The Oberlin Review April 28, 2023

Letter from the Editors:

Since 1833, Oberlin has been a site of progressive thought and activist initiatives toward making a better world. Over time, the definition of progressivism has changed, along with the values of this place and its residents. Through various forms of activism — be that protest, organizing committees, writing, art, speeches, or petitions — thousands of individuals and groups have participated in actualizing the Oberlin dream of being a place of change and movement.

This special edition of The Oberlin Review is an exploration of the kinds of activim our community has participated in throughout history. The content features recollection, documentation, interpretation, and the imagination of activism through movements like institutional decolonization, the call for divestment from South Africa during Apartheid, recent efforts to combat anti-trans legislation, and much more. Each piece also considers the challenges of activism, like facing opposition from administrators or navigating systemic inequalities. Through these stories, the Review proposes a view of activism that takes on many forms, exists in varied spaces, is enacted by diverse groups of people, and confronts complex ideas. In its entirety, this newspaper is simultaneously a reflection on the past, a marker of our present, and an aspiration for the future of activism at Oberlin. We hope you enjoy reading it.

Student Organizes Invasive Species Removal in Environmental Activism Initiative

On Saturday, April 22, a dozen Oberlin students, accompanied by City of Oberlin Storm Water Coordinator Jennifer Reeves, set out from the Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Environmental Studies with snacks, bags, and tools in hand on a mission to remove invasive Japanese knotweed from the banks of Plum Creek.

“I wanted to do something for Oberlin,” College secondyear and event organizer Noah Hamaoui said. “We come here for four years, and then we take a bunch of resources [from] the town, make housing so much more expensive here than it would be, and leave. It’s important for us to contribute to the town however we can.”

Hamaoui came up with the idea after participating in a freshwater and community conservation externship. Wanting to relate her research to Oberlin, she got in touch with Reeves to learn about local issues relating to freshwater conservation. Reeves brought up the Japanese knotweed, which has been plaguing Oberlin but for which solutions have not been sufficiently funded. So, with advice from Reeves and the help of a research grant from the National Geographic Society and The Nature Conservancy, Hamaoui decided to create a community action day around the removal of Japanese knotweeds.

She hopes this project might pave the way for future funding from the City of Oberlin to further address the issue.

“If it was [successful], that’s something that we could show the City of Oberlin and be like, ‘Hey, why don’t you create a budget? We have an approach that works,’” Hamaoui said.

Japanese knotweed, a thick plant with deep roots called rhizomes and an aggressive ability to reproduce, was introduced to the United States in the late 1800s. In Oberlin, it has dominated over native plants in resource consumption.

The decreased biodiversity resulting from this becomes an

Layla Wallerstein

issue for freshwater ecosystems when the weed grows alongside rivers and creeks, as it often does.

Japanese knotweed does not last year-round, but rather grows in the spring and dies in the winter. Because it has outcompeted all other vegetation where it grows, the soil it resides in is left defenseless during the winter. Without plants to stabilize it and protect it from direct rainfall, the soil becomes more vulnerable to erosion and can end up polluting the water with runoff.

“If you have very sedimentheavy water, you’re going to choke out anything that needs to breathe that water because it won’t be able to process the oxygen,” Reeves said.

In order to remove the Japanese knotweed along a section of Plum Creek, the student volunteers engaged in part one of a two-step process.

As they stood around a picnic table, pulling on gloves, Reeves explained the first step. They would each split into pairs or trios, armed with a can of spray paint and pruning shears. As they worked, they would mark off squares around the weeds before moving in to cut them at the base of their stems, throwing the plants into large paper bags to be properly disposed of later.

Over the course of three hours, the volunteers cleared an entire section of the bank, shedding clothing layers as the sun came out and venturing down the steep incline on the side of the bank to better attack the weeds.

“The before and after was really noticeable,” Luke Moeller, a first-year who helped with the Japanese knotweed removal on Saturday, said. “Being able to see the progress that we made was really helpful and really inspiring.”

In the fall, Reeves will return with herbicide. The plants, already weakened from being cut and in the process of sending all their energy down to the roots, will be more vulnerable to the weed killer. The spray will get

transferred through the stem to the rhizomes, further damaging them.

Both Hamaoui and Reeves acknowledged that using herbicide is not ideal.

“When it comes down to it, that’s the only thing that has been shown to work on these plants, so I am trying to go on the best practices of what is shown to be successful,” Reeves said.

In three hours, the volunteers were able to successfully clear a patch of Japanese knotweed by Plum Creek. To eradicate the entire population from the City of Oberlin, many more volunteers, and many more work days are needed.

Looking to the future, Hamaoui hopes to sponsor a communitybased project with Oberlin College’s Environmental Studies department.

“Every semester, I would have people help me,” Hamaoui said.

“If it’s in the spring, it will be cutting it, and if it’s in the fall, after the herbicide is applied, we’ll be planting a mix of native Ohio blends to go in that space and not allow it to grow again.”

Reeves believes that engaging the community in projects like this is important.

“It’s great if something is just done, but it’s even better if people understand why and what’s going on,” Reeves said. “Being engaged helps you feel an ownership and a connection to where you are and what you’re doing.”

When it comes to approaching environmental activism such as this, Hamaoui stressed the importance of listening to members of the community the issue affects.

“Whatever community or region that you’re working with, you have to listen to the people who live there because they are going to know different things than the scientists, who have been doing Ph.D. [programs] on that issue, will know,” Hamaoui said. “I guess this was my way of listening to the community and giving back.”

05 | CINDI BYRON-DIXON

CONSERVATORY

Kushagra Kar, Emma Benardete, Nikki Keating

FEATURE

Print Publications Shed Light on Generations of Oberlin Activism |

10

Alexa Stevens News Editor

In the wake of Oberlin College v. Gibsons Bros., Inc., which began in 2016, College administrators have implemented a series of policies designed to monitor student, faculty, and staff activist endeavors. The Review presents a timeline of some of these College policies, spanning from 2017 to 2023.

Trustees Initially Reject Proposal for Student Board Member (2017)

In early October of 2017, after 18 months of student activism in its favor, former Student Senate Liaison and then-fifth-year double-degree student Jeremy Poe’s proposal for student representation on the Board of Trustees was rejected by the board.

“A healthy board is one on which every trustee feels absolutely comfortable thinking out loud,” Canavan wrote. “Trustees are no less human than students: when we think out loud, we take note of who’s in the room, consciously or subconsciously. Most trustees, including those who might otherwise support the resolution, worry that some of us would think out loud less candidly if students were in the room. As chair, that’s unacceptable to me.”

Rapid Response Team Organized to Monitor and De-Escalate Protests (2020)

On Feb. 18, 2020, President Carmen Twillie Ambar announced that the College was “formally considering” outsourcing 108 dining and custodial jobs held by United Automobile Workers union members. Students responded with protests, including a gathering of hundreds in King Building Feb. 19 in opposition to

Board Chair Chris Canavan, OC ’84, released a statement later that month which expressed the board’s reasoning for rejecting the proposal. See Administration, Page 3

Alicia Smith-Tran OC ’10: Sociology Professor and Basketball Guard

14 | JOHN ELROD

BSAG Continues to Support Black StudentAthletes

15 | EMMA BENARDETE

Trans Day of Visibility

Photoshoot Empower Athletes

16 |JAMES FOSTER

Highlighting the Fight for Indigenous Rights

Decade of Student Activism Preceded Oberlin’s Divestment from Apartheid-Era South Africa

Karthik Ranganadhan Staff Writer

Gautami Kunde

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, college students across the country protested and demanded their colleges divest from companies that were doing business with South Africa due to ongoing apartheid.

This concern led to the creation of the Sullivan Principles, which were aimed at governing American companies’ investments and operations in South Africa.

Named for Reverend Leon Sullivan, the principles included the elimination of workplace discrimination, pay equality, education, and sponsoring social programs and community investment. The hope was that companies signing onto the principles would help undermine apartheid on a socio-economic level.

The principles proved divisive. While they were heralded by some political and industry leaders as being a constructive way for U.S. businesses to engage

with South Africa, activists saw them as a way for U.S. businesses to limit the effectiveness of corporate divestment. Oberlin students at the time also raised their concerns with the principles in a Nov. 16, 1978 open forum with the Board of Trustees.

The Oberlin administration’s policy was that it would not own stock in any company which had 10 percent or more of its worldwide sales in South Africa or did not comply with the Sullivan Principles. However, many students felt that the College’s mere presence in South Africa guided in providing the apartheid government with financial stability.

On April 6, 1979, students protested the College’s stance at a meeting of the Board of Trustees on the fourth floor of Mudd Center. As a result of the protests, 105 students were charged with “disrupting the essential operations of the College.” The charge carried the maximum penalty of expulsion, but the students were finally given a letter of reprimand.

Student protests continued

throughout the 10-year period between the initial open forum and the College’s decision to divest. In 1986, students were charged on the same grounds as seven years prior when approximately 200 students disrupted another Board of Trustees meeting on the fourth floor of Mudd Center.

A Review article recounts the 1986 event (“Oberlin 59 Face Charges; Students Gain Wide Support,” The Oberlin Review, Feb. 6, 1987) written by Rachel Seidman.

“When students began banging on the windows of the Goodrich room where the meeting was being held, Dean of Students George Langeler repeatedly requested them to keep silent,” the article reads. “After several outbursts, during which time the trustees moved their meeting to an inner room, Langeler collected the IDs of 59 students.”

By February 1987, however, the charges were dropped due to the General Faculty voting to urge Langeler to that course of action.

In March of 1987, hundreds of students occupied the Cox

Administrative Building. Their protest was expansive, spanning three days and having up to 250 students participating at its busiest times.

Students filled as many offices as possible and hung signs of protest, such as the African National Congress flag, from windows. Students organizing the protest collected more than 300 student IDs in an effort to make sure no student could be singled out by the College the way the Oberlin 59 were.

Over the three day duration of the sit-in, the administration asked the students to vacate some of the offices, but the students did not comply, eventually leaving Cox only to move the protest closer to the Board of Trustees meeting.

Oberlin students wanted the administration to divest completely from investments in companies doing business with South Africa. Just a few hours after students ended their sitin of the Cox Administrative Building, the Board of Trustees began talks to divest from South Africa.

April 28, 2023

Volume 152

Special Edition (ISSN 297–256)

Editors-in-Chief

Kushagra Kar

Emma Benardete

Managing Editor

Nikki Keating

News Editors

Alexa Stevens

Cal Ransom

Opinions Editors

Emily Vaughan

Hanna Alwine

Arts & Culture Editors

Dlisah Lapidus

Yasu Shinozaki

Sports Editors

John Elrod

Kayla Kim

Conservatory Editor

Delaney Fox

Photo Editors

Abe Frato

Erin Koo

This Week Editor

Eloise Rich

Senior Staff Writers

Ava Miller

Chris Stoneman

Celia Perks

Lyric Anderson

Maeve Woltring

Web Manager

Nada Aggadi

Production Manager

Isaac Imas

Production Editors

Addie Breen

E.J. LaFave

Gideon Reed

Correction

In our article published April 21, 2023, “Conservatory Students Form R. Nathaniel Dett Music Society,” it was incorrectly stated that R. Nathaniel Dett, OC 1908, was the first Black graduate of Oberlin Conservatory. Nathaniel Dett was the first Black student to complete a double major at Oberlin Conservatory. Harriet Gibbs Marshall, OC 1889, Piano Performance major, was the first Black student to receive a Bachelors of Music degree from Oberlin Conservatory. The Review regrets this error.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Friday, April 28

7-9 p.m.: Edie Carey in Concert at Mill on Main Edie Carey, award-winning pop-folk singer and songwriter, is set to perform, per the event description, a “humor-filled” concert. Doors open at 7 p.m., music starts at 7:30.

Saturday, April 29

9 a.m.–12 p.m.: Free Airplane Rides and Pancake Breakfast at Lorain County Regional Airport, Unit 6

Sponsored by the Young Eagles program and the Experimental Aircraft Association, youth ages of 8–17 are invited to take their first airplane ride. To participate, children must be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian. Contact Michael McCoy at (440) 915-8691 or mikemccoy100@netzero.net for more information.

1 p.m.: Serve the People Akron in King Building, Room 123

The Politics Representative Committee presents a local organization focused on abolition and grassroots organizing. Serve the People Akron will be discussing the

history of their organization, their efforts in anti-eviction and supporting the Akron Bail Fund, and the fight to demand justice for Jayland Walker.

Sunday, April 30

12-3 p.m.: Play Like a Girl in Philips gym

Girls ages 5–12 are invited to participate in volleyball, football, basketball, softball, soccer, field hockey, lacrosse, tennis, cross country, and track and field alongside Oberlin student-athletes and coaches in celebration of the 50th anniversary of Title IX. Attendees can register at this link, or in person starting at 11:30 a.m. in the lobby of Philips gym.

12 p.m.: Out of Status:

Undocumented Asians in American History in King Building, Room 101

Presented by the Asian American Alliance and Obies for Undocumented Inclusion, Former Chair of Comparative American Studies and Professor of History Shelley Lee is set to speak. Bagels and coffee from Slow Train Cafe will be provided.

2:30–3:30 p.m.: Bruce Liu

Piano Recital in Finney Chapel Bruce Liu, former OberlinComo fellow and winner of the International Chopin Piano Competition in 2021, is set to perform a solo program as part of the 2022–23 Artist Recital Series. Liu will perform works by Chopin and Liszt. Tickets are available online and for purchase in the Finney Chapel lobby starting at 1:30 p.m. on the day of the recital.

Monday, May 1

4:45–5:45 p.m.: Pathways: Isabel Yellin, OC ’11, in the Clarence Ward Art Library The Studio Art department, with support from the Ellen Johnson Endowment for Contemporary Art, is hosting a lecture series for alumni of the department to present on life after Oberlin. Isabel Yellin, OC ’11, will discuss her post-graduation professional developments.

Tuesday, May 2 12–6 p.m.: Oberlin College Baseball vs. Denison University on Dill Field

The men’s baseball team is set to face off against Denison University in a double-header game.

Wednesday, May 3

9:30–9:50 a.m.: Centerpeace in Fairchild Chapel, Bosworth Hall

A 20-minute, all- and nofaith-friendly silent gathering for individual devotion among College students and staff will take place in Bosworth Hall. An offering will be read aloud at the start of the event, and hot drinks will be offered afterward.

Thursday, May 4

11 a.m.–2 p.m.: May the Fourth Be With You During Finals! at Stevenson Dining Hall Blue Fin Station will feature a Star Wars-inspired menu and special features.

6–7:30 p.m.: Bad Art Gallery

Show in Birenbaum Innovation and Performance Space

BadArtCo is hosting its final gallery show for students of the ExCo to present their final projects. Refreshments will be provided, and formal wear is “jokingly encouraged.”

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James Foster

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Illustrator

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Photo courtesy of Oberlin College Archives

Oberlin students march out of Mudd.

Photo courtesy of Oberlin College Archives

Students made signs to protest in favor of divestment.

