February 21, 2020

The Oberlin Review February 21, 2020

Established 1874

Volume 148, Number 15

Hundreds of students protested President Carmen Twillie Ambar’s recent announcement that the College is “formally considering” contracting with outside vendors, potentially cutting 108 United Automobile Workers union jobs, in the King Building Wednesday.

Photo by Mallika Pandey, Photo Editor

College “Considering” Outsourcing Dining, Custodial Services Nathan Carpenter Editor-in-Chief Employees in Oberlin’s chapter of the United Automobile Workers union are reeling after a Tuesday afternoon email from President Carmen Twillie Ambar to the campus community announced that the College is “formally considering” contracting with outside vendors to provide campus custodial and dining services. If the College ultimately chooses to outsource, more than 100 union employees could lose their jobs on June 30, when the transition would occur.

According to President Ambar’s email, Oberlin currently employs 56 custodial and 52 dining staff; both groups combined represent nearly 70 percent of UAW’s campus workforce. Outsourcing those jobs to outside vendors, rather than directly employing dining and custodial workers, would save the College upwards of $2 million annually, according to President Ambar’s message.

The announcement comes as Oberlin’s administration seeks to respond to a mounting structural budget deficit.

According to senior administrators, the College needs

to cut $17.3 million from its operating budget by 2025.

Currently, 63 percent of the annual operating budget is spent on compensation for all employee groups on campus.

While Vice President for Finance and Administration Rebecca Vazquez-Skillings said that it’s not guaranteed that all 108 custodial and dining staff will lose their jobs, she did add that the College is prepared to negotiate the terms of UAW workers ending their employment at Oberlin.

“Those would be terms that we would need to negotiate with the union,” Vazquez-Skillings said. “It could include things such as providing support with résumé building, identification of potential employment, preparation for interviews … as well as an actual severance amount.”

For Erik Villar, chair of the Oberlin College UAW chapter, President Ambar’s announcement came as a surprise.

“It was just shocking,” Villar said, adding that he learned of the College’s proposal about three hours before President Ambar’s message was sent out. “Especially knowing how the union here has worked with the College in good faith to bargain [in the past].”

UAW member Lisa LaRizza, who works in food service maintenance, shared similar sentiments.

“I left a job — I managed a restaurant for 23 years — to come [to Oberlin] because of the promises for my daughter, and insurance, and retirement, and everything that sounded so good at the time,” LaRizza said. “[The announcement] kind of knocked the wind out of me.”

President Ambar’s email referenced the financial “levers” identified in the One Oberlin report as potential areas to realize institutional savings. Those levers include changes to employee compensation; the College’s financial relationship to the Oberlin Student Cooperative Association; and the financial relationship between the College of Arts and Sciences and the Conservatory. The report was released last spring by the Steering Committee of the Academic and Administrative Program Review, endorsed by the General Faculty shortly thereafter, and approved by the Board of Trustees on June 7, 2019.

The portion of the report concerning employee compensation specifically mentioned potential changes to “the tasks which can be contracted through outside vendors.”

While the One Oberlin report recommended different levers to achieve financial stability for the institution, the decision of which levers to pull — and how hard to pull them — ultimately lies with President Ambar’s senior administration, according to Vazquez-Skillings, meaning that multiple paths toward balancing the budget are possible.

“We could’ve pulled harder on all of these other levers,” Vazquez-Skillings said. “We could have decided that we weren’t going to increase student aid, [for example].

Those were not tradeoffs that we thought were tenable.

Vazquez-Skillings also confirmed that there are no current plans for discussions regarding outsourcing to take place with Oberlin College Office and Professional Employees, the Safety union, or the members of UAW not directly impacted by this week’s proposal.

“Shared Sacrifice” Throughout the announcement of the outsourcing proposal, senior administrators have maintained that all campus groups have been impacted by recent budget cuts.

“Our approach has involved a combination of academic investments and shared sacrifice from people associated with Oberlin to help us focus and strengthen See UAW, page 2

CONTENTS NEWS

OPINIONS

03 #VotingIsSexy Initiative Hopes 05 Outsourcing Proposal Creates to Engage Students Unfair Burden; Cuts Must Come From Elsewhere 04 Superintendent Coffee Chat Offers Opportunity for Meaningful Discussion

06 Art Rental Program Has Students’ Best Interest At Heart

The Oberlin Review | February 21, 2020

THIS WEEK

ARTS & CULTURE

SPORTS

08–09 Tales from the Arb

10 Oberlin Remembers Author and Artist Toni Morrison

15 New Dynamic Duo Steps in to Lead Yeowomen Basketball

11 Emerging Artists to Perform at 16 Current and Former Football WOBIE Fest 2020 Players Express Concern About Team Culture

oberlinreview.org facebook.com/oberlinreview TWITTER @oberlinreview INSTAGRAM @ocreview

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UAW Members Face Potential Loss of 108 Dining, Custodial Jobs 30 of this year. According to Article 2.2 of the contract, the College is able to work with outside vendors under circumstances it deems appropriate. The proposed outsourcing transition would take place June 30, three months prior to the expiration of the current contract.

Vazquez-Skillings says the College has historically utilized this ability.

“We do work with outside vendors,” Vazquez-Skillings said. “If we’re working on a capital project, for example, or if there are maintenance projects that our in-house team is not able to take on, we might subcontract those as well.”

Students wore red to show support for UAW members.

Photo by Mallika Pandey, Photo Editor

Continued from page 1

our mission,” Vazquez-Skillings said. “Examples of these sacrifices include a freeze on faculty wages, benefits reductions, reorganizations within the academic ranks and administrative departments, and more.”

President Ambar acknowledged that employee groups will experience the impacts of financial downsizing differently.

“It’s not that the sacrifice will be equal across every group,” President Ambar said. “I think the way to think about it is: What are the priorities that most serve the mission? And that’s where you try to spend your resources.”

Julie Weir, OC ’86, the references and academic commons assistant at Mary Church Terrell Main Library who also serves as president of OCOPE, says that cuts to compensation for union employees have been undertaken without sufficient input. She added her belief that union employees fill a more important role on campus than administrators acknowledge, and are being asked to shoulder a disproportionate financial burden.

“The administration made it clear going into the AAPR process that they had no interest in listening or talking to the unionized members of the community,” Weir wrote in an email to the Review. “They made little effort to discover the many ways these employees contribute to student success or to make accurate comparisons when costing out union jobs. They made it clear in the report that they see these groups as expendable and intend to make the lowest paid bear a huge cost going forward.”

The One Oberlin report analyzed the compensation of Oberlin’s employee groups as compared to peer employee groups, either regionally or across higher education. The report claimed that College faculty are paid 11 percent less and hourly workers are paid 34 percent more than their respective peer groups. These figures are part of the motivation for reducing union compensation, although union members have in the past called into question the validity of the data used to calculate the hourly worker comparison, claiming — as Weir did — that positions at Oberlin were not compared to equivalent positions at other employers.

Villar said that he recognizes the need to make cuts to employee compensation across the board, and had been prepared to approach the bargaining process with the College with that reality in mind.

“I understand the business aspect of things,” Villar said. “I understand there are certain [places] where you’re going to have to make cuts and those decisions are going to have to be made. But I would have expected that those decisions and those outcomes would have been presented to us and we would have had an opportunity to at least go back and forth and see where we can help out.”

Current UAW Contract The current contract between the College and UAW went into effect Oct. 1, 2017 and is set to expire Sept.

The Oberlin r eview Feb. 21, 2020 Volume 148, Number 15 (ISSN 297–256) Published by the students of Oberlin College every Friday during the fall and spring semesters, except holidays and examination periods. Advertising rates: $18 per column inch.

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Community Reaction At 7:30 a.m. Wednesday morning, more than 60 students — most clad in UAW red — gathered alongside UAW employees in the Austin E. Knowlton Athletics Complex to hear Vazquez-Skillings explain the College’s proposed decision. Vice President and Dean of Students Meredith Raimondo was also in attendance, although she did not address the crowd.

The meeting was contentious, with many gathered employees discussing the uncertainty and anxiety created by President Ambar’s announcement. Students applauded several statements, including those that expressed frustration over a lack of communication from senior administrators and highlighted the management experience among current UAW employees.

Around 11:45 a.m. the same day, more than 600 Oberlin students — student organizers estimated more than 800 — filled the hallways of King Building to demonstrate outside of the regular General Faculty meeting. They held pro-UAW signs and chanted slogans like “Hey-hey, ho-ho, austerity has got to go,” and “union busting is disgusting.”

College fourth-year and Student Labor Action Coalition Chair Elsa Schlensker felt that the demonstration went well.

“A lot of people organizing the action were fourthyears, people who have been around [campus] organizing spaces for a long time,” Schlensker said. “We wanted to create dialogue between students and workers in ways that [haven’t] existed here ever before, and I really saw that during the planning.”

GF meetings are typically closed to non-members, but Schlensker was allowed to attend along with Villar and UAW member Buffy Lukachko. Normally, the only students in the room are representatives from Student Senate and the Conservatory Council of Students.

“We wanted to have UAW reps in the room to hear the remarks that President Ambar had to say, and to have a chance to respond in front of faculty, and to respond to [President] Ambar directly,” Schlensker said.

Some faculty have already expressed discontent with the administration’s proposal.

“I think it’s shortsighted and callous,” said James Monroe Professor of Politics Chris Howell, an expert in trade union history. “If you have employees who are inevitably going to be paid substantially less, [they] are going to be less invested in the jobs.”

Additionally, alumni have begun to circulate an online petition calling for the administration to reverse their position.

“We stand with UAW Local 2192 and will withhold our financial support from the College until this decision is reconsidered,” the petition, which has already been signed by more than 1,000 alumni, states.

Union Busting?

A core area of disagreement between union supporters and administrators is whether the College’s recommended pathway constitutes an act of union busting. Many signs and chants put together by student protestors used the term, and Villar agreed that the College’s actions would

serve to “diminish” the UAW’s on-campus body.

“Union busting is antithetical to Oberlin’s values,” said College fourth-year Matt Kinsella-Walsh in a studentwritten press release circulated Wednesday evening.

“Willingly impoverishing over a hundred longtime employees and their families means that, at the end of the day, the values we claim to stand for are hollow.”

Howell largely agreed that the College’s recommendation would, in practice, lead to union busting. He also added that, in his view, the College could have taken a different approach to the conversation about reducing employee compensation.

“If the announcement yesterday had been, ‘The College needs to save $2 million in its contract with the UAW and it proposes to begin an extended period of negotiations in order to see whether $2 million [in savings] can be achieved,’ that would not be union busting,” Howell said.

“If the College’s announcement is: ‘We intend to remove 70 percent of the membership of the UAW chapter from that chapter, that we are going to outsource those jobs so they will no longer be part of the UAW, … I think that comes pretty close to union busting.”

President Ambar disagreed, saying that the decision is not meant to directly target union workers.

“I reject that characterization, because this has nothing to do with eliminating the unions,” President Ambar said.

“We’ll still have unionized employees here; we’ll still have UAW employees here. It is also possible that potential vendors would employ a unionized workforce.”

New Vendors The nature of President Ambar’s announcement left UAW workers and other community members unclear about the finality of the College’s proposal to outsource dining and custodial services.

“In my mind, it’s kind of been set in stone,” Villar said, referencing the meeting at which he had initially learned of the proposed plan, hours before it was announced to the campus community. “When we were presented with the information, at first it was told to us that [the College] will no longer be needing these services.”

Villar said that the message Vazquez-Skillings shared with UAW workers in the Wednesday morning forum was different from the information he received in the more private meeting Tuesday morning.

“When she got to Knowlton [she] said something different, that they’re willing to work [with the union],” Villar said. “It was just kind of contradictory … so there’s been confused messages with certain members.”

In an interview with the Review, Vazquez-Skillings said that the College has not predetermined an outcome to the upcoming bargaining process. Similarly, during the gathering at Knowlton, she said that the College has not yet selected vendors.

Villar, Howell, and others are concerned that potential outside vendors would not offer sufficient wages and other benefits to incentivize a stable workforce.

“I feel that bringing in somebody at $12 or $13 an hour, you’re not going to get that same safety [and] comfort of seeing the same person every single day,” Villar said. “The turnaround rate that you’re going to have over time – it’s just going to be astronomical.”

Howell agreed, saying that, in his view, outsourcing would result in much higher rates of staff turnover. He also expressed concerns, shared by other community members, that working with outside vendors could potentially pose a safety risk to students.

