Oberlin Students Must Do More to Engage With Community

OPINIONSOPINIONS

April 29, 2022 Established 1874 Volume 151, Number 19

Ohio’s “Don’t Say Gay” Bill Highlights Ideological Tensions

EdItOrIal BOard

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Elle Giannandrea

Columnist

Earlier this month, Ohio Republican representatives Mike Loychik and Jean Schmidt introduced House Bill 616, broadly known as Ohio’s own version of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law. The bill would ban “any curriculum or instructional materials on sexual orientation or gender identity” as well as scholastic material “that promotes any divisive or inherently racist concept,” including “Critical race theory, Intersectional theory, the 1619 project, diversity, equity, and inclusion learning outcomes, and inherited racial guilt.” This move follows in the steps of a series of anti-LGBTQ+ educational legislation being introduced in states across the country.

Like most legislative responses to the culture war, Bill 616 is an expression of fear and a feeling of loss of control. Given the historical assumption that the American education system would cater to an American sensibility — a conservative American sensibility — the notion that students might be asked to consider the flaws of their country is deeply disturbing and threatening.

In a statement regarding the bill, Schmidt argued that “parents deserve and should be provided a say in what is taught to their children in schools. The intent of this bill is to provide them with the tools to be able to see what their child is being taught.” Obviously, I disagree with this. Not just because I believe the intent of this bill has more to do with censorship than transparency, but also because I do not believe that “parents deserve and should be provided a say in what is taught to their children in schools.” In fact, I believe that this sentiment completely negates one of the primary functions of education: progress.

The Monday after spring break, I went into Cleveland with a couple of friends to see a talk by author Fran Lebowitz. During the Q&A session, someone asked her about her opinion on the growing number of “Don’t Say Gay” bills being introduced around the country. In response, she recounted a story from her life as a teenager growing up in the ’60s. She told us that she had a high school English teacher who assigned her class The Picture Of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. She read the book in one sitting that night, only to come to school the next day to find that the teacher had been fired for his choice of curriculum. She said that there was no question that the school had fired him because he chose to teach Wilde and was consequently assumed to be gay. On one hand, her story made me consider the extent of the progress that has been made in less than a century, and on the other, it made me realize how much we have to lose. If there’s one thing I hope will result from this wave of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, it’s that young people will see how dangerous it can be to take progress for granted.

I would, however, like to consider at least one comforting thought. I believe the very fact that these bills are being put forward across the country means that there already exists a cultural force to push back against. Bill 616 is an expression of fearful ignorance. The fact that legislators feel that their ideology needs to be put into law in order to take effect in society means that we are witnessing a culture attempting to resist the ideology of bigotry. This isn’t to say that bills like 616 aren’t cause for concern — on the contrary, what we face now is the beginning of a battle against right-wing propaganda and its followers. Luckily, there are plenty of people already fighting the good fight. An ABC News/Ipsos poll found that “more than 6 in 10 Americans oppose legislation

See Progress, page 7

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OPINIONS EdItOrS Emma Benardete Emily Vaughan

Oberlin Students Must Do More to Engage With Community

Conversations around “town-gown” relationships in Oberlin resurface every few years — most recently in the form of the carshare program paid for by the City. As reported in the Review this week, the ratio of College students to community members using the program is heavily unbalanced. Of the 339 total users, 280 are students while only 59 are community members. City Council decided to subsidize the service specifically so that it would be more accessible for low-income residents. Two years later, however, some members feel that the demographics of carshare use mean that the City is essentially financing students’ transportation needs.

For some City Council representatives, this fact stands to reason that the College should carry the financial burden of the program. This issue is a microcosm of a broader pattern in Oberlin’s internal dynamics — the more the College takes from the local community, the less it gives in return. As with any debate of this sort, people aren’t just thinking about the immediate conflict: they’re thinking about decades of context.