Candice Raynor

Professor, Director and Faculty in Residence of the Afrikan Heritage House

at what the Black community here looks like and how much it means to a lot of students, and we get positive feedback from prospective students every year. Then with retention, it starts with not just keeping Black students here but also helping them be successful all four years. It’s giving support to students who aren’t as comfortable asking for help or don’t know where to go and making sure students don’t fall through the cracks. It’s kind of an extra layer of support as well. And that’s for students who live here and for students who don’t — I support students, people who are residents of A-House, and people who aren’t.

How does working as an educator in Africana Studies promote activism in your students and the community within the Afrikan Heritage House?

I think whether you’re Black or you’re not, learning about the history of Black folks, as well as educating yourselves in the present circumstances, helps you come up with solutions. There are examples in the past of non-Black people who have been members of Black movements and who have done the work, and so learning about Black history helps you see where you fall into this and the work that you need to do. It also helps you understand why people feel the way they feel and connects you with those people to create ideas on how you can be the change. Whether that’s through formal activism work like organizing or through being more radical, you’re still enacting change, and that stems from learning.

studies programs came about because of activism. Black students advocate for learning about themselves and say, “Everyone should learn about what we’ve been through,” and “How can we solve these problems that we’re all dealing with as a community?” It’s why it’s disturbing to see pushback when it comes to critical race theory. Kids should be learning all of what happened, all of American history and world history, so that future generations solve and address the problems. How can they do that if they’re not educated on them, if they don’t know where they come from?

So that makes education in itself a form of activism. In my critical race theory class today, we were talking about how even as a researcher, you can make a difference in the things that you’re choosing to do research on — how you can shine a light on areas that people aren’t talking about. It’s putting yourself forward in these spaces, and that is also important. So there’s always been activism within education, and they should be taught together — specifically for Africana Studies, too. What does activism look like for you when working with Black students?

Candice Raynor is an Africana Studies professor at Oberlin College. Outside of her work in the department, she works within the Afrikan Heritage House with Black students on programming and other events centered around Black culture and history.

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

What are some of the responsibilities of the director and faculty in residence of the Afrikan Heritage House?

Well, this is my seventh year at Oberlin and my sixth year as director and faculty in residence. I was a fellow of Africana teaching and housing in my first year — the first and last fellow. Really, my job is about building community and maintaining that fostering of community among Black students at Oberlin, and I do that by supporting the department’s curricular aspects and community. A-House is sort of co-curricular in that

it provides support and is a resource for anyone interested in learning about Africana Studies and culture. So our programming provides an additional way, apart from the classes in the department, to learn about Africana Studies. Then there’s also the goal of providing a safe space for Black-identifying students on campus and also giving an opportunity for allyship to develop with non-Black students. So I work on how to do all of that, how to be in this space, and how to support Black people.

What does programming look like within the Afrikan Heritage House?

What that looks like is finding a connection within the community and building off of that. This also includes working with other groups who’ve also dealt with oppression in some form and working in solidarity. It’s also through a lot of retention work — recruiting and retention. Recruiting starts with showing prospective students what being Black here can look like and what space you can have and hold. It gives an inside look

There is also a level of Africana Studies that is just applying your knowledge to whatever field you go into. I tell my students that all the time because I get students who aren’t Africana Studies majors in my classes. I always highlight taking what you learn here because you never know the difference youʼll make and what rooms you’re gonna be in. For example, if you’re not Black, you’re gonna be in rooms where people could be talking about Black people in a negative light, but if you are armed with the knowledge, you can say no; you can explain why someone is being ignorant. That can really make a change. For any of my students, I want them to be able to lead change with the knowledge taught in Africana Studies classes. I want them to be armed with the knowledge that they can pass in their professional life. Even if you don’t see yourself leading a career centered around activism, there are so many ways to enact change.

How do you think activism affects the Africana Studies program?

Being an educator can be a form of activism, depending on how you do it. In history, even just the creation of Black

I think a lot of my work ends up being advocacy work. I find myself often speaking, whether it’s to administration or the campus partners, on behalf of Black students, because I act as someone who spends more time with Black students than my coworkers or anybody else on campus. Because of that, I’m able to hear studentsʼ needs and where they need more support. Oftentimes, a big part of my job is not just speaking on behalf of A-House as a program house, but on behalf of a community of which A-House is the center.

My work also involves working with the Black student organizations and often being a part of the conversation around planning events. These events also are a part of advocating for spaces where Black people can come in addition to A-House and make sure there is time for joy — Black joy is also activism. Making sure that there’s a space to celebrate and relax and have fun is also so important. So when we plan and have these events, in a way, that’s a political decision: to take up space and to make space for joy. A lot of Black students are balancing several jobs or balancing several org positions, which is demanding just by itself, and then there’s the added pressure of doing that in a predominantly white space. It’s not always easy to navigate that, so it’s important to have that balance. It’s important to center wellness and to center joy. Audre Lorde once said, “Caring for myself is not selfindulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” I think that sums it up perfectly.

Administration Introduces Activism Oversight Initiatives 2017–Present

Continued from page 1

the lay-off.

The Division of Student Life assembled a Rapid Response Team, which made its debut at one of the ensuing protests.

At the time of its rollout, Rapid Response Team Co-Chair and Assistant Dean of Students and Director of Student Conduct and Community Standards Thom Julian expressed the team’s motives in the article “Rapid Response Team Debuts at UAWRelated Protests” The Oberlin Review, Feb. 28, 2020.

“The purpose is really of the team to support students in their right to express their … freedom of speech, to make sure that students are aware of campus policies, and to support that process from a neutral perspective,” Julian said. “The members of this team are not supposed to have

an opinion, necessarily, when they’re assisting and supporting students when it comes to whether they agree or disagree with the message of the student activists; it’s really just to support the students as students.”

When the team was made aware of student protests, demonstrations, or other forms of collective activism, its protocol was to reach out to organizers and ensure that they were aware of campus policies. The team would then station itself at the event in order to monitor and de-escalate it, or defer to Campus Safety Officers if needed.

Then-Vice President and Dean of Students Meredith Raimondo told the Review that the Rapid Response Team’s existence was not specifically inspired by the UAW-related protest activity,

but by a broader history of student activism.

“It was put together in response to some of the challenges around student protest and demonstration in the past,” Raimondo said. “I’m thinking about the events at Gibson’s; I’m also thinking about some of the protests that occurred around the ABUSUA demands. … We wanted [to get] something up and running this semester, I think with the knowledge that spring is a time when typically there’s something that’s going on. But [creating the team] was not specifically driven by the outsourcing announcement.”

Student Organizers’ Request to Negotiate with Board of Trustees Denied (2022)

In early October of last year, at a faculty teach-in event organized

to protest the impending vote on the Board of Trustees’ proposed bylaw amendments, student activists were denied an audience with the board. Dean of Students Karen Goff eventually staged a meeting between protestors, who were stationed outside of the Center for Engaged Liberal Arts, and Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees Lillie Edwards, OC ’75. Student attempts both to enter CELA and to speak with Canavan were denied.

General Counsel Sessions (2023)

On April 27, Assistant General Counsel for the College Justin Younker led a session titled “Oberlin & Me: When am I Oberlin, and why does it matter?”

“This session will focus on the intersection of action

and responsibility,” the event description read. “We will explore a variety of topics, such as specific actions that could be attributable to the College (including social media and other speech), implications of actions taken pursuant to one’s employment, and the creation of obligations on behalf of the College. We will also consider the College’s procedures regarding protests and student speech.”

With faculty and staff present, this session covered vicarious liability, when College employees are and are not agents of the College, and social media usage. Younker asked attendees to consider, in various case studies, when the College may be liable for the actions of its employees.

Candice Raynor

Photo courtesy of Tanya Rosen Jones, OC ’97 Nikki Keating Managing Editor

Ava Miller Senior Staff Writer

India to Pass China This Week as World’s Most Populous Nation, According to UN

According to projections by the United Nations, India is poised to overtake China as the world’s most populous nation by the end of this month. The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs released a statement saying: “By the end of this month, India’s population is expected to reach 1,425,775,850 people, matching and then surpassing the population of mainland China.” Executive director of Population Foundation of India

Poonam Muttreja said, “We have also reduced our population

growth and reached population stabilization faster than we had imagined, and it will continue to slow down as long as we stay on the right track. So I don’t think there’s any need for alarm.”

President Biden Announces 2024 Re-Election Bid

In a video announcement on Tuesday, President Joe Biden began his re-election campaign. In the video, Biden focused on a theme of freedom, stating: “Every generation of Americans has faced a moment when they’ve had to defend democracy, stand up for our personal freedoms, stand up for our right to vote and our civil rights. And this is our moment.” Currently, 56 percent of voters disapprove of Biden, dissatisfied with his handling of

nearly all major issues such as the economy and immigration.

WHO Warns of “Biological Risk” After Fighters Seize Laboratory in Sudan

On April 25, one of the fighting parties in Sudan took over a laboratory in Sudan’s capital of Khartoum. The World Health Organization said there’s a “high risk of biological hazard.” Fighting began between the Sudanese armed forces and Rapid Support Forces paramilitaries on April 15. While WHO has declined to specify which side overtook the facility, there is clarification on the consequences. The occupying force has kicked out all laboratory technicians, making it impossible to manage stored biological materials. The

laboratory contains isolates of polio, measles, and cholera. UN officials have labeled this as an “extremely dangerous” development.

Japanese Company Attempts

Moon Landing

Japanese company ispace aimed to be the first private company to successfully land a robot on the moon this week. The robot, named Hakuto-R, carried two tiny rovers and deployed a larger wheeled rover. Live animation showed the spacecraft coming as close as 295 feet (89 m) from the lunar surface. However, around 12:40 p.m. (EST) on Tuesday, communication was lost with the lunar lander. ispace CEO Takeshi Hakamada commented: “We have to assume that we could

not complete the landing on the lunar surface.” The company has stated that the lander most likely crashed.

Ukraine Calls on World to Pressure Russia Over Black Sea Grain Deal

This past week, Ukraine called for global powers to pressure Russia to agree to the renewal of the Black Sea grain deal. The deal will expire on May 18 if not supported by Russia. The deal was arranged by Türkiye and the UN this past July to provide Ukraine with resumption of grain exports from Black Sea ports. Ukrainian presidential adviser Mikhail Podolyak commented that a way forward can only succeed “if the international community collectively pressures Russia.”

OUI Navigates Rebuilding Group Identity and College Relations

Imas

Isaac

Production Manager

Obies for Undocumented

Inclusion has grown its public presence in recent years through outward-facing events, some of which — like Immigrant Narratives Night and the El Centro Volunteer Initiative Art Gala — have seen significant turnout from members of the Oberlin community. However, the organization’s mission of securing safety, comfort, and equal opportunity for undocumented Oberlin students is tied to the lessvisible push for internal change within the College, which involves collaborating with administration to make resources for undocumented students easily accessible and establishing norms around their treatment.

According to College secondyear and OUI board member Lily Baeza, undocumented students face unique difficulties. Professional development training for students may not always offer a roadmap for individuals who don’t have work authorization and can only receive payment via nonemployment stipends for jobs secured through the College — which can’t pay them for contracted work because the College keeps a record of students’ undocumented status. Similarly, while U.S. citizens may receive information on filling out the FAFSA, undocumented students who don’t qualify for federal student aid turn to each other for guidance in filling out their annual financial aid forms, which is a separate process entirely.

“The biggest hurdle, I feel like, is getting here,” Baeza said. “And once you’re here, it’s just trying to survive. You don’t have a way to legally work, so how are you going to get money? And on campus, one of the only ways to get money as an undocumented

student is through [the Bonner Scholars Program], cause they pay through stipend … if you don’t have Bonner, what are you going to do for work?”

After they graduate, undocumented students also face a different reality than their documented classmates.

“A lot of people are excited to graduate, but I feel like as an undocumented student, once you graduate, you’re done,” Baeza said. “Because you have your degree, you have all this knowledge, you have experience, you can do the jobs, but you don’t have citizenship, which is what a lot of jobs require.”

OUI hosts fundraisers throughout the year, like the Pajama Solidarity Walk, to contribute to the OUI fund, which was created to alleviate the financial burden carried by undocumented students with severely restricted employment opportunities. But before the current iteration of the fund was created, OUI raised $50,000 toward an undocumented student fund, which was endowed by the College in 2016 to ensure its stability and longevity. It was officially titled the DREAM Endowed Fund for Undocumented Students. However, with its new designation as a scholarship, the fund lost much of its usefulness, according to student recipients.

“It can only be used for tuition, which is an issue, because many undocumented students already have full tuition scholarships,” College fourthyear and OUI board member Minerva Macarrulla said. “It was envisioned as a fund that could be used for anything, like for emergency funding, for room and board costs, for DACA renewals. … So, we were really frustrated with the fund. And also, there’s no way to apply to it. We have one student who, at one point, saw on her bill that she was given the fund, and it had no impact on how much she

was paying at all.”

In the years before the COVID-19 pandemic, OUI lost a point of connection with the Multicultural Resource Center after a restructuring eliminated community coordinator positions. Community coordinators, who often worked with identity groups that corresponded with their own, would act as channels between student organizers and faculty members.

“The capacity for leadership development in student organizations, the capacity for institutional memory in student organizations, was incredible, because their role was literally to pass down that institutional memory — to train people who were leading student organizations to be better leaders, to mediate conflicts between people in these organizations and just really to honor the work that people who lead marginalized student organizations do,” Macarrulla said.

This year, OUI has made significant headway in rebuilding relationships with administrative offices across campus. In regular meetings with the MRC, OUI board members have been developing an UndocuAlly training tailored toward faculty and staff, to equip them to provide resources for undocumented students, even in the form of information.

“We’ve been working a lot with [Vilmarie Perez, assistant director for career readiness at the Office of Career Exploration and Development],” Baeza said. “She’s been great. She’s helped us figure out summer experiences, summer funding — anytime she finds out about an internship or something, she always emails us about that. She’s also been present at most of our meetings, so even her advocating for us a lot has been great.”

OUI’s willingness to take initiative in establishing and

maintaining administrative contacts, as well as occupying a more visible role on campus, is a fairly recent development within the organization.

“We’ve changed OUI a lot in our time,” Macarrulla said. “It used to be very secretive … there was a really, really big emphasis on confidentiality. And I don’t think that we’ve lost the emphasis on confidentiality where it really matters. Like, we never ask anyone to disclose their status at OUI meetings.”

Now, the organization’s presence on campus is difficult to miss, with events publicized on bulletin boards, through posts on social media, and College publications. The change was catalyzed by a meeting staged between OUI board members and a fellow organizer for undocumented students operating on a different campus. When OUI members expressed their hesitancy in publicizing an UndocuChill session exclusively targeted toward undocumented students, their contact suggested a radical reorientation.

“He said, ‘Invisibility is just

damaging’,” Macarrulla said. “He really emphasized the power of visibility in building support for undocumented students, and the fact that something always could happen — but better that you be visible as a campus organization and have something bad happen to you, than have no one know that you exist and have something bad happen to you. Because then you can draw on more of a network of support.”

OUI has not only increased its visibility but has also leaned into the intersections between their organization and other identitybased student groups, to broaden their community and share resources between organizations working toward mutual goals.

“I think it’s just us realizing that if, as identity orgs and as POC orgs, we don’t support each other, nobody else will,” Baeza said. “During our events, like during the art gala, a student came up and promoted [African Student Association] events. As identity orgs, we’ve definitely realized that if we’re not there for each other, then nobody will be.”

