ELA shifts online, we made mistakes

Page 1

Emerson College’s student newspaper since 1947 • berkeleybeacon.com

Thursday, Sept. 10, 2020 • Volume xx, Issue xx

COVID dashboard now updated daily

@berkeleybeacon // @beaconupdate

WE TAKE RESPONSIBILITY Beacon sees 17 formal resignations Diti Kohli

Editor-in-Chief

Diti Kohli

Beacon Staff In a shift from prior announcements, Emerson administrators vowed Tuesday to begin updating the college’s COVID-19 dashboard daily after more than a month of less frequent updates. The decision marks a swift reversal for college officials, who originally said information about the numbers of tests administered, the quantity of positive tests, and positivity rates would be communicated only once a week. Almost three weeks after community members began undergoing testing on Aug. 6, Emerson upped communication on testing numbers to twice a week on

Mondays and Thursdays. The choice to increase updates was made “in an effort to provide the community with real-time information,” Assistant Vice President for Campus Life and “COVID Lead” Erik Muurisepp said in an email. Administrators’ decision to update the dashboard daily falls in line with the actions of several other local institutions that have reopened for in-person or hybrid classes. Boston University, Northeastern University, and Suffolk University, for example, release these numbers every day on their respective dashboards. Muurisepp told The Beacon the dashboard may not necessarily update every day because the Broad

Institute takes 24 to 48 hours to process the tests, and no tests are administered at Tufts Medical Center on the weekend. The Broad picks up the tubes from the facility two times a day, he confirmed. As of publication, the dashboard showed three positive tests for the week of Aug. 31 to Sept. 6., and 10 positive tests total since Aug. 6. More than 9,500 tests have been administered so far at Tufts Medical Center. On Wednesday, one student had been isolated on campus after being “known or reasonably known to be infected,” per the dashboard. Thirteen students remain in quarantine Tests, Pg. 3

A journalist’s commitment is to truth, to fairness, to balance. And this is The Beacon’s truth. We, as an institution with a longstanding history at Emerson, have repeatedly produced content and enabled a newsroom culture that has ostracized the marginalized communities we vow to give a voice to. We have devalued and silenced community members with good intentions to make our paper produce better journalism. And we have passively watched while days, weeks, and years have passed where we could have made The Beacon a more accepting and inviting organization. This week, our staff had enough. If you too believe that print isn’t dead, you may have realized our physical paper is four pages—instead of eight—this week. That’s because The Beacon is operating on a bare-bones staff, who are working diligently to provide essential coverage about the pandemic, the college’s reopening, and Title IX policy. But a majority of our writers, columnists, photographers, and editors have not contributed recently. In fact, many may not have a byline in The Beacon for quite some time, or ever again. Almost 20 staff members have effectively sent their resignations, and many are mulling over leaves of absence until structural improvements are made to Emerson’s only newspaper. They want change, and they deserve it. To the outside viewer, it may seem like the organization’s unrest is the direct result of a story published last week that centered around a white student, her support for Black Lives Matter, and the consequent loss of her tuition. That article is admittedly rife with flaws and has since been removed from The Beacon’s primary distribution platforms with a note from the editor. Still, the problem with The Beacon is far-reaching and goes well beyond a singular decision to press “publish” when we shouldn’t have. We are a primarily white organization that has held up journalistic values rooted in inequity. Those who belong to marginalized communities and pass through our ranks have often felt unheard by editor after editor. They speak up—and too often, they get shut down. And while I, as Editor-in-Chief, tried to better this environment when my tenure began, I fell short. I take responsibility for hurting the staff members—and anyone Note, Pg. 4

ELA shifts online Students disillusioned after LA program shifts due to pandemic Security guard Louodie Casimir watches students file into Piano Row from behind plexiglass. Tomas Gonzalez / Beacon Staff

Everything you need to know about the updated Title IX policy Diti Kohli, Katie Redefer, & Stephanie Purifoy Beacon Staff

A college committee of administrators, faculty, and students released an updated Title IX policy establishing the college’s altered process for handling allegations of sexual misconduct and violence, in response to a new federal mandate from the U.S. Department of Education. Dubbed the “Power-Based Interpersonal Violence (PBIV) Policy,” the revamped Emerson regulations include significant differences from its predecessor, the Sexual Misconduct guidelines, which were in place since the 2014–2015 academic year. The 81-page PBIV policy dictates that some cases of misconduct will be processed under Emerson’s procedure, and others will be dealt with through a new, federally-mandated process that

includes live hearings. In addition, the updated college guidelines add stringent timelines to the reporting, responding, and appeals processes, and clarifies existing measures, like informal resolutions and administrative leave. The set of federal guidelines went into effect on Aug. 14, the day Emerson debuted its updated policy in a college-wide email. Below is a breakdown, factchecked by a member of the committee, of all of the document’s relevant protocols and changes from previous policy. So what’s actually changed? The most striking difference between the updated Emerson policy and its predecessor is the distinction between conduct prohibited by the college and conduct prohibited under the federal guidelines. Whether the reported behaviors falls under the purview of the Emerson policy, the

federal policy, or both determines how the case is assigned, investigated, and when applicable, properly disciplined. Cases of reported conduct that include behavior barred by both policies are subject to the federal investigation and sanctions process, which comes with a live hearing. DeVos’ regulations prohibit just a narrow subset of what the college deems unacceptable. That means all conduct forbidden under the federal Title IX regulations is prohibited by the college, but not everything deemed inappropriate under Emerson policy is punishable by DeVos’ standards. In short, the federal policy forbids sexual assault, dating/domestic violence, sex-based stalking, the solicitation of sexual acts in exchange for goods and services, and sexual harrasement that is so severe it denies a community member Title IX, Pg. 2

Diti Kohli, Katie Redefer, & Domenic Conte Beacon Staff

Pasadena native Max Tedford felt enamored by the ELA campus as a high school senior. He loved the futuristic-looking building, set in the middle of a beloved city he visited regularly in his youth. In fact, he said the Los Angeles program was more than 50 percent of the reason he decided to attend Emerson in the first place. “That’s an amazing campus,” he said in a phone interview with The Beacon from his hometown. “And living in downtown L.A. is a dream. That’s not something you can usually afford unless you want to make sacrifices in terms of cleanliness, space, or cost.” But last Friday, the quintessential ELA experience Tedford fantasized about—and meticulously planned— for three years quickly disappeared from his grasp. Emerson announced the ELA pro-

gram will take place entirely online this fall in light of new COVID-19 guidance from Los Angeles County officials. Chief Operations Officer of the L.A. campus Timothy Chang said the college came to the decision after the county’s Department of Public Health notified colleges and universities they would not be able to open campuses until November. “I think they just felt the pressure to set a date because everybody was asking,” Chang said. A number of institutions that neighbor the ELA campus, like the University of Southern California, Loyola Marymount University, and the California Institute of Technology, must also remain closed. L.A. County currently has a “widespread” risk level for coronavirus, according to state data. The positivity rate for tests sits around four percent as of Aug. 29. The ELA program usually accommodates around 200 senior students in their final undergraduate semesters ELA, Pg. 3

INSIDE THIS EDITION Everything we miss about how the Max used to be Pg. 4 POWER responds to last week’s Gina Martin article Pg. 4

The ELA campus. Beacon Archive


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.