Expected Overturn of Roe v Wade Undermines Basic Human

OPINIONSOPINIONS

December 10, 2021 Established 1874 Volume 151, Number 8

Moderate Candidates Are Worth Our Time

Emma Benardete Contributing Opinions Editor

Until recently, the use of the word “liberal” in a negative sense was monopolized by conservatives. It was used to demean and mock what they viewed as the kind of politics that made everyone oversensitive and gave unnecessary handouts to people who didn’t pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Despite these efforts to belittle liberals, liberalism was once considered the political embodiment of social justice. Young, politically-minded idealists were content identifying with the movement, wearing their affiliation as a mark of pride when confronted by older relatives with conservative leanings.

Now, however, the political landscape is changing. Many young people have separated themselves from the liberal movement, calling themselves “progressives” or “leftists” instead. They are demanding more progressive policies than ever before and are getting frustrated with the so-called establishment’s failure to keep up. In light of this change, progressive young adults have started to do what conservatives have always done: make “liberal” a dirty word.

If 2021 taught us anything, it’s that moderates are faring better than progressives in general elections. As the New York Times editorial board wrote on Nov. 4, “What is badly needed, is an honest conversation in the Democratic Party about how to return to the moderate policies and values that fueled the blue-wave victories in 2018 and won Joe Biden the presidency in 2020.” Moderate doesn’t have to mean Joe Manchin moderate nor should it. However, we do need to be realistic about the kinds of candidates who can get elected, especially in highly contested races.

With the U.S. Senate in a 50-50 deadlock heading into the 2022 midterms and an Ohio seat left open, the upcoming race will prove to be both consequential and highly competitive. The last thing we need is for a Trump-loving Republican candidate to win the election. To keep that from happening, we need to ensure the Democrat is popular enough to beat out someone like Josh Mandel, a far-right member of the Republican Party.

This puts college students, and Oberlin students in particular, in a very difficult position. On the one hand, there is a well-founded reason for our reputation as the most progressive college in the country. Many, if not most, students on campus view themselves as progressives or leftists and only begrudgingly vote for more moderate liberal politicians. As college students who are just barely old enough to vote, it is understandable that the more progressive among us don’t want to compromise their political principles. We are, after all, in the “honeymoon phase” of our political action, giddy that we can finally cast a ballot. On the other hand, regardless of our individual politics, we are still squarely in the Midwest, where Trump flags abound. Here in Ohio, we have one Democratic and one Republican senator. Until 2020, the state predicted the outcome of every presidential election since 1964, making it the ultimate swing state. As members of the Ohio electorate, we have a responsibility to contend with and contribute to the reality that Ohio votes are important for the whole country.

Many progressives have been upset by the amount of support Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan has received for his Senate campaign, preferring instead to support the more progressive Morgan Harper. However, Ryan is the Democratic Party’s best chance at beating out a Mandel- or J.D. Vance-like figure come November, and he still supports President Biden’s ambitious policies like passing the Equality Act — he was one of its original co-sponsors — and increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour.

At Oberlin, I’ve heard plenty of criticism, and sometimes even contempt, for some of the more moderate politicians on the national stage. There seems to be this notion that moderates like Biden or Harris don’t deserve our time and energy. We actively campaign against them in the primaries, risking losing on electability in the general election, and then when moderate Democrats win those primaries, some people sulk and say, “No help from us,” while others put great effort into phone banking and working in other capacities to get the nominee elected, even if they weren’t their first choice.

I saw posts last year from progressive acquaintances — though not from Oberlin students, as I was still in high school — saying that they wouldn’t vote and if Trump won, we couldn’t blame them because Biden wasn’t progressive enough. This is the kind of rhetoric I’m concerned about heading into 2022. If Tim Ryan wins the primary, we at least need to support him, phone bank for him, and vote for him in November, even though he isn’t many people’s first choice. Beyond that, I won’t tell you whom to campaign for and whom to vote for when the Senate primaries roll around, but given Biden’s ambitious agenda and the fact that Democrats stand to lose the Senate, there is something to be said for nominating a candidate who can win over some Republican votes in this Midwestern swing state, where we might still have a fighting chance.