Photo courtesy of OUI

OUI organizers pose during Undocuween.

Highlighting the Fight for Indigenous Rights

Cindi Byron-Dixon

It was a warm, sunny day on Oct 10, 2016 when a crowd gathered in Tappan Square to listen to a speech by Oberlin resident Three Eagle Cloud. Standing in front of a gallows holding 13 nooses, the activist explained that this was how his people had been murdered — 12 nooses meant to represent each apostle and one for Jesus. His voice cracked as he announced his retirement. He had been fighting to abolish Columbus Day at the national level for decades, but he was getting older and tired. The sight of him standing in front of that gallows stirred something powerful in my heart, and I knew that I wanted to do something. Two other women had attended the protest who felt the same conviction that I did: Mary Hammond and Jean Simon. Weeks later, the three of us — joined by my oldest daughter Joella, then a senior at Oberlin High School — met and discussed a plan to propose the Oberlin City Council to make this city the first in Ohio to abolish Columbus Day and enact Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

The Indigenous Peoples’ Day Committee of Oberlin had officially been formed, multi-generational and woman-led. The four of us studied and researched, then met every three to four weeks to share our findings. Topics included the history of the people who once occupied the lands where Oberlin now stands, the diaries of Christopher Columbus and Spanish missionary Bartolome de las Casas, the modern Native crisis, and the processes other cities had used to successfully complete this work. Oberlin, with its rich history of promoting and advocating for human rights, would be a logical addition to this growing list. We reached out to organizations, groups, and clubs in and around the city that we felt may be willing to support our endeavor.

Much of what we learned about Columbus was a shock to us. We had not learned in school that he was an incredibly violent man who actively participated

College’s Concerns Around Liability Stifle Progressive Values

in torture and sex trafficking.

One of his contemporaries, Bartolome de las Casas, wrote in his diary, “Such inhumanities and barbarisms were committed in my sight as no age can parallel. My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature that now I tremble as I write.” Our committee seeks to tell the truth about our history. We wanted to stop the celebration of Columbus as some kind of hero who should be revered. He did not discover our country and never set foot upon the soil that would later become the United States.

We think it is better to recognize the true people of our land. By recognizing that this land was inhabited by people before colonization and celebrating them instead, we take steps toward restorative justice. We need to acknowledge the lies and myths that have infiltrated our history and allow the truth to rise.

After months of research and meetings, the committee asked to be added to the agenda at City Council. The process requires a reading of the proposal three times. For three months, we answered calls from supporters and reacted to critics, most of whom were Italians who looked at Columbus Day as a kind of Italian heritage celebration. We tried, hopefully successfully, to convince people that we meant no dishonor to Italians; we only object to this one man’s cruelty.

On Aug 21, 2017, Oberlin City Council voted unanimously to enact Indigenous Peoples’ Day and abolish Columbus Day.

As we celebrated, the Indigenous Peoples’ Day Committee acknowledged that this was only the first step. Our goal is to continue to educate about and advocate for Indigenous issues. We hold events in the community throughout the year, and each October, we have a celebration.

Aside from being a mother, this activism has been the most important work I’ve ever done.

I am immensely proud of what we have been able to accomplish and the connections that I have made. My great-great-grandmother lived in a time when

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Last September marked the conclusion of the Oberlin College v. Gibsons Bros., Inc. lawsuit, with the institution paying out $36.59 million to the local business. Following the Ohio Supreme Court’s decision to not hear Oberlin’s appeal to the Lorain County Court of Common Pleas’ ruling, the Review published an editorial titled “Court Decision on Gibson’s Suit Threatens Student Speech,” The Oberlin Review, Sept. 16, 2022.

The editorial considered the possibility of increased conservatism toward student protest across higher education. Now, all these months later, the signs of anxiety toward possible litigation are turning up a dime a dozen.

As of last July, the College employs an associate vice president of risk Management & Operations, currently Kalinda Watson, a new role on Oberlin’s campus. While roles like Watson’s aren’t altogether new to higher education, the introduction of the position to Oberlin is indicative of tightening attitudes among administrators toward the potential liability student protests present. One crucial way in which the administration, though not necessarily Watson herself, has changed aspects of student life deemed capable of risk is by prohibiting classes or activities, such as Barefoot Dialogue, from taking place in faculty or off campus households.

This may seem innocuous at first glance, but consider the bigger picture of risk management: last October, the Board of Trustees voted to change language in the institution’s bylaws to erase any delegation of authority to faculty councils in matters outside curriculum. When asked about the reason for this revision by the Review, Trustee Chuck Birenbaum, OC ’79, outlined the sta te of abundant litigation concerning the College and the necessity of risk aversion.

“The board recognized our claims history was a lot greater than it should be for an institution of Oberlin’s size,” Birenbaum said. “The number of lawsuits, employment cases, Title IX claims, personal injury cases, the

Gibson’s case — which we can call a torts case — all these claims demonstrated that Oberlin needed to take a hard look at itself in some ways that it hasn’t before. One of the things that [Oberlin] did was it sought professional advice on risk management.”

Despite joint student, staff, and faculty protests against this decision last October, the Board elected to add language to the amended bylaws that specified faculty should be consulted on long term institutional planning — a symbolic gesture of collaboration in an otherwise unilateral decision. Symbolic gesturing unfortunately cuts both ways, as is apparent in the amendment to visiting assistant professor contracts that now explicitly state their employment can be terminated at the College’s will. While Ohio is an at-will employment state, the choice to introduce that language to contracts is conspicuous within the present reality of the College redoubling efforts to implement legal safeguards against potential liabilities. Last week, the Review published a statement by the Oberlin American Association of University Professors Executive Committee that considered the risks to academic freedom this shift in contract language enables (“AAUP Asks Oberlin to Value Faculty,” The Oberlin Review, April 21, 2023).

This emphasis on litigation is visible from student and faculty affairs to pedagogical opportunities like the Conversations with Counsel that the Office of the Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary have hosted all year. For yesterday’s session of the discussion series, the event description read, “We will explore a variety of topics, such as specific actions that could be attributable to the College (including social media and other speech), implications of actions taken pursuant to one’s employment, and the creation of obligations on behalf of the College.” None of this is happening with any malicious intent, rather efforts like Conversations with Counsel seem like a unique op-

portunity to understand the inner workings of the College. At the same time, the institution’s obsession with finding and sealing these gaps in its operation can come at the expense of the wants and needs of our collegiate community.

So where does this meet the current reality of activism on campus? It seems unlikely that a college living in fear of litigation, and one that has used legal technicalities to dismiss concerns expressed in protest, will behave favorably toward activist efforts in the years to come. Further, several of these decisions were made unilaterally or without disclosure to the broader public. The room to have an effectively informed conversation is shrinking, which makes it tougher for students to know the stakes of what’s happening on our campus. This has the potential to limit students’ ability to organize and engage in discourse with administrators. In fact, since spring 2022, the highest student turnouts have been at protests surrounding faculty issues, organized by faculty and staff. It isn’t that the state of discourse in College issues is shrinking, but rather that certain kinds of decisions have become less visible and the likelihood of being heard has become more distant.

Oberlin’s student body has historically been defined by its involvement in nationwide movements and activism in general. These tightening restrictions and a larger focus on risk management and liability within our administration threaten to curb the progressive nature of Oberlin and, to a certain extent, limit what makes Oberlin the institution that drew many of us here in the first place. As we near the end of the year, as seniors graduate to go on to involve themselves in the outside world, as Oberlin prepares itself to welcome another first-year class, we must ask the school and the students what kind of institution we want to be and what kind of institution we want to be a part of. Student activism in Oberlin is integral to the culture. Without it, what do we stand for?

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

Take Back the Night Promotes

Intersectional Allyship

Avery Russell

This year, I organized Take Back the Night, a Survivors of Sexual Harm and Allies event that was intended to support and uplift sexual harm survivors and raise awareness about gender-based violence. My experience planning and speaking at Take Back the Night was emotional, exhausting, joyful, saddening, and incredibly rewarding.

Take Back the Night, a worldwide protest to combat sexual and gender-based violence, was

first held in 1877 in London, England. Today, college campuses around the United States continue to hold Take Back the Night in support of sexual harm survivors.

Whenever I tell people I’m involved in SOSHA, there is a moment of silence. I can sense others’ discomfort with the simple acknowledgement that I am a survivor of sexual harm. I understand this. Sexual harm and gender-based violence is challenging to reckon with, and many people have not processed their own experiences of sexual violence.

However, approximately one in three women worldwide experience some sort of physical or sexual violence in their lifetime, and women in college between the ages of 18–24 are three times more likely to experience sexual violence than women in general.

It is clear that sexual violence is a massive issue, especially on college campuses. I joined SOSHA’s advocacy team to bring these issues of sexual violence to light.

After my experience with assault on Oberlin’s campus in

See Establishment, page 7 See Organizers, page 6

Small-Scale Efforts Have Impact on Climate Crisis

Claire O’Brocta

It’s easy to think that nothing will get better. Oberlin College introduced the ambitious goal to become carbon neutral by 2025 in 2009. In 2014, a major leap was made when the College discontinued the use of coal. Nine years have passed since. Oberlin is now entering its third year of construction work for the Sustainable Infrastructure Program, which will bring the College 90 percent of the way to carbon neutrality by upgrading the campus’ outdated heating and cooling systems. Not only will the SIP help Oberlin reach its carbon neutrality goal, but it will also save money and millions of gallons of water each year! This is a major win for sustainability on campus.

The SIP isn’t the only way Oberlin is making efforts toward a more sustainable future. In another recent victory, the Office of Environmental Sustainability signed a contract to eventually bring in sheep to mow around

solar panels in North Fields, which will reduce the carbon impact of maintaining the College’s solar field.

Student groups are making an impact as well. The student-led Resource Conservation Team leads waste reduction efforts, including the Free Store and Oberlin Food Rescue, while the community resilience group Students for Energy Justice recently led a walk protesting the NEXUS natural gas pipeline that runs through Oberlin.

All of these Oberlin groups are doing crucial work; now more than ever, it’s important to take action against climate change.

The chances of success in climate-related efforts are rising as more and more people across the political spectrum begin to see it as an urgent issue. Research from the Yale Climate Communication program shows us that 53 percent of people in the U.S. are either “alarmed” or “concerned” about climate change, an increase from 38 percent in 2012. Support for climate-related poli-

Organizers Find Valuable

Lessons in Organizing from Stop Cop City

cies is even higher at around 66–80 percent of Americans. This high level of concern is severely underestimated by most of the U.S., leading to widespread misperceptions that climate policies won’t pass. Taking visible climate action is a great way to help combat these misperceptions.

Oberlin has shown us time and time again that we have the ability to be effective against climate change. Even small efforts can have a major impact on our planet, so why not do something? One simple action anyone can take is calling or emailing an elected official to show support for climate policies, which can help bust the myth that people don’t care about climate change. Citizens’ Climate Lobby makes this easy with a form specifically designed for contacting local congresspeople about climate legislation. Oberlin students can also get involved with the Resource Conservation Team, Students for Energy Justice, or other sustainability groups on campus.

Community In Leading Events

Continued from page 5

January, I thought further about how the Oberlin community talks about topics pertaining to sexual harm. At Oberlin, we have important and necessary conversations about practicing consent, but we don’t talk often enough about what happens after consent is violated. What do you do if you or someone you know experiences sexual harm? Take Back the Night is an event which centers survivors in the conversation of sexual harm. Its goal is to address what members of our community can do if you or someone you know experiences sexual harm.

SOSHA’s third annual Take Back the Night in Peters Hall included a speak-out, where members from the Oberlin community spoke or sang about topics surrounding sexual harm, marched around campus, and celebrated resilience. During the speak-out and celebration, I felt so proud of all the speakers and performers for having the courage to share their stories. All the performers held so much beauty, strength, and resilience. I felt honored to share the stage with them.

I decided to perform at Take Back the Night somewhat spontaneously. I didn’t write my speech until a few days prior to the event. I was nervous to talk about my experience of sexual assault on Oberlin’s campus: I didn’t want my time at Oberlin to be defined by my experience of sexual violence. I didn’t want to deal with the questioning that can come when you tell people that you have experienced sexual assault. Still, I decided to speak at Take Back the Night because I no longer wanted to feel ashamed of what had happened to me. I hoped sharing my story would encourage other survivors to speak out. After my speech I felt an immense sense of power.

An element of planning Take Back the Night that was really important to me was making Take Back the Night as intersectional of an event as possible. As a Black woman, I have found that my experiences of sexual violence have been largely influ-

enced by my race. Sometimes when talking about sexual violence, we leave out the history of sexual violence enacted against women of color in America. In order to have truthful discussions about sexual violence, we must acknowledge the variety of survivor experiences influenced by race, gender, sexuality, and class.

The most surprising aspect of the event for me was the outpouring of emotions from performers and audience members. After the speak-out, somebody came up to me in tears saying, “Your speech was amazing, I am so proud of you.” I had messages from people telling me what the speech and the event had meant to them and how it made them want to talk and process their own experiences of sexual violence more. Students talking publicly about experiences of sexual harm destigmatizes the topic of sexual assault. Sexual assault is incredibly isolating and devastating. To know that there are other people who have had similar experiences makes survivors feel less alone. In addition, we hope that people speaking about their experiences of sexual harm will force the Oberlin student body to deal with the per-

vasive issue of sexual violence on our campus.

Despite attending Oberlin College for less than a year, I have already heard countless stories of individuals experiencing sexual violence on campus. Outside of the SOSHA spaces, however, I notice that, as a community, we rarely talk about sexual violence. This lack of discussion stems from the discomfort in acknowledging that people in our community are capable of committing sexual harm. But in failing to acknowledge the sexual harm on our campus we are silencing sexual harm survivors. Only when we talking about issues of sexual harm can we support survivors and help end the rape culture that perpetuates sexual violence.

I ended my speech by addressing the allies present at the event: “To the allies here tonight, don’t take your role lightly. You can have an incredible impact with small acts of grace and support.”

I say the same thing to all the readers of this article. I ask that you show support to sexual harm survivors and attend survivor visibility events. We must continue to talk about these issues and raise awareness in order to properly support sexual harm survivors.

Eric McKewin

Over fall break, I traveled to Atlanta to visit the Weelaunee Forest, the frontline of the fight to Stop Cop City. “Cop City” is the name activists have given to the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, a $90 million police training facility under construction in a critical urban green space. Protestors argue the project will contribute to rampant deforestation, police militarization, and gentrification. In response, activists built a movement to resist the project’s construction. They’ve rallied, marched, hung banners, sprayed graffiti, called legislators, testified at city council meetings, and physically occupied the forest upon which Cop City is set to be built. After spending the week speaking with activists, touring the forest, and witnessing the movement firsthand, I felt inspired to share three lessons I learned in organizing with Oberlin.

First, Stop Cop City is “autonomous.” This means there is no central body directing the movement or handing decisions from the top down. Instead, participants are able to engage however they feel compelled to. I encourage Oberlin students to organize autonomously, too. In my social circles, I often hear criticism of other student’s efforts to organize. It’s a topic of gossip to discuss how a banner drop on campus is ineffective or how a library installation is performative. While criticism can be warranted, I believe it dampens Oberlin’s spirit of activism more than it enriches it. I think Oberlin’s spirit of activism would benefit from building a culture in which students considered their own actions above criticizing the actions of others. This way, without the fear of ridicule, all students would feel empowered to engage in activism on their terms.