As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, the College is not required to pay property taxes on the huge swathes of land that it owns. Sprawled over more than two million square feet of land, the physical footprint of Oberlin College is undeniably large for an institution of its size. Without a doubt, that also makes Oberlin the largest landowner in the City. According to a 2015 article published in the Review, then-City Council member Kristin Peterson claimed that the College would pay roughly $4.4 million in property taxes each year were it not for this exemption. When that article was written, student activists were pushing for the College to make a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement with the City, essentially with the aim of paying back to the City what the College would otherwise save. No such agreement was made.

Then there is the undeniable burden of the College on municipal resources. For example, every fire alarm set off because of a burnt bag of popcorn, callously cooked piece of meat, or faulty smoke detector results in a strain on the Oberlin Fire Department. Fuel and labor hours aside, the inherent inability of the fire brigade to tend to everything at once means that every bit of attention directed toward students is attention taken away from the City. Consider also that the College doesn’t participate in the opt-in recycling program offered by the City. Aside from institutional burdens on the municipality of Oberlin, the student community also does its fair share of disruption in local life. From loud parties in residential neighborhoods to shoplifting from local stores — and no, we’re not referring to the whole Gibson’s fiasco — students can demonstrate a lack of consideration for the rest of the Oberlin community. Between the long-standing institution of the College and the changing whims of its student body, we are impacting the operations of the municipality in negative ways, and it’s about time we confront that truth.

There are, of course, passive benefits of having approximately 3,000 excited young adults in the community. For example, students contribute to the economy when they purchase from local businesses and pay the sales tax on their purchases, some of which goes to the town. Every student worker pays Ohio income tax — while that doesn’t go toward the City, it certainly makes us active participants in the state economy. The College is an important local employer, and our administrators consider that a major enough responsibility to document and emphasize in the One Oberlin report. A byproduct of having a thriving Conservatory is the year-round concerts that students and community members alike can attend, not to mention plays, festivals, dance showcases, and a variety of other cultural events. While it is true that most, if not all, of these events occur for the sake of the College, everyone in the community can derive benefit.

What we need now are more active measures that can be taken to support and give back to the community. There are a few ways in which we’re already doing this. For example, Oberlin High School students are eligible for College courses and scholarships, and the Bonner Center for Service and Learning has a number of community based work-study programs that assign College students as tutors in the high school. A number of students also work for local businesses or volunteer their time for various cleanup, charity, and educational events. These are just a handful of ways that we engage with the community directly, and we want to encourage students to explore more of these opportunities. Students can volunteer with Oberlin Community Services, an organization that provides food, financial assistance, and other resources to low-income and vulnerable people in the Oberlin community. Students who speak Spanish can participate in the Spanish in the Elementary Schools program by teaching kids introductory-level Spanish. Really, the potential for community work is limitless in our little town.

The fact is, by virtue of migrating to this town from all over the country and the world, some part of us belongs here. As students, we’re welcomed, celebrated, and cherished by this community, and that alone means we have a responsibility to its people. Yes, we carry a legacy of a less-than-helpful impact on the town, but that only means we should try harder to do better.

Instead of settling for the passive benefit that we expect to have on the community, we can and should exert intentional effort to listen to the needs of our neighbors and work to ameliorate them. We need to organize around this community that supports and welcomes us through the years we spend here.

Nan Whaley Should Be Ohio’s Next Governor

Emma Benardete Opinions Editor

Editors’ Note: The author of this op-ed completed an internship for Nan Whaley’s Gubernatorial Campaign over Winter Term.

With Ohio’s open senatorial and gubernatorial primaries imminently approaching on Tuesday, May 3, many Ohioans will be doing some last-minute research to decide which candidates they will vote for. On the Democratic side, the race for the gubernatorial nomination is between John Cranley, the former mayor of Cincinnati, and Nan Whaley, the former mayor of Dayton.

Ohio’s elections this year will largely depend on which candidates can best appeal to working- and middle-class constituents. The child of a middle-class family from Indiana and the only non-millionaire in the gubernatorial race on either side of the aisle, Whaley has made this a top priority in her campaign. One of the catchphrases of her campaign is “I want your pay to go up, your bills to go down, and your government to work for you.” Whaley has released detailed plans across a variety of policy areas, all of which will immensely benefit working-class families in Ohio.

