationwide concerns and was truly committed to respecting its workers. In our meeting with the ACBP last year, a committee member told GSAS it was unfair of us to call for justice
from the coffee conglomerate if we could not also have faith the company would engage in fair negotiations with its employees, referencing the Jesuit value of “faith that does justice.” We called off our initial campaign to show that we trusted the corporation to abide by its word and treat employees with dignity.
We students must leverage our power as key components of Starbucks’ target demographic to support ethical working practices and refuse to further the company’s bottom line. Therefore, we will resume our fight to cut the university’s ties with the company if Starbucks does not return to the bargaining table by the end of February. If Starbucks refuses to negotiate an equitable contract with Starbucks Workers United by Feb. 28, 2025, we will renew our campaign. We urge all students to join us and apply more pressure than ever before to the company. Starbucks has blatantly betrayed the faith we instilled in them, and so we must again embark on the fight for justice.
Elinor Clark is a sophomore in the College of Arts & Sciences, Valli Pendyala is a sophomore in the School of Foreign Service and Connor Henry and Fiona Naughton are juniors in the School of Foreign Service.
In the iconic words of “Love Island,” a hot new bombshell has entered The Hoya’s Opinion section.
For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Caroline, and I give pretty good advice — at least, that’s what my friends tell me. I’m bringing my talents to The Hoya to answer your questions, big or small. Whether you’ve got daily concerns to share or the darkest secrets to spill, send them my way (anonymously!), and I’ll do my best to answer them. I have a conundrum. My roommate and I are friendly. We chat in our room about our days when we both get back from class, but we never go beyond anything surface-level and we have a lot of long silences. I’m comfortable with how we live together and I’m okay with not talking all the time, but I’m not sure if that’s comfortable for her, even though she seems to be more introverted than me. Should I put more effort into this relationship and try to talk more, or am I overthinking how she feels?
When you think about trying to become better friends with your roommate, it’s important to think about what your motives are. Would you be doing it because you’re genuinely interested in being friends or because you’re worried she feels uncomfortable?
If you truly want to get to know her better, you can always invite her to something low stakes — like grabbing a coffee — and see how she responds. If you’re just worried that she feels awkward about the silence, I wouldn’t let that bother you. She might appreciate not constantly having to hold a conversation, especially if she’s introverted. If you view your
room as a place to decompress and escape some of the pressure to talk all the time, the long silences might actually be comfortable. You don’t have to be best friends with your roommate — the most important thing is that you live well together. If you like the way you’re living with her now, just keep things light and friendly.
So I’ve been seeing this guy for a couple of weeks and I really like him. I wanted to invite him to my birthday with a big group of my friends last week, but I was worried it was too soon, so I didn’t. He found out about the party from my friend’s post a couple of days ago, and he seemed kind of upset that I didn’t invite him. Now things are a little weird between us because he won’t say what’s wrong and I’m not sure what I should do. Honestly, I don’t think there’s any reason for him to be upset. Knowing someone for a couple of weeks isn’t long enough to expect an invitation. More importantly, it’s your party, so you can invite whoever you want. It’s never fun to find out you weren’t invited to something, but he needs to be an adult and figure out how to communicate his feelings instead of sulking. In fact, don’t be afraid to call him out on his behavior! Ask him directly if there’s something wrong, and see how he responds. If he’s huffy and indignant or won’t give you a straight answer, pay attention to that. If he can be honest about his hurt feelings and is willing to talk things through, there’s no reason you can’t work this out together. Having a conversation about what you both expect in social situations like these can go a long way and can actually be an opportunity
to get to know him a little better. Finally, tell your friends to watch what they post — it’s causing you relationship drama!
I started dating my girlfriend recently and it’s going really well, but I’ve been spending a lot of time with her and I don’t see my friends as much. I’m starting to miss them, and I don’t know how to balance spending time with them and also seeing my girlfriend.
Balancing different relationships can be tough. It’s easy to feel the need to prioritize your girlfriend, but relationships with your friends are just as important. Reach out to your friends (they probably miss you!) and find a few weekly times to get lunch, grab a drink or just hang out. If you make an effort to schedule some activities, soon it’ll become natural to spend part of your day with them and part of it with your girlfriend. Tell your girlfriend how you’ve been feeling as well — a conversation between the two of you can help clarify expectations of how you two spend your time and prevent any hard feelings. Who knows — she might be missing her friends too!
I think I have a crush on my therapist. She’s a really good listener and I love talking to her. She always knows what to say and I feel like I have a real connection with her. What should I do? Find a new therapist!
Caroline Brown is a junior in the College of Arts & Sciences. She served as The Hoya’s managing editor in the Fall 2024 semester. This is the first installment of her column “Calling in with Caroline.”
VIEWPOINT • CLARK, HENRY, NAUGHTON, PENDYALA
COURTESY OF HARIETTE HEMMASI
Georgetown Students Against Starbucks supporting Starbucks union workers at a panel Feb. 22
‘Not For the Faint of Heart’: GU Law Center’s Accommodations Process Poses Barriers
Paulina Inglima Senior Features Editor
As the Georgetown University Law Center faces backlash for its treatment of a pregnant student, disabled students are advocating on campus for an overhaul of the current accommodations process.
When Brittany Lovely (LAW ’26) became pregnant during her first year at Georgetown University Law Center (GULC), she never expected to make national media.
Yet after the law school delayed responding to and then denied her request for accommodations that would enable her to take her final exams before her baby’s birth, Lovely found herself amid an unexpected legal battle as she and her friends spread petitions, wrote legal memos and all but went to court to advocate for equitable accommodations.
“It felt like a very ironic situation where now I have to spend a lot of my time fighting with the school that I’m building a community in,” Lovely told The Hoya
According to university policy and federal law, pregnant students can request accommodations such as rescheduling tests or exams, so long as the adjustments do not “fundamentally alter the course of study or program.” Yet GULC denied Lovely’s request for early exams and suggested she instead drop the class or take the test on its set date with extended time to breastfeed.
A university spokesperson said that Georgetown has final discretion over accommodations, as per federal law.
“Legally, while universities should consider a student’s preference for a specific accommodation, the university may choose to grant an alternative accommodation that is effective, even if it is not the student’s first choice,” the spokesperson wrote to The Hoya. “Universities are not required to provide an accommodation if it would result in an undue burden or fundamentally alter the course, program, services or activities — e.g., substantially modify the nature of the program or activity, lower the academic standards of the course or program, remove a requirement that is considered essential to the program or activity or remove a requirement that is directly related to qualifying for licensure or certification in the field, among other things.”
The university used this standard to deny Lovely’s accommodations, according to emails obtained by The Hoya Lovely said the university told her that “motherhood is not for the faint of heart” while denying her request for accommodation.
Lovely said her case is just one drop in the bucket of a systemwide issue around the accommodation process, which includes disability.
“I saw how the process doesn’t actually work for people. I saw the lack of humanity, and I find that extremely unacceptable, and it’s about so much more than me.” Lovely said.
Lovely’s Case After finding out she was pregnant during the spring of 2024, Lovely first met with Georgetown’s Title IX coordinator in September to discuss options for her final exam, scheduled for Dec. 13, days after her Dec. 2 due date. She formally requested to take the exam one week earlier and before her due date, or the scheduled day of the exam online and at home.
After meeting with Lovely on Oct. 17, Law Center deans responded to Lovely’s request, denying her request to either take her exam at home or
take it early in person, according to emails obtained by The Hoya
According to the emails, a dean told Lovely that university policy mandates no exam can be taken early. The dean offered Lovely the option to take her exam on an exam deferral date, either Dec. 14 or Dec. 16-18. In previous years, GULC has offered deferral dates in January. Policies to ensure timely grading and exam delivery meant it was impossible for Lovely to take her exam after Dec. 20, according to the emails, because students needed grades as soon as possible to apply to summer and permanent jobs.
According to the email, the dean said that childbirth during or immediately before the exam period would make Lovely eligible for deferral only if it led to medical complications.
“Pregnancy alone is not grounds for exam deferral unless pregnancy leads to medical emergencies or pregnancy-related complications that would be reason to defer an exam,” the dean wrote.
According to the dean’s email, the university’s exam deferral policy stipulated students who could not sit for an exam could either withdraw completely from the course — without a refund in tuition — or would receive an academic fail for the course.
“I’m here on loans and scholarships. I don’t have the access to resources to just take a semester off,” Lovely said. “I’m just doing the best I can with what I have.”
The school also offered Lovely the option to take her exam in a different room with extended time, allowing her to breastfeed her child throughout the test.
After the initial denial, Lovely emailed GULC Dean William Treanor on Nov. 10 to request reasonable accommodations.
Dean Treanor’s response reiterated the university’s proposed accommodations, and stated that students who drop a course during the exam period may have the “W” removed from their record for extenuating circumstances, such as childbirth.
“I do think with all the values that Georgetown espouses, this is not aligned,” Lovely said. “Supporting the whole student, or educating the whole student, like this does not feel that way.”
Lovely and friends released a petition urging the university to approve her requested accommodations Nov 21. The petition has garnered more than 7,600 signatures as of December according to Lovely — including her entire class — since it went public, gaining nationwide media attention.
According to an email obtained by The Hoya, the deans informed Lovely that taking the exam outside the exam deferral period or taking it at home would raise concerns for academic integrity and pose inequities to other students.
Following a comment request from The Washington Post, the university agreed to let Lovely defer her exam to January. Lovely said that the issue is particularly salient in Washington, D.C., where Black women make up 90% of pregnancy related deaths, and Black women’s maternal mortality rate is more than three times the national average.
“I was talking about the disparate
impact of different communities, and how this would impact my community, rather than some other people who might have access to resources and be able to take that time off, ” Lovely said. Lovely’s case centers on differing interpretations of Title IX, a federal law which prohibits schools from discrimination on the basis of sex — applying to issues such as sexual harassment, accommodations for pregnant students and equal access to education.
President Joe Biden’s administration updated Title IX in April 2024 to give pregnant students the right to reschedule exams due to their childbirth.
Under those Biden administration rules, pregnant students have “an affirmative right to reasonable accommodations, unrelated to the rights students have based on their temporary disability status.” These rules would prevent Georgetown from classifying Lovely’s pregnancy as a short-term disability and denying her request for any accommodations not usually offered to students with temporary disabilities, including an earlier exam date.
However, after conservative organizations sued to halt enforcement of the regulations over concerns unrelated to pregnancy accommodations, a federal judge issued an injunction against enforcement of these rules at over 700 schools across all 50 states and D.C., Georgetown included — meaning the Biden administration’s rules were not in effect at the time of Lovely’s case and Georgetown did not have to comply with them. (President Donald Trump has since repealed the Biden administration’s revisions.)
Under these standards, universities only need to accommodate pregnancy to the same degree that they would a temporary disability.
Jessica Lee, director of the Pregnant Scholar Initiative, an organization that advocates for pregnant students, said pregnant people still have an affirmative right to accommodation under Title IX both under Biden’s revisions and under the Title IX laws in effect at Georgetown during Lovely’s case.
“The Biden rules just made it a lot more clear that schools don’t just have an obligation to pick up the pieces when something goes wrong,” Lee told The Hoya. “They’re supposed to prevent barriers to pregnant students’ education. I think that’s a core principle of Title IX overall regardless of the Biden rule or not, but a lot of schools are doing the bare minimum.”
Title IX does not preclude Georgetown from offering more than the legal requirements for accommodation.
Indeed, according to Elizabeth Oliver (CAS ’26), a Georgetown undergraduate and the president of anti-abortion advocacy organization Georgetown Right to Life, Georgetown’s Jesuit values include a Catholic commitment to caring for human life. Oliver said Lovely’s case is inconsistent with Georgetown’s professed commitment to supporting the mother and child at all stages of life.
“Here’s a school that says they support all these students and they care about the whole person, they’re going to be helpful, and then if they’re not, you feel, in a sense, lied to,” Oliver told The Hoya.
Beyond Title IX, pregnant and parenting students at the university, both in graduate and undergraduate schools, face additional barriers to ac-
cess. Georgetown students enrolled in the university health insurance plan must pay a $3,000 deductible on in-hospital births, according to Lovely.
Additionally, though Georgetown Law offers childcare on-site, it costs law students $1,640 per month and does not start until 18 months after birth.
Lovely said these policies do not align with the Jesuit Catholic university’s espoused pro-life values.
“Thinking about how my institution kind of holds that value, but doesn’t feel like they support it in any real capacity is interesting,” Lovely said.
Disability at GULC
GULC students say Lovely’s case is just one reflection of a systemic issue around access for pregnant and disabled students at the law center.
To receive any accommodations, students must first submit their request to the Office of Accessibility Services (OAS), which promotes accessibility and equity at GULC, providing supporting documentation including doctors’ letters and grades. OAS then holds an intake meeting with the student and at times a clinical consultation to determine whether to offer accommodation.
Should they seek clarification or disagree with OAS’s decision, students can appeal to dean of student life Mitch Bailin or associate dean of academic affairs Urska Velikonja.
The university does not offer guidelines on exactly why an accommodation might be denied, apart from a determination that the accommodation is not “reasonable.”
Jon Corn (LAW ’25), a third-year law student at GULC and co-president of the school’s Disabled Law Student Association (DLSA), said this policy is often convoluted and difficult to navigate, discouraging many students from applying in the first place.
“We want the school to lay out clear descriptions of processes, what it takes to appeal, what documentation is required, why a student is being denied accommodation and what standard approved is applied at each level of the appeal, so a student knows what they need to know, so they can successfully challenge and appeal,” Corn told The Hoya.
A university spokesperson said OAS works to remove barriers for disabled students and implement accessible conditions to promote inclusivity, including offering accommodations on a case-by-case basis.
“The Georgetown Law Office of Accessibility Services works in partnership with faculty, staff and students to promote environments that are accessible, sustainable and inclusive,” the spokesperson wrote. “OAS reviews each request for accommodation on an individualized, case-by-case basis. An accommodation that may be granted to one student may not be appropriate for another student, as the facts and circumstances regarding the underlying disability; the course, program or activity; and other circumstances may be different.”
Meaghan Charlton (LAW ’25), the co-president of DLSA, said that OAS has previously denied accommodations with no explanation, even after students have provided medical documentation.
“They look at it and they make their own decisions about that issue, they don’t rely on the medical expert,”
Charlton said. “They hold a lot of power and they wield a lot of discretion over who will get that accommodation.”
Charlton said that OAS requires students to provide grades but often uses past grades to justify that a student does not need an accommodation.
“It completely misses how a student getting an A letter grade in a class might have to do twice the work, twice the stress and twice the energy to get that,” Charlton said.
Even if OAS approves an accommodation, it does not guarantee that professors will carry out those accommodations in a classroom setting.
Accordi ng to the university’s accommodations policy, “in cases where a faculty member must be made aware of classroom accommodations, Accessibility Services will encourage the student to reach out to the faculty member directly or will help facilitate a conversation between the faculty member and the student.”
If in that “conversation” the professor states that the modification will fundamentally alter the course, the student is back to square one.