Second, Stop Cop City is proactive, not just reactive. In addition to resisting state violence in the present, such as occupying the forest to slow the clear-cut or calling on lawmakers to cancel the project, they also build the world they want to see for the future. Activists host soup kitchens, raves, Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, nature

walks, art-making workshops, and other community events. While these events do not directly resist Cop City’s construction, they build relationships among community members, which better allows communities to mobilize. Oberlin’s activist culture seems to be very strong when reacting to needs as they arise — the 2020 layoffs of unionized dining and custodial staff, restrictions on abortion access, allegations against Professor of Religion Mohammad Jafar Mahallati, or revisions to the institution’s bylaws. However, I believe students should also proactively build networks of care through donating to mutual aid needs, showing up to events hosted by social justice or affinity-based student organizations, and continuously pressuring College administration into better supporting marginalized students. This would allow us to both better support our most vulnerable peers and better mobilize when new needs emerge.

Third, Stop Cop City emphasizes that change can be made from anywhere. Activists in Atlanta call on allies nationwide to send funds, contact Cop City’s subcontractors, and host their own events. In Oberlin, I often hear students express that they want to take on big issues like climate change or anti-Blackness, but feel it’s impossible to effect change from a smalltown, “bubble” environment. I disagree. Oberlin’s “bubble” does not isolate it from issues like anti-Blackness. Stop Cop City demonstrates that there are ways to engage in national movements from Oberlin. In March, Students for Energy Justice hosted a solidarity event in support of Stop Cop City. Around 50 students contacted Cop City’s subcontractors, wrote letters to incarcerated forest defenders, and painted a banner that now hangs on Harkness Hall. I believe Oberlin students can enact big changes from our small town.

Oberlin’s activist culture strengthens when we learn from movements around us. As a contemporary and ongoing struggle, Stop Cop City is an especially inspiring example of communities coming together to make change.

A banner hangs from Harkness Hall in support of Stop Cop City.

Photo by Erin Koo, Photo Editor

SOSHA’s annual Denim Day event in Wilder Bowl.

Photo by Erin Koo, Photo Editor

Stop Underestimating the Power of Small-Scale Change

Hanna Alwine Opinions Editor

Growing up as a young girl in America, my own personal feminism has developed alongside larger movements. My first experiences with feminism were largely mediated by the strong female characters I encountered in the media I consumed. I spent large parts of my childhood reading my way through the public library’s youth fiction section. Though my parents were self-professed feminists who pointed me toward female-centered literature, female main characters remained few and far between. When I did encounter female main characters they tended to fit a certain trope — they were headstrong, physically adept, emotionally closed off, smart, tough, and stoic. They were fighters. They were rebels. They shoved their feelings down into the soles of their scuffed-up combat boots. Most importantly — they were not like other girls. These characters — Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games, Hermione Granger from Harry Potter, and Kat Stratford from 10 Things I Hate About You

to name a few — acted as molds for the woman I aspired to grow into. They were independent. They were cool. They were completely and utterly badass. They were successful, they were smart, they were respected by their male peers. While these were important qualities for a young girl to see represented in the media, they often came at the expense of putting other women down. Throughout their narratives, Katniss, Hermione, and even Kat continually distance themselves from the other female characters within their narratives, expressing distaste for their adherence to values traditionally associated with femininity — interest in fashion and homemaking and boys. In separating themselves from traditionally feminine structures, they implied that to be accepted as a strong and capable woman you must, to a certain extent, reject objects, fashions, and ideas that have long been associated with femininity.

College has given me the distance to evaluate the ways in which such narratives shaped my childhood understanding of femininity. I am not alone in my

Reflecting on Activism at Oberlin

How do you define activism? How do you see this activism manifested on Oberlin’s campus?

College fourth-year Talia Brun:

I’m currently taking a class on social movements. I feel like I should know a lot about this. That being said, I feel like it is really broad. Obviously when we think about activism we think about social movements and protesting, but I think activism is also so much more than just being out and public. I think a big part of what people don’t always recognize is that it’s a lot of labor and work. It’s a lot of application of what you’re fighting for in real life. So beyond just posting on Instagram and going to protest, I feel like activism is a lifestyle. And I don’t mean that to be pretentious, but it is just, in general, practicing what you preach and contributing in more ways. I feel like there’s a lot more talk than action here. I think, unfortunately, a lot of that activism that Oberlin was known for in the past, not just pre-COVID-19 but also in the ’70s, and ’80s has been lost. I feel like a lot of it can be attributed to COVID-19 and a lot of this historical memory that’s been lost from Oberlin by all these [fourth-years] not really being able to pass on properly all of this information or culture and tradition. I also wanna argue that the College has a lot to do with putting a damper on the way that students participate in politics or even protest or activism in general on campus. I also think that Oberlin has just become a little bit less accessible for students of color and low-income students. So that’s also really played into who is represented on this campus and who feels like they can actually have a say that’s well-educated and well-intentioned on this campus.

College third-year Annie Crocker: It’s such a hard question. I would say activism is when an

childhood rejection of the color pink, my detestation of dresses, or my refusal to associate myself with anything frilly or feminine. These interests — or lack thereof — are not inherently flawed, but as I’ve grown up, I’ve learned to be intentional about why I participate in or choose to separate myself from certain gendered structures. Why did I hate pink and refuse to wear dresses? Was my self-imposed distance from these traditionally feminine structures because I didn’t like these things, or was it because I was afraid of being equated with a certain “type” of woman I had been taught to despise? In the same vein, I have been able to evaluate the structures of femininity that I now operate within. I wear makeup and I shave my legs. I am often soft-spoken or worried to speak up about my own opinions or needs. I ask myself similar questions about why I take part in these structures. Do I make these choices because I want to or because I am afraid of being judged? I do not claim to have all the answers. It is a process I am only just beginning and will continue to undertake for the

rest of my life. When we talk about activism, we tend to think of large-scale events — protests and strikes, nationwide or statewide movements that bring huge groups of people together in the name of social and political reform. Involvement in these movements, whether remotely or on campus, is a shared passion among the Oberlin community. We boast groups like Students for Energy Justice, Survivors of Sexual Harm & Allies, and Students for a Free Palestine — each dedicated to advocating for or against a specific cause. And though these largescale movements are important and work to unify individuals to engage in productive dialogue and enact specific legislative goals, it is important to make space in our definition of activism for more personal growth. Collective action is only made possible by the small steps we each take toward acting on our convictions in our everyday lives.

These small journeys of self-discovery within a larger sociopolitical context are integral to the on-campus activism within Oberlin culture. There is a narrative

that I have heard, specifically as a first-year on this campus, that Oberlin’s activism culture has declined within recent years. While it may be true that large-scale protests and sit-ins are less common than they were in years past, Oberlin excels in a smaller, everyday activist spirit. I have been impressed by the attention our professors give to the importance of mental health in the classroom, the respect students have for remembering to ask for each other’s pronouns at first meetings, and discussions among friends about issues of race, class, gender, and sexuality that happen on an everyday basis and allow us, as students and as people, to learn and grow. There is an understanding that Oberlin College can sometimes be a bubble, closed off from the rest of the world. This Oberlin echo chamber can, at times, be harmful due to its tendency to cut students off from differing ideas and ideologies. But in other ways, the Oberlin bubble facilitates a community of students participating in these small acts that prioritize how we interact with one another and our own shifting identities on a daily basis.

individual or a group of people stand up for something that they believe in — that they think is right — and do something as a collective to demonstrate their support or their desire for change.

I think about all of the marches we had, specifically last year, with Oberlin College for Ukraine and also, I believe it was last semester, the sit-ins that students had against the Board of Trustees. I remember at the time there was a protest that ended up coming into Mudd [Center] and they had a conversation with one of the trustees. I think that [the Student Labor Action Coalition] does a lot of activism on campus for workers’ rights, especially with how underpaid a lot of the workers on this campus are.

College fourth-year Greer Hobbs:

The first thing that came to mind is that when you go out of your way to do something differently or encourage others to do something differently, that will enforce systemic social change. I’m sure there are ways that it can be implemented into your everyday life where it’s activism inserted into regular activities. I think it’s more known for when you [participate in] big actions that aren’t part of your normal routine.

It’s collective. I think not a lot of people do it on their own, which makes sense. It’s power in numbers. Earlier on in my time here, I saw a lot more protests happening. I guess that still happens to an extent — a lot of little local protests and people spreading messages online. I feel like Instagram is a big platform that people use. All the different non-activist student groups sort of also have activist elements to them, so they’re kind of interconnected. I’m in a co-op, and all the time that’s where I find out about things that are happening.

Establishment of Indigenous

Peoples’ Day in Oberlin Lays Groundwork for Future Advocacy

Continued from page 5

she felt forced to assimilate. She gave up her language, her spirituality, her stories, and her traditional ways to fit into white society. She and countless others were made to feel ashamed. I often stare at photos of the rows of children sitting in front of res-

idential boarding schools, where Native parents were required to send their children until the 1960s, and wonder if one of the little faces belongs to my family. These schools destroyed the family construct of generations of Native families and left in its wake intergenerational trauma that has led to cyclic violence,

addiction, and poverty. When I advocate for the restoration of Indigenous communities, I do it with the knowledge that so many voices before mine were silenced. I want to speak for those who could not, for those who were made to feel ashamed of their heritage. I am not ashamed, I am Haudenosaunee.

Faculty-Led Protests Provide Framework for Student Activism

Cecily Miles Columnist

Activism is so ubiquitous within Oberlinʼs campus culture and reputation that I would argue it figures as a central component of students’ education. In fact, the institution includes the development of “an enduring commitment to acting in the world to further social justice, deepen democracy, and build a sustainable future” in its learning goals.

With many recent protests being faculty-led, specifically those regarding faculty members’ own treatment by the College, the influence of professors in students’ education extends well beyond the confines of the classroom. Causes such as higher compensation for faculty and the maintenance of their governing power as guaranteed in the College’s bylaws since its beginning are baseline benefits our professors should be entitled to. These causes certainly warrant our solidarity, and I would like to express mine in this article.

Faculty members engaging in the very activism that is so integral to the Oberlin education further attests to their value as teachers, and it points to why we should join in opposition to the College’s consistent devaluation of our professors and continue to engage with protests to further our learning. I think that we have much to learn.

I applaud Oberlin students’ im-

pulse toward activism, and I find it far preferable to a culture of complacency. I do not think that our protests should be burdened with the expectation of perfection. Rather, I find them to be a meaningful practice in and of themselves and an area in which, like our studies, we have constant room for improvement.

Faculty members have, in the past, protested in forms their positions render them uniquely capable of. It’s true that students don’t have the power to cancel classes, as some faculty did in March 2022 in response to the board’s refusal to raise their compensation. The administration argued that the action was harmful to students and contrary to the school’s primary mission of teaching, but I would disagree. If professors’ absence from their regular duties for just one day was so deeply felt, then doesn’t that demonstrate all the more that they deserve the compensation they were protesting for? Given our professors’ importance, isn’t any step toward the retention of our faculty, to which competitive compensation is key per President Carmen Twillie Ambar and the Board of Trustees, actually in Oberlin students’ best interests?

Contrast this with the behavior of students during a more recent protest against the Board of Trustees’ meeting to discuss the potential reversal of the right of faculty governance. The Editorial

Board rightfully observed, in the wake of the Board of Trustees’ ultimate decision to go through with the revision, that students acted with animosity at what was a faculty organized event at the expense of its message. I don’t begrudge my peers their rage at the prospect of the reversal, nor the expression of this sentiment. We have a right to be angry, not only on behalf of our teachers, but for our own sakes as well.

Our successful support of faculty requires deference to their chosen methods of protest.

Whereas the faculty-organized protest of the bylaw revision allowed students to gauge how to best advocate for them, both by hearing them speak on their situation and through the example of their conduct, the chanting of the phrase “Abolish the Trustees” lacked both nuance and pragmatism, qualities which I believe are the purpose of a liberal arts education to equip us with.

My suggestion, then, is that we treat faculty protest as an inthe-field learning opportunity. I suggest that we listen before we shout, that we continue to support our faculty in their ongoing conflicts with the board, and that we let the example of their activism function alongside our education to inform our own so that we may engage in more productive forms of activism and effect more concrete change in the future — both on campus and beyond.

History of Protest in Oberlin Through Review Headlines

Eloise Rich This

Jan. 21, 1881, Oberlin Weekly News Wise and Otherwise. This section, “Wise and Otherwise,” seems to provide tidbits of wisdom on the front page of the paper. Wendell Phillips, an abolitionist and Native rights advocate, is mentioned in the article, which reads, “no reform, moral or intellectual, ever came down from the upper classes of society. ‘Each and all,’ says [Phillips], ‘come up from the protest of martyr and victim.’”

April 11, 1935, The Oberlin Review United Campus Protests Against War Tomorrow and Student Speakers Will Denounce Strife Following Parade

April 12, 1968, The Oberlin Review Troops To Protect Enlistment Officers

To the right of the masthead, this edition of the Review reads: “Attend Rally at 9:30 Tonight,” likely indicating one against the Nazi regime given the context of another front page article titled “Cosmopolitans Review Hitler’s German Rule.”

May 7, 1976, The Oberlin Review Student workers strike; noon rally attracts 400 Nov. 19, 1976, The Oberlin Review 300 attend Wilder rally against cuts, tuition hikes

Nov. 23, 1976, The Oberlin Review 90 hold Mudd vigil While trustees meet

March 18, 1985, The Oberlin Review Festive mood at protest

May 2, 1986, The Oberlin Review Shantytown, Oberlin

Students seek confrontation

Dec. 12, 1986, The Oberlin Review Trustees, students clash on divestment Protesters disrupt Board, challenge OC investments

Sept. 25, 1941, Oberlin News-Tribune — Farmers Organize Wheat Quota Protest

By 1941, Ohio had formed a statewide Wheat Quota Protest Association in response to the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938, which set regulations on the wheat market. State chairman of the WQPA Russell Kiko was set to speak to Lorain County farmers.

June 13, 1960, The Oberlin Review College Protests Discrimination With Aid to Nashville Sit-Ins

So begins the ’60s: The commencement issue of the year included a page with the headline “Year’s Events Reflect Growth, New Directions.” From March onwards, it seems, Oberlin students were in support of national desegregation movements, standing with the NAACP and some of the earliest nonviolent campaigns of sit-ins in Nashville.

March 23, 1965, The Oberlin Review Students Join NAACP Pickets To Protest Segregated Union

June 12, 1965, The Oberlin Review Peace, Pease Spark Political Activism Vietnam War Protests, Fast 1965 Hi-o-hi End U.S. Aggression in Vietnam protest sign (below) 1965 signified was the halfway point of the Vietnam War. Protests in Oberlin echoed those around the country with words against violence and in support of the NAACP. 1965 was also the year the Voting Rights Act was passed.

With pieces about everything from the Cold War and anti-Reagan sentiments to South Africa, coverage in the ’80s seems to highlight that protests of Oberlin were at their peak.