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EdItOrIal BOard

EdItOrS-IN-ChIEf Anisa Curry Vietze Kushagra Kar

MaNagINg EdItOr Gigi Ewing

OPINIONS EdItOr Arman Luczkow

On Wednesday, Dec. 1, the Supreme Court finished hearing oral arguments in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case, involving a Mississippi law that bans abortion at 15 weeks. Under Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which reaffirmed Roe and recognized the right to an abortion until 24 weeks of pregnancy, this Mississippi law is clearly unconstitutional. However, the oral arguments, and the conservative Court’s willingness to take on the case at all, have signaled that the Supreme Court is ready to reverse Roe v. Wade entirely. The official verdict will likely come in June or July, marking a historic decision in our country’s history.

Overturning this decision will precipitate a cascade of effects. If and when the Court overturns Roe, the decision will disproportionately affect low-income people, who constitute three-quarters of individuals seeking abortions. The nearest abortion clinic to 41 percent of individuals of childbearing age will close, and the average distance they would have to travel for abortion care would increase from 35 miles to 279 miles. A total of 21 states will either immediately ban or quickly reduce access to abortion.

Of these 21 states, 12 have “trigger laws” already in place that would immediately take effect, outlawing abortion entirely. In nine other states — including Ohio — abortion bans or restrictions that have, until now, been blocked by the courts due to Roe v. Wade could take effect.

To state what may be obvious: this Editorial Board is distressed by the potential ramifications of an anti-choice verdict. We are devastated at the prospect of moving forward into a world with fewer reproductive rights than our grandparents had. We are devastated for every person with a uterus who will no longer be able to access care that is sometimes necessary for an individual’s mental health, financial sustainability and medical survival. This care is always, always, a human right.

At a place like Oberlin, where the ease of conversations around abortion is somewhat taken for granted, it can be easy to assume that we all share similar experiences and perspectives on the matter. While that assumption is not entirely off-base — according to a Pew Research survey released earlier this year, 59 percent of U.S. adults say abortion should be legal in all or most cases — it is certainly not as unanimously agreed upon in the “real world” as it is on campus. While it can feel like preaching to the choir to talk about abortion at Oberlin, it’s still important to treat the subject with care and consideration, especially in light of the impending Supreme Court decision.

If Roe is overturned, the current anti-abortion supermajority in the Ohio legislature will most certainly race to ban or extremely curtail access to abortion. Since 2011, over 20 anti-abortion laws have passed in Ohio, posing an already steep barrier to accessing safe pregnancy terminations. Today, there are only nine clinics that provide abortion in the state; 10 years ago there were 16. Even once a patient accesses a clinic, Ohio requires them to jump through several more hoops to access concrete care, including two in-person appointments — one of which is a “counseling and education session” — and a medically-unnecessary but mandatory ultrasound.

Some Ohioans who live in rural areas or who are beyond 20 weeks pregnant already leave the state for abortions to bypass restrictive access to care. This means the likely overturning of Roe places parents, people without a solid support network, and low-income people seeking abortion in a particularly precarious situation. If Roe is overturned and Ohio bans abortion entirely, these individuals will be forced to travel even further if they need to access to care.

For some communities, a post-Roe world is already in effect. Many — though not all — Oberlin students will continue to have some access to abortion regardless of the Supreme Court’s decison. But while Obies often have the resources to travel far distances or hail from large urban centers where access is not threatened, the reality looks drastically different for our neighbors in Lorain County, and the state overall. As the Court’s decision moves forward — particularly as it heads closer toward overturning Roe v. Wade — we ask that students take care to enter conversations about abortion with more consideration than they might previously have done.

Expected Overturn of Roe v. Wade Undermines Basic Human Rights

Concerts Need to Be Better for Students of Color It’s Time to Reevaluate Traditional Pedagogy

Kayla Kim Columnist

After a tumultuous few semesters, concerts and other staple events of campus life are back in full-swing. Unfortunately, not everyone feels welcome at these events, and once again, Black students and students of color are feeling uncomfortable at concerts because of their white peers.

College third-year Haley Sablay talked about her experience at her first Solarity concert over the summer semester.

“A white male was just falling all over the people around us,” she said. “And there was this one person next to me who kept telling him, ‘Stop touching me, stop falling over me.’”

Sablay also noted that while the front mostly had students of color, they were slowly being pushed away toward the back as the concert continued. She and her friends eventually left.