“I’m not alarmist by nature, but are we going to be giving key cards to offices and dorm rooms to people who we don’t employ?” Howell said, adding that it was “inconceivable” in his mind that the College would locate

Corrections:

Editors-in-Chief

Nathan Carpenter Katherine MacPhail Managing Editor Ananya Gupta News Editors Anisa Curry Vietze Katie Lucey Opinions Editor Jackie Brant This Week Editor Lily Jones Arts Editors Aly Fogel Jaimie Yue Sports Editor Khalid McCalla Cont. Sports Editors Jane Agler Zoë Martin del Campo Photo Editors Mallika Pandey Sophie Payne Senior Staff Writers Ella Moxley Alica Koeninger

See Students, page 3

Layout Editors

Ads Manager Web Manager Production Manager Production Staff

Kushagra Kar Parker Shatkin Nico Vickers Jabree Hason Sheng Kao Devyn Malouf Drew Dansby Gigi Ewing Olive Hwang Kushagra Kar Arman Luczkow Allison Schmitt Alexa Stevens Nico Vickers

In the Feb. 14 article “Obies Create Inclusive Dating App for Long-Term Relationships,” the Review stated that the app Paire is currently in beta testing. The Paire team is not in beta testing. The team is seeking beta testers. Additionally, the Review stated that creator Kabir Karamchandani built the app to allow them to express their sexuality and relationship preferences. They did not build this app for their own use, and creators will not use the app. The article has been updated online.

To submit a correction, email managingeditor@ oberlinreview.org.

#VotingIsSexy Initiative Hopes to Engage Students

Members of Oberlin’s #VotingIsSexy initiative gather to prepare for the March 17 Ohio presidential primary.

Photo by Mallika Pandey, Photo Editor

Gigi Ewing Production Editor In light of a perceived lack of voter participation among Oberlin students, College fourth-year Eli Kirshner and others saw Ohio’s upcoming presidential primary on March 17 as an opportunity to start a #VotingIsSexy initiative on Oberlin’s campus.

The #VotingIsSexy campaign started in fall 2018 at the University of Michigan.

The project was spearheaded by Stephanie Rowden, associate professor at the Penny W. School of Art & Design, and several of her students. At both UM and Oberlin, #VotingIsSexy aims to close the gap between the number of students who are eligible to vote and the number who actually show up at the polls by reframing voting as a “sexy” activity.

“We’re trying to make voting something that is celebrated and visible on campus, where people don’t feel like …

‘That’s just something adults do,’ or ‘My vote doesn’t have any meaning,” Kirshner said. “Actually, if we [vote] as a collective

… our generation in this coming 2020 election … has outsized potential.”

Working toward this goal, the students involved in the #VotingIsSexy project have taken an energetic approach in galvanizing young voters. #VotingIsSexy members, including Kirshner, College fourth-year DaQuan Williams, Conservatory fourth-year Neko Cortez, and College third-years Jasmine Mitchell and Claudia Olaes were stationed at Stevenson and Lord-Saunders Dining Halls, where they provided voter registration forms and helped guide students through their registration, which ended Feb. 18.

Team members, sporting hot pink #VotingIsSexy t-shirts, have also added a pop of color to the registration process by passing out brightly colored pins with messages such as “Voting Is Sexy” and “Poll Dancer” to newly-registered student voters.

Kirshner hopes that these unusual voting advertisements will inspire curiosity and eventual participation among the student body.

“It starts a conversation,” Kirshner said. “People ask, ‘voting is sexy?’ It kind of throws them off … and it just gets them to think of it in a different way.”

The team is also planning a series of exciting events to boost the project’s visibility on campus. In the weeks leading up to the primary, look out for a line of #VotingIsSexy t-shirts in the Black History Month fashion show and a popup photo shoot on campus. Additionally, to increase voter accessibility on the day of the primary, volunteers will be running a “Voting Is Sexy-mobile” that will pick students up and drop them off at the polls.

#VotingIsSexy does not stand alone in its efforts to expand voter participation on campus.

“We’re part of a much larger coalition,” Kirshner said. “There’s other really great work that’s happening.”

The #VotingIsSexy team meets regularly with several other groups, such as the Oberlin Voter Friendly Campus chapter, the League of Women Voters, and members of the College administration, to discuss outreach strategies and volunteer training. Oberlin appears on a national list of VFC-designated campuses, signifying the institution’s work to develop sustainable, long-term plans through which students can become and remain actively engaged in the electoral process.

“This work is an essential aspect of our VFC efforts that have brought community members, faculty, staff, and students around the same table ‘strategizing to engage students and set clear goals so a path can be created in advance of upcoming elections,’” wrote Adrian Bautista, assistant vice president of student life, in an email to the Review, quoting in part from the VFC website.

Bautista also praised the work the #VotingIsSexy team has been doing across campus.

“A key aspect of any effective campus election engagement project is building excitement and visibility,” Bautista wrote. “The #VotingIsSexy operation that Eli Kirshner and DaQuan Williams are spearheading has our whole Voter Friendly Campus team thrilled and I’m sure it will be infectious across campus.”

The Ohio primary is Tuesday, March 17. Students with questions can visit oberlin.edu/vote.

Students Protest Outsourcing Proposal Continued from page 2

vendors to produce sufficiently highquality services.

For LaRizza, the management experience of any potential vendor is a concern.

“These people that they’re going to hire [won’t have] as much experience [as] I have or expertise that most people have,” LaRizza said.

Vazquez-Skillings said that quality will remain a priority for the institution moving forward.

“We are very early in this process, with many options available to us,” Vazquez-Skillings wrote in an email to the Review. “What is established is our commitment to secure quality services that will allow Oberlin to focus its efforts and resources on the parts of our core mission that we are uniquely qualified to offer. This is an important moment for the institution, and we will proceed down the path that best serves that mission, now and for generations to come.”

On Wednesday morning in Knowlton, Vazquez-Skillings repeated President Ambar’s statement that any potential vendors could also employ a unionized workforce; her statement was met with laughter from the assembled crowd of UAW workers and student supporters.

Next Steps According to Vazquez-Skillings, regardless of what happens next, the upcoming negotiations between the College and UAW will be the most significant in recent memory.

“This may be the first time in recent history we enter into union negotiations specifically regarding terms that will produce this level of savings,” VazquezThe Oberlin Review | February 21, 2020

Security Notebook Thursday, Feb. 13, 2020 1:15 p.m. A student reported the theft of several items from their jacket pocket while at The ’Sco on Feb. 12. The jacket was left on a bench inside The ’Sco. Lost items included miscellaneous keys and wireless headphones.

10:04 p.m. A student reported that the stove in the co-op kitchen at Keep Cottage was expelling gas due to the pilot lights being off. A maintenance technician and the Oberlin Fire Department responded.

Temporary repairs were made and plumbers responded the next morning.

Friday, Feb. 14, 2020 7:25 a.m. Staff reported vandalism in an elevator and two bathrooms in South Hall. Graffiti was written in blue marker on the walls. Photographs were taken, and the area was cleaned.

Saturday, Feb. 15, 2020 3:03 a.m. A student requested a Campus Safety officer to assist a visitor who was ill. The individual was transported from Fairchild House to Mercy Allen Hospital for treatment.

Sunday, Feb. 16, 2020 1:09 a.m. A resident of a Goldsmith Village Housing Unit reported that they were unable to sleep due to loud music. Officers responded to the area and located two parties. One authorized party was advised to turn the music down and complied. Attendees of another unauthorized party were advised the party was ending and were told to leave the area.

1:55 a.m. Officers were requested to assist a student, ill from alcohol consumption, on the third floor of Dascomb Hall. The student was coherent, able to answer all questions asked, and declined medical treatment. The student was escorted to their room for the night.

10:28 p.m. A student-worker reported a bat flying around in the main gym at Warner Center. Officers checked the building, but the bat was not located.

Officers checked again later and were still unable to find it.

Monday, Feb. 17, 2020 Students assembled at King Building Wednesday. Photo by Mallika Pandey, Photo Editor

Skillings said. “Certainly, every three years, we are entering into negotiations with the union. … We’ve had prior negotiations regarding terms with financial impact, but nothing at this level in recent history.”

President Ambar added that it’s possible that employees who lose their Oberlin jobs as a result of outsourcing could find employment with new campus vendors.

“We hope that the potential vendors will take seriously the applications from our employees, and we hope that many, many people will have an opportunity through our vendors [to] still be a part of our Oberlin family,” President Ambar said. However, neither President Ambar nor Vazquez-Skillings were able to guarantee that current UAW workers would be given the opportunity to work with new vendors.

Villar wants to see the College demonstrate more loyalty to its employees.

“A majority of our members … have had generations of family members work here,” Villar said, according to

the Wednesday evening press release.

“To be told out of the blue on a random Tuesday … that these changes would be implemented in less than four months is a slap in our face to everyone here.”

For LaRizza and others, the anxiety caused by President Ambar’s announcement is here to stay.

“It’s just going to be really hard to get through the rest of the year … just to know that the horrible outcome [is coming] at the end,” LaRizza said. “It’s going to be tough for everybody.”

For now, Schlensker is hoping the administration will walk back their proposal.

“I think the ultimate goal is that I would like to see senior administration decide not to go through with outsourcing as of right now,” Schlensker said. “They haven’t officially committed.”

At the Wednesday morning meeting, Vazquez-Skillings said that official communication from the College regarding the outsourcing proposal will be quiet for the next few weeks as the College engages in discussions with Villar and other union leadership.

11:24 p.m. A resident of Talcott Hall reported that there was possibly a bat in their room. Officers responded and checked the room, but could not locate a bat. The student was advised to call again if a bat is spotted.

Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2020 7:01 a.m. Staff at the McGregor Skybar reported extensive damage to the Skybar’s refrigerator and several missing items. After viewing camera footage, officers identified two juveniles. The Oberlin Police Department was notified, and charges will be filed.

2:40 p.m. An officer responded to a report of graffiti in the second-floor restroom in the Carnegie Building. Nonoffensive graffiti was written on the mirrors with blue marker. A work order was filed for cleanup.

Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2020 2:30 a.m. A student reported hearing what sounded like someone screaming just north of Talcott Hall. Officers responded and checked the area, including Tappan Square, but did not observe anything out of the ordinary.

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Ne New wss OFF THE CUFF

Rani Molla, OC ’08, Vox and Recode Data Journalist especially as people are having this strange relationship with truth. I think people are highly skeptical of everything; it’s unclear what things are true or aren’t true. I find that data journalism is a way to break through that noise — it does carry a little more authority.

Rani Molla

Photo courtesy of Rani Molla

Rani Molla, OC ’08, is senior data reporter for Vox and Recode. Her work involves using data, charts, and figures to explain complex tech stories in simple terms. Next week, Molla will visit campus as part of “A Disrupted Media Landscape: Skills, Perspectives, Solutions,” a journalism and media symposium co-hosted by the Review and The Grape. Alongside Aaron Zitner, OC ’84 and news editor for The Wall Street Journal, Molla will present a collaborative data journalism workshop entitled “From Stats to Stories: A Hands-On Data Journalism Workshop.” During the workshop, which will take place Saturday, Feb. 29 at 11 a.m. in Mudd Center 113, participants will get a look behind the scenes of how journalists like Molla and Zitner use data and visuals to craft compelling stories.

More info about the symposium, including a full schedule of the 10 events beginning Monday, Feb. 24, can be found at disruptedmedia2020. com.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Nathan Carpenter Editor-in-Chief Gigi Ewing Production Editor Can you talk a little bit about the role that you think data can play in effective journalism — especially in the 21st century, when we have so many more digital mediums available to us?

I think it’s become an increasingly important way to convey information,

Obviously data can be tricky and difficult to understand and interpret. How do you approach taking what might be a very complex set of data and translating that for a lay audience?

It’s the same advice you’d give to any journalist: Just talk like you would in an elevator, talk like you would to your friend at the bar. Try to make it conversational, try to make it applicable to people’s everyday lives. ‘Keep it simple, stupid’ — that’s the expression they taught us in grad school.

Do you feel like your training in data journalism has shaped the way that you consume media more broadly?

Oh, absolutely. I think about everything in the same terms as I report a story, which is: What is this data source, how is it collected, and what intentions might the people who have collected it had? When I read things, I’m always like, “Is there a data source that would back this up, or contradict this?” It makes me think about the larger context of things more frequently. I read things as if I were reporting them out. You try to find the holes.

Can you give an example of stories you’ve worked on that are illustrative of how you can use data reporting in really cool ways?

I worked with a colleague on this thing called the media landscape and basically it was a product of a lot of other reporting. I’d done a lot of stories that involved a media company, and by that I mean either an internet company that sells you your broadband, or a company like Netflix, or a company like [The Walt] Disney [Company] that’s making streaming media or TV. We decided to do this one project that was just using both of our experiences writing about these

things to draw up what this media landscape looks like. And it was an example of taking things that aren’t necessarily new — I wasn’t breaking any news with it — but I was sort of saying: “Here is the world of media according to me, or to us. Here’s where the streaming companies go, here’s where the big tech companies go, here’s their relationships with each other.”

I keep ending up using this as a reference guide for myself, and lots of other people use it as a reference guide as well. I was trying to keep straight which of these companies work with which ones, which ones are owned by who — and it has become a reporting tool for me, but it’s also become a really important thing for people who are in the industry to sort of understand the space. I think of it as sort of resource journalism.

What directions do you hope data journalism is going to move in the future?