April 20, 1990, The Oberlin Review Protesters and Police Clash Friday march ends in violence.

April 3, 1992, The Oberlin Review Students rally and petition support custodial concerns … Trustees confronted with voices of dissent

At this point, it’s hard not to see threads in subjects of protest and activism at Oberlin, which of course mimic those of fellow progressive U.S. activists. By and large, though, the ’90s were characterized by racial protests and movement.

Photo courtesy of Five Colleges of Ohio Digital Collections

Sept. 27, 2002, The Oberlin Review Students Will Protest Bush and Students Plan to Protest War

Rankled Obies in D.C. Today, Plan Resistance in NYC March 7, 2003, The Oberlin Review — Bombs to drop, students to walk In the early 2000s, a special issue on American perspectives of war, primarily concerning American interference in the Middle East, was published.

Nov. 11, 2016, The Oberlin Review Students Call for Gibson’s Bakery Boycott

At Oberlin, the end of this decade was dominated by coverage of Gibson’s Bakery. Students and faculty alike boycotted and protested against the bakery, accusing the owners of racism, which mirrored an April 27, 1990 headline: “Protesters accuse Gibson of racism.”

Oct. 7, 2022, The Oberlin Review Faculty, Students Organize Teach-In, Protest Ahead of Board Bylaw Vote

More recently, there have been fewer such headlines. The Review invites its readers to consider this in the context of Oberlin’s collective journalistic history.

Photo courtesy of Five Colleges of Ohio Digital Collections

Photo courtesy of Five Colleges of Ohio Digital Collections

Photo courtesy of Five Colleges of Ohio Digital Collections

Photo courtesy of Five Colleges of Ohio Digital Collections

The 1970s saw the rise of an intense nationwide labor movement. Once again, Obies joined in, supporting local farmers as well as their fellow student and faculty workers.

Photo courtesy of Five Colleges of Ohio Digital Collections

ARTS & CULTURE

Artists, Activists Support Reproductive Justice Cause at Flea Market

Ava Cantlon Staff Writer

Reproductive rights have been a debated topic for decades, and generations of Oberlin students have engaged in conversations about the issue. Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022, these conversations have become especially urgent. We no longer live in a country that pro-

tects reproductive rights as it previously did, and 13 states enacted trigger bans on abortion past the first or second trimester as soon as the Supreme Court decision was released. As with every decision that negatively affects people, those who suffer the worst consequences are the people that have been mistreated for centuries — in this case, low-income BIPOC individuals who require

access to reproductive healthcare. Partially due to this recent Supreme Court ruling, this past weekend the Reproductive Justice Alliance held a flea market featuring visual artists and musicians from Oberlin with the goal of raising money and awareness for reproductive rights agencies focused on providing funds and other resources to BIPOC individuals.

Oberlin Monuments Honor Abolitionist Movement, African American Legacy

Lucy Curtis Staff Writer

The Underground Railroad Monument

The railroad track sculpture located outside Talcott Hall was a student art project that commemorates Oberlin’s role in the Underground Railroad. Oberlin’s involvement with the Underground Railroad began when a former Oberlin student brought people who had escaped enslavement to the Oberlin campus.

The Martin Luther King Jr. Monument

The Martin Luther King Jr. Monument is located at the Martin Luther King Jr. Park on Vine Street. Designed by Professor Emeritus of Studio Art Paul Arnold, the monument is a tall, flat, rectangular tower of bricks with an image of Martin Luther King Jr.’s face. Dr. King visited Oberlin several times over the course of his work, first in 1957, after he initiated the Montgomery bus boycott, then again in ’63, ’64, and ’65. In ’64, he gave his speech “The Future of Integration” in Oberlin. In ’65, he visited Oberlin a final time when he spoke at Commencement and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters.

The Harpers Ferry Memorial

The Harpers Ferry Memorial is also located within Martin Luther King Jr. Park. This monument honors John A. Copeland Jr., Lewis Sheridan Leary, and Shields Green, all of whom were a part of John Brown’s raid, which was an armed revolt of

enslaved peoples on the U.S. federal armory and arsenal in Harpers Ferry, WV, in 1859. Although Brown and his entourage were defeated by the U.S. Marines within three days, Brown’s raid was an act of defiance that provided momentum for the beginning of the Civil War. Copeland and Leary lived in Oberlin at the time of the raid, and Green was also rumored to have lived in Oberlin.

The Oberlin–Wellington Rescue Monument

Another monument located in the Martin Luther King Jr. Park is the Oberlin–Wellington Rescue Monument. This piece memorializes the rescue of John Price, an Oberlin resident. In 1858, slave catchers found and captured him, hoping to send him on a southbound railway in Wellington. However, Oberlin residents learned of this situation and worked alongside residents of Wellington to rescue Price. Their efforts began nonviolently, but upon failure to negotiate with the slave catchers, they physically overpowered them. With the help of other rescuers, Price was able to escape and hide with John and Mary Fairchild, two Oberlin residents.

The Bench by the Road

The Bench by the Road is a simple black bench located on the corner of North Main Street and East Lorain Street. This bench was placed in honor of author Toni Morrison, as well as enslaved peoples who traveled with the Underground Railroad

and resided in Oberlin at a certain point. The bench was erected by the Toni Morrison Society after Morrison herself once noted the lack of monuments in remembrance of enslaved peoples. Morrison was born in Lorain County, and advocated for the placement of one of these benches in Oberlin due to her personal history and Oberlin’s history of abolitionism.

Public sculptures and monuments serve as reminders of Oberlin’s history of activism.

Students and community members showed up to Wilder to support reproductive rights organizations.

Photos by Abe Frato, Photo Editor

Photos courtesy of Max Manko

Print Publications Shed Light on Generations of Oberlin Activism

Yasu Shinozaki Arts & Culture Editor

Before the internet, print was the primary means of spreading ideas and information. Campus groups or individual students who wanted to bring attention to an issue, gather support to a cause, or educate the population on a certain topic turned to the printing press. In the form of magazines, zines, pamphlets, newsletters, and newspapers, printed materials were a large part of discourse on campus. Many of the publications they created are saved in the Oberlin College Archives, and give us a window into the beliefs and ideas of generations of past students.

The oldest political publications available in the archives date back to the World War I era. The Oberlin Critic was created in 1922 to promote progressive thought and policy on campus through both serious and humorous pieces. Articles in their first issue criticized the school’s policy of requiring female students to have a chaperone in many circumstances and called for more freedom of discussion in the classroom, labeling professors at large “The Autocrat of the Lecture Table.” Another interwar

publication, The Vanguard, was more left-wing. The Vanguard, of which records exist from 1934 to 1935, reported on international issues, labor conflicts, and other current events, and espoused anti-capitalist and pacifist views.

The 1960s ushered in a new era of activism on campus, and the material published by students reflected the change. One of the many new publications in this era was The Activist, the first issue of which was released in the fall of 1960. The Activist began as a newsletter for the Midwestern Student Coordinating Committee, an organization comprised of representatives of 24 Midwestern colleges and universities with the purpose of coordinating direct action for civil rights amongst students in the region. The first issues were short typewritten newsletters that reported on the actions of the Midwestern Student Coordinating Committee and other affiliated student activist organizations, and national events like the arrest of Martin Luther King Jr., as well as provided editorials on current issues, primarily centering around the ongoing Civil Rights Movement.

By 1961, the publication had ended its affiliation with the Midwestern Student Coordinating

Committee and took the form of a magazine. With the change in format, The Activist published longer and more scholarly pieces, like “The Philosophy of Activism” and “The Meaning of Dissent,” both from 1961, in which the writers gave their worldview on the role of activism and how it was to be employed, or provided in depth analyses of current events. The publication proclaimed itself a “journal of the new student awakening” and embraced the politics of the New Left.

“The publication is independent of any organization, although we are associated with Students for a Democratic Society in more or less an ideological sense,” the mission statement published that fall read. “We both desire to see the extension of the democratic process, so that each individual might have the chance to develop to his fullest capacity, free from fears of war, hunger; free to hear all sides and form opinions in an atmosphere of tolerance and sanity.”

The Activist did not shy away from pushing the envelope. Their 1969 special issue on Black literature and poetry was rejected from the printers on grounds of “dirty words” and “dirty ideas,” according to an editor’s note. The ed-

itors typed up the issue and had it mimeographed by the Oberlin College Buildings and Grounds department, but after printing the department refused to give the students the finished copies. In the end, the issue had to be published with two poems removed.

Other publications on campus during the counterculture era were even more provocative. The self-proclaimed Review Rip-off used the Review’s font in their masthead that read “What the Review Wouldn’t Print” in their first issue in 1972

“We have been waiting to see what the Review has to say about women’s issues,” reads the mission statement entitled “No More Diplomacy” read “Well, we have gotten tired of waiting, so we’ve decided to bring you our own version. While we realize that we have inconvenienced and perhaps offended some, and annoyed many others by our action, we do not apologize. We have tried diplomacy, and we have decided that liberalism is bunk.”

Over the decades that followed, a multitude of new student publications emerged. Some campus publications were published by organizations like Oberlin and South Africa, a single issue newspaper style publication released

in 1979 by the Oberlin Coalition for the Liberation of South Africa educating students about apartheid. Other publications centered around the perspectives and activism of certain identity groups such as The Collective, a publication that featured the writing of people of color at Oberlin. It ran articles on international, domestic, and Oberlin-specific events, as well as poetry. Some of these publications, designed to reach an audience outside of Oberlin, were given away in public spaces. Others such as Alternatives, founded in 1975, relied on subscriptions.

Former editor of Alternatives Suzanne Ludlow, OC ’81, told me that at the time she worked for the publication, the audience was largely outside of Oberlin.

“We were trying to [publish Alternatives] as something that represented Oberlin being thoughtful about political issues,” Ludlow said.

Not all publications had an explicit agenda. Some functioned as a forum for students to share their own views.

“I think in particular we [were] interested in trying to explore different angles of issues, because Oberlin can feel like an echo

See Publications, page 12

Public Spaces, Digital Spaces Act as Important Sites for Artistic Forms of Actvism

Dlisah Lapidus

Arts & Culture Editor

Art has held a specific role in protest, activism, and resistance throughout history. At times, just the act of artmaking itself has been a form of political resistance. Art has also been a unifying force, building spaces of solidarity around marginalized groups and fostering conversations about political reform and social justice. Today, visual culture has seeped into media outlets and redefined the way we communicate the political and social issues that we care about. Reflecting this change, larger-scale media about political and social issues now has different needs, as it must appeal to an audience with a contemporary attention span and aesthetic. In 2021, 48 percent of U.S. adults said they “sometimes” or “often” learn about news from social media, according to Pew Research Center. In order for news to be attention-grabbing on social media, the visual component is most important. Infographics, photos, and visual art are often utilized not only to share actual news but also to discuss systemic issues and promote causes. Infographics have a particularly bad reputation, with some popular social media accounts being viewed as corny and ineffective and as capitalizing off of the issues that they have reduced to a three-slide graphic. Additionally, Instagram

activism, which many claim to be “performative activism,” provides an excuse for social media users to simply repost a snappy tweet on their story, wipe their hands, and forget all about the issue at hand, failing to follow up and enact real change. However, the reality is that internet spaces are becoming just as big a part of individual lives as physical spaces, and people are still figuring out how to bring their personal and political values onto these platforms.

In recent political movements, many visual artists have adapted their practice to exist in and collaborate with the digital space.

Shirien Damra is a PalestinianAmerican artist and organizer whose portraits memorializing George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery became visuals most associated with the fight for Black lives in 2020. At the same time that people were taking to the streets to protest police brutality and demand systemic reform, artists were using the tools and language that theyʼd acquired to spread awareness and memorialize the lives lost, as well as spreading awareness about the movement itself. This form of artistic activism involves community organizing, with the internet serving as a resource rather than a platform for virtue signaling. Internet art as activism is certainly not a one-off solution for systemic political issues, but if

we care about social and political reform, we cannot exclude digital spaces from the sites of our activism. For many users, this feels unnatural, but many artists are familiar with designing digital spaces as networks for sharing political sentiments and information. Our issue with what we call “performative activism” makes sense: it seems to reflect a lack of personal responsibility for political and social issues, allowing people to praise themselves for virtue signaling instead of taking direct action. Performative activism often reflects a desire to increase social capital rather than actual concern for the issue at hand. Additionally, many people have concerns that aestheticizing digital movements has changed the landscape of political activism, making it so people will not take part in social reform unless it is “pretty” or can be made into a performance. Although this is a very real threat, as it can prevent actual change, the problem with generalizing in this way is that all forms of social media activism are viewed as equally ineffective. In reality, the artistry behind informative illustrations like Damra’s has a different purpose than the hashtags and black squares that Instagram users posted in 2020, which many people promptly forgot about. Art-making and performance have a longstanding relationship with activism and

protest. One of the forms that performance and activism have taken and continue to take is that of political or experimental theater. At times, like the period after World War I, the theater was used as a platform to express anti-propaganda sentiments. Today, experimental theater and larger-scale media often introduce political and social issues through creative development and the art of performing.

Visual artists also use their practices and their methods of performing as stages for sharing political sentiments. During a time in which so many people from various communities are under attack simply for their identity, art has proven to be an effective tool for expressing fears and concerns. Installation design and public art are popular mediums through which many conceptual artists create work motivated by intentional activism. Artists like Ai Weiwei and Jenny Holzer have developed artistic practices that make political statements, bringing conversations about systemic issues into gallery spaces and museum settings.

Contemporary artists and art organizations have been increasingly connecting performance, visual art, and public spaces with activism. For Freedoms is an artist collective that brings the visual aesthetics of Instagram activism into physical spaces, confronting the public with po-

litical statements and starting conversations through visual art. One of For Freedoms’ recent projects was the 50 State Initiative, through which the organization installed artwork along roads in every U.S. state, Puerto Rico, and Washington, D.C. The art behind this activism was the jumping point for the organization, which also facilitated town halls and other community events in partnership with local art institutions to facilitate conversations about regional and national issues in each state. These artworks feature catchy political sayings and minimalistic imagery comparable to the aesthetics of internet activism; however, the work of For Freedoms did not stop with these public installations or even their popular Instagram presence, on which their aesthetic finds its target audience.

The digital world has created a demand for striking visual components and aesthetics in activism. This comes with many downfalls, including an increase in performative activism and virtue signaling. Still, many artists and organizations use these changes to continue the long history of activist art. The visual identity of activism and social reform cannot be seen as an easy substitute for “real” political action, but rather as a language through which artists can express political theories, share information, build community, and enact change.

Photos courtesy of Oberlin College Archives

Oberlin has been home to a number of political publications over the years.

African Students Association Holds Annual Banquet to Provide Scholarships and Funding for International Students

Maeve Woltring Senior Staff Writer

Last Sunday, the African Students Association held its annual banquet in the Root Room of Carnegie Building. There was a live DJ, catered food from Ethiopian and Nigerian restaurants in Cleveland and North Olmsted and lots of dancing. Midway through the event, the DJ put on a series of songs from countries across Africa, and students from the countries represented held flags on the dance floor for the Parade of Nations. The event was widely attended by ASA members, College professors and deans, and identity-based student organizations across campus, and provided the opportunity for students from Africa to celebrate their home countries while helping ASA to raise money for the Yakubu Saaka Memorial Fund that supports African students at Oberlin.