For example, Whaley’s 21st Century Jobs Plan includes policy points like increasing state minimum wage to $15 per hour, banning non-compete clauses in employment contracts, and increasing penalties for wage theft. These policies will move power into the hands of everyday Ohioans to ensure that they are being paid a fair, livable wage.

Whaley comes into the race with a record of enacting strong liberal policies during her time as mayor of Dayton. In 2016, under her leadership, Dayton began offering universal free pre-K, which was later touted as a possible model for the Biden administration. Whaley has pledged that, if elected, she will expand the program to include all Ohio families. Besides preparing kids for kindergarten in a state where almost 60 percent of students do not demonstrate preparedness, the program would also give parents with preschool-age children the option to return to work after the pandemic. While Cranley’s running mate, State Senator Teresa Fedor, introduced legislation in the statehouse to provide universal pre-K, Cranley has yet to say whether he supports the initiative.

One of the most critical things that can come out of this race, especially given the likely overturn of Roe v. Wade in the Supreme Court, is having a governor who is entirely supportive of reproductive freedoms. While Cranley has come under fire for only recently becoming pro-choice, Whaley has supported reproductive freedoms her entire political career. She has pledged to veto any anti-abortion legislation that may land on her desk and to appoint a pro-choice director to the Ohio Department of Public Health.

Not only does Whaley have a solid track record and forward-looking policy plans for the state, but she has also managed to garner an impressive list of endorsements. She has secured the endorsements of Senator Sherrod Brown, Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther, Dayton Mayor Jeffrey J. Mims Jr., former Cincinnati Mayor Dwight Tillery, 27 current and former state representatives, and four state senators, amounting to more than half of the Democrats in the Ohio legislature. She has also been endorsed by a number of local, statewide, and national organizations, including Planned Parenthood Advocates of Ohio, EMILY’s List, the Matriots PAC, Cleveland Heights Democrats, Cleveland Stonewall Democrats, and Cincinnati Women’s Political Caucus. Here in Lorain County, she has secured the endorsement of the County Democratic Chair Anthony Giardini. And speaking of endorsements — or lack thereof — Whaley boasts an F rating from the National Rifle Association.

Whaley has also built strong relationships with local, state, and national leaders during her tenure as the president of the United States Conference of Mayors, a bipartisan coalition of mayors of cities with populations over 30,000. During her year-long term, she helped to organize mayors across the country to lobby for President Joe Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure bill and represented the conference at the bill’s signing in November.

Whaley has presented sensible and progressive policy plans, and she has demonstrated strong leadership and a willingness to work across the aisle in her time as the mayor of Dayton and in her gubernatorial campaign. It is for these reasons that I urge you to vote Nan Whaley for governor in Tuesday’s primary.

I Endorse Tim Ryan and John Cranley for Senate and Governor

Gubernatorial candidates Nan Whaley and John Cranley appear onstage during a primary debate. Courtesy of The San Diego Union-Tribune

Miranda Yaver

Visiting Assistant Professor of Politics

The Senate vacancy created by the surprise retirement of Senator Rob Portman creates a vital opportunity for the Democratic Party to gain a majority in the senate. However, Democrats face an uphill battle in doing so: inflation concerns, a longstanding national trend against the incumbent party in midterm elections, and the increasingly red state of Ohio.

This campaign thus demands a candidate who can speak to blue-collar workers whose economic security has been compromised amid the unemployment and underemployment associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. It demands a Senate candidate who can speak to the bread-and-butter issues facing Ohioans across the state, rather than one who will to right-wing attempts to dominate the discourse with fabricated culture wars.

That candidate is Congressman Tim Ryan, the Democratic representative of Ohio’s 13th congressional district.