Lee Tremblay (LAW ’24), DSLA’s former president, said that in her experience in the accommodations process, administration actively tried to stop her from gaining access to needed accommodations.
“It was denials for no clear good reason,” Tremblay told The Hoya. “It was denials that felt punitive, even when students were trying their very hardest to tell administrators what would allow them to succeed.”
“It became this very suspicious and kind of almost anxiety-inducing process of trying to give people the least possible that was within the law,” Tremblay added.
Corn said disabled students are regularly subjected to the kind of “not for the faint of heart” rhetoric
Lovely experienced.
“When you compare that with language that has been told to a disabled student, which is ‘your disability should be seen as a bonus, not a burden,’ telling disabled students that they should withdraw instead of getting the accommodation they need, which is essentially what was told to Brittany, there are clearly a lot of parallels,” Corn said.
Moving Forward on Disability Justice
After Lovely’s case went public, the university announced that they would be moving the deferral date back for all students for last fall’s semester only.
Charlton said that the university’s unwillingness to move the deadline until it caught media attention created a sense that the university did not care about disabled issues.
“They had to extend it to everyone, but it wasn’t enough that it affected disabled students,” Charlton said.
Joel Reynolds, director of Georgetown’s disability studies program, said GULC must move on from an accommodation mindset, aiming to give the bare minimum of required accommodations, toward an accessibility mindset that takes into account the needs of each student’s unique mind and body.
“This seems like a situation, unfortunately, where the approach from GULC took a very narrow, ‘what are we legally obligated to do’ approach, as op-
posed to ‘how can we make going through law school as accessible to as wide a range of students and a wider range of how their bodies and minds function as we can,’” Reynolds told The Hoya.
“It’s really an accessibility mindset that distinguishes a school, a college, a university, anything, from centering disability justice and from centering the actual needs of its students, versus an institution that is just trying to play catch up with laws on the book,” Reynolds added. However, Georgetown Law may soon overhaul its accommodations process, according to a Nov. 29 email from Treanor and Dean Lilian Faulhaber.
“We have heard your concerns about barriers encountered by pregnant and parenting students and students with disabilities,” Treanor and Faulhaber wrote in the email. “In the new year, we will be gathering input from students, faculty and staff to better understand the challenges experienced and develop proposals for changes to relevant policies and procedures in accordance with Title IX, the Americans with Disability Act and Section 502 of the Rehabilitation Act and will invite you to offer further comments before the policies and procedures are finalized.”
DLSA hopes to work with the university to create a faculty-led accommodations appeal committee to hear accommodations requests, Corn said.
“We’re going to actually see if they can walk the walk,” Corn said. “It’s a lot of talk right now.”
A spokesman for the university said that administrators engage with members of DLSA to promote accessibility on campus.
“Senior leadership across the law school, including in OAS, meet regularly with DLSA leadership and groups of engaged faculty to discuss ways to enhance inclusion and access for students with disability. OAS encourages students with disabilities who may need accommodations to reach out to discuss any questions they may have about the process for requesting accommodations.” Lee said that moving forward, Title IX offices and Office of Accessibility Services must be in close communication, to ensure cooperation across departments.
“We need folks to be aware of how these two legal paradigms reinforce and interact with each other,” Lee said. Corn said he hopes the university will take meaningful action to rectify these policies as part of a larger effort to change the hustle culture around higher education and law.
“In the legal profession, there’s just this mindset that you always have to be working, no breaks, working 80 hours a week,” Corn said. “Law school is meant to be hard. ‘I suffered, so you suffer.’”
“Obviously that’s not right, and that’s not fair, and that’s not equitable for students with disabilities who know what it takes to succeed, because they’ve made it this far,” Corn added.
“And so it’s about time that the administration and the legal profession actually listens and works with disabled students and soon-to-be-lawyers, because their voices are valuable.”
RFK Jr. Faces Senate Confirmation for Secretary of Health and Human Services
Adrian Evers Science Writer
Former presidential candidate
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will face his confirmation hearing before the United States Senate on Jan. 29 to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) following his nomination by President Donald Trump in November 2024. Kennedy’s nomination has drawn widespread criticism from public health experts about the potential implications for global health initiatives and public trust given his controversial stances on various matters of public health.
Kennedy’s history of openly promoting vaccine skepticism in particular has drawn a great deal of criticism.
John Kraemer, an associate professor of health management and policy at Georgetown University, said Kennedy’s record, including his promotion of debunked conspiracy theories linking
vaccines to autism, was appalling.
“Robert Kennedy has spent his entire career spreading false conspiracy theories that vaccines are dangerous and linked to autism,” Kraemer wrote to The Hoya. “He regularly distorts or flat-out lies about the underlying science. It would be irresponsible to put him in any position of public trust, let alone HHS secretary.”
Kraemer said Kennedy’s previous petition to withdraw COVID-19 vaccines from the market and support of disproven treatments like ivermectin only add to the risks of his leadership. “If the U.S. government cuts back — or undermines trust in — vaccination, many children will die for no reason,” Kraemer wrote.
Michael Stoto, professor emeritus of healthcare management and policy at Georgetown, said maintaining people’s trust in successful health policies, especially during moments of crisis, is essential to promoting public health.
“Public adherence to these measures depends on citizens’ trust that the government knows what it is doing and is acting for the common good,” Stoto wrote to The Hoya Stoto said the decline in scientific consensus and public health accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic as a result of growing partisan divides in the United States.
“Trust in science and public health has been falling for years, but accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic in part because partisans found it easier to criticize the science rather than face up to the hard tradeoffs between individual rights and community well-being,” Stoto wrote.
Kennedy’s nomination has prompted experts to reevaluate the interplay between politics and public health.
Kraemer said that while public health decisions are inherently political, undermining scientific evidence for political
advantage can be dangerous.
“There is a real difference between the inevitable politics of public health interventions and the badfaith politicization of public health science,” Kraemer wrote. “Distorting the scientific evidence — as Kennedy regularly does — is outside the bounds of responsible behavior.”
Stoto said collaboration between public health leaders, scientists and politicians is not cohesive enough.
“Public health leaders should understand that elected officials rather than scientists must make policy decisions that weigh individual rights and harms against community benefits,” Stoto wrote. “Scientists and public health experts, on the other hand, must inform those decisions: They must identify the options and give their best estimates of the benefits and harms.”
Amid the wider controversy, some Georgetown students have shared ex-
The Biophysics Behind Algae’s Photosynthesis Boosters
A postdoctoral researcher in the department of physics and biology at Princeton University gave a guest lecture about a process that allows algae to generate energy more efficiently Jan. 23. Inside cells, small compartments called organelles keep things organized. Many organelles are bound by membranes like bubbles filled with specific tools for particular cellular tasks. Biomolecular condensates, however, are an exception. These membraneless organelles form when certain molecules clump together and can be biologically advantageous, according to Trevor GrandPre, who gave the lecture.
The lecture was part of the department of physics colloquium, which brings scholars from other universities to Georgetown University to talk about their research. GrandPre explained how specific biomolecular condensates called pyrenoids allow some organisms — like algae — to conduct photosynthesis, a process that uses carbon dioxide to convert solar light energy to sugars like glucose, more efficiently.
“Pyrenoids are packed with a really high density of carbon dioxide and rubisco, a protein that can take the carbon out of carbon dioxide so it eventually turns into glucfose,” GrandPre told The Hoya “While rubisco by itself is bad at removing carbon dioxide, by forming this pyrenoid, the algae is able to increase the rate of carbon capture and circumvent the inefficiency of rubisco by itself.”
Since most plants lack the ability to form pyrenoids and enhance photosynthetic efficiency, the pyrenoid in algae presents a unique research area that can provide insights about how to increase the rate of photosynthesis.
In the algae GrandPre studies, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, rubiscos clump together in the pyrenoid by
adhering to a flexible protein called EPYC1. In other words, EPYC1 bridges the rubisco molecules together.
“Rubisco has binding domains for EPYC1, and EPYC1 has binding domains for rubisco, so they’ll stick together,” GrandPre said. “What I study is how the properties of that bridge protein affect the rubisco compartment.”
Since rubisco is a rigid spherical molecule, its binding domains are fixed. However, EPYC1 is more flexible, meaning its binding domains and linker regions, or parts of the protein that connect EPYC1 binding domains, are not at fixed lengths. Using computer simulations and theoretical models, GrandPre explored what happens when EPYC1’s linker regions are shortened or elongated.
The result was dramatic: Cutting the linkers in half decreased critical concentration, or the minimum concentration of molecules needed for a condensate to form, by tenfold. The shorter linkers created a near-perfect “fit” between rubisco and EPYC1, resulting in a smaller region of condensation. Conversely, GrandPre found that increasing the linker length led to stronger, more robust condensates.
There is a delicate balance in linker length. If the linker is too short, the interactions between molecules become overly rigid, disrupting condensate formation. If it is too long, however, the interactions lose efficiency, making it harder for condensates to form.
“You don’t necessarily want the condensate to be so tightly packed because a lot of other molecules have to be able to diffuse through this compartment,” GrandPre said.
“At the same time, if the pyrenoid isn’t dense enough, processes might be less efficient.”
According to GrandPre, evolution appears to have optimized this happy medium to maximize photosynthetic efficiency, ensuring rubisco and its partner proteins can form stable condensates that concentrate carbon dioxide and boost the energy-conversion process.
ILLUSTRATION BY: LAUREN TAO/THE HOYA
Cassidy Alspaugh (GRD ’30), a first-year doctoral student in the biology department who attended the seminar, said GrandPre’s research expanded her understanding of photosynthesis in algae.
“I had not known about pyrenoids before hearing about Dr. GrandPre’s work,” Alspaugh said. “I found it incredible that these condensates are responsible for a large chunk of global carbon fixation, highlighting the importance of studying the pyrenoid’s components, EPYC1 and rubisco.”
Aislinn Trejo (CAS ’25), a senior majoring in biology, said GrandPre’s work was connected to her summer research on biomolecular condensates in the context of muscular dystrophy.
“I knew a little bit about the biomolecular condensates com-
ing in, but my knowledge is more from a biological standpoint, so getting to see it from a physics perspective was very interesting,” Trejo said. “This is a topic that doesn’t have a lot of research on it, so this new research is exciting.”
In the future, GrandPre hopes to explore how introducing other molecules like kinases, which can add chemicals called phosphates onto EPYC1, can affect energy-driven, or active, condensate formation.
“In this system, there’s recently been a kinase called KEY1 that will modify EPYC1,” GrandPre said. “This is one thing I definitely want to study: the physics of the active condensate.”
School of Nursing Hosts Panel on Racism in Nursing
Shivali Vora Senior Science Editor
Georgetown University’s School of Nursing hosted a screening and panel discussion of the documentary “Everybody’s Work,” a film by Chad Tingle and SHIFT Films intended to raise awareness about racism in nursing, Jan. 23. The film was produced with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which found in its 2022 and 2023 reports that a majority of nurses who identify as people of color have experienced racism in the workplace from both colleagues and patients. “Everybody’s Work” features nurses and other healthcare professionals, each with a unique story of how they have seen the effects of racism manifest in their personal and professional lives.
A panel discussion followed the screening and featured some of the interviewees in the documentary.
Kenya Beard, inaugural dean and chief nursing officer of the School of Nursing at Mercy University, spoke about the importance of “Everybody’s Work” in the context of a troubled history during which nurses have not always had the liberty to disclose the discrimination they were facing.
“This documentary provides such penetrating insights into what racism looks like, what that experience is like, how it’s happening right alongside you — whether you know it or not,” Beard said at the event, “and what we can collectively do about it, because there is no zero sum. When one group suffers, society suffers.”
Beard added that, until recently, there has been limited awareness and conver-
sation surrounding this pervasive issue.
“If you Googled Black, nursing and racism, you’d be hard-pressed to find any articles prior to 2020, George Floyd,” Beard said at the event. “We were muted. We weren’t allowed to talk about it. And you knew it was happening — you felt it.” Among the issues the documentary touched upon were the barriers to entry that nursing students from minority backgrounds and marginalized identities can face.
Anna Maria Valdez, professor of nursing at Sonoma State University and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Emergency Nursing, attested to the importance of external encouragement in her decision to become a registered nurse (RN).
“I believe I was encouraged to become an RN because I am phenotypically white,” Valdez said in the documentary. The documentary highlights the disparities between RN and licensed practical nurse (LPN) programs. The latter, which require less time and money, tend to be more diverse. While LPNs make immensely valuable contributions to nursing, often serving as the first line of patient care by performing core tasks such as taking vitals and administering medications, they make about $26,000 less annually than registered nurses. Valdez said nursing students from minority backgrounds often face discouragement from enrolling in RN programs and are instead channeled toward LPN programs.
“People who come in who are racialized as non-white get directed to
that track,” Valdez said.
Katie Boston-Leary, director of nursing programs at the American Nurses Association, said during the panel that RN programs sometimes do not provide students — especially those who work to financially support themselves while studying — with sufficient resources to succeed. Additionally, many nursing positions at large institutions require a four-year Bachelor of Science in nursing, thereby shutting out graduates of associate’s degree programs.
“It’s been an unspoken, dirty-laundry type of issue in nursing,” Boston-Leary said.
Monica McLemore, professor of nursing and director of the Manning Price Spratlen Center for Anti-Racism and Equity in Nursing at the University of Washington, said racism in the profession affects not only nurses but also the patients they serve. Studies have shown that race concordance, or treatment by healthcare providers of the same racial or ethnic background as the patient, improves patient experiences, outcomes and trust in the medical system.
“People know what they need,” McLemore said. “Another shared value of nursing is that we’re in service — to people, the public, communities. What does the person or people in front of you want or need and how can you connect them to getting those needs met?”
In the film, Sonya Frazier, co-founder and president of the Oklahoma Indigenous Nurses Association, discussed the importance of cultural competence in nursing, since understanding the
periences to dispel misinformation surrounding vaccines.
Saathvik Poluri (CAS ’28), who studies biochemistry, said his father’s experiences during the 1992 polio outbreak in India have demonstrated simply the effectiveness of vaccines.
“Over 70% of the people who had the virus were not vaccinated. But as soon as the vaccine was introduced, the effectiveness was clear,” Poluri told The Hoya. “With just two doses of the vaccine, there was over a 90% success rate. Ever since 2014, polio cases in India have been at record lows.”
Poluri urged students to follow proven research and evidence, not matters of opinion, in order to fight against vaccine stigma.
“In countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan, political distrust has kept polio cases prevalent,” Poluri said. “Students should take active strides in doing their research and looking after the latest biomedical advancements.”
Stoto said Georgetown students interested in pursuing careers in public health should learn strategies for gathering objective data and conducting research.
“Public health scientists in training need to learn about the best approaches to obtaining better objective data and information, and indeed conduct research to develop even better approaches for the future,” Stoto wrote. Kraemer said the concerns raised by medical professionals, academics and students regarding Kennedy’s nomination underline the desperate need for leadership that balances evidence-based science, politics and the priority of public health.