So many different platforms and apps and companies and websites are collecting data, and so we’re generating so much information these days and the more data we generate, the harder it becomes to parse. I think data journalists have to gain tools that help them collect, parse, and sort what’s out there. All these companies are using this data for God knows what — it’s a good way to sort of keep tabs on what’s going on in the world and to keep companies in check.

And then as far as portraying that information, I think there’s room for lots of different types of data journalism. People are doing really amazing interactive things like that.

I do try to err on the side of making things the most simple. I think that people tend to want to make information look as complicated as what they found and to show all the work they put into it, but I think there’s something really beneficial and important about simplifying that information into a really readable, digestible chart. There’s all this interactivity in the world, and I think that, while sometimes it’s useful, you have to remember that you’re doing this as a service so that a larger group of people can understand it.

What’s your reaction to Oberlin launching a new integrative concentration in journalism?

I think that’s fantastic. What was interesting about when I was here [was that] Oberlin had produced so many amazing journalists over the years, and it had done so without having a journalism concentration.

So I think more resources geared towards that is great, especially because Oberlin does produce so many thoughtful, creative people who become journalists. Why not have more training?

That said, journalism is sort of an art of doing. … I was very grateful for my time at the Review, where they just threw me out into the wild — and when you have to do something, you go do something. For better or worse, I created some journalism while I was there, and I learned how to do it by actually doing it. So as long as that “do first” principle is there, where it’s not solely theoretical, it can only be a good thing.

Can you talk a little bit about your plan for the symposium workshop next week?

I’m hoping to illustrate that you can take something as banal or as boringseeming as thousands and thousands of lines in an Excel spreadsheet and come up with a riveting, important story. I don’t know if this is what I’m going to do yet … so maybe caveat this — I was thinking of showing people how you could go through [Federal Election Commission] data on how much people are donating to election candidates. It sounds kind of, you know, “Who cares?” — you just want the totals. But go through … and then you say, okay, where are the companies that I care about in tech for my readership? And then you go in and you start drilling down for people who worked at these companies, who donated to these candidates, you can start playing with the data.

So a lot of times, you can start off with something like a spreadsheet or something that’s straightforward and just spend time with it and follow your curiosity. … So, you can have fun, and you can be curious, and you can be creative all in the confines of an Excel spreadsheet.

Superintendent Coffee Chat Offers Opportunity for Meaningful Discussion

Oberlin City Schools administrators, parents, and community members assembled for the second-ever Superintendent Coffee Chat Thursday evening. The event employed a unique model that uses dialogue and collective brainstorming to discuss potential solutions to problems faced by the district, and was facilitated by volunteers from the College’s Yeworkwha Belachew Center for Dialogue.

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“We’re bringing in some different people, some fresh ideas in a space where people are really willing to share,” said William Baylis, director of curriculum for the district.

The Coffee Chat addressed specific facets of the district’s educational programming, including college and career readiness, special education, gifted programs, and medical wellness. Attendees split up into small groups based on their primary area of concern and engaged in discussion with administrators including Superintendent David Hall and Oberlin High School Principal Chris Frank. YBCD volunteers mediated the breakout sessions and transcribed discussion points; these notes will help serve as guides for the implementation of new policies and programs in the district.

“Our goal [was] to provide a context for all who attend to be able to contribute ideas, ask questions, to be informed,” Ombudsperson Kimberly Jackson Davidson wrote in an email to the Review. “We trust that such opportunities lead to informed voting and motivation for engagement that will benefit the students who are and who will be educated in Oberlin City Schools.”

Bethany Hobbs, a community member with a son in the district, expressed her appreciation for the opportunity to directly interact with high-level district stakeholders.

“I think it is really nice to be able to connect with the administration and feel like we’re being heard as parents and community members,” she said.

Text by Lauren O’Hear Photo by Mallika Pandey, Photo Editor

OPINIONS February 21, 2020

Established 1874

lEttErS tO thE EdItOrS

Alumni Call for OSCA Survey Dissemination

As alumni working in the sciences, we are concerned over Oberlin College’s recent withdrawal from a collaborative research project designed by College third-year Bhairavi Mehra and Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Biology and Environmental Studies John Petersen, OC ’88.

This project, a survey, sought to gather information on student housing and dining experiences to facilitate thoughtful, data-driven decision-making in a time of cultural and financial sensitivity.

Facing tough choices, the College previously expressed in the One Oberlin report a desire to determine, through self-assessment, what is essential and unique to Oberlin College — its vital nature and experience for students.

As scientists, we have dedicated our lives to collaboration, objectivity in truth-seeking, and transparency. We learned this at Oberlin.

We fear the College’s decision not to pursue the assessment undermines the essential Oberlin-ness that it purportedly seeks to preserve and mirrors an alarming disregard for objectivity and suppression of fact in our culture at large.

Mehra and Petersen’s survey was approved by the Institutional Review Board and supported by the Alumni Leadership Council and the Office of Alumni Relations, who agreed to send it to every alumnus in their database. However, as reported in the Review, hours before the survey was to be sent, Oberlin’s administration shut the process down (“Halted Survey Sparks OSCA Concerns,” Feb. 14, 2020).

The survey never went out. No data were collected. We find this outcome unacceptable because our experiences as Oberlin student researchers instilled in us a deep commitment to data-driven, intellectually independent decision-making. The student-faculty research collaborations in which we all partook provided invaluable examples of integrity, rigor, and curiosity set by advising professors, facilitated deep relationships with College faculty and staff, and imbued a sense of belonging within the larger Oberlin community.

These were Oberlin’s gifts to us: the courage and capacity to envision a better world and the skills to create it through rigorous ethical and scientific principles. Since graduating, we have pursued careers in academic science, conservation ecology, recycling innovation, environmental advocacy, affordable housing policy, public service, medicine, and music. These creative and mission-driven career paths align with Oberlin’s historic values and the stated goal of the Academic and Administrative Program Review to create a “more just society in a way that meets the needs of current and future generations of young people who are encountering a world that is changing rapidly.”

Time and time again, we have drawn on our education as we’ve gathered, analyzed, synthesized, and applied data to respond ethically and justly to matters of social and environmental concern. Our Oberlin research experiences taught us to collaborate with others in establishing the truth, even when that truth is inconvenient.

Keeping this in mind, we have carefully reviewed Mehra and Petersen’s survey. The survey is designed to build a novel and useful dataset, a qualitative and quantitative record of alumni reflections See Letters, page 6 SUBMISSIONS POLICY

The Oberlin Review appreciates and welcomes letters to the editors and op-ed submissions. All submissions are printed at the discretion of the Editorial Board. All submissions must be received by Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. at opinions@oberlinreview.org or Wilder Box 90 for inclusion in that week’s issue. Letters may not exceed 600 words and op-eds may not exceed 800 words, except with consent of the Editorial Board.

All submissions must include contact information, with full names and any relevant titles, for all signers. All writers must individually confirm authorship on electronic submissions. The Review reserves the right to edit all submissions for clarity, length, grammar, accuracy, strength of argument and in consultation with Review style. Editors will work with contributors to edit pieces and will clear major edits with the authors prior to publication. Editors will contact authors of letters to the editors in the event of edits for anything other than style and grammar. Headlines are printed at the discretion of the Editorial Board. Opinions expressed in editorials, letters, op-eds, columns, cartoons or other Opinions pieces do not necessarily reflect those of the staff of the Review.

The Review will not print advertisements on its Opinions pages. The Review defines an advertisement as any submission that has the main intent of bringing direct monetary gain to a contributor.

The Oberlin Review | February 21, 2020

Volume 149, Number 15

EdItOrIal BOard EdItOrS-IN-ChIEf

Nathan Carpenter

Katherine MacPhail

MaNagINg EdItOr Ananya Gupta

OPINIONS EdItOr Jackie Brant

Outsourcing Proposal Creates Unfair Burden; Cuts Must Come From Elsewhere After reading Tuesday afternoon’s announcement from President Carmen Twillie Ambar and engaging in conversation with many campus stakeholders, we firmly oppose the College’s proposal to contract with outside vendors to provide campus dining and custodial services. We support the 108 unionized United Automobile Workers employees who could lose their jobs as a result of this proposal and strongly advocate for Oberlin’s administration to identify another area in which to find the approximate $2 million in annual savings that this decision is expected to bring in.

It is important to remember that the financial imperative driving the administration’s proposal to outsource more than 100 jobs is indisputable and imminent, not manufactured. It is a fact that Oberlin must find a way to eliminate $17.3 million from its annual budget by 2025, and that both the scale and timeline of such budget cuts will put enormous pressure on all parts of campus. It is also a fact that 63 percent of Oberlin’s operating budget is spent on employee compensation, and so, understandably, a significant portion of those cuts will directly impact employee groups across campus.

We are also aware that using outside vendors for dining and custodial services would put the College approximately $2 million closer to achieving its five-year goal. We do not question the truth of that statement nor do we question the need to save that money in order to address Oberlin’s structural budget deficit and make investments in its future.

Where we disagree with President Ambar and her senior staff, however, is in their belief that cutting 108 UAW jobs is worth the money the institution would save. We believe that Oberlin should exercise a stronger commitment to the people who have given so much to this community, and we have serious concerns that outsourcing dining and custodial services would not actually improve the student experience.

We also know that Oberlin has other options. Our financial circumstances are urgent, but not yet dire.

There are five years to find $17.3 million, and while it’s better to find as much of that amount as early as possible, it’s also true the College doesn’t need every cent tomorrow, or even by this summer. We are aware that there are other financial “levers,” to borrow a term used by administrators, that could be pulled harder to reduce the burden on unionized employees.

Among those additional levers, as identified in the One Oberlin report released last spring by the Steering Committee of the Academic and Administrative Program Review, are the College’s financial relationship with the Oberlin Student Cooperative Association; compensation for other employee groups, including faculty and administrative staff; and the Conservatory, which brings in a relative loss of money per student as compared to the College of Arts and Sciences.

Administrators have made clear that all of these levers are being pulled to some degree in the interest of financial sustainability; this is how they have arrived at their language of “shared sacrifice.” However, it is clear to us that the proposal to outsource dining and custodial services pulls the hourly worker compensation lever too far — especially as hourly workers are more vulnerable than other employee groups on campus with regard to job mobility.

Further, it is important to note that the UAW has recognized the need to reduce worker compensation across the board in order to achieve financial stability for the institution. UAW Chair Erik Villar has expressed his willingness to make concessions at the bargaining table because it is evident to all members of this community — including UAW — that despite being a nonprofit, the College needs to make financial compromises in order to have a future.

Given Villar’s perspective, it’s clear to us that some portion of the approximately $2 million that would be saved via outsourcing — although certainly not all of it — could be realized through the regular bargaining process, an avenue that wouldn’t cause 108 members of our community to fear unemployment come July.

The College’s goal should be to reduce UAW employee benefits, as it has already done with other employee groups, rather than pursuing a drastic course of action before the institution’s hand is truly forced.

We are not naive to the fact that reducing employee benefits rather than terminating or outsourcing positions will not yield the same $2 million toward the College’s financial stability. However, students have a great deal of respect for union workers and value their past and ongoing contributions to the Oberlin community — so much so that we must be willing to accept the consequences of standing by them in this difficult time.

Students must be willing to make trade-offs. Other levers will need to be pulled further in order to achieve the necessary financial outcome without placing the brunt of the burden on these employees. This might mean a smaller OSCA; it could mean further cuts to the Conservatory. We hesitate to speculate too specifically because we do not have access to the full data, but we do feel it’s important to acknowledge that standing by our pro-union values and opposing outsourcing will come at a cost. It’s a cost this Editorial Board believes is worth it, and we are heartened to see our fellow students largely viewing the trade-off in the same way.

As students, we completely support President Ambar and the College’s efforts to prioritize education as the primary mission that drives our institution. Oberlin is meant to educate young adults and launch them into the world; we do not want to sacrifice that mission in any way. We understand that budget cuts are necessary in order to maintain that mission into the future.

While education is the central principle that guides our decision-making, our core mission is supported and surrounded by an infrastructure of values. Chief among these values is our responsibility to take care of one another, as well as our commitment to social justice — including our firm belief in the strength of workers and the power of unions. We are not condemning frugality. We just believe harming invaluable members of our community, sacrificing key values that support our core mission, is not the way to achieve it.

Editorials are the responsibility of the Review Editorial Board — the Editors-in-Chief, Managing Editor, and Opinions Editor — and do not necessarily reflect the views of the staff of the Review.

5

Opi n ions

Letters to the editors (cont.)

Continued from page 5

on the consequences of all housing and dining options available at Oberlin (i.e., dorms, cafeterias, Program Houses, Village Houses, and the Oberlin Student Cooperative Association, among others) for their intellectual, professional, social, and ethical development. The survey does not manifest bias in favor of OSCA at the expense of the College’s housing and dining options. Rather, it presents an opportunity for alumni to reflect on how all available housing and dining options contributed to their experience at Oberlin.