While Congressman Ryan was unsuccessful in conveying his blue-collar message to voters in the 2020 presidential primary, on his Senate campaign he has traveled to all 88 counties of Ohio, talking at length about the importance of wages and job creation, a focus that has earned him the support of Senator Sherrod Brown. Indeed, Senator Brown said, “With Tim Ryan and I in the Senate, we’ll be the most pro-worker team in the United States Senate, bar none.”

To be sure, Congressman Ryan was not always aligned with some issues central to the Democratic Party, namely abortion. Ryan stated that, growing up Catholic, he initially identified as a pro-life Democrat. But having listened to pro-choice women in the Democratic caucus and Ohio, he changed his tune, ultimately characterizing abortion as an “issue of freedom,” with positions that have earned him the endorsement of the National Abortion Rights Action League and a 100 percent rating on Planned Parenthood’s most recent congressional scorecard.

Similarly, while previously boasting an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association, Ryan has since called out Republicans’ intransigence on common-sense gun control measures, especially in the face of deadly mass shootings.

But ultimately, this Senate race is not about a sevenyear-old stance on abortion or guns (in a state that likes its guns). It is about who can win in November.

On the other side of the Senate election is a primary filled with candidates aiming first and foremost to out-MAGA one another, with J.D. Vance claiming the coveted endorsement of former president Donald Trump and while also clinching the lead in the polls from Josh Mandel. Both candidates would pose a setback not just for the state of Ohio as they prioritize manufactured crises over real-world problems, but also to the nation as President Biden pursues his social and economic agendas and seeks to fill judicial vacancies that will likely remain empty with a Republican Senate majority. And while Senator Portman has certainly toed the party line, the winner of the Republican Senate primary will likely be someone who still, well over a year later, refuses to accept the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election.

This election is not about policy. It is about democracy.

Any of the Democrats running to succeed Senator Portman would vote in alignment with the Democratic Party’s substantive agenda and would vote to confirm the Biden administration’s judicial nominees. Tim Ryan is best positioned to have the opportunity to do so.

Ohioans are also faced with a hotly contested gubernatorial primary in the effort to unseat Republican Governor Mike DeWine, who is also facing challenges from the right, in large part in response to his public health measures to curb the spread of COVID-19. Democrats have before them two highly qualified candidates: John Cranley, former mayor of Cincinnati and co-founder of the Ohio Innocence Project, and Nan Whaley, former mayor of Dayton.

Whoever wins the gubernatorial primary will face an uphill battle in securing the governorship, which has been controlled by the Republican Party since 2011. The task at hand is to choose the most electable candidate who will have the opportunity to either advance their progressive agenda or, more realistically, effectively put the brakes on an extremist agenda working its way through the legislature. That candidate is John Cranley.

Nan Whaley has a chance to make history in this battle over the governorship. Neither major party has ever nominated a woman for governor. She has already obtained the coveted endorsement from Senator Sherrod Brown, as well as from Planned Parenthood. One question though is whether Ohio, in this time of hyperpartisanship and heightened conservatism, is ready for an all-female Democratic ticket. It might well be, but it may not be worth taking the chance.

As we look ahead to the Supreme Court’s likely overturning, or at least evisceration, of Roe v. Wade, the question is less what the respective candidates’ records were years ago and more how they will work in a bipartisan manner with the Republican-controlled legislature and prevent the adoption of regressive policies. Although Cranley was not historically pro-choice, he currently maintains that he would veto anti-abortion legislation put forward by the Ohio legislature.

Among Cranley’s proposals is the legalization of marijuana and the use of resulting tax revenue to invest in 30,000 well-paying jobs in roads, broadband, and energy. While it is unclear whether such a proposal would pass through the Ohio legislature, given the popularity of the policy among Ohio voters (50.4 percent approved and 39.7 percent were opposed or undecided as of February 2022), it is possible that the policy might be adopted via direct ballot.

Moreover, as Republicans fight against expansions on the success of the Affordable Care Act, John Cranley is proposing bringing a federally qualified health center to each of Ohio’s 88 counties, an act that would help to curb Ohio’s opioid crisis and mental health challenges within the population.