“Elected officials do not have to use public health cynically to win parochial political points,” Kraemer wrote. “Those who do — including Kennedy — should be ashamed of themselves.”
DC Norovirus Cases Rise, GU Emphasizes Campus Safety
Nadya Kotlyarevska Science Writer
Norovirus cases increased in prevalence throughout the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area during winter months, prompting Georgetown University students to prioritize health on campus.
Norovirus is an infectious disease that primarily manifests through gastrointestinal symptoms such as vomiting, abdominal pain and diarrhea, which can all lead to dehydration. The virus quickly spreads in populated, confined areas such as college campuses, hospitals and cruise ships, and is transmitted through lingering virus particles on public surfaces.
Shauna Bennett, a professor of biology at Georgetown, said the norovirus has a contagious and ever-evolving nature.
“It’s a non-envelope virus, meaning it’s more stable than other types of viruses and can survive longer in the environment,” Bennett told The Hoya. “Norovirus is also an RNA virus, so there’s a lot more variations out there, making it harder to control.”
A spokesperson from the Georgetown University Student Health Center (SHC) said norovirus is highly contagious due to the small amount of the virus needed for infection.
“People who are sick with norovirus shed billions of virus particles, and it only takes a few virus particles to make someone sick,” the spokesperson wrote to The Hoya Bennett said norovirus particles are incredibly well-adapted to living on their hosts, even after recovery, so students should take precautions after infection to stop the spread of norovirus.
“People can shed the virus weeks after they’re sick, meaning they could have virus particles coming off them well after they’ve recovered,” Bennett said.
Prevention data shows that the United States as a whole has seen a 36% rise in norovirus outbreaks, and many Georgetown students contracted the infection while away from campus over winter break.
Breanna Lewis (CAS ’26), who recently recovered from norovirus, said all students should avoid class if feeling sick, especially as some students and faculty may have increased susceptibilities to the virus.
“Especially with the attendance policies, they may still come to class sick,” Lewis told The Hoya. “I think that masking still needs to be a big thing.”
The SHC spokesperson said few norovirus cases have been reported on the Hilltop campus and that Georgetown staff are prepared to respond if need be.
“Georgetown has excellent coordination between its different campus services that allows us to move quickly as an institution to put safety measures in place (such as increased cleaning of high touch surfaces when needed) to decrease the effects of this virus,” the spokesperson wrote.
The spokesperson added that students should practice good hygiene and stay home while sick to combat the spread of illness.
“Proper handwashing with soap and water will help prevent germs from spreading. Alcohol-based sanitizers are not effective against norovirus,” the spokesperson wrote.
Vivien Ryen (SFS ’28) said that despite the precautionary measures, she is concerned about becoming sick.
“I am worried about the norovirus going around, but it’s more of a passing thought when I see someone walking around with a mask, or when I’m going to shake someone’s hand,” Ryen told The Hoya
context behind a patient’s condition is essential to understanding their needs. Rates of diabetes among Native Americans, for example, are three times higher than those in the rest of the U.S. population, and rates of alcoholism are over six times higher.
“This is all related to the historical trauma that we have gone through,” Frazier said in the film. Frazier related a personal memory of caring for her mother during a vulnerable time, incorporating elements of indigenous belief systems together with modern medicine. She highlighted the power of nurses to shape people’s experiences during what may be some of their toughest days.
Lucinda Canty, associate professor of nursing at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, said during the panel that activism surrounding this issue may face particular pushback in the current political climate, but this only makes it even more important that the conversation continues.
“Let’s talk about it so it doesn’t happen to students who come after us,” Canty said.
McLemore added that when systemic barriers obstruct minority nurses from reaching their full potential, a vicious cycle ensues in which future generations of nurses are also deterred from pursuing their ambitions.
“People can’t be what they don’t see,” McLemore said in the documentary. “The work of DEI, at least in nursing, should be everybody’s work.”
While norovirus has not yet become a major problem in D.C., neighboring states such as Virginia have reported an increase in outbreaks compared to the same period last year. Moreover, Centers for Disease Control and
The SHC spokesperson said students should continue making informed decisions about personal hygiene and contact with people or surfaces.
“If you get sick, please stay home from classes and activities, and rest so you can recover and minimize your risk of spreading illness to others,” the spokesperson wrote.
Anna Tsioulias Science Writer
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Norovirus cases in the Washington, D.C. area are rising.
The Georgetown University Student Association (GUSA) Senate passed three pieces of legislation aimed at promoting transparency in Georgetown University’s investments and academic affairs at its Jan. 26 meeting.
Senators passed a non-binding resolution calling on the university to publicly disclose the recipients of its endowment, including both public investments and privately held funds. The senate also approved measures that would make class syllabuses available to students prior to registration and create an award for the senate to confer upon distinguished students.
According to Vice Speaker Meriam Ahmad (SFS ’26), the university invests 90% of its endowment, which stands at $3.6 billion as of 2024, indirectly into private equity and hedge funds, while it invests the remaining 10% into publicly visible assets. Ahmad, who sponsored the bill, said these third-party investments of the endowment funds are not subject to the university’s Socially Responsible Investing Policy (SRI Policy), which the board of directors established in 2017 to ensure endowment funds are used to promote social justice and environmental protection. “This is something that Georgetown even has stated, that the third-party investments are not subject to the
Shira Oz City Desk Editor
Fourteen Washington, D.C. restaurateurs and chefs were shortlisted for a culinary award Jan. 22. The James Beard Foundation’s restaurant and chef awards, established in 1991, honor excellence in the culinary arts by recognizing chefs, restaurants, restaurateurs, bakers, authors, journalists and other food industry professionals. Finalists will be revealed April 2, and winners will be honored in a ceremony in Chicago, Ill., on June 16.
Amy Brandwein, the head chef and owner of Centrolina, an Italian restaurant in Penn Quarter, was nominated for outstanding chef, the seventh nomination in her career. Brandwein said she was humbled to be chosen again.
“I started my career and never even imagined I would get to these levels, so every time I’m just completely humbled,” Brandwein told The Hoya. “There are so many great chefs and restaurants in the city, and then to be able to stay on top this whole time, it’s just been just so exciting.”
Paolo Dungca, the owner and chef of Hiraya, a Filipino cafe in Near Northeast, said his nomination for best emerging chef came as an unexpected achievement.
“I’ve kind of given up on this nomination for quite some time,” Dungca told The Hoya. “It’s just something that I stopped paying attention to. But it was definitely an out-of-body experience to be nominated last
SRI policy,” Ahmad said at the meeting. “And so that is the reason that we are calling in this bill for transparency in those 90% holdings, as well as the SRI policy to apply to those 90% holdings.”
Ahmad added that passing the legislation was crucial to fully inform the Committee on Investments and Social Responsibility (CISR), an advisory committee responsible for providing guidance on the SRI Policy.
“We think that they are likely meeting early February, which is in a week or two, which is the reason that this bill is being brought up today, because if it’s not brought up, it’s not clear when the next chance to act on it will be,” Ahmad said.
The senate also passed a bill urging the university to publish course syllabuses under the Course Evaluation Records and on GUExperience, a website used to manage course registration and other student information. The bill advocates for the Course Evaluation Record database, which compiles student feedback from course evaluation forms over multiple years, to be publicized more intentionally.
Senator Evan Cornell (CAS ’27), who introduced the bill, said it will work to better inform students about course content before enrollment.
“Sometimes we’re able to text friends and get course syllabi from past semesters, sometimes we get lucky and in the little syllabus section there is actually a syllabus linked on the professor’s Georgetown360
week for sure. It kind of felt like a dream come true.”
Dungca said his goal is to educate people in the United States on Filipino food and culture.
“It’s just basically trying to educate Washington, D.C., on how rich and diverse our culture is,” Dungca said. “That’s always been our goal, to amplify or hopefully stay relevant within mainstream America on how beautiful our cuisine is, and also our culture, and I think that it gives us pride to represent our country in a way where we also educate others about it.”
Brandwein said childhood experiences in the kitchen inspired her to bring a sense of creativity to Centrolina by focusing on celebrating the Italian culinary tradition through incorporating fresh, seasonal ingredients.
“I was always cooking when I was little, so after school when I was very young, I would try to make recipes from ingredients that we had available in the house and see what I could make from the cookbook that didn’t require a trip to the store,” Brandwein said. Chase Dobson (CAS ’27) — who runs Dobber, a food blog — visited three of the nominated restaurants, including Hiraya, and said the awards reflect the restaurants’ quality.
“I think any chef who manages to make good food consistently deserves some sort of five-month stay in the ICU to recuperate,” Dobson told The Hoya. “It’s very hard to turn out high-quality products consistently. But I do
profile,” Cornell said at the meeting. “This is a move to make course syllabi accessible for us students as we go to register for classes.”
Sam Lovell (CAS ’25), who introduced the meeting’s final passed bill, said the initiative proposed will allow the GUSA Senate to award students for their notable service contributions to the Georgetown community.
“The bill here that I’ve suggested is a way to provide GUSA a method to recognize people with a certificate,” Lovell said at the meeting.
“Particularly in mind I have students who might engage in activism that we might find appropriate to recognize but the university is unlikely to recognize themselves.”
Under the bill’s provisions, each award will require two-thirds support from the senate for the awardee to be recognized.
A fourth bill introduced failed but would have required senators on the Policy and Advocacy Committee (PAC), which votes on all policy bills before they move to the full senate, to introduce at least one piece of legislation per session. The senate tabled the remaining seven pieces of legislation until their next meeting.
Ahmad said she looks forward to reworking the failed PAC bill and reintroducing it in a future meeting.
“I think it was a very different split than usual and I appreciate everyone giving their feedback about that, and we are a committee that listens,” Ahmad said.
think all three of those restaurants were notably good, and that’s saying something because they lived up to the hype.”
Brandwein said the prospect of making an impact on other people through cooking serves as a source of pride in her work.
“It means a lot for me and for my restaurant,” Brandwein said. “And it also makes me feel proud that I’m having an impact and inspiring other people, that means a lot.”
Dungca said the award is not for just him or Washington, D.C., but also for the Filipinos he is representing and his family at home.
“The whole purpose of this award — I mean, yeah, my name is on the award — but it’s for the entire team, not just here in the United States but also the Filipinos back home, my family back home as well,” Dungca said. “This representation is for them. I’m not just representing Washington, D.C., in this category, but I feel like I’m also representing the people that we had back home.”
Dobson said it is important to remember that all chefs try to make food they think their audience will enjoy, regardless of awards.
“When you’re thinking about good food, you shouldn’t let fancy awards and people who have been to fancy restaurants monopolize the space, and everybody, regardless of whether they won an award for their food, is making something with love or at least something that they hope other people will love,” Dobson said.
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Current Senior, GU Graduate Receive Prestigious 2025 Schwarzman Scholarship
Georgetown University graduate Shaun Ho (SFS ’20) and current senior Harry Yang (SFS ’25) received the Schwarzman Scholarship, an award that funds one year of postgraduate study in China, the organization announced Jan. 15.
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
Ajani Stella Academics Desk Editor
An analyst specializing in Pales-
tinian politics warned that enduring peace in Gaza will be impossible without reform, stability and a two-state solution during a webinar Jan. 28.
Ibrahim Dalalsha, director of the Horizon Center, a peace strategy group dedicated to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, stressed the importance of dialogue, mutual understanding and stability during the event, titled “The Impact of the Ceasefire on Palestinian Politics and Relations with Israel.” The event comes after Israel and Hamas agreed to a preliminary ceasefire which leaves the region’s long-term future uncertain but temporarily ends the conflict, during which Israeli forces have killed over 46,000 Palestinians.
Dalalsha said the current phase of the ceasefire is stable, but added that negotiations for future peace will prove more difficult.
“Regardless of certain violations that could come from either side, I think both sides are committed and will actually continue the first phase,” Dalalsha said during the event. “The problem starts upon the end of it.”
“The second phase is clearly going to be a much more difficult agreement because it entails big decisions like end of war and more difficult decisions that have to be taken politically by the Israel government,” Dalalsha added.
Theregionhasfacedongoingmilitary, social and political conflict for decades, which heightened after the 1948 establishment of the state of Israel displaced 700,000 Palestinians. The current war began when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking hundreds of hostages. Israel subsequently invaded Gaza, leaving 90% of the population displaced.
Jonathan Lincoln, the director of the Center for Jewish Civilization (CJC), an interdisciplinary program studying Israel and Jewish history, moderated the event. Lincoln said he invited Dalalsha to speak because of Dalalsha’s commitment to building peace through dialogue and negotiation.
“The Horizon Center is keen to promote peaceful resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and promote transparent and efficient Palestinian government by bridging gaps in understanding and promoting opportunities for direct dialogue between Palestinian and international policymakers, academics and civil society activists,” Lincoln said during the event.
Dalalsha said the conflict delegitimized the Palestinian Authority (PA), a political organization operating in the West Bank under Israeli military occupation, because the group failed to maintain security or secure the release of prisoners from Israel.
“The immediate impact has been rising the level of tensions in the West Bank, to be as accurate to reflecting what is actually happening,” Dalalsha said. “In many ways, in terms of public posturing, I think the PA has been undermined in a very serious way.”
The PA claims jurisdiction over Gaza despite Hamas’s win in a 2006 election, after which Hamas seized complete control of the area and has not held an election since.
Dalalsha said the conflict heightened tensions between the PA and Hamas, undermining Palestinian stability.
“15 months of war in Gaza did not bring those two parties closer,” Dalalsha said. “In fact, it put them even farther in terms of all aspects, including political positions vis à vis conflict with Israel, internal governance is-
sues, power-sharing. There have been no serious attempts to actually create common ground for old factions.” Dalalsha added that cooperation is essential for stability in Gaza as a whole, which means Hamas must be removed from negotiations and governance.
“You cannot have stable governance in Gaza if you do not have minimal level of understanding between all players,” Dalalsha said. “If I were to introduce principles that could work, regionally and internationally, I would say that they remove Hamas completely from governance — and that is possible. It’s not an impossible mission. I think that the war has broken Hamas’s foundations for governance in Gaza.”
Dalalsha said a two-state solution — in which Palestine would gain internationally recognized independence — would diffuse not only this conflict but future ones.
“A two-state solution is going to be, in my opinion, an end of conflict in so many different aspects, including the fact that Israel would be living in full integration and normalization with people around the region accepting it,” Dalalsha said. The two-state solution, which has been proposed in numerous peace conferences but never agreed upon, would establish Palestine as an independent state without jeopardizing Israel’s sovereignty. Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, has expressed hostility toward the two-state solution. Dalasha said the two-state solution would be difficult, but added that he feels it is the only way to end the cycle of conflict in the region.
“Now, it very much sounds like a dream, but I think frankly, in all realistic ways, if that dream does not start showing signs of life, then I’m very pessimistic that this is going to be a permanent end of war,” Dalalsha said.
COURTESY OF SCOTT SUCHMAN
Fourteen
Harriette
dean
University’s main campus libraries, will retire Aug. 29, marking
seven-year tenure at Georgetown and 27-year career in library administration.