We affirm, based on our experience as Oberlin alumni and professionals in STEM, that this survey appears to be a systematic, unbiased, and well-designed instrument. Further, we disagree with the College’s apparent contention that receiving and completing this survey would alienate alumni; in contrast, we assert that it presents an opportunity for alumni to celebrate and deepen their connection to Oberlin.

We hope that the decision to not support this survey was made in good faith, but we fear that, in blocking its dissemination, Oberlin’s leaders are contributing to a larger national climate in which decision-making is motivated by optics rather than facts. Oberlin’s present moment is, and will remain, one characterized by tough financial and organizational choices. Some of these choices will be hard. But the difficulty of these looming decisions is all the more reason for decision-makers to first establish a foundation of robust data collection and analysis.

The project undertaken by Mehra and Petersen brings together some of Oberlin’s most valuable assets: exceptional students and faculty willing to apply their intellectual rigor to gathering unbiased data; tireless staff dedicated to collaboration and inclusion; and engaged, truth-seeking alumni eager to support the College in moving toward a secure future. Could the explanations offered for the last-minute suppression of this survey — that survey distribution would interrupt the alumni-engagement strategy, or that decision-makers already have enough information — justify throwing away the unique opportunity this research offers? Do those involved in suppressing the survey believe the risks of cluttering an alumni’s inbox, or perhaps of receiving data that is inconvenient, outweigh the academic, strategic, and ethical benefits that this survey could create?

We call on Oberlin’s decision-makers to allow the survey to be disseminated immediately; receive a formal briefing on the survey’s results; and commit to a cross-disciplinary stakeholder engagement process, with tangible participation from students, faculty, and alumni, in order for any relevant decisions to be adequately informed by data.

Our alma mater’s administrators now find themselves at a crossroads. Oberlin bills itself as one of the leading producers of Ph.D. candidates in the country. Given the precarious status of scientific values in 2020 America, we can think of no more critical a time for Oberlin to realize the principles of collaboration, transparency, and unbiased truth-seeking it so effectively instills in those it educates.

– Erika Brandt, OC ’13 Shane Clark, OC ’14 Jake Grossman, OC ’08 Casey Lee, OC ’12 Nathaniel Meyer, OC ’09

6

Art Rental Program Has Students’ Best Interest At Heart The Art Rental program at the Allen Memorial Art Museum has, for the past 80 years, been an important aspect of the AMAM’s offerings and a cherished tradition. Hence, it was with great interest that I and other museum staff read the opinion piece “Art Rental Needs to Address Accessibility Concerns,” published in The Oberlin Review Feb. 14, while noting with dismay that many fewer students than normal took part in Art Rental on Feb. 15, leaving the museum with 86 unrented works out of 395. Last September, following advertising by the Art Students Committee, approximately 35 percent more students than average came to the event, with those at the end of the line going away empty-handed (“New Approach to Art Rental Attracts Record Number of Students,” The Oberlin Review, Sept.

20, 2019).

As ever, the AMAM maintains a democratic first-come, first-served practice regarding Art Rental. When the doors open at 8 a.m., those first in line enter; this continues until no more people wish to rent, the works are all rented, or until noon, whichever comes first. Over the years, modifications have been instituted to improve access to the program for all students.

Years ago, Art Rental occurred on a weekday; it was moved to Saturday so as not to compete with classes. More recently, the AMAM made images of most of the works available online through our eMuseum database, so that anyone may preview them. Before the arrival of card access — which now allows students self-access to the Clarence Ward ’37 Art Building — each February, Campus Safety officers opened the building so that those who wished to arrive Friday night could stay indoors. And about a year ago, to facilitate students’ installation of their chosen works, the AMAM began providing different types of hanging hardware suited to the various College residence walls.

We understand that one of the biggest concerns the ASC has expressed is a lack of knowledge among other students about the program. We would be glad for feedback on how to ameliorate this, as the AMAM already advertises it via our website and social media, the OC Events Calendar, and the Campus Digest. We also note that while dedicated students have always been first in line when the doors open, an important aspect of the program is that it is open to the entire Oberlin community.

At 10 a.m. last Saturday, when there was no line and a few Oberlin city residents had already rented, 150 works remained, including by such artists as Kollwitz, Oldenburg, Rosenquist, Rouault, and Stella, along with manuscript leaves, Chinese calligraphy,

and Japanese prints. Some students who arrived later expressed frustration with what they perceived to be a complicated process of list-making and check-in times, noting its complexity may have kept away others.

We acknowledge the commitment and creativity of the ASC and applaud their interest in making the wait for the doors to open more fun through such activities as a costume contest and screen-printing, as well as the provision of warm beverages. We also thank them for including, on the poster they produced about the list and in the check-in process, the comment “you can still arrive mid-morning and (most likely) still receive artwork.”

But we wonder if this semester’s check-in system unintentionally made participating in the program appear more onerous. We would humbly put forth that students might simply do what many generations before them did: Those who are super-motivated to be among the first in the building arrive as early as they wish with fellow Art Rental die-hards, preserving the camaraderie the writers of the Feb. 14 Review article rightly note occurs, while those who want to rent but are not as motivated to be among the first in line arrive Saturday morning and simply take the next spot. The diehards may wish to self-create a list, memorializing their order of arrival.

The AMAM does not want to get into the minutiae of list creation now, anymore than it ever has — which is never. But the process above is what seems to have worked for many years and accords with our commitment to making the program open to all through our first-come, first-served practice.

A key aspect of the program has been that renters may rent two works.

Each September, with the excitement of the new semester — and for firstyears, the newness of the program overall — as well as relatively nice weather, the collection routinely sells out. In February, however, works are almost always left over. Given that, and the additional time (double for choosing, registration, and wrapping) and cost (double for the wrapping materials) that would be incurred in allowing renters only to rent one work at a time, the museum does not plan to make a change to the two-work limit at this point. Last week, by 10:15 a.m. with no line, we allowed three works to be rented, and with 100 works left at 11 a.m., up to four.

In conclusion, we simply note that though the opinion piece stated that “Art Rental … is completely student-run,” it is only the recent phenomenon of creating and managing a list that is student-run. The program itself, for 80 years, has been run by AMAM staff. All of us at the museum thank both the writers of the recent piece and the ASC; we know they feel passionately that Art Rental is an important Oberlin tradition, and have the best interests of the program and their fellow students at heart — sentiments with which we heartily concur.

We look forward to working with students and other community members to make sure that everyone who wishes to participate can do so.

– Andria Derstine John G. W. Cowles Director Allen Memorial Art Museum

Living Wage and Health Care for UAW Workers Proves Urgent President Carmen Twillie Ambar, Oberlin College’s first Black president and just the second female president, shared with us all an impressively argued, 900word announcement titled “Dining and Custodial Negotiations,” which reported that the College has proposed to, very shortly, cut every single one of its custodians and dining hall workers without warning, unceremoniously — a Trumplike “Get out of here, you’re all fired!”

President Ambar’s defense of her actions is quite solidly based upon One Oberlin, which is the name of the final report produced by the Academic and Administrative Program Review. The president offers an unassailable argument for the protection of the College’s core value: that of “educating our students for lives of meaning,” as she wrote in the announcement.

These cuts are projected at some time in the future to generate more than $2 million a year in savings. Moreover, the College holds that, although it might have to pay Gibson’s Bakery an astounding award once approaching $50 million — perhaps a lot more if it loses its appeal — these firings have nothing to do with the trial’s outcome.

The declaration strains credulity far too much because just $2 million of that $50 million would produce the savings expected from all these job eliminations, saving the jobs of many Blacks, people of color, women, et cetera — all of whom, though now treated, if not actually viewed, as expendable, have always been as loyal to Oberlin as any other class or section of the College. They are, indeed, our most vulnerable.

The president is absolutely right to ensure that educating our students for meaningful lives remains sacrosanct.

Surely, all alumni and current students would unhesitatingly do all we can to help those less fortunate among us, so near to us. It’s the least we can do to breathe life into our words about “educating our students for lives of meaning.”

Would the president at least ask our Board of Trustees to reconsider the employee cuts if the College wins its appeal and does not have to pay the full $44 million to Gibson’s? You are in no position to demand, but ask.

But regardless of the outcome, would the president at least ask our Board of Trustees not to hire any vendor who will not guarantee that their employees will be paid a living wage and receive health care?

Again, you are an employee and can’t demand, but you can ask your employers to hold the candle high in support of “educating our students for lives of meaning.”

What is the College’s core value — not just our students’ — if not a willingness to stand for a living wage and health care for any human being, but especially for those eager to clean our toilets and cook our food?

– Booker C. Peek Emeritus Associate Professor of Africana Studies

Ohio Trans Health Care Policy Will Harm Trans Youth Abigail Kopp Contributing Writer Republican representatives Ron Hood of Asheville and Bill Dean of Xenia introduced the so-called “Protect Vulnerable Children Act” to the Ohio Statehouse on Feb. 11. While the name has positive connotations of protecting innocent youth, this could not be further from the truth.

The tricky title is just another attempt by congressional Republicans to both confuse liberals and persuade conservative voters into supporting a heinous, harmful bill.

If passed, doctors could be charged with a third-degree felony for attempting to provide gender-affirming medical care to transgender minors.

Hood explained his reasoning behind introducing this bill stating: “My number one concern, by far and away, is the irreversible nature of these procedures. These procedures — most of them — lead to sterilization.

And these things are not reversible.”

Let me start my opposition with some fact-checking: Most gender-related medical assistance for trans youth does not come in the form of invasive surgery, but instead through “puberty blockers,” which help delay characteristics that come with puberty by suppressing the body’s release of sex hormones. There are two major means of administering puberty blockers — an injection that one receives every three months or a small implant placed in the upper arm — and both can be provided in a doctor’s office, not an operating room.

According to the Seattle Children’s Hospital, taking puberty blockers should not affect your ability to have a baby in the future. The Mayo Clinic backs up this research by explaining that, “Use of GnRH analogues [puberty blockers] doesn’t cause permanent changes in an adolescent’s body. Instead, it pauses puberty, providing time to determine if a child’s gender identity is long-lasting. It also gives children and their families time to think about or plan for the psychological, medical, developmental, social and legal challenges ahead. If an adolescent child stops taking [puberty blockers], puberty will resume.”

Furthermore, the benefits of puberty

blockers are both numerous and significant.

According to the Mayo Clinic, these benefits include: improving mental well-being; reducing depression and anxiety; improving social interactions and integration with other kids; eliminating the need for future surgeries; and reducing thoughts or actions related to self-harm. According to a study by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, about 1.8 percent of high school students identify as transgender — 34 percent of which have attempted suicide over the past year.

Alternatively, a different survey found that out of 20,000 transgender adults, the adults who received gender-related medical treatments in their youth were less likely to experience suicidal thoughts. Many doctors who provide treatments for transgender youth are well aware of these positive outcomes from treatments and consider this bill a breach of the Hippocratic Oath they must take. Dr. Scott Leibowitz, a psychiatrist and the medical director of behavioral health with the THRIVE Gender Development Program at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, explained this by stating: “It’s a double standard to completely withhold a form of known beneficial medical interventions.”

Besides the abundant benefits that are experienced as a result of transition-related medical treatments and the serious negative consequences that are faced by those without access to these treatments, I oppose this legislation on the same grounds that I oppose anti-abortion laws: because they take away one’s autonomy. How someone chooses to alter their body should be completely up to them — not politicians.

I’m also upset and concerned because this bill was not created in isolation. This transphobic type of legislation has been appearing across the country. At least 10 other states have introduced similar bills: Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Tennessee. Thankfully, South Dakota’s bill was rejected on Feb. 10 and was even met with some Republican opposition. Hopefully, Ohio will follow in South Dakota’s footsteps, but in the meantime, we must do our part: Call your representatives and vote in 2020.

Let’s Talk Accessibility Zoë Luh Contributing Writer

Accessibility: one of Oberlin’s favorite words. You don’t even need to spend a full day on campus to hear faculty and students, alike, use the word in classrooms, dining halls, coops, and at events. While the apparent widespread concern for disabled people is wonderful, it’s also false and misplaced. I want to talk about the way accessibility is discussed and how it actually works against the disabled community, both at Oberlin and beyond.

I was recently in a meeting and the topic of inaccessibility was brought up. As a person with disabilities, you might think I would be excited, but my automatic reaction was a feeling of frustration and defeat. The conversation centered on inaccessibility of the meeting itself, because the location wasn’t announced until five minutes before it started. While this kind of situation can be inaccessible to people like me who can’t enter certain buildings, that was not the focus of the discussion. Rather, the word accessibility was co-opted to describe a minor inconvenience to the general population.

I often hear accessibility used flippantly in conversations to describe minor inconveniences or issues. However, I rarely hear it The Oberlin Review | February 21, 2020

used to discuss broader issues that are harmful to people with disabilities. Yes, things like announcing the room ahead of time are important, but not important enough to divert attention from larger accessibility issues. The way accessibility is used as a buzzword to gain points for being “woke” shows a fundamental lack of care and understanding of disability and disabled people.