Of course, concerts are meant to be enjoyed by everyone. But when there are so few resources for non-white students on campus, it can be upsetting when concerts headlined by artists of color are dominated by white students. At an event like Solarity, which in recent years has highlighted Black artists and other artists of color, it’s hurtful when white students do not hold themselves accountable for their actions in such a space. Sablay said that, as a woman of color herself, she is hypervigilant and feared for her friends’ safety as well.

“People feel like — especially if they’re drunk or on something — they don’t really have accountability for any of their actions,” she said. “There are so many spaces on this campus that people of color don’t feel comfortable [in], and when you take into account other things going on that affect people of color the most, like COVID-19, it adds a lot of anxiety to these situations. It seems as though when there are things that happen that affect people of color, it just feels like the school doesn’t take it completely seriously.”

The requirements to attend Solarity last summer included watching a 30-minute bystander training video and completing a form with basic questions about drug use and consent. The problem is that these measures don’t necessarily prevent inappropriate behavior from happening. To improve the situation, Solarity organizers are implementing “vibe watchers” with the help of both Students for Sensible Drug Policy, and Preventing and Responding to Sexual Misconduct, in addition to seeking student input. Vibe watchers will make sure students are safe and comfortable at the concert. Additionally, Solarity coordinators College fourth-year Perry Mayo, College third-year Kate Steifman, and College third-year Erzsi Misangyi hope to make the event a safer space for people of different identities by requiring attendees to sign a community guidelines acknowledgement form prior to the event.

“We work to acknowledge power dynamics between attendants, attendees, and performers and remind all Solarity attendees to remember the spaces and identities they hold and how their identities interact with others around them,” they wrote in an email to the Review. “This year [we] will be releasing community guidelines and a mandatory community guidelines acknowledgment form that must be signed prior to entering Solarity.”

Unfortunately, this problem is not new or exclusive to Solarity. Sablay and I are both officers for the Asian Diaspora Coalition, and at the end of the meeting, one of our fellow officers talked about an experience at Coverband Showcase where white students slowly pushed her from the first row all the way to the fifth row. Additionally, College fourthyear Imani Badillo has written about this experience briefly in a Review article about the importance of Black-led spaces like the Oberlin Hip-Hop Collective and OSLAM, saying, “Respect for the sanctity of POC spaces is sometimes lacking; a common problem seen in the ’Sco is the physical pushing of POC and Black students to the back of the space, even during events that are intended to serve the interests of POC and Black students on campus.”

I also talked with College first-year Asquith Clarke II about his experience at a different event, the OSLAM backto-school performance on Oct. 9. As a Black student, Clarke acknowledged the importance of OSLAM, a space made to empower Black voices at a predominately white institution, but wished there was more context to the poster online, especially for new students. Like many first-years attending, Clarke decided to go with a friend, not knowing about OSLAM’s history. When he noticed white students being asked to leave to make space for Black students, he felt uncomfortable and left. “People who came to just listen to poetry and not knowing the context of OSLAM overall were put in a situation that I feel they didn’t deserve to be in where they were subjected to this feeling of being treated differently because of their skin color,” Clarke said.

OSLAM later released a statement on Instagram clarifying their actions, saying, “It was solely our decision to ask white people to offer up their seats in an effort to free up seating for more Black people. It was our impression that after summers of activism and advocacy for the cause of ‘Black liberation,’ that this request would be met with empathy and the understanding that our goal wasn’t to remove white people from the space. It was to make space for Black people. This was meant to be an encouragement, rather than a demand, for those in attendance whose views were similar to ours and who wanted to make space for Black people.”

I had two takeaways after hearing Clarke and Sablay share their experiences. The first is to listen. Read Badillo’s article about the importance of the Oberlin Hip-Hop collective and OSLAM. Learn about who the concerts and events on campus are intended for. If you’re not part of that group, acknowledge that you are a guest walking into that space.

The second is to take action. If you’re a white student at a concert and you observe non-white students visibly uncomfortable or being pushed to the back, use your voice and say something. And no matter who you are, be aware of your surroundings and how much physical space you’re taking up.