GU Politics Fellows Dissect 2024
Trends, Americans’ Trust in Media
FELLOWS, from A1 events just happened.
Fabrizio: We’re forgetting the indictments. We’re forgetting the conviction. There’s so many other things that happened that now seem to be in the rearview mirror, and they didn’t matter. But at the time, they were historic and they were groundbreaking, and everybody was holding their breath to see how they would impact the campaign on our side and on the other side.
Days after Donald Trump began his second presidential term, what do you think college students should be looking at?
Fulks: I think the young voters need to pay attention to the media. I think they really need to evaluate media sources and journalism and where they’re getting information from to figure out for themselves what is true.
Graves: I think college students should be paying attention to changes, rollbacks in programs and policy or deviations from biggest policies. I think more importantly, it’s whether or not the agglomeration of power in a handful of companies, tech companies, particularly those that drive social media, whether that continues or whether there’s some change, and how that impacts our ability to maintain our democracy going forward.
The Harvard Kennedy Institute of Politics released data indicating that voters between the ages of 18-24 are more conservative than those
ages 25-29. What do you think helps to explain this, and what do you expect to see from future generations?
Fabrizio: This is going to sound trite: It’s becoming cool again to be a Republican.
Graves: The election turned on basically 1% of the voters, and this country is still split massively. I mean, 75 million to 77 million voters, and nearly 40% of the electorate chose not to vote. That tells us something about the state of this country.
According to the Pew Research Center, young adults are nearly just as likely to trust social media as they are national news outlets. How do you think the role of the media will continue to evolve?
Kinnard: I think more spaces to have those conversations is a good thing for our democracy. But all of that makes it more incumbent on those of us who are consuming that news to verify our sources, to figure out where that content is coming from. If it’s something you’ve never heard of, then maybe its origins and its sourcing isn’t something that you should be trusting.
Fulks: You’re talking about Fox News, CNN, MSNBC. You now have individuals — no board, no shareholders — a singular person in their basement that has twice the audience of them. And once they say something, it spreads like wildfire.
What is one piece of advice you wish you’d heard as a college student?
Graves: Relationships are the most important thing that you can build for your career.
Worry less about trying to get to a certain position and what it takes to get to that position.
Kinnard: I was a Georgetown undergrad, and I loved going to college here and having some of those experiences and availing myself of what Washington has to offer, but I wish that I had taken the time to go have an adventure.
Nauert: Washington positions you perfectly to realize and learn more about what kinds of careers are available. Just keep your eyes open, ask lots of questions and utilize the fellows here to help you explore what opportunities you might want to pursue in the future.
Which cabinet pick, if any, won’t get confirmed?
Kinnard: [Secretary of Health and Human Services nominee Robert] Kennedy?
Graves: Kennedy.
Fabrizio: Pass.
Fulks: I gotta go Kennedy, too.
What is the most surprising thing you expect to see from the second Trump administration?
Nauert: Anything could happen. Really. Not going to get ahead of the president, but really, truly, anything could happen.
Who do you expect to see at the top of each presidential ticket in 2028?
Fabrizio: JD Vance and AOC.
Graves: I think the Democratic Party is going through a massive reevaluation, and so it may actually be someone outside of the usual names that are thrown around.
Kinnard: It’s somebody that we’re not thinking of.
Ceremony Honors Cardinal With Honorary Degree in Gaston Hall
AISHA MALHAS/THE HOYA Georgetown University administrators, faculty and students gathered in Gaston Hall Jan. 27 to honor Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe in recognition of his faith-based career experiences.
DEGREE, from A1 United Nations and founded Dominican Volunteers International, a missionary project of the Dominican Order.
Julia Lamm, a theology professor who spoke at the event, said the honorary degree acknowledges Radcliffe’s leadership in the church.
“Today Georgetown recognizes a scholar, church leader and global citizen who exemplifies what it means to live a faith based on love, hope and compassion,” Lamm said at the event.
“Throughout his service, Cardinal Radcliffe has been defined by his humility, his global worldview and his deep commitment to intellectual engagement with theology, the arts and the Christian faith in a secular age,” she added.
Isabelle Ashley (SFS ’27), who attended the ceremony, said Radcliffe’s acceptance speech
resonated with her own faith experience, especially as it related to his involvement in Catholics for AIDS Prevention, a British ministry that advocates for implementing HIV prevention measures.
“Hearing Cardinal Radcliffe’s achievements, especially supporting LGBT Catholic communities and Catholics for AIDS Prevention, really highlighted to me that faith, specifically Catholicism, can exist and do good beyond the common assumptions made about the religion,” Ashley told The Hoya
Radcliffe published an essay on LGBTQ+ Catholics in which he said he admired their resilience and valued their inclusion in the church, but spoke out against gay marriage in 2012.
Gabriella Jolly (MSB ’26), another attendee, said she enjoyed the ambience of the ceremony.
“The event felt like a true Georgetown experience — being in the beautiful Gaston Hall with
DNC Candidates Make Their Cases, Vie for Votes at GU Politics Forum
DNC, from A1 Simone Guité (CAS ’26), the president of the Georgetown University College Democrats (GUCD), said that the decision to host the forum on a college campus reflects a political climate that prioritizes young voters.
“I was super excited for the chance for Georgetown students to be able to ask questions, because for those of us who are Democrats, this is our party too,” Guité told The Hoya. “Youth make up a large portion of the party and, as we saw in the last election, can really sway the election.”
Russert said MSNBC and GU Politics have a history of collaboration, which spurred the partnership to host the forum.
“MSNBC has had a wonderful relationship with GU Politics over the years and some of our leading voices are former GU Politics fellows, so it was a natural fit,” Russert wrote. “Living near the
university, I see firsthand how civic minded GU is on a daily basis. Any time you can do an event with some of the smartest and well-read students in the country, it’s a real value add.”
Elleithee said the forum is essential in determining the future strength of the Democratic Party.
“For our system to work well, it is important we have strong, healthy, competitive political parties,” Elleithee said. “If we’re going to live in a partisan system, you want those parties to be strong. You want those parties both to be healthy. I always thought when I worked in politics that my side was stronger when the other side was strong, it forces us to bring our A-game. And right now, the question is, how strong is the Democratic Party and how does it rebound?”
Candidates for other DNC leadership positions also spoke at the forum, including Merika Coleman, a candidate for DNC
treasurer. Coleman said motivating excitement for the Democratic Party is essential for new leadership.
“We have got to excite people in this country about this party, not just for us, but for the democracy of this country,” Coleman said during the forum. “I want to make sure my daughter that’s here with me today, your daughter, your son, your grandchildren, actually have an America that they can be proud of. So I have those specific qualifications when it comes to, but you got to have somebody with this passion also.” Guité said she felt encouraged that the DNC worked to connect with students by hosting the forum at Georgetown.
“Sometimes we feel like we’re probably a little removed because we’re young people,” Guité said. “We’re still in college, but really, it does seem like there are people in the party who really do care about young people’s perspectives.”
Conference Centers Abortion Debate
OCC, from A1
During her keynote speech, Rose encouraged students to take action against pro-abortion media narratives and shared her experiences as an anti-abortion activist in Washington, D.C. Rose said she feels anti-abortion politicians have restrained themselves from defunding organizations that offer abortion care because they are scared of possible media narratives.
work that can still be done.”
During the conference, student organizers presented the Rev. Thomas King, S.J. Award, which recognizes collegiate student groups’ anti-abortion advocacy, to Ravens Respect Life, an anti-abortion student group at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kan. Groves said the award reflects the legacy King, a Jesuit educator, left at Georgetown.
Georgetown to see the school do this,” Linn told The Hoya Wassan Abdelkarim (CAS ’28) said Georgetown’s support of the OCC contrasts with the majority opinion on campus.
a choir singing and graduates wearing colorful robes,” Jolly said.
“It also felt like I was witnessing something historical.”
Radcliffe urged Georgetown students to seek out diversity of thought in their future careers.
“Often today we’re tempted to make friends with people who think like us, who live in the same bubble,” Radcliffe said. “But at Georgetown, I trust you teach people to reach out and engage with people who think differently so that you may learn together, to learn the pleasure of arguing.”
Radcliffe said he is grateful for the honorary degree because he hopes to encourage more students to engage in dialogue.
“I give thanks to God for Georgetown University,” Radcliffe said. “I’m proud now to be a graduate, and I trust it will be a seed bed of hope for the young who would give hope to us until finally meaningless violence is caught up in unending love.”
“What I was beginning to see more and more clearly was the power, the absolute power of media, the absolute power of a message, the absolute power of narrative, to not only shape hearts and minds, but to direct control over the whole entire political proceedings that happen in this country,” Rose said at the event. “It made me more determined than ever that we had to not just fight the media war, but we had to discover and employ the tactics and strategies to win the media war.”
Members of Georgetown Right to Life, the university’s officially recognized anti-abortion organization, and the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic men’s group, organized the conference, with the university sponsoring it and Robert M. Groves, the school’s interim president, speaking.
Maria Rodriguez Brannon, a student at the University of Mary in Bismarck, N.D., who attended the conference along with over 300 of her classmates, said that she was impressed by Georgetown’s involvement in OCC.
“I was first taken aback by how beautiful the college is and how important it is for us to have historic institutions involved in this work,” Rodriguez Brannon told The Hoya. “I think it’s also just really good to be in contact with other colleges and other students. It gives me hope of the
“He was a reassuring presence. He was a mentor, a spiritual guide, a teacher, and it’s no surprise that in 1999 at the end of that century, he was named Georgetown’s man of the century,” Groves said at the conference. “He provided an enduring example of how to pursue important scholarly questions, how to live one’s faith and how to care for the most vulnerable.”
During the week surrounding the conference, pro-abortion organizations including H*yas for Choice (HFC), a student organization that advocates for reproductive rights and which the university does not officially recognize, hosted a week-long series of events to counter the OCC.
HFC collaborated with GU Pride, a university-recognized student group centering LGBTQ+ students, to host a bracelet-making event and invited Catholics for Choice, a non-Georgetown affiliated Catholic organization that advocates for reproductive rights, to discuss the role of the pro-abortion movement within Catholicism. HFC also organized a screening of “The Janes,” a movie that follows a group of women who defied the Illinois state legislature’s ban on abortion.
StellaLinn(CAS’27),theHFCco-president, said the events were meant to build a pro-abortion community on campus ahead of the conference.
“We wanted to do a mix of informational, more serious events with more feel-good, community-building events, because it is so emotionally taxing as a student at
“Even though the university says they don’t really support either side, it says a lot,” Abdelkarim told The Hoya. “Especially as a university with so many students who are obviously pro-choice, I think it’s just very messed up to say the least.” Linn said the university’s support of an anti-abortion conference makes pro-abortion students feel the administration does not support them.
“It’s really disheartening, especially if you do two seconds more of research, into the speakers or the conference itself, you see how atrocious it is to so many groups of people supporting it,” Linn said. “Knowing that our university’s funding is going towards it, you just feel so unsupported by the university already. It does not make me proud to be a Georgetown student, that’s for sure.”
Almeida Vazquez said she feels students can benefit from reconsidering the anti-abortion movement’s interests beyond organizing against abortion access.
“There are so many ways to stand for life, and we welcome every heart that is willing to walk this journey with us,” Almeida Vazquez wrote. Abdelkarim said she feels that Georgetown uses its status as a Catholic and Jesuit institution to rationalize its funding of OCC, while declining to fund pro-abortion rights organizations like HFC.
“We’re a Catholic, Jesuit university, which I think that’s how Georgetown justifies funding the conference,” Abdelkarim said. “Students need to know that even though we are a Catholic, Jesuit university, we still care about people, and I don’t think that pro-lifers think about that very much.”
@GUPOLITICS/X
Candidates running for leadership positions within the Democratic National Committee headed to Gaston Hall Jan. 31 to participate in forums with moderators from GU Politics and MSNBC.
‘Bottle Bill’ to Offer Financial Recycling Incentives to DC Consumers
Arianna Bishop Special to The Hoya
The D.C. City Council introduced new legislation Jan. 15 to increase the cost of purchasing bottled beverages with the intention of reducing glass and plastic waste.
Councilmember Brianne Nadeau (D-Ward 1) proposed the Recycling, Refund and Litter Reduction Amendment Act of 2025, also referred to as the “Bottle Bill.” The amendment would place an initial 10-cent increase on the purchase of plastic bottles and cans, but allow consumers to reclaim the added cost by returning the empty containers to redemption centers.
In her overview of the proposal, Nadeau said plastic bottles alone account for 60% of the weight of all trash retrieved from the Anacostia River.
“The promise that was made to my generation years ago, that if we dutifully put our recycling into the bin it would not end up in landfills, is a lie,” Nadeau wrote in the Jan. 16 press release. “In fact, the majority of it is not being recycled.”
Kaitlyn Sullivan (CAS ’28), a student pursuing a career in environmental law, said she feels that the bill would take important steps to reduce plastic waste in Washington, D.C., without serious financial repercussions on
its residents. “A lot of the times we fail to consider the ramifications for people such as the lower class who aren’t the ones majorly exasperating the resources of our planet,” Sullivan told The Hoya. “When we write the legislation we need to be accounting for that.”
“The bottle bill is a strong solution, especially with socioeconomic and racial impact analysis. As long as we make it easy to return the bottles, since there is potential to get the money back, then we aren’t unfairly taxing the people who shouldn’t carry the burden of fixing environmental impacts,” she added.
With similar legislation having already been enacted in other U.S. states, data suggests that an upfront bottle tax has increased bottle return rates from 69% to 84%.
Sofia Madden (CAS ’28), an environmental biology student, said she supports the bill but added that she feels hesitant at the low financial return and inaccessibility of the bottle redemption sites.
“If the redemption sites are somewhere inaccessible, I don’t know if I or others would put in much effort,” Madden said. “However, I think in turn this issue could have positive effects — that it could emphasize the accessibility of and lead to the improvement of redemption centers.”
With the support of eleven fel-
low council members, the bill will now undergo a series of committee and public hearings.
During a Jan. 16 press conference, Councilmember Charles Allen (D-Ward 6) said he hopes the bill will have similar success to past initiatives.
“We hope to have the same impact that we created fifteen years ago with a bag bill — that we will see the same reduction in trash,” Allen said.
The bag bill, instituted in D.C. in 2010, placed a 5-cent charge on non-reusable bags, encouraging consumers to supply their own shopping bags.
The bottle bill is among a larger pool of legislative proposals, including an initiative to maintain parks and forest areas, to clean up the environment and to invest in more sustainable resources.
Sullivan said these initiatives work to make environmentally-oriented efforts more impactful and accessible.
“As much effort as advocates can put in, legislation is a really important aspect of ending environmentally harmful practices,” Sullivan said. “And especially with these types of top-down approaches — that aren’t a ban and aren’t too unreasonable of a cost — these are digestible improvements that have potential to be effective.”
“This is a solid step on the road toward more long-term and impactful legislation,” Sullivan added.