We need to talk about institutional ableism, from which Oberlin is not exempt. There are accessibility problems at Oberlin that are harmful and immoral, such as substandard living conditions, food insecurity, and an understaffed Office of Disability Resources, to name a few. Leaving these problems out of discussions on accessibility directly harms the disabled community at Oberlin.

If you don’t care about disabled people, then don’t pretend that you do. Using terms that carry weight for superficial concerns trivializes vital accessibility issues. Playing into fake-woke narratives actively causes harm by concealing systemic oppression through performative care.

We need to find a way to deal with problems without leveraging disability. If you’re going to talk about our community, then talk about our concerns and how we can work together to mitigate them.

NEDA Week Reminds Students to Be Mindful Rachel Choi Contributing Writer Editor’s note: This piece contains mention of eating disorders and associated behaviors.

Many who experience eating disorders suffer in silence. Eating disorders can lead to feelings of unworthiness, hopelessness, and loneliness. When coping with an eating disorder, your mind can convince you that you are not sick enough and that things have to be worse before you can reach out for help and support.

The National Eating Disorder Association offers programs and services such as an online screening tool, a helpline, and walks for fundraising and advocacy. The organization’s website also has search features to find treatment, support groups, and research studies. Each year, NEDA dedicates a week to raising awareness about eating disorders and encouraging discourse to destigmatize and combat the stereotypes around them.

This year, National Eating Disorder Awareness Week is Feb. 24 – March 1. The week is themed “Come As You Are: Hindsight 20/20.” It encourages individuals to reflect on their journey with self-acceptance and acknowledge the heavy stigma around eating disorders. This coming week is all about inclusivity, as well as recognizing that everyone’s experiences are valid, no matter where they are in their stages of recovery. It’s about learning to accept yourself and make peace with your body.

We need to talk more about eating disorders. People need to be aware of the symptoms and signals early on, to recognize when friends or family display red flags, and to remember that it is not shameful to be struggling.

Anorexia has the highest mortality rate of any mental illness, and all eating disorders are accompanied with severe and damaging side effects. Binge eating disorder is the most common eating disorder in the United States.

Every 62 minutes, at least one person dies as the result of an

eating disorder. Eating disorders do not discriminate based on sex, gender, race, age, socioeconomic group, or size. Yet eating disorders are often dismissed as insignificant.

There are many barriers to obtaining a diagnosis, such as limited access to health care and lack of knowledge on the part of doctors. Even then, the diagnostic criteria for eating disorders are incredibly narrow and specific. Without a diagnosis, individuals may feel invalidated and be denied insurance coverage for treatment. On top of all this, stigma exists as a barrier that deters individuals from seeking help.

The system fails so many people.

An eating disorder is not a body type, shape, weight, or a particular Body Mass Index.

People should not feel like they have to justify themselves and their illness because they deserve to get help no matter what.

Who the person is matters more than how they look. The path to self-love is difficult, especially in a world where self-criticism is so normal. Recovery is an unbelievably challenging process to navigate, but one that’s worth its darkness. It is not linear, but it becomes more beautiful the longer you stick with it.

We at Oberlin can do better.

We need to be more mindful of what we say, because casual comments can be triggering.

We do not need to label foods as “good” or “bad,” nor do we need to list the calorie counts directly next to the name of the foods on dining hall menus. We need to stop the fatphobia here on campus.

Oftentimes, Oberlin students tend to brag about not prioritizing nutrition or forgetting to eat.

They compete to be that person with the most strenuous schedule. Food is non-negotiable. We need to avoid bragging about disordered habits and instead be mindful of the messages we send to ourselves and those around us.

Visit nationaleatingdisorders. org and use its screening tool to find resources available to you.

Nationaleatingdisorders.org helpline: (800) 931-2237.

COMIC Athina Apazidis, Staff Cartoonist

7

Tales from the Arb

Text by Nico Vickers, Layout & Producti Layout by Lily Jones, This Week Editor

About 50 acres of picturesque trees, water reservoirs, walking paths, and grassy hills: This is our Arboretum. Deep in ernmost reaches of Oberlin’s campus, the Arb is an essential part of the College’s landscape. So many of us have h emotional, or memorable experiences in our awesome campus woods. Featured this week, in honor of our beautiful your reading pleasure, are just a few of these stories.

Rachel Serna-Brown, College second-year The second semester of my first year, I took a photography class. Our first assignment was to choose any place on- or off-campus and photograph it. I chose to photograph the Arb and decided to have three of my closest friends come along. It had snowed a couple of days before so I tried to capture the serenity of the Arb, while also focusing on including the student experience by having my friends in the background of all of my shots.

This turned out to be one of my favorite assignments, as I had a chance to capture the Arb in all of its glory while also having a fun photoshoot with my friends.

Weekly Events

Lyala Khan, College fourth-year Stripped and jumped in the Arb water at 4 a.m. on a super cold February night. It was fun!

Pearse Anderson, College fourth-year

I ventured to the Arb a year or two ago for a themed gathering that ended up being quite Thirty or so people huddled by one of the old and tried to organize a spooky talent show, b wanted to volunteer to perform. People howle unison and, finally, I signed up to read a sho wrote about a post-apocalyptic Sephora. Eve ed down and I read my scary story in the dar College fourth-year Molly Gump gave me a l pliment that would stick with me for years. Th gatherers stumbled into the woods and prom events, but I never heard from them again.

Saturday, Feb. 22

Sunday, Feb. 23

Look Black At It: 50 Years of Fashion This year’s Black History Month fashion show will highlight some of the unique styles that have influenced fashion over the last 50 years.

The show seeks to celebrate Black beauty and culture, as well as reject typical beauty standards in the industry.

8–10 p.m. // Root Room, Carnegie Building

Tablao Flamenco: Sefardi A traditional flamenco performance featu Ladino (Judeo-Spanish language) music a discussion of the Jewish influence in flamen 2–3 p.m. // Johnson House

ion Editor

n the southhad wild, Arb and for

a werewolfe strange. d reservoirs but no one ed a lot in ort story I eryone quietrk. Afterward, lovely comhe werewolf mised more

uring and nco.

Jessica Norris, College first-year

Ian Ruppenthal, College fourth-year

The Arb is easily my favorite place in Oberlin. When I first moved here for Orientation, I remember feeling completely overwhelmed. I didn’t know anyone, I was insanely homesick, and I kept getting lost trying to find my way around campus. I started taking walks around the Arb every afternoon to escape my daily stress and find somewhere peaceful. Taking my time exploring all the little trails and watching the season start to change helped Oberlin feel like home.

It was the end of Winter Term in my [third] year. Looking back I know, but at the time I was unaware that I was nearing the end of a relationship I’d been in since [first] year. My then-partner had left campus to deal with some personal issues and was going to come back to get his things, then leave for the semester. I realized I was about to be at Oberlin without a partner for the first time since first semester of [first] year.

Now that I’ve settled into my life here, the Arb is my favorite place to go with friends. One day, a few friends and I decided to play hide-and-seek there the weekend before finals. Hiding in the trees, hoping to not get found, brought back a childish euphoria that helped me escape the finals week stress, and take a break from the endless hours I spent in Mudd Center trying to understand molecular orbital theory.

In the evening, amidst a snowstorm, I went out with one friend and a few acquaintances to go sledding in the Arb. I was not dressed warmly enough, and the only thing on my person besides my phone was a bottle of Malibu dark rum. It was a crazy amount of snow and I remember not being able to feel my hands or feet, knowing I should go inside. However, I’d call the experience as a whole cathartic, and I remember feeling like I was entering a new Oberlin. When I look back on that period of my life, I see it as the beginning of a chapter that started in a pretty low place but, by the end, I have never felt better about myself or my time at Oberlin.

Tuesday, Feb. 25

Thursday, Feb. 27

Journalism Symposium: Science Journalism, Global Health, and the Environment Join Sonia Shah, OC ’90, for a lecture on her work as a science journalist and what she learned from reporting on the frontlines of epidemic outbreaks, deadly pharmaceutical drug trials, and international climate migration. A full list of Symposium events can be found at disruptedmedia2020.com 4:30-5:30 p.m. // Hallock Auditorium

Gendered Citizenship: Understanding Gendered Violence in Democratic India Join Natasha Behl, assistant professor at the School of Social & Behavioral Sciences at Arizona State University, for a talk on gender, race, and democratic equality.

4:30–6 p.m. // Norman C. Craig Lecture Hall, Science Center

A r t s & C u lt u r e

ARTS & CULTURE February 21, 2020

Established 1874

Volume 148, Number 15

Oberlin Remembers Author and Artist Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison International Day of Remembrance last Tuesday.

Alice Koeninger Senior Staff Writer Only a few weeks after the beloved writer and Lorain native Toni Morrison passed away last August, Professor of Studio Art and Africana Studies Johnny Coleman began planning an event to commemorate Morrison’s first birthday after her death.

The culmination of Coleman’s ef-

forts was a nine-hour remembrance service hosted by the Oberlin College President’s office. The event turned out to be a huge collaborative effort, with support from Africana Studies, the Art department, the Lorain County Community Foundation, the Toni Morrison Society, and more. In an interview, Coleman singled out Director of Audiovisual Services Leslie Joseph and Digital Media Engineer

Photo by Sophie Payne, Photo Editor

Kyle Hartzell for their contributions.

While organizing the event, Coleman reached out to everyone he could think of who might want to give a tribute to Morrison.

“My intention was to set up a dynamic possibility for people to reach from wherever they were to that space, [so that the event] was not limited by geography,” Coleman said.

He made announcements in

church, at barbershops and barbecues, contacted the Cleveland Public Library and the Ohio Center for the Book, and talked to gatherings of pastors from all over Lorain County.

Associate Professor of Africana Studies and Comparative American Studies Meredith Gadsby was instrumental in contacting the founders of the Toni Morrison Foundation, many of whom sent in recorded reflections about what Morrison means to them.

At the service, participants made tributes in many different forms: reading excerpts of her work, speaking about how Morrison influenced them, dancing, or giving other performances. The whole event was framed by a slideshow of photos of the Oberlin bench from the Bench by the Road Project, which the Toni Morrison Society began in 2006 to provide historical markers and dedications commemorating the history of slavery.

Coleman and Professor Emeritus of Dance and Africana Studies Artist-in-Residence Adenike Sharpley, who is a Santeria Priestess, built and activated an altar under the bench that called to the Yoruba keeper of the crossroads, Eshu Elegba, in order to form a connection with Morrison, now an ancestor. This altar was recreated on either side of the projection screen, with the number of flowers increasing throughout the day to give the sense that the altars were active and growing.

In front of the podium were four speakers in wooden house-like structures that each played a different, See Tribute, page 12

The Body Behind the Art: Figure Models Discuss The Job Aly Fogel Arts & Culture Editor Walking through an art museum, it’s easy to find the names of the artists whose work hangs on the walls, but it’s rare that a museum-goer can name the models depicted in the artwork. Figure models serve as muses for artists, visual references that both the creator and the viewer appreciate, but these models are rarely given credit for their work.

This is especially true for women of color, who have historically been misrepresented by white, male artists.

In the Oberlin art community, figure models are often Oberlin students modeling for their peers in Studio Art classes. Some of these students also model for community classes at the Firelands Association for the Visual Arts. There are still racialized and gendered power dynamics at play in the studio art classroom, but many models describe a positive work environment.

“It’s so funny, I look up and I see that everyone’s still watching me, and I kind of forget why everyone’s looking at me,” said College fourth-year Peri Levin about her experience as a figure model for an Oberlin art class.

As an Art History major, Levin explained that she was interested in figure modeling because it allowed her to understand the studio side of the Art department better, and she also appreciated the high pay rates. For many students, modeling is just a campus job albeit a strange one.

“It’s refreshing to walk into a situation and know exactly what you have to do and be able to do it,” said College second-year Claire Daily. “Every night it’s the same: You do 10 x 30-second poses, and then a standing pose, and then a sitting pose,

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and then three lying-down poses for longer periods of time. So it becomes very easy after a while. … It’s kind of relaxing.”

However, Daily explains that modeling can become physically uncomfortable. Levin shared Daily’s sentiment that holding poses for long amounts of time can be painful, but she added that the students and professors in her classes are understanding when she needs to take a break or change poses.

“I don’t know if people can ever tell when I’m in pain,” Levin said. “I imagine they kind of can, but I think I also … go to a different place in my head and find a certain grace or calmness because that’s just part of what it is; your hands fall asleep, and your feet fall asleep, and it hurts.”

Because of the uncomfortable and vulnerable nature of the job, it’s important that professors create a safe space for their models. College fourthyear Jack Spector-Bishop, who has been modeling for three years, said that Visiting Assistant Professor of Art Mimi Kato is particularly kind to her models, which Spector-Bishop attributes to Kato’s own experience as a model.

“I feel like people who have modeled just understand how it’s just such a weird scenario when someone who is theoretically your employer is asking you to do things that are physically difficult with your body,” said Spector-Bishop.

Another strange aspect of the job, of course, is the final product. After posing for a class, the models are able to see many versions of themselves through different artistic lenses.

