September 20, 2018

Page 1

The Huntington News Vol. XII No. 1

The independent student newspaper of the Northeastern community

September 20, 2018

Bostonians rally for trans rights By Bridgid Chandler

S

News Correspondent

upporters of a ballot measure protecting transgender people from discrimination held a rally Sunday in Copley Square to start the final push to pass the referendum 50 days before the election. Question 3 on the ballot will ask voters whether they would like to keep a bill passed in 2016 protecting people from discrimination in public places based on

their gender identity. “Massachusetts was the birthplace of marriage equality and it must be the firewall against the spread of discrimination,” said Kasey Suffredini, the co-chair and president of strategy for Freedom for all Americans, a group working to uphold the bill. “If we lose here, we will see this fight in every state across the country. So we’ve got to win this one for our commonwealth, and we’ve got to win this one for our country.”

The organization opposing the bill, Keep Massachusetts Safe, calls the bill “the Bathroom Law” on its website and argues that allowing transgender people to use the restroom that aligns with their gender identities would threaten women and children. “This bill would endanger the privacy and safety of women and children in public bathrooms, locker rooms, dressing rooms, and other intimate places

Understanding Ballot Question 3 • Senate Bill 2407 prohibits discrimination based on gender identity in all public places • The bill has been in place since July 7, 2016 • A YES VOTE would maintain the current law • A NO VOTE would repeal this provision of the law

(such as common showers), opening them to whomever wants to be there at any given time, and also to sexual predators who claim “confusion” about their gender as a cover for their evil intentions,” the group’s website says. A study conducted by The Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law found that the Massachusetts law “is not related to the number or frequency of QUESTION 3, on Page 6

Carmen Paulino and her son, Ashton, 14, who is transgender, speak in support of “Yes on Three” Sunday in Copley Square.

Photo by Riley Robinson

ContiNUe students housed in Midtown Hotel By Nicholas Swindell

Northeastern housing director Francis Bourgeois stated in January that it did or a second semester, not intend to renew the students checked into Midtown contract after its the Midtown Hotel, this time as part of ContiNUe, a May 2 expiration date. Detransfer program for legacy spite this, students admitadmits. Despite the univer- ted to ContiNUe received information specifying the sity’s assurance in January that the Huntington Avenue Midtown as their residential option as early as April hotel would only be used 6, according to an email for the Spring 2018 semessent to admitted students ter, the Midtown will now and obtained by The News. host 36 incoming students “As we sit here now, it for their first year in college.

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News Correspondent

is a one-semester thing because of the additional influx of students we had this semester,” Bourgeois said at a January 22 town hall on housing. “There are no plans or discussions as we sit here now, at least at my level, for Midtown to be an option in the future.” As far as the news is aware, the original intent was to only house students in the Midtown Hotel for a single semester.

File photo by Alex Melagrano Students gather in a room in the Midtown Hotel. Unlike other first-year housing, the Midtown Hotel does not have any common rooms.

Bourgeois declined to comment on this story. Northeastern vice president of communications Renata Nyul did not re-

spond to multiple requests for comment on why the university reneged on Bourgeois’ January statement. FIRST-YEAR, on Page 3


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September 20, 2018 by The Huntington News - Issuu