Councilmember Brianne Nadeau (D-Ward 1) proposed legislation Jan. 15 to increase the cost of purchasing bottled beverages to reduce glass and plastic waste.
Doctor, Educator Recounts Holocaust Medical Ethics Panel Considers Role of Politics in Mental Health
Ajani Stella Academics Desk Editor
Academics and social care experts outlined how social environments, politics and global issues affect mental health during a virtual panel event Jan. 22.
Titled “Minding the World’s Mental Health,” the panel touched on systemic challenges to mental health worldwide, including economic disparity, health inequity, public policy failures, climate change and other social issues. The panel was this year’s first installment of the “Free Speech at the Crossroads: International Dialogues” series, co-sponsored by the Free Speech Project, which aims to foster dialogue and civic engagement, and the Future of the Humanities Project, a collaboration between Georgetown and the University of Oxford that examines the intersection of humanities and public life.
Panelists included Pippa Hockton, the founder of Street Talk, a nonprofit providing psychotherapy to women in street prostitution and human trafficking victims; Karen D. Lincoln, the director of the Center for Environmental Health Disparities Research in the Program in Public Health at the University of California, Irvine; and Mario Kreft, the founder of Pendine Park, which operates eight care homes in North Wales. Lincoln said the United States is unprepared to handle increasing mental health challenges in the face of compounding social issues.
“What we’re seeing in the United States is that we are talking about groups of people — populations — that have been made vulnerable by a host of political, economic and social factors, and environmental factors, who have already suffered from not having access to mental health treatment and care,” Lincoln said during the event.
Hockton said experts and policymakers should consider the root causes of mental health in order to properly address it, pointing to trauma research as an example.
“I think my one wish would be to stop looking at mental health from how you treat it but look at it from how you prevent it,” Hockton said during the event.
“We do have much more awareness of the impact of trauma and how a lot of mental illness is driven by trauma
— we have much more understanding of that than we did 40 years ago — but we’re not doing anything to prevent the trauma,” Hockton added.
Lincoln said recent moves by the administration of President Donald Trump to withdraw from the World Health Organization would make it more difficult to prepare for global issues that could affect mental health.
“If, when the World Health Organization identifies these issues, we start to look at them, we can either relate to them or we are alerted that these are issues that we need to be prepared to address if we’re not already addressing them,” Lincoln said.
“So I’m very concerned about the conversations around pulling out of the World Health Organization.”
Kreft said the lack of adequate mental health policy stems from politicians who are disconnected from their constituencies, necessitating a transformation in how societies approach politics and mental health.
“I think we will work through it, I think the species will survive long enough to enable us to evolve into other ways and hopefully more happy, more well areas in our mental health, and our general health and well-being can be improved right across the globe,” Kreft said. “But until that happens, I’m very pessimistic about our political class, who don’t seem to listen, and if they care, they certainly don’t care enough.”
Lincoln’s research focuses on how health disparities affect Black people in the United States and older adults. She said that while the climate change-induced wildfires in Los Angeles disproportionately impact marginalized communities, she is hopeful that young people will address the climate crisis and other root causes of the mental health crisis.
“Generations of people are suffering as a result of these wildfires, but there’s hope, and I find hope in the little things that I see in communities every day, and I have the honor of being in classrooms with students who are amazing,” Lincoln said. “We are in good hands and I’m so blessed to interact with these students — who are incredibly diverse, coming from across the United States and other countries, who are committed to social justice, who are concerned about the environment.”
Ruth Abramovitz GUSA Desk Editor
A doctor and medical educator discussed medical practice and ethics during the Holocaust and warned against recreating them in modern medicine at a seminar to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27.
Dr. Sheldon Rubenfeld (MED ’71), who serves as a clinical professor of medicine at Baylor University, addressed the violations of medical ethics and practice of eugenics during the Holocaust, as well as antisemitism in modern medicine.
Georgetown University’s Kennedy Institute of Ethics, which operates as a bioethics think tank and research center, and the Georgetown University Medical Center’s Pellegrino Center for Clinical Bioethics, a bioethics center focused on clinical application, hosted the seminar.
Rubenfeld said the Hippocratic Oath, the common oath taken by medical professionals, was in line with Judeo-Christian ideals that emphasize the extension and protection of an individual’s life.
“Christianity picked up on the Hippocratic Oath, so much so that it transmitted over the next two millennia to the 20th century,” Rubenfeld said during the event.
“It took what was in the Hebrew Bible, it took what was in the Hippocratic Oath and we have what some people call Ju-
deo-Christian Hippocratism.”
Rubenfeld added that Adolf Hilter’s regime distorted the doctor-patient relationship typical under Hippocratism, which emphasizes care for the individual patient, recentering it around the Volkskörper, a term used by Nazis to describe the German national body.
“He took the Judeo-Christian Hippocratic doctor-patient relationship and transformed it into a secular state-Volkskörper relationship,” Rubenfeld said. “Now the doctor is the state, in this case the state in the image of Hitler, and the patient is no longer an individual sitting in front of the doctor — It’s now the German people.”
Volkskörper is used to identify Germany’s ethnic body politic, which took on an antisemitic definition by the end of the 19th and throughout the 20th century.
Rubenfeld said the Nazis taught this line of antisemitic medical ethics in their medical schools, promoting antisemitic eugenics, the practice and study of engineering a population to promote socially desirable traits, as morally correct.
“The Nazis not only were doing horrible things, they believed they had the moral high ground — they believed they were behaving ethically,” Rubenfeld said. “That’s what the transformation of the Hippocratic oath enabled them to do.”
Rubenfeld said eugenics was central to the German medical ethic and
was put into practice through sterilization, euthanasia and ultimately mass genocide in gas chambers.
“You first take a theory which was called applied biology or applied eugenics — this became the Nazi political philosophy,” Rubenfeld said.
“You begin by preventing transmission of those ‘bad’ genes by sterilizing 400,000 people over six years.” Beyond sterilization, the Nazi Euthanasia Program killed over 5,000 disabled children and 200,000 adults, in addition to the millions of Jews killed in the gas chambers.
Rubenfeld said modern U.S. medical education, based on 20th-century German models, faces a similar abandonment of Hippocratism and normativity more broadly.
“Medical students still use the German scientific medical education, which is very short in humanities, very short on history and very heavily intense on science,” Rubenfeld said. Rubenfeld said the inclusion of politics into the medical field had consequences in Nazi Germany and still poses a threat today.
“When you have politics invading medicine, in essence subjugating the end of medicine to political purposes, medical morality is corrupted,” Rubenfeld said. He added that political speech and antisemitism present on medical campuses amid the Israel-Hamas War has created difficulties for Jewish medical educators and students.
“Some of them or more of them felt unsafe or threatened, somewhat or to a great extent,” Rubenfeld said. “Also, while almost all their institutions had some sort of anti-bias training, less than 2% of them mentioned anything about antisemitism.”
Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas War on Oct. 7, 2023, which erupted after Hamas launched a surprise terror attack on Israel that murdered over 1,200 Israelis and took over 200 hostages, there have been over 5,000 pro-Palestinian demonstrations and displays on college campuses in the United States, according to Crowd Counting Consortium, a Harvard-based data center which focuses on political event crowd size.
Anti-Zionist protests have specifically targeted or demonstrated near pro-Israel centers of Jewish life on college campuses, according to the Anti-Defamation League, and 67% of students at the top 25 national universities view antisemitism on campus as an issue.
Rubenfeld said that despite ongoing politicization of medicine, he is optimistic that the atrocities of the Holocaust, medical and otherwise, will not be repeated in the United States.
“America is not Germany,” Rubenfeld said. “I think much of what’s going on now in terms of the antisemitism after October 7th will go away, in part because the Jewish population is pushing back against it.”
Nuclear Research Associate Cautions Against Sole Authority
Marlee Stone Special to The Hoya
A researcher at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) warned against sole presidential authority and troubles surrounding nuclear war at a Walsh School of Foreign Service (SFS) event Jan. 29.
Mackenzie Knight, the researcher, explained how sole presidential authority, especially under the new Trump administration, could be used to kickstart nuclear war and launch intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), nuclear weapons with the capability to wipe out cities. At the event, which All Things Nukes, a graduate student organization that examines nuclear policy in the field of international relations, co-hosted, Knight highlighted the de facto power of the president to bypass Congress to start a nuclear war.
Knight said U.S. presidents have unique control over nuclear weapons.
“Presidential sole authority is the decision about when weapons get used, if they get used, where they get used, which ones get used,” Knight said at the event. “That is the president’s decision, and the president is the only person in the United States who has the legal authority to order the use of nuclear weapons.”
“If one looks closely at press images of U.S. presidents out and about on their way to or from a meeting, boarding Air Force One or maybe out for a run, they will notice a constant presence trailing behind the president,
and that is a military official carrying a large black 40-pound leather briefcase,” Knight added.
Known as the “nuclear football,” the briefcase contains materials detailing plans for nuclear war and resources to connect the president to the Pentagon.
Knight said the sole authority doctrine is particularly dangerous due to the permanence of nuclear weapons.
“There’s no way to recall ICBMs once they’ve been launched,” Knight said. “There’s no way to detonate them midway while they’re in their ballistic phase.”
Knight added that the technology that monitors imminent attacks is fallible.
“It relies on a system of early warning devices and procedures that are really vulnerable to false alarms, human error, misinterpretation, cyberattack nowadays,” Knight said.
Knight referenced a false alarm of nuclear monitors in 2018 in which Hawaii’s technology detected a false sizable ballistic attack headed toward its islands. The false alarm resulted in mass panic.
Knight said the prominence of a “use it or lose it” philosophy, either using the United States’ nuclear weapons or risking their destruction, can pose threats.
“The idea is if there’s an imminent attack coming to the United States, we should launch our ICBMs before that attack hits,” Knight said. “That combination makes it really, really fast. It really limits the window of timing that
the president has to make a decision, which puts a lot of pressure, a huge time constraint, and really heightens the chance of a president making a mistake, making a decision, without having all of the information yet and making not the best, most logical decision.”
Knight added that she is concerned that the United States does not have a policy limiting presidents from ordering unprovoked strikes or requiring advisor approval.
“They can decide legally, and logistically, to order the launch of weapons whenever they want,” Knight said. “The U.S. does not have a no-first-use policy like China does.”
Knight added that this policy is increasingly relevant amid President Trump’s return to office.
“Nuclear weapons policies tend to be pretty bipartisan in the fact that Democrats and Republicans alike tend to be pro-nuclear weapons and pro-the rhetoric policies that we have in place,” Knight said. “It’s actually just been a few Senators or representatives here and there who are the ones carrying the torch on this policy.”
“The one thing that everybody can agree on is something needs to change,” Knight added.
“During Donald Trump’s first term, Mark Milley, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, became so concerned about Trump’s behavior and the nuclear threats that he was making in a really blase manner,” explained Knight. Knight said some ideas for legislation have been pitched; however, none have gained much traction.
MARLEE STONE/THE HOYA Researcher Mackenzie Knight illuminated how sole presidential authority could be used to spark nuclear conflict.
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
A virtual panel event hosted academics and social care experts to explain how social environments and politics affect mental health.
GU Center for the Constitution Honors Book
Profiling Second Amendment
Lena Maillet Special to The Hoya
The Georgetown University Center for the Constitution, which leads programming on constitutional law at the Georgetown University Law Center, awarded an annual book prize to two law professors for their 2023 book on the Second Amendment.
Robert Cottrol (LAW ’84), a law, history and sociology professor at the George Washington University, and Brannon Denning, a law professor at Samford University in Birmingham, Ala., each received the Thomas M. Cooley book prize, which recognizes outstanding contributions to the field of constitutional law. The award recognizes Cottrol and Denning’s book, titled “To Trust the People with Arms: The Supreme Court and the Second Amendment,” with a $50,000 prize.
Randy Barnett, the director of the center, said the award seeks to recognize specialized research on the Constitution.
“The purpose of the prize is to call public attention to books that we think deserve that attention, even if they may or may not get it otherwise,” Barnett told The Hoya. “So sometimes these books are themselves prominent, but sometimes they’re more obscure because the purpose of the prize is both to honor the contribution, but also to call attention to it.”
Barnett said that “To Trust the
People with Arms” is significant because it tells a complete history of the legal discourse surrounding the Second Amendment.
“It is the first comprehensive intellectual history of how the right to keep and bear arms had been thought of by Americans and dealt with by the Supreme Court since our founding,” Barnett said. “It’s a book that describes the history of how the Second Amendment has been thought about in the United States and how it has been treated by the courts, including by the Supreme Court. And that made its contribution unique.”
Cottrol said the book traces the history of the right to bear arms in the United States, from the institution of the Second Amendment through the twenty-first century.
“We initially envisioned doing the book as one that would take us from the drafting of the Second Amendment and its adoption in 1791 to District of Columbia v. Heller, which is the first time the court unambiguously held that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to own firearms for self-defense,” Cottrol told The Hoya Denning and Cottrol divided their work, with Cottrol, a legal historian, covering the history of guns in United States society while Denning wrote about the implications of court cases that affect gun rights.
Denning said he hopes the book will encourage individuals in the United States to take a deeper inter-
est in the legal dialogue surrounding the Second Amendment.
“I like to think that the book could provide an introduction, provide historical background and introduction to the debate itself and a description of how the court resolved it,” Denning told The Hoya. “And if anybody wants to do a deeper dive, there are lots and lots of footnotes so they can go dig out sources and deepen their understanding if they’re so inclined.”
Cottrol said he remains optimistic that the dialogue surrounding support for the right to bear arms will shift, allowing for common-sense gun control.
“I think what I’m looking towards is the idea that not all sorts of regulation and gun control are that weigh station on the way to prohibition,” Cottrol said. “And if the courts make clear that that cannot happen, then we can talk about various kinds of means or measures that we might adopt to better prevent dangerous people from getting access to guns.”
Denning said he is honored to receive this recognition for his scholarship.
“It’s almost indescribable,” Denning said. “If you look at the previous recipients, many of them are people that I have long admired in the field of constitutional law and constitutional scholarship. And I like what it means for my law school, that people might look and say, ‘Where is Samford University? What’s the Cumberland School of Law?’”
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
The Georgetown University Center for the Constitution awarded a prize to law professors at the George Washington University and Samford University for their book.
GU Physics Professor Wins National Grant For Computing Technology Research
Ajani Stella Academics Desk Editor
A Georgetown University physics professor won $600,000 to develop new magnetic technology for computer storage and processing, the department announced Jan. 21.
Gen Yin received the award, a fiveyear grant, from the U.S. National Science Foundation, a federal agency supporting scientific and engineering research, to study antiferromagnets, materials with magnetic properties but immune to outside magnetic influence. Yin’s research team, including graduate students and postdoctoral associates, will study the effectiveness of different materials as anti-ferromagnets to reduce power consumption and make computing and memory processing up to 1,000 times more efficient.
Yin said conventional magnets are a useful and essential part of computing devices, so using anti-ferromagnets, whose electrons align in opposite directions in a phenomenon called spin order that cancels out the magnetization, could transform technology.