“I like to think of it as like the pre-modern version of when you take 20 selfies at one time and then you would go through them to see which one is good,” Spector-Bishop said.

Some might find this unsettling, but Levin has

learned to love the artwork.

“I don’t even care when I don’t feel like I look attractive in the images,” said Levin. “Whether or not it’s because I just don’t think it looks like me, or because I think it does look like me and I don’t like what [that] looks like necessarily, I still love them.”

Other models are interested in the way that artists see their bodies.

“It’s really neat to sort of see [and] think about how I see my face versus how someone else sees my face,” Daily said.

However, seeing your body depicted by others can lead to some frustrating and uncomfortable moments. Nearly all of the Oberlin models are white, assigned female at birth, and thin. College fourth-year and figure model Lyala Khan said that, because the artists in her class are mostly white, as are the models they have previously used, the students often create a very distorted version of her body.

“Most of the time, people will try to make me look skinnier than I am and also lighter,” Khan said. “And some of that is probably just plain racism, but a lot of it is also a fear of being racist and therefore representing me as a race-less, unidentifiable person as opposed to something that they think I would think is wrong.”

Khan explained that, whether it be at the FAVA or in the Oberlin classroom, white artists are often confused about painting non-white skin tones.

“A professor once told me that they had an incident in a class where a student literally had never used a non-white person as a model and was confused,” said Khan. “Even with white people, it’s not white paint. You need pink or whatever to get that fleshy color. But when you put [in] a little melanin, See Student, page 12

Emerging Artists to Perform at WOBIE Fest 2020 Jaimie Yue Arts & Culture Editor Over the next week, experimental, electronic, and rap genres will collide in WOBIE Fest 2020, a live music festival celebrating underrepresented and up-and-coming artists.

The concerts will kick off tonight at The ’Sco with performances from HOOK and BKTHERULA. White Fence and L’Rain will perform this Saturday, with Nots and DANA closing the festival next Saturday.

College third-year Bridget Conway and College fourth-years Amari Newman and Ben Stevens worked to organize these events. The three are leaders in Oberlin Hip Hop Collective, Student Union Program Committee, and F+ABB: FQTPOC Breaking Boundaries, and they decided to combine forces to host one blowout festival.

While this is Oberlin’s first-ever WOBIE Fest, the festival is actually a revival of live music shows that WOBC hosted throughout the ’80s.

The idea for WOBIE Fest was a collaborative process between Stevens, Conway, and Newman, but a primary catalyst for this effort came from a class called, “Workshop in Music and Media Technologies” that Newman took with Associate Professor of Computer Music and Digital Arts Tom Lopez.

They spent the semester digitizing and archiving tapes from DJs of decades past, all the way to the station’s first shows in 1950. The tapes revealed that WOBC used to be active in hosting live shows, and Newman, along with Conway and Stevens, decided to bring that tradition back.

After coming up with the initial idea in May 2019, they began booking artists in September. Conway booked L’Rain, an electronic and experimental artist

and a personal favorite of Conway’s; Stevens booked White Fence, Nots, and DANA; and Newman booked HOOK and BKTHERULA. For Conway, WOBIE Fest 2020 is a way to further F+ABB’s mission of featuring and supporting femme artists, especially women of color. By performing at Oberlin, artists gain new exposure and are more likely to get paid for their work than they would be at other venues, according to Conway.

“My goal with getting F+ABB involved in WOBIE Fest, was, again, to represent a broader community on campus and to bring a more diverse musical spectrum to the show,” Conway said.

While the idea for WOBIE Fest is taken from decades past, the artists featured in the festival reflect what Conway believes is a shift toward greater diversity in the music scene. The experimental genre, for example, tends to be dominated by white men.

“I think that L’Rain was a particular booking in that their music is very experimental,” Conway said. “[Front artist] Taja Cheek ... has this background in noise music and [dance and electronic music] is doing this really powerful, really emotional new music that I think a lot of the time is represented at Oberlin, but mostly with artists in the Con and in the TIMARA department.”

Stevens noted how F+ABB’s mission intersects neatly with WOBC’s, which is to provide a platform for students who may not feel heard.

“Giving [underrepresented artists] a voice is what WOBC exists for because we have a driven and independently-minded student body,” Stevens said. “The Review and The Grape and other print organizations offer [a specific type of outlet], but this offers a new type of media… [where] we can [broadcast] that same sort of message and give that a voice.”

Similarly, Newman sees WOBIE Fest as an oppor-

tunity to introduce new people to WOBC and encourage others to pitch their own shows.

“We definitely had a lot of applications this past semester and had to turn down a few shows,” Newman explained. “But a lot of the time we turn away shows because it’s just the same thing that we’ve gotten. It’s like, ‘This is the same application we’ve seen 10 other times. We’re not trying to have the same 10 shows.’ And we feel like that probably has to do with the fact that the people applying all come from similar backgrounds, so we’re trying to get people that come from different backgrounds to give us something that we’ve never had on WOBC before.”

Stevens emphasized WOBC’s ability to act “as a springboard for creating programming that represents them beyond just radio.” For example, F+ABB showcases diverse artists in a performance space, not just public radio.

“F+ABB is trying to make sure that artists — like femme artists — who break boundaries are represented on the school’s campus in terms of programming, and we [WOBC] want to make sure it’s represented on the radio, and this way [through WOBIE Fest] we can kind of make sure that both of those things are happening,” Stevens said.

Stevens added that he was nervous, but excited for WOBIE Fest to finally happen after months of planning.

“I’m going to get to see so many artists that I really like and I feel very lucky to have been given the privilege of being put in the position to have this happen,” Stevens said. “And so, hopefully, other people get a lot of drive and feel empowered to feel that ... they can have some more programming in the future and make sure that WOBC is not only a great radio station but is also a relevant cultural force on campus.”

Good Talk Season Five Features President Ambar

Oberlin’s bi-weekly live comedy show Good Talk launched its fifth season on Tuesday night with a live Q&A featuring witty answers from President Carmen Twillie Ambar.

“I love doing the fun things that are happening on campus that students want me to do,” President Ambar said. “I had a chance to do Good Talk before, to be on WOBC a lot for various interviews, so it’s just another way for me to connect with students and to know what’s going on on campus. In this instance, [it’s] to see our really cool sense of humor.”

Besides featuring President Ambar, the show

The Oberlin Review | February 21, 2020

featured an exciting change in format. Good Talk producer and college second-year Juli Freedman explained that last season the show had a talk-show format, but now they’ve transitioned to sketch comedy skits. One of Monday night’s segments was called “HAZING.” In this hilarious, PSA-style sketch, show director College third-year Mary Brody chugged ketchup, squeezing it directly into her mouth.

While the “hazing” sketch may not be directly related to the Oberlin experience, several other Good Talk segments were campus-specific. After

the show, College fourth-year Caitlin Kelley mentioned that she enjoyed the way that Good Talk satirized the everyday life of Obies. Good Talk, Kelly said, is one of the numerous unique events that make a student’s time at Oberlin so memorable.

“I [may be] tired on a Monday night, but I feel like I have to go to every event to just make sure I get the whole Oberlin experience, and Good Talk is definitely part of that,” Kelly said.

Text by Carson Li, Staff Writer Photo courtesy of President Ambar

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A r t s & C u lt u r e ON THE RECORD

Dr. Bernard C. Perley, Cartoonist and Anthropologist So what I’m trying to do, as I identify now, [is ask], “Is there a public out there that would be interested in those particular cartoons?”

Those Having Reservations cartoons are much more oriented toward the Native experience in colonial America: How do we deal with that sense that, our languages, our cultures, our territories are under constant assault?

A [lot of ] Native scholars and community members recognize what’s going on there, and a lot of my friends and allies in academia also recognize what’s going on there. So I’m really careful about that particular series, but I think that it could be [that] the time is right for that to become public as well.

Bernard C. Perley.

Photo courtesy of Bernard C. Perley

Dr. Bernard C. Perley is an associate professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, where he teaches anthropology classes such as American Indian Societies and Cultures and Applications in Anthropology: Native American Oral Traditions. In addition to being a professor, Perley is a cartoonist who often incorporates the experience of Native Americans in his work. On Tuesday afternoon, he gave a talk titled “Having Reservations: Humor and the Arts of Healing,” in which he spoke about the role of comics in resolving trauma through humor.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Nina Auslander What, in your opinion, are the connections between humor, cartoons, and healing?

For me, [humor] is a way of relieving some of the anguish and some of the stress. We don’t do it consciously; it just happens. ... I recognize the value of that healing aspect of humor in our everyday conversations. Now, we’re living in a [world of ] heightened anxiety. ... I think it’s important that we have these outlets where we can relieve some of that kind of tension and anxiety. I recognize that humor, whether it’s standup comedians or late-night show hosts … [is used] to try to relieve some of that pressure.

And if I can do the same thing with my comics when it’s

related to Native American experience in North America, then I feel like what I’ve done is created a community that recognizes [that] we do need some relief and healing from the anxieties that we’re all dealing with.

How did you realize that your comics had the power to heal?

Well, I think that for me, the comics were part of dealing with my own stress. I would go back and think about things and [then] just draw a real quick image, and I can laugh ... and say, “Well, yeah, that was kind of a ridiculous moment.” So I kept doing these [drawings], and once I started showing people that, they would laugh as well.

That’s when I knew that what I was capturing was helpful to others as well. It wasn’t just helpful to me, but others recognize that there was a common ground for them to experience. But at the same time as we were talking about the cartoons, we were able to recalibrate our relationships so that those anxieties or those tense moments wouldn’t be replicated.

Are your cartoons related to your activism, or do you view those as two separate fields that you inhabit?

One series of cartoons is actually being published in the Anthropology News magazine. And so that’s an act of engagement with the anthropology community. The personal series, Having Reservations, is distributed to people who I feel understand the humor and can use it in their classes because they know what I’m trying to accomplish.

Tribute Honors Morrison Continued from page 10

continuous voice throughout the entire event. These voices were recordings of people reading Morrison’s work or testifying to the effect that Morrison had on their lives.

Coleman explained that this stream of voices emulates the auditory environments of blessings at Black churches, conversations at jazz clubs while the musicians are playing, and other traditional Black venues, to situate the memorial in the Black “milieu.”

“Morrison always talked about speaking to ‘[her] milieu’ and the rich, full interior lives of Black people,” he said.

It’s clear that a huge amount of work and planning went into this gesture, but Coleman said that he specifically left gaps of time “up to the creator,” so that people could reflect silently or choose to speak at the spur of the moment.

“Half of what happened I had no idea was going to happen,” he said.

In one of these unexpected moments, Pastor Phyllis Yarber Hogan from the Oberlin House of the Lord Fellowship spoke, although she hadn’t planned to do so. When she got up

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How do people react to your cartoons? Do you think those reactions change if the viewer is Indigenous or if they’re white?

Definitely, there are different reactions. I think that when I draw the cartoons as a particular message that I’m trying to convey, the images are decoded from our own experiences. When we see a particular image, we bring our experience to understanding [the image]. So two different experiences may see the image in very different ways.

The idea that there’s an inside joke is probably true.

[The comic] could be read in multiple ways, but I do subtly put these images in there, and people with particular kinds of experiences will pick up on those more subtle references.

How did you develop your artistic style as a comic?

The cartoons were always a part of my artistic output because for me as a painter, as a sculptor, as a draftsman, one of the things I do is very quick sketches. And these gesture drawings are really important in establishing the richness of [the] image I’m trying to produce. When I go to museums, I love to look at initial sketches of these paintings because you could see quick gestures [of ] the life of the painting, and if the drawing seems static [or] seems stale, the painting seems the same way. And so the lively paintings are the ones that have these really rich, gestural drawings. I think the cartoons [I draw] are really quick. And then I have to stop and I have to really imagine how they’re going to go. So in some ways, cartooning has always been a part of my work — the actual finished product is the more labor-intensive [part].

What do you hope that the audience takes away from your talk?

That anthropology is a world of possibility. That we can collectively not just understand our world, but really make a difference in the world, and my work on language and social justice is trying to move toward a greater sense of awareness.

Student Models Speak Up Continued from page 10

Tuesday morning, she said she felt that she had to.

Hogan spoke about her deeply personal experience with Morrison’s work, specifically Song of Solomon.

“It was like she wrote [the book] for me,” Hogan said. “I carry Pilate [one of the main characters] with me every day.”

Hogan was one of many who spoke about how Morrison was able to articulate her lived experience in a way that no one else could.

“Toni Morrison made me uncomfortable, ... but she helped me realize that I wasn’t the only one thinking these thoughts,” said Nina Pulley, OC ’18, in a recorded tribute. “Her presence in this world allowed me to imagine Black life in a different way.”

Throughout the gesture, it was evident that Morrison, writing in the Black literary tradition of Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and James Baldwin, meant so much to people because of her incredible ability to articulate difficult truth.

“Just like any person, she spoke the truth, and the truth will live on,” Pulley said.

people get confused.”