The Yakubu Saaka Memorial Fund was established in memory of Dr. Yakubu Saaka, professor of Africana Studies from 1972–2008 and exists to provide transitional and scholarship aid for African students. The Oberlin website reads, “For several generations of Oberlin students, [Dr. Saaka’s] courses on African politics and cosmology were staples in un-

derstanding African culture and tradition.” ASA was inhibited in their ability to fundraise during the COVID-19 pandemic, so this year’s fundraising efforts were expanded to both the banquet and ASA Performance Night at the Cat in the Cream, organized by College second-year and ASA co-chair Chemutai Ruto, with help from double-degree thirdyear Nathaniel Coben.

“Other than the banquet and the performance night, one of the other things that we have been focusing on, and this is in partnership with the Impact Investment Advisory Group … is this problem that myself and the other African students have noticed,” Ruto said.

As an Impact Investment Advisory Group Fellow, Ruto has been working with both the group and other African students to outline actionable steps toward improving the scarcity of Africana Studies courses on campus.

“We have a disproportionate amount of courses that focus on Africa on campus,” Ruto said. “And so we’ve been working with department heads, reaching out to them, trying to understand why that is the case across departments. Kambura [Kinoti] and I wrote an article about it [in] The Oberlin Review, and [last] semester I’ve just been do -

ing more research on it, reaching out to the different department heads, and I’m supposed to present along with other African students on why this is a problem, and solutions we have for the College to put in place so we can just increase the courses.”

Ruto noted that both the ASA Performance Night and the banquet garnered significant attendance and support, with fundraising either meeting or surpassing estimated goals. She hopes the support of the Oberlin community for ASA’s organizational goals will be sustained beyond the banquet.

“I must say that I was actually really happy with the turnout,” Ruto said. “It can be really nerve-wracking when you’re part of an organization or an identity group that’s so small on campus and our countries are so far from the U.S. … I think there’s just a lot of prejudice that we face … Sometimes you don’t really know if people will come for any of our events or support our causes because it may not affect them personally, or it’s just too distant for them to understand. … But we’ve had people support us; there’s been a lot of allyship and we hope to see that moving forward as we’re trying to increase the course offerings on Africa.” College third-year and ASA

member Lulu Chebaro echoed that the banquet’s support of the Yakubu Saaka Memorial Fund embodies ASA’s drive to support African students, both fiscally and through broader course offerings.

“Here at Oberlin, not only do we not have that many professors in the Africana [Studies] department that can teach on the African continent, but we also just don’t have that many students,” Chebaro said. “So a big thing in ASA right now is, first of all, they’ve been having meetings about trying to get more classes on the African continent, but also just trying to get more students here and make an environment where African students from the continent would actually want to come and feel like they have a community.”

Chebaro emphasized that the banquet required the collective efforts of the ASA community. Given that African students are an underrepresented group on campus, each member’s contributions proved indispensable in making the event happen.

“I think that kind of makes a community particularly strong — it’s very much like, if you do not help, we don’t even know if something would happen,” Chebaro said. “We don’t even know if there would be a community

or a space at all. Especially also because there’s very few of us on campus. At the banquet, just being able to have a space where the dancing and the music and stuff are very particular to [the continent] … you don’t really get that at other larger orgs.”

College third-year and ASA cochair Kambura Kinoti noted that although the process of securing funding and transportation for this year’s banquet required a lot of time and effort from the ASA board, the event was a huge success, even more than last year’s. Kinoti remarked that everyone — even professors and deans — could be seen letting loose on the dance floor. She particularly loved seeing the community between POC student organizations manifest in the banquet’s vibrant space.

“We always have all of the other POC orgs come, especially the ones that are for international students,” Kinoti said. “And so it’s always so cute because we always have a table for [the South Asian Students Association] and we have a [Muslim Students Association] table. … we always have all these different communities represented and we all have really good relationships. I think that’s something that I always look forward to and I love about the banquet.”

Oberlin’s Missionary History Inseparable From Current Institution

Emily Vaughan

Opinions Editor

Oberlin College’s goals and philosophies have seen a drastic evolution in its 190-year history. At the time of the College’s founding, the United States as a whole was focusing on westward expansion and the idea of Manifest Destiny. Oberlin Collegiate Institute, as Oberlin was called until 1850, was quite literally founded for the purpose of educating and training missionaries. According to the College’s own website, founders Reverend John J. Shipherd and Philo P. Stewart established the institution to “train teachers and other Christian leaders for the boundless most desolate fields in the West.” Beyond just being a college, Oberlin was founded as a “colony” that was to be led according to its founders’ Presbyterian beliefs.

“There’s a longstanding history here of Oberlin people going to foreign lands or other parts of the country,” College Archivist Ken Grossi said.

Oberlin-educated missionaries traveled to Minnesota as early as 1842 “to work among the Ojibwe Indians,” according to the College Archives. Oberlin’s missionary history in Asia began in the 1880s when a group of Oberlin-educated missionaries known as the “Oberlin Band” volunteered to serve as missionaries to China.

The Memorial Arch in Tappan Square is a physical remnant of Oberlin’s missionary history in China. Its dedication plaque reads that the memorial “was brought into being by friends of the Oberlin-connected missionaries who lost their lives in the Chinese Boxer Rebellion of 1900.” Large plaques on either side of the walkway through the arch list the names of those killed underneath the word “massacred.” It was commissioned by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, an organization based in Boston, and serves as a memorial to all American missionaries who lost their lives in

China in the Boxer Uprising, not just Oberlin-educated missionaries. However, Oberlin was chosen as a location because almost all of the missionaries killed had been educated at Oberlin.

The arch has been a source of controversy on campus for quite some time. Prior to 2009, Oberlin’s annual commencement path had graduating students walk underneath the arch. It was not uncommon for students to walk around the arch in protest of what the monument stands for.

“The arch used to intrude on people’s consciousness once a year when it was involved at commencement, and people had to decide how they felt about it,”

Professor of Art History Erik Inglis, OC ’89, said.

According to Inglis, the tradition began as early as the 1950s and continued until commencement ceremonies were relocated to a different part of Tappan Square in 2009.

Oberlin’s missionary history does not only linger in physical monuments on campus.

Inglis considers the College’s present-day emphasis on the individual — for instance, the motto of, “Think one person can change the world” — to be reminiscent of missionary rhetoric.

“I think the marketing motto ‘Think one person can change the world? So do we,’ resonates with a missionary ethos,” Inglis said. “That idea — missionaries go out to change the world, to convert people — Oberlin is encouraging people to think about changing the world, so those two resonate together for me.”

Grossi said that in the College Archives, these connections are embraced and sought out.

“We try to make connections with the early history,” Grossi said. “When you learn about our history and about those people that were going out and being activists in whatever cause they were devoted to, that kind of translates to what we might do now.”

There are also programs that are

legacies of Oberlin’s missionary past. The Oberlin Shansi Memorial Association was founded in 1908 with the purpose of supporting education at the Ming Hsien School in Taigu, Shanxi Province, China. Its original constitution reads, “It shall be the purpose of this organization to perpetuate the memory of those who suffered martyrdom in 1900 in the Shansi field, by promoting in every feasible way… the educational work in connection with the Shansi Mission in the Province of Shansi, China.”

Shansi’s legacy has continued to this day. One of its main programs is the Shansi Fellowship, which, according to their website is “for recent Oberlin graduates to teach or engage in service projects at partner institutions in Asia.” While the program no longer includes religious teachings, it is still a legacy of Oberlin’s missionary history.

“I think even today, when our students go out as Shansi reps, for example, they go to China, they go to Japan, they go to other places around the world,” Grossi said. “They might be going there to teach English, but they’re also learning about the culture. They’re really carrying on that service that really is rooted in the history that goes back to the 19th century.”

Illustration by Emily Vaughan

Photo by Erin Koo, Photo Editor

The memorial arch in Tappan Square was originally dedicated to Oberlin-connected missionaries who died in the Boxer uprising of 1900.

Dr. Lady J

Performer, Educator, Activist, MC

“Learning and Labor in the Key of De-”

Kate Margaret Luke

Cal Ransom News Editor

Dr. Lady J is a non-binary trans woman and drag performer. She received her Ph.D. in Musicology from Case Western Reserve University in 2017. She gave a talk on the history of drag titled “The War on Drag” on April 19 and performed an act in armor destroying posters representing trans issues at Drag Ball on April 22. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What drew you to drag as a performance art?

Itʼs the one thing where you can become anything you want to be. My primary thing is being a storyteller, and what I like about drag is that you can kind of use pop culture, music, and film clips to insert your own voice to tell any story you want.

What are the stories that you started out telling with drag and how has that shifted into the stories that you tell today?

When I started, they were more oriented around what I was capable of. At the time, I didnʼt know how to make mixes; I didnʼt know how to do more complex drag looks or costumes. So I was kind of stuck in a space of female impersonation-style drag.

Once I started being able to make mixes, the stories that I could tell changed dramatically. Once I learned how to make props, that really helped add another layer. Learning to make new things and learning new skills helps you start telling the stories you want to tell.

One of the numbers that I have analyzed a lot in talking about my career that I think is more indicative of where Iʼm at now is the “Women Who Slay” mix. My “Women Who Slay” mix is based around a metal song by In This Moment, but it has interspersed quotes from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It ends with the battle between AON and the Witch King at the very end of it, and Iʼd behead my partner, who is dressed with the witch king head on, to end the whole thing.

I wanted a number that was specifically anti-man, if Iʼm honest. I wanted a number that was about heroes, but I didnʼt want to do the usual goody two-shoes heroes. I

wanted to specifically use deadly female assassins who are heroic but who do kill their enemies. Thatʼs more of the stories Iʼve been telling now — things that to me feel much more directly political, that are much more directly making a statement about either the world or my experience of the world.

You began your academic career as a rock and roll historian. How do you think the culture of rock and roll has influenced your drag?

The stereotypical image of a drag queen is a glamor queen. The idea is very based in white wealth, the fashion industry, or glamor. I donʼt want everything I do to be an easy pill to swallow. A lot of performers, if you talk to ʼem about why they do what they do, one of the things theyʼll say is, “I wanna make the audience happy.” Thatʼs not my goal. I want to make the trans people in my crowd feel seen. I want the women in my crowd to feel seen.

In rock and roll history, the story of women is generally deemphasized because the people who are telling that story are generally men, cis men who are white, who believe that virtuosic guitar skills are the ultimate endall-be-all of rock music. Thatʼs a lot of stuff I argued against as a rock and roll history specialist, and then I tried to bring those ideas into what I do as a drag performer.

Rock and roll is very political, and being a trans woman, I felt like every other image presented to me by most other trans women in the drag world that I have engaged with has been glamor drag, and I was like, “We as trans women are allowed to be butch too.”

Why canʼt I come out here and act like Suzi Quatro?

Could you talk about how you came up with the act you performed on Saturday?

I have been wanting to go and do something like that for a long time. I just didnʼt know how to build it. But the impetus for that came about with this year. I felt the need, rather than just a desire, to create this number because of what is happening with trans- and drag-oriented legislation. Seeing that happen made me feel like I wanted to step up as an LGBT activist and do something that

was really in your face and really straightforward, where you didnʼt have to think about what the message was. I made myself a rule years ago that I would never do what I did, which is put signs with words on them. But I just kept thinking, I have to do this number this way because I need people to feel that release — we are all so f*cking angry right now, and I think we need a moment of aggression and rage. I think that we deserve that as trans people.

But I also wanted to provide a hero. I wanted to make it so that I step into this role and pretend that it is this symbol, that we can just knock all these things down and let people feel that we as drag performers are not just going to respond to this in interviews, we are not just going to respond to this in talks, but Iʼm going to do this in my performances. I donʼt really do any of that for cis people at all. I really do that so that trans people feel seen and heard about what is going on for the length of that number. Doing it in a place where I got to do the talk first was really special for me because it allowed me for once to show an audience how all my work connects. I donʼt usually get to do that.

How has your conceptualization of femininity shifted as youʼve come into your identity as a non-binary trans woman?

I feel that my definition of it has changed as to what Iʼm willing to show and share with people. When I started doing drag in Cleveland, I identified as a straight person. I identified as a boy or genderfluid.

When I started doing drag, my female impersonation-style look, which was all I was taught how to do, made me very dysphoric. It made me feel terrible doing drag because it was like I was putting on the face I wanted to have and then having to take that back off. What I have found over time is that when I switched to the super goth mom look that I have now, it allowed me to feel more like this is a mask that I put on and I take off to become this larger-than-life figure who can say and do these things that I canʼt quite express and do in the world. Having that happen allowed me to feel and start reckoning with who is under the mask.

I find it odd that those who teach With heart are mistreated With banal de-sensitivity; I find it “queer”

That dedicated workers are de-unionized before being Fired completely

(They deserve better)

But who am I to say anything? I don’t

Yet have my degree

In letting people down,

I don’t have a resume

Backed entirely in banknotes

(I am but a fledgling following).

I just have these thrifted jeans and crying

My waterproof mascara off in a classroom

Full of English majors—who just want to read Margaret Cavendish in peace, Undiluted by institutionalism

(We are little hippies)

I just have this small voice

In a copper-coated collective that’s being ignored By a few claiming to be one of us

But who actually just want to treat

My education like a doomed case study—

(In depravity)

I am just participating

In protests for the sheer amusement

Of alumni — a technicolor snapshot Of what they used to do when they were Young and had something to be angry about (Dancing for promises of the past)

I am just experiencing my first year

Of college as a senior with one foot

Already out the door, and the other wedged Beneath a paint-chipped window hoping It won’t close before others get a chance

To see the blue Ohio sky the way I did

Once, if only for a few Bitter-cold seconds of fall

Kate Margaret Luke is a fourth-year student with majors in Creative Writing, Cinema Studies, and English. Her poetry and other creative work have been published in The Plum Creek Review, Wilder Voice, and Illustrations. When not writing, Kate can be found chairing the Experimental College, performing with VIBE Dance Company, or volunteering with Writers in Residence at the Lorain County Juvenile Detention Center. Kate wrote “Learning and Labor in the Key of De-” in 2022, around the time of the faculty protests and the revision of the bylaws earlier this school year. She strives to capture the melancholy, anger, and fledgling hope that she and many others were experiencing. The poem also anticipates nostalgia for a place equal parts special and fractured.

Publications Played Historical Role in Activism on Campus

Continued from page 10

chamber,” Avi Lipman, OC ’96, who founded The Voice, which covered current events through student opinion pieces. “We wanted to have pieces on political issues … trying to explore the different angles in a way that could encourage meaningful debate.”

Both Ludlow and Lipman stressed the importance of print publications in the era before the internet. To spread ideas within a community even as small as Oberlin’s campus, printed material was a necessity. Ludlow said that for any college organization, a good portion of the money they received from the school went to publicizing their cause through publications.

“Publications were everything,” Ludlow said. “On campus or in any community, you would have the major newspaper… and then a whole lot of alternative press, whether it was in newsprint format, or mimeographed newsletters. That is what people shared with each other… People would

go door to door with them in places.”