“Five or six years ago, people realized that maybe anti-ferromagnets are the way to go,” Yin told The Hoya. “That hidden spin order, if you can somehow detect it and manipulate it, could be a very good candidate to carry the information in our memory devices.”
Yin, who will partner with experimental physicists at Georgetown to test the materials his team identifies, said his goal is to find the best materials and start designing the
ideal structure for devices powered by anti-ferromagnets.
“We can achieve a design that’s ideal for a device with this structure so that the reading is straightforward and the writing is straightforward, but with the experiment and theory, there’s always a gap, so we have to test our theory in experiments,” Yin said.
Dinesh Bista, a postdoctoral associate working with Yin, said Yin works well in groups and teaches his students new ways to think and approach problems.
“He’s a mentor,” Bista told The Hoya. “He’s very encouraging, so whenever we have a discussion, he encourages everyone — graduate students, postdocs, even professors — to open up their minds.”
Yin said publicly available research and knowledge is important to have a greater impact in academia.
“I want to maximize the impact of our new methods,” Yin said.
“That’s my definition of ultimate contribution: The more users we have in this package, the more impact you can have in the field.”
Yin said he plans on publishing the software method he will develop to identify anti-ferromagnetic materials as an opensource computational package.
“To develop as an open-domain package, you get the chance to collaborate with the smartest minds throughout the world, without even having to know them — it’s also a better way to collect talent, in my perspective,” Yin said. Yin said he is excited to work
In GU Panel, Nonprofit Leaders Urge Support for Government Aid Programs
Elyse Ellingsworth Events Desk Editor
A panel of nonprofit policy experts and executives urged the public to speak up about protecting benefits for low-income children and families in a Jan. 29. webinar.
The Georgetown University Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life, which fosters discussions on Catholic social teaching on both the national and global stage, hosted the panel, the first public dialogue of its spring slate. Kim Daniels, the director of the initiative, moderated the panel, which consisted of John Carr, the founder of the initiative; Peggy Bailey, the executive vice president for policy and program development at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan research and policy institute; Michael Strain, a director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a public policy think tank; and Sandra Jackson, the president and CEO of House of Ruth, a nonprofit that supports survivors of domestic violence in the D.C. area.
Carr said safety net issues are constantly changing with far-reaching ramifications.
“These debates could tread the safety net and take nutrition assistance and health care from poor kids and poor families, or could provide tax health to those families,” Carr said at the event.
“The Scriptures tell us the moral measure of our lives and our society is how we respond to the least of these.”
“In the weeks ahead, we face stark choices on whether we protect the
lifeline support and reduce the health of kids who could go hungry and families who need health care,” Carr added.
“Catholics and people of faith need to use our voices to stand with and support those kids and families in the middle of these decisions with enormous human consequences.”
During the webinar, panelists responded in part to a Monday evening memo from the Executive Office of the President which ordered a broad freeze on federal grants and loans while the Trump Administration reviews programs to determine their accordance with recent executive orders. The White House rescinded the order Wednesday.
Bailey said the recent executive orders represent an imbalance in the priorities of the federal government.
“This conversation about cuts to programs that middle- and low-income families depend on is not being balanced with raising revenues for the wealthy and wealthy corporations,” Bailey said at the event. “There are definitely issues with the national debt and how much we’re taking on, but that can’t be at the expense of what middle and low-income families need, and our care for them is what makes America strong.”
Strain said cutting spending opportunities for low-income individuals in the United States to solve the debt crisis is misguided.
“Instead of middle-class entitlement programs, the government can prioritize children by providing economic opportunity to low-income Americans and encouraging self sufficiency,
through things like expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit, which has been shown to increase employment and lift millions of people, including several million children, out of poverty every year,” Strain said at the event.
Jackson said the government’s choice to not provide support for struggling families will lead to a cycle of poverty.
“We’re talking about people that are struggling and have been struggling and are continuing to struggle, and what these spending cuts will do is throw them in a more downward spiral,” Jackson said at the event. “We know that if we provide the families and women and children the help that they need, we can change the trajectory for these children, but if we don’t, we’ll be financing and funding more prisons and drug programs which will also burden other systems, like hospitals and all kinds of other systems that are not equipped to deal with any of this.” Carr called for an end to the silence surrounding the struggles of the most vulnerable, saying that people play an important role in making their voices heard.
“No one is talking about the people at the bottom,” Carr said. “What we need to do together is to stand with vulnerable children and poor moms and their families and say, ‘we’ll protect the safety net and we’ll help you raise your kids in dignity and we’ll find a way to make our tax system work so that you have a better chance of providing shoes for your kids and presents at Christmas.’”
School of Nursing Launches Career Program to Train Doctoral Students
Ajani Stella Academics Desk Editor
with graduate students and postdoctoral associates because he has had to develop a new skill set to be an effective principal investigator.
“Guiding students is a whole new challenge that I had to get used to and learn from scratch. There’s no systematic training, there’s no textbook to follow,” Yin said.
“There’s a more humanity side of it, which in my major — physics — we’re notoriously known to be weak at,” Yin added.
Timothy Corbett (GRD ’27), a doctoral student on Yin’s team, said Yin engages openly and kindly with his students.
“He remembers a surprising amount for how many student projects he is at least consulting on,” Corbett told The Hoya. “He’s very organized and just has a great attitude about everything. Every time I see him, he’ll give me a big little smile.”
Yin said he does not anticipate a patentable product by the end of the grant period and is instead focused on developing scientific understanding of anti-ferromagnets.
“I think we’re not quite at the stage of patenting anything yet, so for the task of our grant and our project and our package is to develop the science, lay out the foundations and knowhows of the field,” Yin said. “We’re developing the tools to be used by those tech companies or private parties.”
“It’s common sense that the fundamentals should not be patented,” Yin added. “It should be released as public knowledge, benefitting the entire human race.”
The Georgetown University School of Nursing (SON) inaugurated its Nurse Executives in Residence program, which aims to teach leadership and advocacy skills to doctoral students, Jan. 22.
The program is part of the Executive Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) in Health Systems Leadership and Policy degree program, which offers post-masters students leadership and healthcare policy training. The Nurse Executives in Residence program will begin working with students for the 2025-26 academic year, aiming to connect students with high-level professionals for mentorship and teaching.
Dr. Stephan Davis, the director of leadership, policy and DNP education at the SON, said he hopes the program will connect students with experts in the fields they hope to work in, broadening the impact of the initiative.
“Not many schools of nursing or DNP programs have that type of approach, and I thought it would be really unique to leverage national, DNP-prepared thought leaders — who are highly awarded and renowned leaders — to give our students access to those types of individuals,” Davis told The Hoya. “For many of our students, these leaders are doing the types of things that they would envision themselves doing someday. Some of these people are really giants in the field, so it’s nice for them to have that exposure.”
Dr. Melody Wilkinson, a SON and DNP professor, said she is excited for
her students to have the opportunity to work closely with the executives.
“The Nurse Executives in Residence Program is a fantastic way to bridge the gap between industry leadership and academic development,” Wilkinson wrote to The Hoya. “By bringing in these experts, not only will our DNP students gain invaluable insights, but they’ll also have a unique opportunity for mentorship that could truly shape their careers.”
Davis said that in searching for candidates, he prioritized factors like leaders’ engagement in their community and the nursing profession.
“I wanted national leaders who were contributing to professional associations in addition to their exec roles, a variety of different areas of focus,” Davis said. “And I wanted them all to be DNP-prepared as well as holding board certification in leadership and management.”
Davis added that the program will focus on healthcare and nursing advocacy, leveraging the SON’s connections in Washington, D.C.
“One of the things that is really important for the profession and for healthcare more broadly is getting more involved with advocacy,” Davis said. “I think that our unique positioning at Georgetown — being at one of the oldest and most respected universities in the country, but also at the epicenter of policy shaping and legislative action — it was a no-brainer for them to say, ‘Yes, we better be engaged with Georgetown in some way.’” Wilkinson said she plans to integrate the executives into her classes by hosting them for lectures and collaborating with them on projects.
“The newly developed Nurse Executives in Residence Program offers an exciting opportunity to collaborate with industry experts and professional association leaders,” Wilkinson wrote. “My goal is to engage with these leaders to create and enhance strategic opportunities for our DNP students, such as hosting guest lectures for courses on leadership, health systems and health policy, as well as providing focused mentoring for exceptional DNP students.” Austin Brook (GRD ’26), a DNP student developing a leadership training program for community healthcare leaders as his doctoral project, said he hopes the executives will provide real-world insight to assist with his efforts.
“I hope to engage with the residents in a way that allows me to draw on their vast experience leading both individuals and teams in the healthcare sector,” Brook wrote to The Hoya. “As I define the scope of my project, I can only imagine how valuable it will be to have experienced leaders weigh in on the qualities and competencies of leaders that lead to successful change across a broad array of organizations.” Wilkinson said the program will boost the DNP program by focusing on real-world engagement and action.
“This initiative enriches student learning and bridges the academic-practice gap,” Wilkinson wrote. “Engaging with world-class leaders in our Georgetown classrooms prepares students to drive global healthcare transformation. It embodies our Jesuit values of contemplation in action, bringing real-world experience into the classroom to
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
The inaugural cohort of the Nurse Executives in Residence program joined the Georgetown University School of Nursing to teach doctoral students leadership skills Jan. 22.
MEN’S
SWIMMING & DIVING
Friars Crash Cooley Homecoming Georgetown Falls in Senior Day Meet
The Georgetown University men’s basketball team fell 78-68 to the Providence College Friars on Jan. 25 after fumbling a double-digit first-half lead. The Friars (10-10, 4-5 Big East) dominated the offensive glass and found key contributions off the bench to secure the victory in an intense home atmosphere. The loss marks the Hoyas’ (13-7, 4-5 Big East) eighth consecutive loss to Providence, Head Coach Ed Cooley’s former team. Setting the tone early and often, first-year center Thomas Sorber splashed a 3-pointer on the team’s opening possession. Sorber followed with a steal on the other end and a long jumper to give the Hoyas a 5-0 lead in the game’s first minute. A Sorber block and strong team defense stymied the Providence offense for several possessions, keeping the packed arena standing as per tradition until the 17:40 mark when guard Bensley Joseph hit a 3-pointer to put the Friars on the board. On the offensive end, graduate guard Micah Peavy turned a steal into a midrange jumper and junior guard Jayden Epps followed with a layup to extend the Georgetown lead to 9-4. Continued defensive pressure and control of the defensive glass allowed the Hoyas to push the ball over an ensuing 9-3 run.
Highlighted by a second Sorber 3-pointer from the top of the key, a couple of Peavy dunks and blocks from Sorber and sophomore forward Drew Fielder, Georgetown stretched its lead to 18-7 with 12:56 remaining in the first half.
After jumpers by Providence forward Oswin Erhunmwunse and guard Jayden Pierre, the Friars switched to a press defense, which the Hoyas immediately broke on a lob from Peavy to Sorber. A 3-pointer by sophomore guard Malik Mack and a jumper by Peavy pushed the Georgetown lead to 25-13, the team’s largest of the contest.
The 12-point lead marks the third time this season the Hoyas have lost after holding a 12-plus point first-half advantage. The other two were against the No. 20 St. John’s University Red Storm (17-3, 8-1 Big East) and the No. 10 Marquette University Golden Eagles (17-3, 8-1 Big
COMMENTARY
East), both coming in league play.
Providence quickly clawed back into the game, outscoring Georgetown 21-6 over a prolonged seven-minute stretch to take a 34-31 lead with 2:49 remaining in the half.
The Hoyas reverted to a number of unsuccessful isolation sets, with poor shot attempts by the Mack-Epps backcourt, untimely turnovers and lack of control on the defensive glass drowning the team.
A Sorber layup with 2:22 remaining marked Georgetown’s final points of the first half, as Providence took a 3833 lead into the break.
Sorber and Peavy both played all 20 minutes, scoring in double figures in the half — Sorber with an especially efficient 16 points on 7-9 shooting.
Peavy and Erhunmwunse traded jumpers to open the second half, maintaining the 5-point Providence lead. However, the Friars’ dominance on the offensive glass — collecting 5 offensive rebounds over the half’s first two possessions — set the tone physically.
Cooley said the game ultimately hinged on the offensive glass, as Providence outrebounded Georgetown 37-32, including 16-14 on the offensive glass.
“Offensive rebounding, the game was all done on rebounding, end of discussion,” Cooley said in a postgame press conference. “They were really, really good sending guys to the glass, and we were soft as shit blocking out.”
“That is the absolute chippiness when I see my team tomorrow, we have to do a better job blocking out,” Cooley added.
By the 16:19 mark, Providence extended their lead to 44-37. A spirited 8-0 Georgetown run followed, as Peavy found his rhythm from the midrange, Sorber contributed an inside layup and Mack drove for an easy finish. The Hoyas led 45-44, their first lead in over 11 minutes and last of the game.
A banked 3-pointer by Providence forward Christ Essandoko, which ignited the crowd, gave the Friars a 47-45 advantage.
In the postgame press conference, Cooley spoke of the difficulties of playing in such a loud environment — one, of course, that he is very familiar with.
“I’ve coached a million games in here,” Cooley told The Hoya. “It’s really, really hard to win in the building.”
Epps, Sorber and Peavy kept it close over the next few minutes, consistently
closing to within 4 points, but the Hoyas could not bring the game to within one possession. With 7:07 remaining, Georgetown trailed 6056. Timely 3-pointers and free throws by Friars guard Jabri Abdur-Rahim and buckets by Joseph sparked the Providence offense during this period.
With the Hoyas facing a doubledigit deficit with under four minutes remaining, Peavy drained a 3-pointer as Sorber was fouled simultaneously under the basket. Sorber went to the line and made both free throws, capping a 5-0 sequence that tightened the score to 68-63.
On the next possession, Fielder made a layup through contact to finish the 7-0 run. With 2:30 remaining, Georgetown trailed 68-65.
Providence responded with a 10-3 run, as the Friars shot 7-7 from the line and dominated the game’s final minutes, closing out the 78–68 victory.
Peavy, whom Providence Head Coach Kim English described as an “NBA player” in the postgame press conference, finished with 27 points, 2 rebounds and 2 assists. Sorber added 25 points, 15 rebounds, 3 blocks and 2 steals, his seventh double-double of the season.
Providence outrebounded Georgetown 37-32 — including 16-14 on the offensive end — and turned that into a 20-15 advantage in secondchance points. The Friars’ depth was notable, as the Providence bench outscored Georgetown’s bench 26-0.
Cooley said he was disappointed by his team’s defense and backcourt play, but opted for a message of optimism.
“This was the first game all year where I thought our defense let us down,” Cooley said in the postgame press conference. “We missed assignments, we fouled. I don’t think we had the discipline we know we play with defensively.”
“I don’t think we played well offensively,” Cooley added. “My backcourt didn’t have the game we are accustomed to seeing them play.”
Mack and Epps combined for just 14 points on 5-23 shooting.
“Georgetown is going to continue to get better, continue to improve, and slowly but surely, that wagon is coming,” Cooley said. “Slowly but surely, that thing is coming.”