It’s clear that studio classes need to hire more models of color and a diversity of body types. Professors must push white students to accurately draw or paint the figure in front of them regardless of the model’s race, but Khan explained that a white professor she worked with had racial biases of her own. Khan recalled that this white professor attempted to depict her in an exoticized manner. “[One professor] asked me to actively perform diversity in the classroom,” Khan said. “She said to bring things from my culture. She asked me if I was a dancer and ... [if I] could pose in dance form, to which I said no. ... I assume that she wanted me to do some exotic pose.”

It’s unacceptable for art professors to remain ignorant to the power dynamics between white artists and female models of color. Levin spoke to this issue from a historical context.

“There is such a history of, for example, artists going to colonial spaces and using indigenous women in

their art and completely not giving them any credit,” she said.

Khan said her experience modeling has been “interesting” rather than simply uncomfortable. She attributes these positive feelings to her work with former Oberlin professor Jean Kondo Weigl, who was Khan’s first boss and also a woman of color.

Still, Khan feels that everyone should recognize the model’s humanity.

“The only generalization that I can make is that people do dehumanize the model,” Khan said. “I think that sometimes it’s in an effort to show respect. ... But at other times, it also feels dehumanizing, ... especially when you’re lying there and you have nothing to do but look directly at the students, and they’re looking at your body and not really at you.”

Whether it’s a famous painting at Allen Memorial Art Museum or a student’s figure drawing at Oberlin College’s Art Walk, the models behind the artwork deserve recognition for their hard work and vulnerability.

ANSWERS

Splitting Hares: A Crossword of Homonyms

Lauren O’Hear

Theater Degrees Lead Students to a Wide Variety of Careers Casey Troost Staff Writer It is easy to argue that certain humanities degrees are marketable. English, History, Politics, and several other “scholarly” fields cultivate strong writing and research skills. But for creative majors, like Theater, doubts over financial security sometimes hover on the horizon. However, Assistant Director of Career Development Center Josh Koller, OC ’18, who runs the Arts and Creative Professions Career Community, attests to Oberlin Theater majors’ versatility in the job market.

“We have Theater majors working in the business and marketing world, writing, developing websites, doing data science, and entering law school,” said Koller. “You have so many skills that you’ve developed in that major. You’ve learned how to cohesively work in a team, budget time, put together production, envision an end product and work toward it, and speak publicly in a comfortable manner. Employers in basically every sector are interested in all of these things. For me, your options are primarily defined by what’s important to you.”

Oberlin Theater graduates are talented, highly versatile, and valuable employees, according to Ben Ferber, OC ’11, who majored in Computer Science and Theater.

“The type of theater people that Oberlin puts out have a lot of skills and cross the disciplines,” Ferber said. “That’s not everyone. Oberlin puts out people who are just actors, and that’s great! But overall, The Oberlin Review | February 21, 2020

Oberlin puts out generative artists and professionals who have a lot of things to bring to the table.”

Jenna Bergstraesser, OC ’14, who now designs costumes, parades, and events for The Walt Disney Company, explained that theater employers are often impressed by Oberlin students’ direct experience with their craft.

“The creative experience you will have at Oberlin is incredible and unparalleled,” Bergstraesser said.

“For a lot of the schools my fellow designers come from, they’re set up to only let students be in one or two shows since it’s so competitive. But we have so much student theater ... Graduating, I had 10 shows that I had costume designed under my belt from undergrad, and that’s virtually unheard of.”

Still, no matter how skilled a candidate may be, the lower demand for creatives poses a challenge.

Ferber confirms that the struggle to find long-term employment as a theater professional is ongoing.

“Theater is a field in which it is very difficult to get a job, because there are just not many jobs,” Ferber said. “During the financial crisis, which happened while I was in college, and of which we are still feeling the effects today ... a lot of paid jobs went away. Many lower-income people, who didn’t have a lot of family wealth or the ability to make fairly tiny amounts of money, simply didn’t have access to a professional opportunity in theater until much farther up the chain.”

However, for many hard-working theater majors, it is possible to create a viable career in theater, according to Bergstraesser.

“You have to be very self-driven, and if you are, you can make it work,” Bergstraesser said. “I did all the research on internships on my own, built an independent study that involved creating a portfolio, and got [Costume Designer and Associate Professor of Theater] Chris Flaherty to be my advisor. ... You can definitely do it, but you have to be prepared to figure some things out on your own.”

While graduates like Bergstraesser forge their path in the theater sector, other Theater majors may also choose to work in a variety of non-drama-related jobs. Koller stressed that it’s entirely feasible for a Theater graduate to become a lawyer or a doctor.

Koller described that all of these qualities are part of “transferable skill sets,” which include communication skills, time management, leadership, and intercultural fluency.

But a transferable skill set is not exclusive to an Oberlin Theater degree. Koller points out that it’s a highlight of a liberal arts education.

“There’s a hard skill set that you can walk away with from computer science that will be different from theater, but so many of those transferable skills overlap,” said Koller. “That’s the buy-in for Oberlin.

There’s this liberal arts education that you know you’re going to get, regardless of Theater, Computer Science, Biology, or Africana Studies.”

While the stereotype that Theater majors struggle to find work after graduation stems from a small kernel of truth, the breadth of skills that Obies pick up during their liberal arts education proves that there is still value to pursuing careers in theater.

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Sp ort s

Wades Spark Conversation About Football Coaching LGBTQ+ Issues in Athletic Community Transition Offers Continued from page 16

concept of toxic masculinity and [the desire] to prove one’s manhood [in the Black community].”

The struggle for tolerance and acceptance of LGBTQ+ identities within the Black community has been well-documented. Part of the issue, Dagnino argues, is the way we typically frame queerness in our conversations and activism surrounding the topic.

“When we talk about what it means to be queer and advocating for trans rights, gay rights, we talk about it for the average able-bodied white male or white female,” Dagnino said. “We often forget to talk about the communities where there are people of color and don’t talk about Brown bodies, or Black bodies, or Asian bodies. … There’s always been a disconnect between the LGBTQ community and Black people because there’s never been people [visibly] advocating for those rights, and we often neglect to talk about that.

What Dwyane Wade is doing is really good because he’s really shedding a light on what queer can mean to people of color.”

While Dwyane and Zaya Wade have both received an enormous amount of support from a broad range of communities, they have also received significant backlash. A notable example was a video posted by Boosie BadAzz, in which the rapper admonishes Dwyane Wade for “allowing” Zaya to identify as a woman, misgenders Zaya, and confuses sexuality and gender identity, among making several other problematic statements.

“I definitely have heard of a lot of videos from people, like rappers or just people in general,” said Dagnino. “It just really shows how much our country still needs to grow in being accepting in terms of trans rights. We still have a long way to go to get that normalized and for everyone to understand what that means.”

Presberg also understands the potential danger that comes with openly discussing the gender identity of a

12-year-old in such a public manner.

“I’m torn because I think my gut reaction was concern for Zaya, and also a question about how much Dwyane talked with her about going public, and her awareness of what that would mean for her,” said Presberg. “But at the same time, I think someone of his status being so public about it is meaningful, and his support seems really genuine and not super contrived.”

As Clemons, Dagnino, and Presberg alluded to, there is so much more that needs to be done to get queerness accepted in every community on a wide level. The bravery of high-profile individuals, like Dwyane and Zaya Wade, can contribute to the acceptance of these identities in the future.

Former NBA player Dwyane Wade and daughter Zaya Wade.

Photo courtesy of NY Daily News

Varsity Basketball Teams Raise LGBTQ+ Awareness

Last week, the Oberlin men’s and women’s varsity basketball teams partnered with the Multicultural Resource Center to host Love Always Wins, a Pride event. Team members wore rainbow shoelaces at their games against the Allegheny College Gators in Philips gym. Rainbow sunglasses were also sold at the venue for $1, with all proceeds going to the Trevor Project, a non-profit organization focused on suicide prevention for youth in the LGBTQ+ community. Additionally, the Athletics department recognized all faculty and staff members in attendance.

“It was great,” said College third-year and men’s basketball player Jordan Armstrong. “I think that both teams here really are proud of our identity as Oberlin students and the environment that we foster here for

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all students, being proud of all genders, sexualities, and ways of life. It felt really good for me and all of my teammates to be able to compete as proud athletes.”

These games came off the heels of an important statement made by former NBA superstar Dwyane Wade, who announced that his 12-year-old daughter, Zaya, came out as transgender. The impact of Wade’s statement is covered on page 16 of this issue (“The Wade Family’s Positive Influence”).

Both teams are approaching the end of their seasons and will play their final home games Saturday, Feb. 22.

See the women’s and men’s teams compete at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m., respectively.

Text by Jane Agler, Contributing Sports Editor Photo courtesy of OC Athletics

Opportunity to Shift Culture

Continued from page 16

“There was rarely a meeting without a homophobic comment or something of that nature,” he said. “I feel like the coaches weren’t always on board with what the College is trying to do from a cultural standpoint.”

Winkelfoos said she had no knowledge of homophobic comments made by coaching staff.

“I am not and have not been made aware of homophobic comments made by members of our coaching staff,” Winkelfoos wrote in an email to the Review. “The expectation is that, as employees, our behavior and actions reflect the values of Oberlin College. Diversity broadens perspectives — enhances educational and social experiences. If there is a reluctance to understand and appreciate this, the opportunity to serve this institution and its students may not exist.”

College second-year Raul Segredo said he decided to quit the team because of the coaching staff, who he felt did not listen to his concerns both on and off the field. After he quit the team, his locker was defaced and he believes that a coach was involved in the incident.

“The few, rare, good [coaches] never stick around, and the rest are bullies who like to hear themselves speak,” he said. “Coaches would often say their door was always open to speak, but when I did reach out to try to explain my problems they would hardly ever hear me out. Mostly they just pretended to care and made empty promises I knew they wouldn’t keep. After I quit, someone defaced my locker as well. They wrote slur words and mocked me. I’m not sure exactly who did it, but I’ve spoken to a lot of people on the team and there is consensus that a coach was involved.”

Winkelfoos rejected the allegation that a coach was involved in defacing the locker, and Anderson did not directly respond.

While Segredo was disappointed with the coaching staff, he was grateful for his teammates during his time on the team.

“I loved all of my teammates and they pushed me to work hard in all aspects of my life; something I miss greatly,” he said. “I didn’t particularly like any of the coaches and I think part of the reason why is because there were new ones every year; it’s hard to get attached when you don’t know exactly who’s sticking around.”

Briggs is still optimistic about the program’s direction, citing leadership from his fellow teammates as crucial during this transition.

“I think that this team is going to be doing well starting next year,” Briggs said. “They have a lot of people this year who took the circumstances that they were in and made the best of it, especially in terms of leadership from the [younger students] all the way up to the coming fourth-years.”

All former athletes interviewed agreed that the dynamic between players did not contribute to their decision to leave the team, nor was it an easy decision for the players who left to quit the team.

“What I love about a football team is it doesn’t matter what color you are, who you pray to, or how you live your life,” said Segredo. “You’re all there because you share the love for the game.”

It is crucial that the College reinforces its mission of inclusivity not only to student-athletes, but also to football coaches and training staff with whom players spend countless hours. It is the responsibility of coaches and staff not only to support students on the playing field, but also to create a safe space that supports the needs of all players. This period of leadership transition is a chance to address the flaws in the program, and will shape the football experience of future athletes.

The Review reached out to several former and current players on the team for this story in addition to the ones quoted above. Five current players did not respond for comment and three declined. Three former players also declined to comment.

IN THE LOCKER ROOM

Adriano Atallah, Third-Year Track Athlete really cool. So, I tried that. I liked it a lot, and so I stuck with the multis and sprints and hurdles and that’s kind of what I do now.

What events were you recruited to compete in at Oberlin?

I got recruited by [Assistant Track and Field Coach Alisha Samuel], who’s no longer here, but I submitted both my sprint times, hurdle times, and also my multi scores. I was very intent on doing both when I got here.

College third-year Adriano Atallah.

Photo courtesy of OC Athletics

College third-year Adriano Atallah is a force on the track. Currently a captain of the men’s track and field team, Atallah spent his first few years on campus setting Oberlin’s record book ablaze. His most notable accolades include winning the North Coast Athletic Conference outdoor decathlon last year and competing as a member of the relay team that secured first place in the indoor 4x200-meter relay and the outdoor 4x400-meter relay.

Outside of track, Atallah is a Biochemistry major and a founding member of Oberlin Step Ahead, an organization that coaches kids with autism in track and field.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Khalid McCalla Sports Editor How long have you been running track and field?

I started just doing sprints and hurdles in middle school. Mostly the [400-meter sprints], sometimes the hurdles. Then, I got to high school [and] … at the end of my freshman year, I thought the pentathlon looked

Besides the decathlon and the relays, do you participate in any other events?

Yeah. So, last year my conference meet included long jump, [60-meter] dash, [200-meter] dash, and [4x200-meter relay]. This year, I’m in the [4x400-meter relay] at the conference meet as well. Outdoors, basically anything 400 [meters] and under. Hurdles included, not included. I’m doing it.