Kira Zimmerman, OC ’19, who worked to catalog and summarize student publications on campus for the archives, pointed out another power of print is its ability to reach audiences beyond social divisions.

“Remember [Oberlin’s campus] was fairly segregated by gender well into the 20th century,” Zimmerman said. “So many of the publications would have reached male and female audiences… pretty individually.”

The number of student publications has substantially decreased since the rise of the internet, as is evident through the materials available in the archives. Social media and digital publications gave a new, more efficient way for student organizations and individuals involved in activism to reach out to the community and spread awareness to causes. Still, the publications of generations past remain in the archives as a testament to generations of past activist work.

Photo courtesy of Emanuel Wallace

Dr. Lady J Performed at Drag Ball April 22.

CONSERVATORY

Benefit Concert Supports Syria and Türkiye After Earthquake

Lyric Anderson Senior Staff Writer

On Feb. 6, Türkiye and Syria were devastated by a 7.8-magnitude earthquake, the largest the region had seen since 1939. Over 18 million people have been affected by the disaster, with over 55,000 dead and millions displaced from their homes.

Conservatory and College musicians have found a way to utilize their skills to make a difference in the form of benefit concerts.

Oberlin’s last two benefit concerts were produced by The Musikos Collective, an Oberlin-based, student-run organization founded by double-degree third-year Daniel Knapp, double-degree second-year Diana Reed, and double-degree third-year Aaron Lieberman. Last year, Musikos put on the Ukraine Benefit Concert, and on March 31 this year, the Syria and Türkiye Benefit Concert.

“We founded Musikos originally as just a sort of concert series platform,” Knapp said. “Then it kind of evolved more into a presenting organization, and this school year we’ve presented 13 concerts. I think the Syria and Türkiye Benefit Concert was one of the best successes in that regard.”

The concert took place at the Oberlin First United Methodist Church, featuring a large array of student performers across disciplines. Among these performances were compositions from the Western classical canon, Turkish and Anatolian folk songs, and an improvisational jazz piece. One of the performers was College fourth-year Özüm Pamukçu, a multi-disciplinary vocalist and international student from Türkiye.

“At first I was hurt by the political and racial connotations of people at Oberlin not speaking about this,” Pamukçu said. “Then I heard about this concert happening and was like, ‘I need to do it.’ Oberlin has international students from Türkiye, and personally, I just want to feel supported.”

The College sent an email expressing condolences, though students felt this was not enough. Still, many students felt motivated to take action, which is exactly

Marley Howard

Jazz Vocalist, Artist, Activist

what Musikos and the other musicians did.

“I think it’s really cool that the school is set up to give us the opportunity to make concerts like this,” Knapp said. “This is something that we would’ve done anyway.”

Most of the pieces performed were chosen with the intention of empathizing with those affected by the crisis. Not only does this encourage listeners to take out their checkbooks, but it helped both the performers and listeners better understand Turkish and Syrian culture, making the issue seem more personal and less distant.

“My group performed a composition called ‘Vazgeçtim’ by Ara Dinkjian, an Armenian-American composer,” Pamukçu said. “It’s a very sad tune that was kind of appropriate for the occasion. It’s about giving up on a loved one, and a lot of people had to give up on their friends and families.”

In the Syria and Türkiye Benefit Concert, Musikos raised over a thousand dollars for three different non-profits including UNICEF and AKUT Search and Rescue Association, which are based in Türkiye, specifically targeting relief efforts for earthquake victims.

Another factor for producing any benefit concert is making it happen while the issue at hand is still actively being talked about and reported on. With a catastrophic, global event such as the Syria and Türkiye earthquake, the media as a whole tends to hyperfixate on it for a brief period of time, before moving on to the next hot topic.

“There is a timeliness to it,” Reed said. “But I think that’s also a testament to how quickly people at Oberlin are able to come out to support a cause.”

Despite taking place over a month after the earthquake, there were 30 individual performers, divided into 13 groups.

“Benefit concerts give us something tangible to do,” Reed said. “If we can make music together, raise money, keep inspiring hope and make sure that they know that they’re not alone, I think that’s one of the most powerful things that we can do.”

Delaney Fox Conservatory Editor

Marley Howard is a third-year Conservatory student majoring in Jazz Voice and minoring in Studio Art. She incorporates protest and activism into her art. Her mediums include singing, poetry, printmaking, charcoal, ceramics, and paint.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How were you introduced to protest music?

There was always a lot of music around the house growing up. My dad listened to a lot of reggae — a lot of Bob Marley, my namesake. A lot of Bob Marley’s music is protest music, so I was aware of it at a young age. Also, growing up biracial, my identity wasn’t something that was ignored. I knew I was Black, I knew I was born Black, I knew I was staying Black. My dad was like, “Life is unfair. You are going to get used to it.” So that was also kind of around me from a young age, and then I think it started getting incorporated into my music. I realized I had a knack for finding more obscure songs about these things that I related to in some way. Nina Simone was also played a lot in my house growing up, and she also performed a lot of protest music. She and Billie Holiday, who sang “Strange Fruit,” which is about the lynching of Black people in the South, really got me into jazz — or Black American Music, the more correct term. It wasn’t until I was about 17 or 18 when I started to experience very harsh or blatant racism, sexism, misogyny, and harm in ways that I hadn’t experienced growing up. So then I really dove into protest music, and I found a lot of power in listening to it and singing it.

How do you go about incorporating activism or protest music into your art and performances?

I feel fortunate to be here at Oberlin because you don’t get much pushback. I feel very fortunate to be in the position where I can sing a lot of protest music right now, and no one’s gonna tell me no. So really, it’s just finding the songs that I really connect with or think could be

really powerful. It’s a lot of listening — it’ll be three o’clock in the morning, and I’m just listening to song after song from just this one person’s discography, and then it’s like, “Oh, I found something.” It’s not like I look up “best protest songs to sing” or anything like that. With visual art, it’s a slightly different relationship, because I feel like all of my art is inherently political, not that it’s always protesting something, but I think it’s political for me to put Black bodies on an art piece. I don’t draw a lot of white people. It’s just not something I’ve really been interested in doing. I think we’ve all seen enough white people in art, and I’m sure there will be enough people making white people in art. Especially growing up, I don’t think I saw Black people or Black representation in visual art. I also sometimes use text from songs in my art. Sometimes I’ll write things and put it into my art. Sometimes I have a hard time writing because I have so many things I wanna cover. It’s really just a matter of picking the issue and then being like, “Okay, I’m gonna do it and I don’t care what anyone thinks.”

What topics or themes do you discuss in your art?

Generally, I talk about womanhood and what that has looked like for me as a Black woman; mental health and having PTSD, anxiety, and depression; sexual harm and harassment. I can’t make or write about anything I haven’t experienced, so everything that I make is coming from a brutally honest perspective. These are the things that have happened to me and that I’m dealing with, and sometimes they are not pretty or cool. It’s a way of processing, I think.

Can you talk about the statement you made at Jazz Forum last Friday?

I wrote all the words we ever said and sang at that Forum. I was in a vocal quartet, so there were a lot of amazing musicians and we all helped pick the songs.

I feel like I see a lot of white men playing Black American Music, which in and of itself is fine. This music is so important to me and the history of it is so important to me, but sometimes I feel like

other people don’t care as much about the history of it, which is sad to watch. It can be really draining week after week to watch that, and so I think when we talked about making a statement, we wanted to say “We are here; we are taking up space.” When is there a chance to really say that to this group of people? There really is no other moment. I guess the statement of the piece and poem is, at least in my life, the people that have helped me get through the most difficult things in my life have mostly been not men — they’ve been women, nonbinary, and trans people that have said, “Okay, we got you.” I wanted to honor that and show that when we are together, we can dismantle things and create a more peaceful place. That’s protest music. We had the band members walk off the stage while we were still speaking the poem, and we put the mics down and kept going with the repeated line. It was a statement. I wanted to make sure everyone was listening.

Why is activism important to your art?

I think we have a society that’s constantly in a capitalist, workaholic state that dampers people’s creativity. Some people’s brains don’t work like that — my brain does not work like that. So I feel like to make art, you are inherently protesting society in that way. I also think protest in art is so important because if no one’s talking about something, you feel like you’re alone when that’s really not the case. If you’re experiencing it, so is the person five feet away from you. And I don’t think it’s meant for everyone to do, but I need to talk about why I am constantly being objectified or hypersexualized, or about sexual assault and how it has impacted me, or how racism has affected me as a mixed person, or how I feel like I am not accepted in any space because of my identity, or my mental health and PTSD. There was once a point in my life where I was like, “Why is no one else talking about it?” It’s so nice to see someone make art about these issues. You feel seen as an individual. I think what’s important to me in my art is that other people see themselves in it.

Marley Howard sings in David H. Stull Recital Hall.

Photo courtesy of John Jiang

The Syria and Türkiye Benefit Concert took place on March 31.

Photo by Abe Frato, Photo Editor

John Elrod Sports Editor

During her time as a student at Oberlin, Assistant Professor of Sociology Alicia Smith-Tran, OC 10, was a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow and a member of the women’s basketball team. After graduating, she received an M.A. from Newhouse School at Syracuse University and a Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University. She began teaching at Oberlin in 2021 after three years at Texas Christian University, and her research focuses on Black women’s health and sport sociology.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You’ve published several works about race, gender and sport. How did you first become interested in the intersectionality of those topics?

Like a lot of sociologists — and maybe researchers in general — many of my academic interests are rooted in personal experience. Being an athlete most of my life, especially being a Black, biracial woman in sports, shaped my interest in learning more about how our positionalities affect our athletic and fitness experiences and our perceptions of our own bodies. When I was in graduate school, I had an identity crisis of sorts; I had always been active and involved in sports and was always training for something, but suddenly I wasn’t. I started running and after a while I loved it. I did several 5Ks, 10Ks, and half marathons. The sociologist in me could not help but notice how white and homogenous recreational running tends to be. It is also expensive to participate in these events, buy the gear, and embed yourself in “running

Alicia Smith-Tran OC ’10

Sociology Professor and Basketball Guard

culture.” Studying Black middle-class women in recreational running ended up being the focus of my dissertation.

Members of the Oberlin College community are known for being unafraid to talk about social issues — how did the school’s culture influence your work?

Oberlin’s progressive history, and being in a community that encouraged exploring new ideas, speaking up, and challenging authority, are definitely factors that shape my work and how I approach it. Being a Sociology major at Oberlin really helped me hone my critical thinking skills and opened my eyes to issues of social inequality that I wasn’t fully aware of before coming to college. Now that I am a sociologist, I engage in sociological storytelling — methods like life story interviewing and autoethnography — which are definitely grounded in my desire to center marginalized voices and go against the grain with how I approach better understanding society. I think my inclination to question the status quo and push the boundaries of what it means to engage in scholarship is very Obie.

How did your experience as a basketball player at Oberlin influence your areas of study?

Playing basketball at Oberlin was one of the most meaningful, life-changing experiences I have had to date. The central role of athletics during these formative years will make sports and physical activity a part of my life forever. I love that I have been able to make thinking, writing, and talking about athletics, empowerment, and camaraderie among Black women a part of my job.

What made you want to come back to Oberlin as a faculty member?

When I started graduate school more than a decade ago, I told my mentor that working at Oberlin was my dream job. Some people told me not to share that goal with others, because many academics think we should only strive to work at large research universities. I never really had that desire. I wanted to work in a close-knit community, spend time getting to know students in smaller classes, and engage in mentorship. When there was an opportunity to come back to work at Oberlin and I was offered the job, I was excited. I never thought I would be in my undergraduate academic advisor’s former office, doing my best to make an impact on students’ lives as much as he did. It is a comfortable and familiar environment for me. It is also closer to our families than when we lived in Texas, so it is nice that our kids can grow up within driving distance of their grandparents and other extended family and friends. Hopefully when they get older, we can take them to enjoy events on campus like my partner and I did as students.

In what ways have you stayed connected to Oberlin’s athletic community?

I have stayed pretty connected since I graduated from Oberlin. For a while, my teammates and I made a point of coming back for our alumni games every year, but that fell off as we scattered across the country and started having kids and achy backs. I have served on the board for the Heisman Club and now am a member of the Faculty Athletics Committee. I also enjoyed doing some Zoom conversations with the Black Student-Athlete Group during the

pandemic before I became a faculty member. I try to make it to a few women’s basketball games per year, and hopefully I’ll have more time in the future to go see more of my students compete on their respective teams.

What impact do you hope to make with your work going forward in Oberlin’s Sociology department?

I hope I can keep teaching material that resonates with students and gets them thinking about topics in new ways. I also like to teach material that makes students walk away not only feeling like they better understand the inner workings of society, but like they also see themselves and their biographies with more clarity. Making learning accessible is really important to me. I did not see many teachers or instructors that looked like me coming through school and higher education, so I

also hope I can show other women of color on campus that they can be professors —and whatever else they want — too. We belong and are needed in these spaces.

What are some areas within sports specifically where you think people could do better to address social issues?

I hope conversations will continue about gender identity in sport, so we can find better ways to make competition and fitness inclusive and empowering spaces for people with marginalized gender identities. Using an intersectional perspective in these conversations is really important, so we ensure that we are centering the voices of student-athletes who may identify as trans or non-binary but also identify with a marginalized racial group, have invisible illnesses or disabilities, or are from a disadvantaged economic background.

Scott’s Oberlin Experiment Leaves Complicated Legacy in Athletics

‘Athletic Revolution’ in Post-1960s America” by Tim Elcombe details some of his initiatives.

“Scott eliminated admission fees for Oberlin athletic events, tripled funds made available to the women’s programme, reconfigured athletic facilities and department office allocations, provided students with voting power to hire new coaches and opened the Oberlin College athletic and recreational facilities and programmes to the community,” the article reads.

Kayla Kim Sports Editor

Amid unrest after the Vietnam War, one of the societal values that was called into question was a term known as SportsWorld, the idea that sports were known for sacrifice and honor, coined by journalist Robert Lipsyte. From the arrest of Muhammad Ali to the 1968 Mexico City Olympics protests, more people were interrogating this belief.

Jack Scott was one of these people. A runner for Stanford and Syracuse University and a Ph.D. candidate from the University of California at Berkeley, Scott had a radical philosophy that advocated against traditional views of competition in favor of breaking down boundaries for non-white athletes and women, as well as calling out the financial exploita-

tion of college athletics. Scott was influential in the world of sport sociology, writing two books titled Athletics for Athletes and The Athletic Revolution, which highlighted his ideals. He also founded the Institute for the Study of Sport and Society.

Scott was hired by former Oberlin President Robert Fuller and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Daniel Reich in 1972 as Athletic Director. Given Scott’s lengthy legal history beforehand, his hiring was controversial, and the only endorsement he received from other faculty members was from Frederick Shults, the soccer and lacrosse coach.

Thus, the Oberlin Experiment began as Scott enacted many changes within the Oberlin Athletics department. “Reformist America: ‘The Oberlin Experiment’ — The Limits of Jack Scott’s

Before the 1970s, Warner and Hales were seperated by gender, but Scott made them co-ed spaces. He opened up the athletics facilities to the town and taught new classes such as “Sports and the Mass Media” and “Body-Mind Unity through Gymnastics.” He also hired Black coaches Cass Jackson for football and Pat Penn for men’s basketball. Arguably his most controversial hiring was Tommie Smith, who was known for his protest at the Mexico City Olympics. Smith did not have a master’s degree or much experience in coaching, which many called into question, especially because it was expected that a female coach would be his first hire.