The Hoyas will look to even their conference record against the No. 20 Red Storm on Tuesday, Jan. 28 at Capital One Arena.
Commanders Bow Out of Playoffs
In the NFL playoffs, there are good teams and great teams. The Washington Commanders are a very good team, but they found out firsthand Sunday that the Philadelphia Eagles are a great team.
In the NFC championship game Sunday, Jan. 26, the Eagles blew out the visiting division rival Commanders 55-23.
That the Commanders are even a good team is a noteworthy accomplishment in and of itself, given where they sat before this season — there is plenty for Washington to be proud of. Washington last reached the NFC championship game in the 1991-92 season, which was also their last Super Bowl win. Since then, they’ve been mired in a cycle of mediocre quarterback play and consistent mismanagement under their former owner Daniel Snyder, who sold the team before the 2023-24 season. But this season, the Commanders drafted quarterback Jayden Daniels, the Heisman Trophy winner, to lead a new offense. Pundits always expected Daniels to be good, but he has had perhaps the greatest rookie season of any NFL quarterback. Daniels practically willed the team not only to a 12-5 record, but also road playoff wins over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and an impressive upset over the Detroit Lions.
For the Eagles, a record-setting championship game should excite them heading into a Super Bowl rematch against the AFC champions Kansas City NFL team.
To open the game, the Commanders received the kickoff and expertly engineered a drive down the field. Rookie phenom quarterback Jayden Daniels showed the poise of a seasoned veteran, finding open receivers for two consecutive fourth-down conversions. However, their drive stalled out on the edge of the red zone, which led Washington to settle for a field goal to open the scoring.
Philadelphia’s response came quickly. On the Eagles’ first offensive play, superstar running back Saquon Barkley, on a pitch to the outside, broke multiple tackles before
cutting across the field for a 60-yard touchdown, exhilarating the home crowd.
Though determined to do so, the Commanders failed to respond on their next drive, with wide receiver Dyami Brown fumbling and the Eagles recovering just four plays in. Fumbles became the watchword for the Commanders offense. This first mishap foreshadowed the Commanders’ struggles all game on the turnovers front: In total, they committed 3 fumbles and surrendered 1 interception. The Eagles took full advantage of these errors, scoring touchdowns off all 4 turnovers. Washington had the league’s thirdworst rush defense in the regular season and, missing defensive tackle Daron Payne, displayed glaring holes on the defensive line. Barkley dominated, rushing for 118 yards and 3 touchdowns, and quarterback Jalen Hurts also had 3 touchdowns on the ground. Backup running back Will Shipley rushed for 77 more yards and a touchdown, mostly during cleanup time.
The Eagles’ 7 rushing touchdowns tied the record for the most in a playoff game, which was set in 1940, coincidentally also against Washington.
In perhaps the oddest moment of the NFL season, with the Eagles on the 1-yard line in formation for their unstoppable “tush push” quarterback sneak, the Commanders committed three consecutive encroachment penalties. The referees warned Washington that if they continued to jump offsides, the officials could consider it unsportsmanlike conduct and award a touchdown. This rule — the “palpably unfair act” rule — has never been invoked in the history of the NFL, despite being in the rulebook for almost a century. The Commanders got the message, and the Eagles scored the traditional way on the next attempt.
Daniels performed incredibly — a glimmer of hope for Commanders fans for next season. Despite overwhelming pressure from the Philadelphia defensive line, Daniels continued to find open receivers over the middle of the field for big gains.
Daniels’ final line was 255 yards, with a touchdown and an interception.
He also had a touchdown run. Hurts put together one of the
The Georgetown University swimming and diving team lost both sides of a Senior Day dual meet to the College of William & Mary Tribe at McCarthy Pool Jan. 25. The men’s team narrowly fell by a score of 133-129, and the women’s team lost 178-84.
The Hoyas entered the week suffering from a flu outbreak but had recovered almost completely in time for the meet. They dealt with the brunt of the illness in their Jan. 18 meet against the George Washington University, with many key swimmers unavailable.
Head Coach Jack Leavitt said that, despite their run-in with illness, the team had been putting in good work.
“We had to modify some things we did last week into early this week,” Leavitt told The Hoya. “The crazy thing about having as many people as we’ve had out is that the work we’ve put in every day has been the best we’ve ever done.”
The Hoyas found their greatest success on the men’s side in the long-distance freestyle events. In the men’s 1,000-yard freestyle, first-year Wilson Tunila led the way with a time of 9:19.13. In second was senior Jack Januario with a time of 9:21.61. The third-place finisher, William & Mary’s Jackson Mueller, finished over 20 seconds behind the top two.
Tunila and Januario also finished first and second in the 500-yard freestyle. Tunila broke the pool record in the 500 free by over two seconds with a time of 4:31.68.
William & Mary does not have a diving team, so Georgetown’s divers competed against themselves. Sophomore Nico Santiago’s 356.18 score in the one meter set both McCarthy Pool and Georgetown records.
On the women’s side for the Hoyas, junior Angelica Reali took
COMMENTARY
most complete games of his career and played as if he were completely healthy, despite a knee injury picked up last week. Alongside his 3 rushing touchdowns, he threw for 246 yards and 1 touchdown. Hurts also had a much more stable command of the pocket and avoided many negative plays, unlike his prior two playoff games. With the tone set, the Eagles took a 27-15 lead into halftime and did not look back. They allowed only 8 points in the second half and forced turnovers to shut down any glimmer of hope for Washington.
One loss should not tarnish the incredible season for the Commanders. Entering this season, optimism surrounded Washington’s football team for the first time since new ownership reenergized an ailing fan base. However, success came unexpectedly quickly with a new head coach and a rookie quarterback.
Daniels will continue to develop in the offseason, even if he has already established himself in the upper echelon of NFL quarterbacks. The Commanders will also look to add additional wide receivers to accompany Terry McLaurin, a new tight end and, most importantly, upgrade their defense at all positions.
If Washington wants a model for developing a winning franchise, they could look to their neighbors. The Eagles have found an incredible partnership between Hurts and head coach Nick Sirianni. Sirianni was hired in the offseason before Hurts became the Eagles’ starter. Around them, the Eagles have acquired superstar veterans (Barkley, wide receiver A.J. Brown) and developed talent (wide receiver DeVonta Smith, defensive tackle Jalen Carter — the list goes on.) Of course, this strategy involves a lot of luck, but much of that success comes from a top-down winning culture.
This exact kind of culture was lacking under the previous owner, but head coach Dan Quinn and Daniels have already established one in their first year. Despite a blowout loss to the Philadelphia Eagles, the Commanders are just getting started. Their future ahead with revitalized ownership and a standout QB1 will only get brighter as the team undergoes early growing pains.
home first in the 200-yard butterfly, finishing three seconds clear of the Tribe’s Erin Langenburg. In the 200yard IM relay, the opening event of the meet, Georgetown’s team of Reali, senior Maddie Haley, senior Genevieve Youngman and junior Ines Lovato finished just one-tenth of a second behind the first place
William & Mary team. Alongside the events, the Hoyas honored their 17 senior swimmers and divers. The first class after the COVID-19 pandemic, Leavitt credited their influence for helping reestablish a team identity, saying they worked hard in and out of the pool.
“This group never missed a lot of workouts,” Leavitt said. “They did super well academically. This is a group I never had to worry about.”
“They always took care of business and worked at a really high level,” he added.
The results of this effort are evident in their pedigree too, as Leavitt said this class of seniors has been very successful.
“These seniors have only experienced winning,” Leavitt said. “On the men’s side they’ve won three Big East titles. The women’s side just continues to march forward and get a little bit closer to the top.” Coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic and a suspension of all intercollegiate competition, the Hoyas could have stuttered and taken years to return to form, but they hit the ground running. Asked to characterize this year’s groups of seniors and their leadership in one word, Leavitt said “steady.” The Hoyas will close out their regular season with an away meet at Seton Hall University on Feb. 1, before moving onto the Big East championship in Geneva, Ohio Feb. 24. Georgetown’s men’s side will look to capitalize on their past season successes and put in a run for their fourth straight Big East title, while the women’s side will look to continue to edge closer to a championship after taking third in the competition last year.
Unrivaled League Spells a New Era In Women’s Professional Basketball
Unrivaled — a new professional 3-on-3 women’s basketball league — began its inaugural season Jan. 17, paving the way for a more even playing field for women’s sports. The new league was co-founded by Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) stars Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart, who set out to offer WNBA players the opportunity to earn a competitive salary domestically in the offseason. WNBA players earned an average salary of $147,745 for the 2024 season, with the highest-earning player making $241,984. In contrast, the average salary of a National Basketball League (NBA) player for the 2024-25 season is $11,910,649, with the highest-earning player making over $55 million. To put this in context, the average NBA player made 80 times as much as the average WNBA player in 2024, while viewership differed between the two leagues by a magnitude of about 11 times when combining 2023 viewership figures for the regular season, playoffs and championship, with the WNBA averaging about 1.6 million viewers combined and the NBA averaging 18.71 million viewers combined.
To put these numbers into further context, the minimum salary for WNBA rookies to players with two years of experience is $64,154 and $76,535 for players with three-plus years of experience. In 2023, the real median U.S. household income was $80,610, and the 2023 average annual expenses for U.S. households was $77,280. Therefore, a WNBA player earning the minimum salary for the 2024 season earned less than the average U.S. household’s expenses. Take into account the fact that all 13 WNBA teams are based in major cities where the cost of living is higher, and the problem only grows.
To help close the gap, roughly half of all WNBA players supplement their income by playing overseas during the offseason in leagues such as the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague,
the EuroLeague Women, the Turkish Basketball Super League and other leagues across Europe and Australia. Unrivaled offers an opportunity to change that by providing players an opportunity to supplement their income without living overseas for part of the year. Unrivaled operates in a unique 3-on-3 format, consisting of six teams with no geographic ties. The six teams — Laces Basketball Club (BC), Lunar Owls BC, Mist BC, Phantom BC, Rose BC and Vinyl BC — each consist of six players for a total of 36 WNBA players in competitive rotation at a time. Unlike traditional International Basketball Federation (FIBA) and Olympic 3-on-3 basketball, which is played on a half court with one hoop, Unrivaled is played on a condensed version of a full court — about twice the size of a standard 3-on-3 basketball court and about 20 feet shorter than a standard WNBA court.
Coupled with a novel format of three seven-minute quarters and a fourth, untimed quarter where a team must end with a score equal to the leading team’s score from the first three quarters plus 11 points to win, Unrivaled encourages fast-paced play and entertainment. The league also has a shortened shot clock of 18 seconds and a system where one free throw attempt is awarded and is worth either two or three points, depending on the shot being contested at the time of the foul.
Reminiscent of the 2020 NBA finals bubble, the 850seat Wayfair Arena just outside of Miami, Fla., hosts all Unrivaled games. Like the rules of the game, the arena was constructed with streaming viewership in mind, featuring 18 cameras with the main camera only 51 feet from center court — compared to the NBA’s 81 feet from center court.
The inaugural Unrivaled season will feature eight weeks of standard competition and a midweek 1-on-1 tournament Feb. 10-14, also designed to bolster entertainment and viewership. The top four teams during the regular season will make the playoffs, with the semifinals slated for March 16 and the championship occurring March
17, just ahead of March Madness’ kick-off.
Currently, following the first two weekends of play, the Laces and Lunar Owls are tied with a record of 4-0. Lunar Owls and WNBA team Minnesota Lynx forward and league co-founder Napheesa Collier heads the league with 28.5 points per game. Two Laces guards, Kayla McBride (Minnesota Lynx) and Tiffany Hayes (Las Vegas Aces), round out the top three with 25.5 and 20 points per game respectively. Other league cofounder Breanna Stewart’s team, the Mist, has yet to win a game, losing three of their four matchups by a margin of 5 or fewer points.
Even without certain bigname stars such as three-time WNBA MVP A’ja Wilson and WNBA rookie of the year and Iowa Hawkeyes legend Caitlin Clark, Unrivaled recorded over 3 million viewers its opening weekend and set a record as the most-watched women’s basketball broadcast in TNT history at 364,000 viewers. The Unrivaled players will benefit from the viewership success directly, splitting a 15% revenue pot and a 15% league equity pool. All players will earn a six-figure salary, with the average salary being over $220,000 — close to the maximum base salary for the WNBA. The winner of the midseason 1-on-1 tournament will also take home an additional $250,000.
Unrivaled’s unique format presents both entertainment opportunities to fans and monetary opportunities that can create equality for players. Coupled with the decision earlier this month that women’s NCAA Division I teams could be paid for their participation in March Madness, women’s basketball is moving in the right direction to approach an equal monetary playing field. Unrivaled will look to continue to aid in this goal, as the league plans to travel next year to different college towns, increasing publicity. Viewers can catch Unrivaled’s games until mid-March on truTV and TNT and streaming on Max. The league’s two undefeated teams, Laces BC and Lunar Owls BC, will take on each other at 8:15 p.m. on TNT Jan. 31.
Nate Seidenstein Special to The Hoya
Nate Seidenstein Special to The Hoya
Daniel Greilsheimer Deputy Sports Editor
BASKETBALL
Madeline Wang Deputy Sports Editor
GUHOYAS
Georgetown swimming and diving celebrated senior day Jan. 25.
The U.S. government exempts MLB from federal antitrust laws, thereby privileging major leaguers over minor leaguers.
MLB Screws Minor League
HERMAN, from A12
antitrust laws could apply to MLB in the 1922 case Federal Baseball Club of Baltimore v. National League. The Federal Baseball Club contended that because Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution — commonly known as the Commerce Clause — gives Congress the power to regulate commerce among states, federal antitrust laws apply to MLB. The National League responded that MLB does not involve interstate commerce, and therefore Congress is powerless to regulate it.
The Court sided with the League. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. — who fittingly shares a surname with former New York Yankees’ incompetent closing pitcher, Clay — expressed in his majority opinion that baseball is a “purely state affair” because each game is only played in a singular state. Further, he reasoned that “the transport is a mere incident, not the essential thing.” Therefore, Congress could derive no authority in the Constitution that permitted it to regulate MLB’s activities. This might appear reasonable upon first glance. But in every area of jurisprudence besides baseball, the Court has applied a far more expansive definition of the Commerce Clause.
In Perez v. United States in 1971, a nearly unanimous Court ruled that Congress can regulate any “activities that substantially affect or relate to interstate commerce.” In the past, this doctrine has applied to growing wheat for personal consumption (Wickard v. Filburn) and the possession of marijuana for personal medical use (Gonzales v. Raich). Oh, and every single other major sport in the United States.
Yet somehow, in the incredibly specific case of MLB, the Supreme Court has repeatedly and unfathomably found that professional baseball — which includes players traveling weekly between states for games, merchandise being shipped across state lines to fans, and teams frequently
trading players to other ball clubs in different states — does not “substantially affect interstate commerce.”
Sure, and the Yankees’ performance does not “substantially affect” my mental health.