Especially with Solarity coming up, we all need to do our part to create a welcoming environment for Black students and other students of color to make sure that concerts can be enjoyed by everyone. Zach Bayfield Columnist

Picture this: you’re sitting in a King Building classroom on a dreary Thursday afternoon. Your professor has finally graded everyone’s midterms and leaves them on his desk for the class to pick up. People rush to grab their midterm, folding it up or holding it against their body on the way back to their desks to avoid the embarrassment of someone else seeing their grade. Your professor then lectures for an hour and fifteen minutes straight, waiting until the end of class to ask, “Does anyone have any questions?” The room goes silent, and the only sound comes from crickets chirping outside your classroom window. This was an experience I had last week, and I am confident that many Oberlin students have experienced similar situations throughout their time here. This classroom, with an obsessive focus on grades and little chance for students to engage in discussion, emulates the prevalence of archaic educational standards. Oberlin is better than most colleges at challenging educational conventions, but there are still many academic disciplines where these standards remain uncontested. Despite the fact that Oberlin advertises itself as one of the best colleges in the world for fostering critical thinking, we continue to implement educational methods that are at odds with this identity.

Ironically, these educational methods teach us the opposite of what it takes to be independently successful. To be a successful individual, one has to embrace failure and learn from it, be willing to collaborate with others, and be willing to challenge authority when necessary. Yet traditional educational methods teach us the exact opposite. They limit collaboration, teach us to fear failure, and make us reluctant to challenge authority. By cementing these values in the minds of students, traditional educational methods teach us to be complacent cogs within the machine of society.

I’m sure many students are already aware that the current grading system teaches us to fear failure. Parents, educators, and mentors alike teach students from a young age that failure is unacceptable and that good grades are the only avenue toward a better future. This may be enough motivation for some students to succeed, but for many, the fear of failure creates an underlying anxiety that makes them reluctant to engage in the educational process. As a result, the process of deeper learning is neglected for the sake of regurgitating information on tests that will be useless to students in the future. Rather than focusing on the journey of learning, the current educational system strictly focuses on the destination.

The fear of failure and its resulting consequences are even more apparent at Oberlin, where practically every student performs at a high academic level. In this environment, pressure to succeed comes not only from authority figures but also from our peers. The pressure to be successful from our previous and current experiences makes many students act as if failure is not an option. Everyone is constantly working for the sake of the next A+, or the next internship, the next performance. When it seems like everyone around you is constantly succeeding, even a small failure can feel like a ton of bricks weighing down on you. How valuable is academic success when it comes at the cost of our mental health?

The limitations on collaboration within our education system further hinder our ability to become successful. In many classes, tests and assignments are expected to be done independently without consulting our classmates. According to the Honor Code, collaborating on an assignment intended to be done individually is a violation of academic integrity that can result in a number of academic sanctions, including suspension. Yet these rules embody the opposite of what is valued in most job sectors post-graduation. Many career paths require near-constant collaboration in order to become successful. Businessmen, journalists, and scientists alike work in close teams. Being able to work within groups and interact productively with others is an invaluable skill in any career field.

While I still think there should be room for independent thought in academia, increased collaboration would greatly benefit students. Collaboration exposes us to different thought processes and prepares us for working with others in the future.

Traditional educational methods also instill a reluctance to challenge authority in the minds of students. Even subtle factors like the positioning of desks make it clear which classes create a power dynamic that limits the educational process and which classes do not. In traditional classroom settings, everyone sits at their desk facing the front of the class. The professor is the only one standing and calls upon people as they please. When students ask questions, the answers are often brief and there is no room for the student to respond to the professor’s answer. Additionally, challenging the professor’s method is considered a huge faux pas in these types of classes. Deeper discussions are also limited.

In classes where critical thinking is encouraged, desks are arranged in a circle. The professor sits with the rest of the class to engage in discussions and only stands when it is absolutely necessary. Additionally, with this arrangement students can critically engage with the material and are encouraged to challenge conventions. In these types of classes, there is a significant difference in the learning that occurs. Students ask and answer questions and are able to converse with their professors on an equal level. Discussion is encouraged, and it is conversational in nature. I’ve found that many students, myself included, learn better in these educational settings.

Based on my own experiences, I believe that most students learn on a deeper level when they take classes that reject traditional educational methods. So the question becomes, “Why do we still embrace traditional educational methods in the first place?” It makes no sense to continuously implement antiquated educational standards when these standards teach us to fear failure, reject collaboration, and refuse to challenge authority. Faculty should teach students to embrace failure and collaboration while fostering a healthy willingness to challenge authority. Schools across the country and around the world should take a long, hard look at their educational methods and what they can do to improve them. If they do not reevaluate traditional methods, our education system will continue to breed complacency and limit the capabilities of students.