Additionally, Scott and Smith formed a committee to investigate racism and “Black needs” in the physical education department at Oberlin.

It wasn’t just Smith’s lack of experience that was controversial

during Scott’s employment. Other faculty members accused Scott of attempting to force the resignations of qualified Oberlin coaches to replace them with his own. He physically assaulted a drunk 17-year-old, who required 17 stitches, there were unconfirmed charges of racism against him, and he would later use a homophobic slur to describe Oberlin’s image after he left. Finally, his promises to female athletes seemed to fall through, as he unsuccessfully attempted to convince the Ohio Athletic Conference to let women compete on the varsity level and did not hire other female coaches, while the ones he did were temporary and unpaid.

After only the first year of Scott’s academic tenure, 216 students, including Physical Education majors and intercollegiate athletes, petitioned against Scott and accused him of failing to live up to promises.

“The eight-point petition outlined three main charges leveled against Scott: the use of unethical methods to force popular faculty members and coaches to resign, overemphasizing athletics at the expense of the PE classes and a dishonest failure to implement several of the programmes promised publicly.”

An investigation was launched into Scott’s teaching in August 1973. This was only made worse by Fuller’s resignation on Feb 2, 1974. Only a couple months later,

he was forced out of his position only having served one-and-a-half years of his four-year contract, which was bought out.

To this day, Scott’s legacy and work at Oberlin remains complicated. He and some of his hires were influential — Tommie Smith would teach Sociology and coach track at Oberlin until 2005 and Cass Jackson would lead the football team to a winning season in the 1974–75 season. But he was also known for intimidating others and going against his philosophies to do so.

“In death, as in life, Jack Scott remained a paradox. Scott preached freedom, but practiced tyranny,” Elcombe wrote. “He sought to return humanity to sport, but many accused him of using dehumanizing practices to belittle his non-supporters. Scott championed the inclusiveness of sport, yet was charged with ignoring sports, demonizing dissenters from his vision, and respecting only sycophants.”

Ultimately though, despite the accusations leveled against him, Scott insisted that Oberlin wasn’t ready for his change.

“My only complaint is that Oberlin tries to say it is different than other schools,” he said. “It isn’t. The school is living on its reputation, a 150-year-old reputation that goes back to its founding when it admitted women and blacks. How long can you live on your past?’

Smith-Tran has done significant research on sociology and sport.

Jack Scott had a controversial stint as Oberlin’s Athletic-Director.

Photo courtesy of Alicia Smith-Tran

Photo courtesy of Associated Press

Women’s Lacrosse Leads Successful One Love Workshop

Celia Perks Senior Staff Writer

This past March, a group of Oberlin student-athletes organized and held two One Love workshops to raise awareness about the warning signs of abuse. Using the training and facilitation available on the One Love websites, they organize the workshops to help inform students about what healthy and unhealthy relationships look like. The men’s workshop was held March 5, while the women had their workshop March 12. Three third-year lacrosse players and Student Athletic Advisory Committee members Abbie Patchen, Audrey Koren, and Caroline Lee played a key role in the organization and success of the workshops and have brought recognition to the cause.

The One Love Foundation was founded in 2010 after Yeardley Love, a fourth-year student and lacrosse player at the University of Virginia, was brutally beaten to death by her ex-boyfriend weeks before she was supposed to graduate. In her honor, Love’s mom and sister began the foundation to help increase awareness of abusive relationships while simultaneously educating students and athletes on the signs of a healthy relationship.

In April 2016, lacrosse player Alex Wagman OC ’16 began Oberlin’s One Love foundation chapter and led the first workshop. In a 2016 Review article (“Athletes Explore Relationship Escalation,” The Oberlin Review, April 22, 2016), Wagman explained the difference between One Love and workshops held by Title IX.

“As an athlete, we have Title IX workshops that are somewhat similar, but they really don’t get you involved or motivate stu-

dents to participate willingly,” Wagman said in the article. “The main difference for me is that One Love addresses the stuff that happens before the actual issue in an engaging and relatable way.”

Lee acknowledged the importance of One Love’s intersection with lacrosse.

“Having One Love be a lacrosse-based foundation makes it more accessible to the athletic community,” Lee said. “Student athletes are more willing to learn about what healthy and unhealthy relationships are through One Love.”

The workshops that occurred last year were called the Escalation Workshops, which Koren explained in further detail.

“This was the basic understanding and a longer workshop that covered the path of a direct abusive relationship where the woman was ultimately killed by her boyfriend, which is why One Love was created,” Koren said.

Unlike last year, these workshops were mandatory for all athletes. They consisted of a series that depicted the dynamic and dialogue among three friends when one of them was experiencing an unhealthy and abusive relationship. This year, the committee chose to focus the One Love workshops on the topic of “Door 3.”

“Door 3 was specifically about how you as a friend support your friend that is in an abusive relationship, what are the warning signs you’re seeing, how can you help, and what resources and tools you can use,” Patchen said.

Overall, this set of workshops was a success. They were facilitated by Patchen, Koren, and Lee, as well as by other members of Oberlin’s women’s lacrosse, field hockey, and track teams. Oberlin’s own sexual harm prevention education program, Preventing

and Responding to Sexual Misconduct, also helped facilitate. The staff helped students identify the unhealthy signs shown in the video and discussed how everyone can support their peers when they begin to notice these signs in real life.

“We had really positive feedback for both workshops,” Lee said. “One of our goals was to start conversations and to have all student athletes be aware of what is happening, because we hear a lot about abusive, toxic, and manipulative relationships going on with our teammates and on the campus.”

By holding these workshops, students and student-athletes were educated on tell-tale signs of abusive relationships and were given a list of resources to help when these signs become present.

“Our goal is to provide a base for people to start having these hard conversations,” Patchen said.

Because Koren and Lee were abroad during the fall, they were not able to organize a fall workshop to provide first-years the basis of the One Love Foundation. Next year the group hopes to hold more workshops earlier on.

“Our plan for next year in the fall is to have a mandatory [first-year] athletes workshop so everybody has the same basic knowledge going into the spring workshops,” Koren said. “For the spring, we will pick another discussion topic and do another all athlete workshop.”

Overall, the 2023 “Door 3” workshops had a great turnout, with a majority of student athletes attending.

“For the three of us, this cause means a lot, and we want to give back to the athletic community,” Patchen said. “We are hoping that this is our legacy and it will continue on when we graduate.”

BSAG Continues to Support Black Student-Athletes

Emma Benardete Editor-in-Chief

Founded in 2019, the Black Student-Athlete Group has played a pivotal role in helping Black athletes find community on campus. According to the BSAG webpage on GoYeo, the mission of the group is to “create a united community for Black student-athletes on Oberlin College’s campus [and] to provide that group of students with a voice and an organization specifically dedicated to promoting them and their success.”

Naeisha McClain, OC ’20, is a founding member of BSAG and a former thrower on the women’s track and field team. McClain said that their experience as a thrower inspired them to get involved as a founding member of BSAG. Because they knew several Black athletes on their team, they recognized the value of having that community and wanted to create something for other Black students who didn’t have the same experience.

“On some teams, there will only be one Black person,” McClain said. “They probably need community, and it would be nice for us as Black student-athletes to be able to support other people who may not have other Black students on the team.”

They also noted that while there were several Black athletes on the track team, they didn’t know Black athletes outside of their sport.

“I … could recognize by face

other Black student-athletes that I had seen around, but not by name,” McClain said.

In addition to building community, Kofi Asare, OC ’22, noted that BSAG also plays an important role in shaping Oberlin Athletics.

“I was just back for homecoming this past year,” Asare said.

“This was my first time coming back as an alum, and it was great because you could just tell that BSAG sort of had a footprint into the programming.”

Asare entered a leadership role in BSAG during the pandemic, after the class of 2020 had graduated. A major mandate of the newly formed organization was helping maintain connections between Black athletes in that altered landscape.

“I think that when we first took it up, … one of the biggest things that I was concerned about … was sort of just, how do we sustain the community that we’re trying to build over such a difficult and tumultuous time as COVID?” Asare said. “So a lot of that was networking or trying tvo do smaller events through Zoom or in person for different members of the group.”

Asare was particularly grateful for the opportunity that BSAG afforded him to get to know younger athletes and act as a mentor.

“I think it just really made it more fulfilling to build the relationships, and cultivate the relationships that I had with other Black student-athletes, especially those who are younger than me,”

he said.

Hill described the community that BSAG has been able to build in more recent semesters, after McClain and Asare graduated. For instance, the Executive Board of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee recently introduced the position of a diversity and inclusion officer, who is elected by BSAG. The role of diversity and inclusion officer is currently filled by second-year basketball player Bryana Woodard, who also serves as BSAG’s liaison and social media officer.

“That was something that the

board a year or two ago really pushed for,” third-year track and field athlete and BSAG Secretary and Historian Hayden Hill said.

Hill noted that she became involved in the group at the suggestion of some of her teammates who were already members.

“A lot of my teammates were on the board of BSAG,” Hill said. “So especially as a first-year, they’re like, … ‘You’re coming to the BSAG meeting?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, of course.’ So that’s kind of how I got roped into it. But I’m really glad that they did, of course.”

McClain said that the orga-

nization’s work is an important way to celebrate the Black athletes who came before BSAG was founded and to honor Oberlin’s progressive legacy. They hopes BSAG will live on, first and foremost, as a space where Black athletes can celebrate each other.

“Oberlin loves to pride itself on [being] the first college to admit someone regardless of their race or regardless of their gender, … but you don’t necessarily get that piece through the Athletics department,” McClain said. “[I hope] that BSAG is able to honor … that legacy as well.”

Women’s Lacrosse members prepare for the One Love Workshop last month.

BSAG has perservered during times of uncertainty since its founding.

Photo courtesy of Maggie Balderstone

Photo courtesy of Maggie Balderstone

Photo courtesy of Lucas Draper

Trans Day of Visibility Photoshoot Empowers Athletes

James Foster Production Editor

On March 31, the Oberlin Athletics Instagram account posted eight photos of Oberlin transgender student-athletes in celebration of Transgender Day of Visibility. Student-athletes posed in creative ways in front of a black background, which made the colorful expressions and unique poses stand out. Maggie Balderstone, a third-year athlete on the women’s basketball team, and Chase Sortor, a fourth-year athlete on the men’s track and field team, were the brains behind the TDOV photoshoot.

“Chase had talked to [Assistant Director of Athletics Communications] Amanda Phillips about wanting to do something like this, but there weren’t any solidified plans in place,” Balderstone said. “I reached out to him and said, ‘I heard you wanted to do this. I really wanna get involved and help out in any way I can. Let’s make it happen.’ He’s an ideas man and so I wanted to put his ideas into action.”

The TDOV shoot came to fruition with the goal of uplifting trans athletes. However, the shoot wouldn’t have been possible without the courage of the models — Balderstone and Sortor, as well as fourth-year Lucas Draper from the men’s swimming and diving team, third-year Dee Pegues from the field hockey team, fourth-year Post from the field hockey team, second-year Nora Holder from the men’s swimming and diving team, second-year Salem Holter from the field hockey team, and second-year Sage Reddish from the women’s track and field team.

In an email to the Review, Sortor commented on his experience as a model in the shoot and how he felt empowered by being in front of the camera.

“I had a great time as a model in the shoot,” Sortor wrote. “I love taking photos with Maggie and I think we created a safe, affirming space for people to feel confident. Photos of myself remind me of the hard work and obstacles I have overcome to exist in the body I do. Finding joy in the way that I look and my physical existence is something I will forever be grateful for.”

The shoot was not just a celebration of trans athletes at Oberlin, but a rebuttal against the rise of reactionary legislation across the country that aims to prohibit trans athlete participation in sports and abolish gender-affirming care for minors.

At the 134th General Assembly, the Ohio House of Representatives introduced House Bill 454, a bill that seeks to ban gender-affirming care for minors. The bill reads, “No physician or other medical health care professional shall provide gender transition procedures to any person under eighteen years of age. No physician, mental health provider, or other medical health care professional shall refer any person under eighteen years of age to any medical doctor for gender transition procedures.”

The bill argues that studies show that gender-affirming surgical care has more drawbacks than benefits. However, this claim is empirically disproven.

“Research has shown that transgender individuals who choose gender-affirming surgery experience long-term mental health benefits,” the Cleveland Clinic’s website reads. “In one study, a person’s odds of needing mental health treatment declined by 8% each year after the gender-affirming procedure.”

Despite the perception of sports as gendered and hostile toward queer participants, Balderstone has found a safe space in Oberlin athletics.

“For me, being a trans athlete is a very liminal existence,” Balderstone said. “Being in women’s sports, but not identifying as a woman has been a very interesting experience for me. I think a lot of times it can be a very non-affirming space, but because of my teammates, because of my coaches, I’ve really carved out — and they’ve helped me carve out — a space [for] feeling affirmed in myself and being able to exist.”

Balderstone is looking to combat misinformation surrounding trans athletes by creating a workshop that educates Oberlin student-athletes about trans participation in sports.

“I think especially within our men’s teams, there’s a lot of misconceptions about what trans athletes are, who they are, and what we do,” Balderstone said.

“I think some of them come from a place of, ‘I wanna save women’s sports.’ But I think at its core it’s just misunderstanding, and [athletes] not trying to educate themselves on the issue. So Oberlin as an institution, and this athletic department providing that education and workshopping so we can get all the information out there, is gonna be really beneficial moving forward.”

Phillips, who provided the venue and support for the TDOV photoshoot, has expressed her admiration for Balderstone’s and Sortor’s efforts to conceptualize and produce the final result.

“I will say, it was by far our most successful social campaign all year,” Phillips said. “One of the most successful in the past two-and-a-half years since I’ve been here. All credits go to Maggie and to Chase. They just did such a great job. Even in the studio, they had music going. They made it a very welcoming, warm space, and comfortable space. There’s nobody better who could have done this. They were absolutely the right people to take this on. I’m very impressed and proud of our athletes and how they came together and really made this happen.”

Phillips and other staff members in the Athletics Communications Office are enthusiastic about uplifting marginalized voices and celebrating the diversity of the Oberlin student body. She has expressed a desire to make the TDOV shoot a yearly event while also starting traditions of photoshoots that celebrate Pride Month, Black History Month, and more.

“I think that, especially to other trans athletes, [it’s important to] keep doing the work, because it’s not an easy process at times, but it’s making a difference and proving to people that all types of people — all different bodies — can exist and thrive in sports,” Balderstone said. “What I love about sports is we can just keep pushing the envelope as to what sports looks like. Who is in sports, what they can do, is just ever-evolving. I think that’s so wonderful, and I think trans athletes are evolving sport more — we’re just evolving in a different direction. To the athletics community here, we have to continue to make space for trans athletes to feel 100 percent comfortable.”

Dee Pegues

Lucas Draper

Chase Sortor Post

Nora Holder

Salem Holter

Sage Reddish

Photos courtesy of Maggie Balderstone