Further, the Court has acknowledged the absurdity of its decision but refused to overturn it. In Flood v. Kuhn (1972), it admitted that baseball was a type of interstate commerce but must remain exempt from antitrust laws regardless. Most of Justice Harry Blackmun’s opinion instead pointed to stare decisis.
Stare decisis, Latin for “to stand by things decided,” is a guiding Supreme Court principle, which states that courts should follow their own previous rulings when similar issues arise. It protects citizens and corporations from a Court that repeatedly flip-flops on fundamental constitutional issues depending on the opinions of its justices.
Except it doesn’t, really.
In the past couple of years, the Supreme Court has practically jumped at the opportunity to overturn its own precedent. It has disavowed its previous decisions on abortion rights (Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization) and administrative deference (Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo) and shown its willingness to “revisit” other landmark decisions.
Stare decisis, as the Court has eloquently noted, is “not an inexorable command.” If this Court is as unconcerned with its own precedent as its decisions in Dobbs and Loper Bright would indicate, then it should also take the opportunity to overturn a decision that it has already confessed is objectively wrong.
I understand entirely why the Supreme Court puts MLB on a pedestal. It is, after all, the best organization to ever exist. Fact check me on that, I dare you. But elevating baseball is not about securing the wallets of its mega-rich owners and teams — it is about protecting its most vulnerable players. The Supreme Court has done the opposite.
Cooley’s
‘Bad News Hoyas’
ST. JOHN’S, from A12
offensive performance in every facet.
In the second half, Georgetown looked much more like themselves (at least defensively). They held St. John’s to just 19 points on 7-24 (29%) shooting. However, the Red Storm defense was unrelenting, forcing a 26% opponent field goal percentage and keeping the Hoyas to 20 second-half points.
Sophomore guard Malik Mack and Epps were subbed back into the game to start the second half. The Mack-Epps backcourt has struggled to synergize the offense, including in their previous game against Providence. They often dribble too long, creating an isolation set that culminates in a tough shot that often fails to find the bottom of the net.
Despite Mack’s team-leading 13 points and 3-5 (60%) shooting from deep, he was also responsible for a game-high 6 turnovers to only 3 assists. The team had 16 turnovers in total, 12 of which were steals, 5 by Wilcher alone. It’s pretty hard to win games with a 16/6 turnover/assist ratio.
After the first tilt with St. John’s, Cooley was adamant that they were the best team they had seen all season and condemned the voters for not
ranking them sooner.
“For St. John’s not to be ranked, first and foremost let’s talk about that: I don’t know who some of these voters are,” Cooley said in a postgame press conference Jan. 14. “I don’t know who has a vote, but you’re blind.” Evidently, Cooley was on to something. The now 15thranked Red Storm are off to their best start since a 20-2 start in the 1985-86 season. He doubled down on his statement in the postgame press conference, giving much credit to Pitino and his team.
On the other hand, this game’s offensive performance by the Hoyas was their worst since KenPom started tracking data in 1997. A points-per-possession of just 0.59 exceeded their previous low of 0.65 in a loss to Creighton during the 2022-23 season.
“We looked like the Bad News Hoyas,” Cooley said in the postgame press conference. “They put a complete foot in our ass.” In what should hopefully produce an energized crowd, the Hoyas are back in action Friday, Jan. 31, against the struggling Butler University Bulldogs (912, 2-8 Big East). This game is a huge opportunity to right the ship against a conference bottom dweller in front of an energetic home stadium crowd.
Thrashed By St. John’s
Rookie Hession Already a Key Contributor for Hoyas
HESSION, from A12 school, if I missed a shot or had a turnover, I’d be very frustrated. But now you just have to move on, it already happened and that short-term memory helps you in the long run.”
Hession’s impact has been undeniable. She scored a season-high 22 points against the University of Connecticut on Jan. 11. Her defensive talents have also shone through, as she recorded four steals in each of her last two contests, against St. John’s University and Marquette University. The performances reflect Hession’s growing confidence and seamless integration into the Georgetown team.
Despite it being her first season with the Hoyas, Hession has stepped into a prominent role on the team. Hession averages 29.9 minutes and has started all 18 games this season, averaging 7.2 points per game. The first-year said she feels the trust of her teammates and coaches alike.
“I had confidence in myself coming into college.” Hession said. “Coach Haney, I feel like he trusts me. Point guard is like running the team, and he trusts me.”
For the Georgetown women’s basketball team, trust, teamwork and a desire to win are central to their success, Hession said as she reflected on the team’s collective goal.
“Everybody’s looking for everybody to succeed,” Hession said. “We just all want to win and that’s just the end goal.”
Hoya fans can catch Hession and the Hoyas in action as they try to employ their aforementioned success strategy in their upcoming Big East showdown against Creighton University Jan. 29 in McDonough Arena.
7
Strong Shooting Carries Creighton Over Georgetown
Despite Star Kelsey Ransom’s Record-Setting Evening
CREIGHTON, from A12 game. By the third quarter, each member of Creighton’s starting five had registered a three, logging 33 of their 66 total points thus far from beyond the arc. Georgetown’s failure to protect the ball — amassing 6 turnovers in the third quarter — also hurt their cause. Georgetown entered the fourth quarter down by 15 and made it clear by their full-court press defense that they were
attempting a comeback. The effort was valiant: The Hoyas closed the gap to within 7 at one point, thanks to first-year guard Khadee Hession putting 8 on the board, including back-toback 3-pointers. Unfortunately, poor defense in the paint and crucial missed layups in crunch time sealed their defeat.
Head Coach Darnell Haney said his team’s failure to complete the comeback resulted from their lack of execution on
the little things in the game.
“Got to make sure that everybody has to be locked in and focused on making sure we do the little things to beat teams like this,” Haney told The Hoya. “Creighton is a really good team, right? And in order to beat a really good team, we can’t have, you know, some of the chippies we missed. We can’t miss those right free throws going to the free throw line.”
“To beat a good team, a team that, in some polls, that is na-
tionally ranked, everybody has to be clicking. Everybody got to be on the same page, and everybody’s got to be ready to go out and compete. I don’t think at every point of this game today we did that,” Haney added. The Georgetown women’s basketball team will take the court next against the Xavier University Musketeers
MEGHAN HALL/THE HOYA
First-year center Thomas Sorber shot 2-of-4 from the charity stripe, contributing to
First-year guard Khadee Hession entered the starting lineup in her first season on the Hilltop, joining graduate guard Kelsey Ransom and junior guard Victoria Rivera in the Hoyas’ backcourt.
SWIMMING AND DIVING
FRIDAY, JANUARY 31, 2025
TALKING POINTS
The Hoyas’ swimming and diving team lost both sides of their Senior Day dual meet.
OUT OF LEFT FIELD
(Anti)Trust Me: This One’s Not About My New York Yankees
I wish I could tell you that writing this column is my only commitment at Georgetown University — that my devotion is to you, dear reader, and you alone. But I would be lying, in part because I’m also one of the captains of the Moot Court team. In Moot Court, we simulate arguing constitutional issues to the Supreme Court. Our case this semester is about the extent of Congress’ ability to regulate interstate commerce. With all due apologies to my constitutional law professor, I do not know anything about interstate commerce. Like a good captain, I started researching. And because I find a way to make everything about baseball, I dove down a rabbit hole about Major League Baseball’s antitrust exemption.
To put it shortly, it’s ridiculous. Major League Baseball (MLB) — unlike every other sports league in the United States — is, bewilderingly, exempt from antitrust laws. That means that baseball is effectively a monopoly: The laws that prohibit anti-competitive practices do not apply to MLB.
That presents no problem for superstar players like — ugh — Juan Soto. But minor leaguers, for example, receive yearly salaries that range from an unlivable $19,800 to a passable $35,800 depending on their level. However, because MLB is shielded from most judicial oversight, minor leaguers have little leverage to negotiate their salaries. The legal reasoning behind MLB’s antitrust exemption is also inexplicable. The Supreme Court first addressed whether
See HERMAN, A11
Georgetown vs. Loyola Maryland
Saturday, 12 p.m.
Cooper Field
NUMBERS GAME See A10
They were really, really good sending guys to the glass, and we were soft as shit blocking out.”
Men’s Basketball Head Coach Ed Cooley
Graduate guard Kelsey Ransom entered Georgetown’s history books as the first women’s basketball player to tally 1,000 points, 500 rebounds and 500 assists.
Teddy Gerkin Hoya Staff Writer
If you happened to be at Capital One Arena on the night of Jan. 28 and stayed for the entirety of the game between Georgetown University and St. John’s University, you have my utmost respect.
The Georgetown Hoyas (13-8, 4-6 Big East) were run off their home court 66-41 by the 15th-ranked team in the nation, the St. John’s Red Storm (18-3, 9-1 Big East), in a game that was virtually over as soon as it started.
The Hoyas desperately needed a win following another tough trip to Providence, R.I., where they fell to Head Coach Ed Cooley’s former
school for the eighth consecutive time. In their first match of the season against the Red Storm on Jan. 14, Hoyas put up a good fight with a close 63-58 loss, a game in which St. John’s guard Deivon Smith did not play. He would also be listed out for this match.
Once first-year center Thomas Sorber lost the opening tip, things began to spiral for the Hoyas.
A layup by guard RJ Luis Jr., a dunk by forward Zuby Ejiofor, a three by guard Aaron Scott, a layup by guard Kadary Richmond and a jumper by Luis put the Hoyas in an 11-0 hole after just under four minutes of play.
The Georgetown offense looked
unsettled, recording 3 turnovers during that stretch. St. John’s is a physical and athletic team that prides itself on defense, entering the match ranking 5th in the country in adjusted defensive efficiency, per KenPom. After stifling the Hoyas, they moved up to 4th in the nation. Georgetown finally got on the board thanks to a deep ball by firstyear forward Caleb Williams. Yet, Ejiofor immediately responded with a three of his own, the deficit once again in double-digits.
As the Hoya offense struggled to find good looks, the Red Storm continued to pour it on. Richmond recorded 5 points, guard Simeon Wilcher drained a
Hession Stars in First Season on Hilltop
Ceci Lukas Sports Staff Writer
As the Georgetown University women’s basketball team battles through a tough Big East schedule, first-year guard Khadee Hession continues to emerge as one of the team’s brightest stars. Despite the challenges of a competitive season and the pressure of a rigorous conference slate, Hession has proved her utility to the team, consistently showcasing her skills and leadership both on and off the court.
Hession played a variety of sports growing up, but after moving to Miami, Fla., in fourth grade, basketball became her main passion. There, Hession said she found a local court where she could practice, playing with friends every day.
“Playing with your friends and people you’re close with, it just made it more fun,” Hession told The Hoya. “The love continued, and I got better.”
Hession’s passion for basketball only intensified in high school. After switching schools multiple times, she found her home at St. Thomas Aquinas High School, where she led her team to back-to-back Florida 6A state championships in 2023 and 2024. During her senior year, Hession achieved remarkable feats, including scoring 35 points in a single game and recording three triple-doubles throughout the season. Reflecting on her
achievements, Hession said her high school success was a product of the support she received from people around her, from teammates to coaches.
“I had great people around me and people who thought that they could trust me and put the ball in my hands and go win, and we did,” Hession said. In May 2024, Hession committed to Georgetown, eager to continue her basketball career with the Hoyas. Upon arriving, she felt immediately at home. Having already known Head Coach
Darnell Haney, Hession said she knew she would fit into the Georgetown community.
“It felt like everyone was who they are, and that’s what I wanted,” Hession said.
From her very first practice at Georgetown, Hession recognized the fast-paced, intense nature of college basketball. But beyond the speed of the game, Hession emphasized the team’s close-knit and supportive atmosphere, which she said provided a positive environment.
“I had a good environment in
high school, too, with players and coaches, so just coming into college, I feel like that’s all I wanted, and that’s what I got,” she said.
On the court this season, Hession has focused on refining her mentality. One of her biggest adjustments has been prioritizing a short-term mindset and moving quickly past mistakes, the first-year guard said.
“You can’t dread on if you make a turnover, you miss a shot — you just have to get to the next play,” Hession said. “I feel like in high
See HESSION, A11
three and Ejiofor scored on a fast break to push the lead to 20.
A steal-and-score by graduate forward Micah Peavy ended the Georgetown drought, but all of the energy in an already-lacking home crowd had been sufficiently drained. A short jumper by junior guard Jayden Epps prompted the Red Storm Head Coach Rick Pitino to call a timeout, showing his lack of patience for poor play from his team. Whatever adjustments Pitino made proved unstoppable. St. John’s exploded for a 14-2 run, one in which Georgetown would fail to convert on 10 consecutive field goal attempts. Georgetown also connected on just 2 of 4
free throws during this stretch, a problem that has persisted through much of the season. With the Hoyas trailing 37-9 with 4:30 left in the first half, ESPN’s game flow gave the Red Storm a 99.6% chance to come out on top. The largest lead of the game would come just under two minutes later, when a layup by guard Jaiden Glover extended the Red Storm’s lead to 30. The Hoyas entered the second half on a 10-6 run, the score standing at 47-21. In the first half, they were 7-30 (23%) from the field, 3-11 (27%) from three and 4-9 (44%) from the line, simply a miserable
Ethan Herweck Sports Staff Writer
Despite a record-breaking night for graduate guard Kelsey Ransom, the Georgetown University women’s basketball team dropped their latest Big East matchup against Creighton University 84-70 Jan. 29.
The Georgetown Hoyas (10-11, 3-7 Big East) entered their game against the Creighton Bluejays (17-4, 9-1 Big East) looking to turn their momentum around after dropping five of their last seven games. Unfortunately for Georgetown, Creighton’s deep attack proved overwhelming.
The Hoyas had a rough start on their first possession, coming up with no points and a shot clock violation. Luckily for them, senior center Ariel Jenkins scored on the next possession to put Georgetown on the board.
The teams went back and forth for the first quarter, both exhibiting shortcomings. The Bluejays committed too many fouls, drawing two crucial offensive whistles leading to 2 turnovers.
The Hoyas, on the other hand, struggled with their perimeter defense, giving up four 3-pointers in the first quarter alone.
The Bluejays started the second quarter on a hot streak, with an-
other pair of 3-pointers courtesy of guard Lauren Jense to expand their lead to their largest so far — 12 points. The Bluejays kept their deep attack strong for the rest of the half, finishing with 8 made shots from deep on 53% shooting. Though Georgetown finished the half down 37-45, Ransom entered the history books in the waning minutes of the second quarter. Ransom became the first player in Georgetown women’s basketball history to record 1000 points, 500 rebounds and 500 assists in a career.
Ransom said she credits her coaches and teammates for making the achievement possible.
“It’s just a testament of hard work and good players around me and trust between players and coaches, and that they put me out there to do a job, and that statistically, it shows up,” Ransom told The Hoya after the game. “But there are a lot of things that we do that are intangible that don’t show up on the stat sheet that are equally as important, that more wins than the things that show up on paper.” The Bluejays continued their volley of threes throughout the third quarter, increasing their lead to 19, their largest of the