How does it feel to be so successful individually?

I think it’s really cool. I mean we don’t really have a history of great multis here. [Ohio Wesleyan University] had a kid my [first] year, Nate Newman, who has the conference record in the decathlon.

They also had a kid before I got here ... who has the OWU school record. Both of them are multi-time AllAmericans. So being able to follow that NCAC legacy, but also sort of carving out a name for Oberlin in the multis as well is really cool.

How does it feel to be part of a successful relay team?

The guys — [College third-years Victor Salcido, Malachi Clemons, and Sam Mader] — are great. I think our class is incredibly special, you know, talent wise, but also just [as people]. I mean there’s evidence in the fact that all four of the captains, and granted there are no seniors on the men’s team on the sprint side, are juniors. I think that speaks to the leadership of this class and the work ethic as well. We all care a lot about each other, about the sport, about representing the

school the right away. And that right way is winning.

What are your goals, both individually and as a team, for the rest of the season?

For the indoor season, [I have] quite a few because I do so many individual events. We’re trying to qualify for the fast seed section at conference in the [4x200-meter relay]. [I’m] trying to qualify in the 200 meter sprints for nationals. Then, once I get to nationals, it’s All-American. As a team this year we’re really just looking to solidify our place in the conference and sort of build something that we can bounce off of next year — because we’re really only graduating like three or four people. It’s a great place to be in order to try to win or put together our best possible team to win next year.

What other accolades do you have your eyes on for the rest of your career?

National champion in the decathlon, [next] year for sure. I mean obviously this year, but definitely [fourth] year. That’s my ultimate goal.

Do you do anything else outside of track?

At the end of last school year, [members of the track team] founded the Oberlin chapter of Step Ahead, which is a track and field program for kids with autism. We’re still kind of kicking it off, but we’re hoping that this semester it really leaves the ground.

Basically it’s a program that, once a week, kids with autism and their siblings can come and run track.

Track is one of the easiest sports to pick up for just about anyone. We meet a bunch of times over the course of a few months. You get to watch their development over that time period. And that’s a great way to get involved. We’re looking to expand in the next few semesters hopefully.

Anything else you want the good people of Oberlin to know?

I know track meets are long, but … they’re a lot of fun. I love them. The energy is great. We’re hosting conferences here [in May]. Come out and support!

New Dynamic Duo Steps in to Lead Yeowoman Basketball Hulan Edward In all college sport programs, filling leadership roles after star players depart is a source of stress. The Oberlin College women’s basketball team faced this issue after captains and star basketball players Alex Stipano, and Liv Canning, both OC ’19, graduated last year Stipano, a guard, finished last season averaging 11.5 points, 3.5 rebounds, and 2.0 assists per game, and earned All-North Coast Athletic Conference her third and fourth years. Canning ended her final season averaging 11.1 points and 7.2 rebounds, and amassed 77 blocks and 31 steals on her way to earning NCAC Defensive Player of the Year for the second time in her career.

At the end of last season, many questioned whether the Yeowomen would have anyone ready to step into the prominent leadership roles that Stipano and Canning filled. Stepping into those positions would be no small task after the Yeowomen went 15–11 last season, losing out in the quarterfinals of the NCAC tournament. The job was left to College fourth-years Cheyenne Arthur and Jasmine Sorrels.

“They’ve always wanted to be in this position,” said Kerry Jenkins, former head coach of the women’s basketball team. “In their own right, they’ve always been seen as leaders on the team. I [am] not surprised that [they] have embraced newfound expectations.”

Sorrels and Arthur have both focused on growing into their new leadership roles. They have each taken on more game time. Arthur went from 28.9 average minutes per game to 32.8, and The Oberlin Review | February 21, 2020

Sorrels went from 14.3 to 26.7, helping to find ways to fill the void left by talented graduates.

Arthur has focused on growing into being the best point guard she can be. Even with the added pressure of handling the ball, she finds this growth very rewarding.

“The role of a point guard is one that comes with great responsibility, but knowing that my teammates and coaching staff trust in me and my ability to fulfill this role is truly an amazing feeling,” said Arthur.

Sorrels, agreeing with Arthur, explained the joy she feels watching her role expand.

“It’s been really exciting to get the opportunity to challenge myself this season and push myself to be the best player I can be for the team,” said Sorrels.

Sorrels and Arthur’s success in those roles has not gone unnoticed. New Head women’s basketball Coach Stephany Dunmyer appreciates her fourth-year leaders and the experience they bring to the game.

“Cheyenne brings great experience to the court as our primary ball-handler, and she has continued to grow in her role as a point guard,” said Dunmyer.

“She also has a terrific ability to score by getting to the basket and by knocking down the outside shot.

Similarly, Dunmyer also had plenty of good things to say about Sorrels.

“Jasmine is the type of player who makes our team different and sets us apart,” said Dunmyer. “Jasmine has the ability to change a game on both ends of the floor. Her ability to alter and block shots on the defensive end is

College fourth-years Jasmine Sorrells and Cheyenne Arthur. Photo courtesy of OC Athletics

outstanding, and she has amazing touch on the offensive end and is one of the fastest players on the court every day.”

With only one regular-season game remaining, both Arthur and Sorrels have high hopes for the end of their careers, while looking ahead to the next challenge.

“We obviously want to make it to the championship game again, but for now we’re just taking it one game at a time,” said Sorrels. “We’ve already secured a playoff spot, so right now it’s about focusing on what’s right in front of us and making sure we’re continuing to get better every day.”

With these attitudes, Sorrels and Arthur have valiantly led this year’s Yeowomen basketball team and continued the culture of excellence cultivated by Canning and Stipano.

“Anyone that knows about Oberlin

women’s basketball knows about Alex and Liv,” said Arthur. “Being able to watch them over the course of their careers has prepared me to lead the team in the most effective way possible.”

Looking to the future for the Yeowomen, Dunmyer knows that the team will be facing a familiar challenge next year. With the graduation of Arthur and Sorrels, Dunmyer will have to find other players to take the reins and lead the team.

“We have high expectations for our [second-year] class and [College thirdyear] Leo Ross,” Dunmyer said, “and hope they will continue to commit to building a championship culture on and off the court for our program.”

With the powerful examples set to follow by Canning and Stipano, and now Arthur and Sorrels, the Yeowomen basketball team has a bright future.

15

SPORTS February 21, 2020

Established 1874

Volume 148, Number 15

The Wade Family’s Positive Influence Khalid McCalla Sports Editor

The Oberlin College varsity football team.

Photo courtesy of OC Athletics

Current and Former Football Players Express Concern About Team Culture Zoë Martin del Campo Contributing Sports Editor Founded in 1891, Oberlin’s football team has provided a community to both athletes and spectators, alike, for generations. Despite this history, the team has seen significant turnover over the past few years; this past season alone, seven players left the team. This upcoming season, the team will have seven rising fourth-years on a 29-person roster. In previous seasons, this number was higher; in 2017, the roster included 16 fourth-years.

At the end of the past season, Head Football Coach Jay Anderson announced that he was stepping down from his position at Oberlin to become the defensive coordinator and assistant head coach at Notre Dame College in South Euclid, Ohio.

Steve Opgenorth was named head football coach to replace Anderson. He spent the last five seasons at Baldwin Wallace University serving as associate head coach, offensive coordinator, and quarterbacks’ coach. This announcement serves as an opportunity to implement changes in the program as a whole — especially as several former players have expressed concerns about coach and staff conduct.

While the team has made strides to promote an inclusive and productive environment, there is still much room for improvement, particularly when it comes to supporting injured players, as highlighted by former-football player and College third-year Ben Collado.

Last season, Collado ultimately decided to leave the team and, consequently, move away from a sport he’d spent his entire life playing, after receiving two concussions and fracturing his neck during play.

He was disappointed with the management style of the team staff, whom he felt, at times, prioritized his playing time over his safety.

“The baseline test measures how your brain works cognitively, including reaction time,” he said. “So, when you think you have a concussion, you have to retake the test and see if there’s a delay in or an issue with your memory. But I never took that test, so, after I got my first concussion, it was harder to track my progress and see if I was getting better and even diagnose the concussion in the first place.”

Director of Sports Medicine Jill Rondini could not comment on the specific athlete’s medical

16

care due to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, but shared that concussion protocol varies across teams.

“Athletes who participate in contact varsity sports undergo baseline concussion testing which may be administered differently for various reasons,” Rondini wrote in an email to the Review.

Delta Lodge Director of Athletics and Physical Education Natalie Winkelfoos added that, while baseline testing is helpful in assessing the impacts of a concussion, Oberlin does not require it of all varsity athletes.

“Baseline testing is not required,” she wrote in an email to the Review. “Baseline testing is a tool that can be used to assist our care team’s work but it is not critical to concussion management.”

College fourth-year and running back Melvin Briggs, who was on the football roster all four seasons of his Oberlin career, agreed on the need for further medical support from the program. In particular, Briggs was dissatisfied with the length of time it took trainers to communicate his injury to medical staff and the College.

“None of my professors had any documentation of my concussion for four weeks,” he said. “I never really had the chance to recover. Within a matter of months, I was diagnosed with severe depression and chronic anxiety.”

In response to this allegation, Winkelfoos had the following to say.

“I cannot discuss a student-athlete’s medical care,” she wrote. “This is a very specific circumstance in which all information has perhaps not been provided to you. We make every effort to ensure the concussion protocol is followed.

Everyone needs to do their part for it to be successful ... our sports medicine staff, disability services and the student-athlete.”

In addition to physical support, Collado hopes that in the future coaches will be more equipped to handle conversations surrounding mental health.

“It needs to be a conscientious effort across the board,” he said. “From an administrative level, and coaches holding each other accountable when issues come up. Coaches need to be equipped to handle situations relating to mental health issues, so they will know what is appropriate to say.”

Collado also stated that coaches did not always reflect the principles of Oberlin, perpetuating a culture that he felt was toxic.

See Football, page 14

NBA star Dwyane Wade recently announced that his daughter, Zaya, is transgender. This announcement was immediately met with support from those who saw Wade’s acceptance of his daughter’s gender identity as evidence of a shifting norm; and criticism from those without a full understanding of what this announcement means, both for the Wade family and for society as a whole.

At Oberlin, the separation between the LGBTQ+ community and others, like the Black and athletic communities, is not as stark as it is in the majority of American culture. This is notable considering that these communities are not mutually-exclusive. That being said, several student athletes at Oberlin see Wade’s announcement as a great moment for the future of understanding the intersectionality of these communities.

“I thought it was really brave of him to say that to everyone, to the public,” said College second-year and softball player V Dagnino, who identifies as queer. “It’s not easy for any parent to come out and speak about their child. From my own experience, and my parents raising me, they were terrified at first because they saw the life that it was to be queer, and they were really concerned that I’d face hatred and discrimination, so they tried to shield me.”

The athletic community is often regarded as being behind-the-times when it comes to social justice issues, especially those surrounding the LGBTQ+ community.

“As a trans and queer athlete, saying that there’s a gap feels weird to me, as if me and other queer athletes have to ‘pick,’” said College fourth-year and ultimate Frisbee player Eli Presberg. “However, I think [athletics], especially men’s athletics, both stereotypically and actually can be a really homophobic and transphobic environment.”

Having an athlete with such a heightened profile, like Wade, advocate for the inclusion of LGBTQ+ community in such a public and personal manner could help mend the complicated, and often strained, relationship between these communities.

“I think that what Dwyane Wade is doing is very inspiring, to see someone who’s an NBA champion using his platform to say [something along the lines of ], ‘This is my daughter, and I’m so proud of her, and this is who she is becoming.’” said Dagnino. “I thought that was amazing, and I do think it’s a step in the right direction to normalizing [queerness] in the athletic community.”

While it is undeniably helpful that a man of Wade’s stature is helping to push the needle in the right direction, College third-year and track and field athlete Malachi Clemons believes it will take more to fully shift the relationship between athletics and queerness, pointing to former NFL player and openly gay man Michael Sam as an example. “[He] was [Southeastern Conference] defensive player of the year [in 2014],” said Clemons, referencing Sam’s college playing career. “And where is he now? I think it takes a bigger step. I think things like this can help, but I think it takes a bigger step.”

Presberg shared similar sentiments.

“I distinctly remember when [former NBA player] Jason Collins came out in 2013, and being so astonished that he was the first person to come out in a major men’s sport,” said Presberg. “That was only seven years ago, so I think that this process is both slow and moving in the right direction, and that Dwyane Wade’s public support is a part of that. … I think ultimately it’s much more on the coaches and leadership of individual teams to actually check people.”

Dwyane Wade’s public announcement and acceptance of Zaya’s identity is not only a step for the athletic community, but it’s also a strong step toward acceptance of queer identities in the Black community.

“I think the Black community and the LGBTQ community haven’t always gotten along,” said Clemons. “I think religion plays a huge part of it, in addition to the See Wades, page 14