JT duck accused of discrimination by admissions employees
by Aaron Gruen Deputy News EditorAn external law firm is inves tigating the Tufts admissions office following complaints from employees who allege discrimination on the part of office leadership, according to current and former admissions officers and emails obtained by the Daily.
Since the arrival of current Dean of Admissions JT Duck in fall 2019, employees allege that the office has suffered from questionable leadership, abrupt departures, retaliation and behavior from the dean that employees characterized as racist, sexist, transphobic and antisemitic.
At least 22 employees, which today would make up about half of the office staff, have depart ed the undergraduate, graduate and SMFA admissions offices since August 2019.
In interviews with the Daily, nine current and former admis sions employees — speaking on the condition of anonymity — described how a “toxic” work place culture contributed to the departures of many of these staff members.
Employees also alleged that Duck ignored reports of dis crimination and punished criti cism of his leadership, prompt
ing at least two employees to lodge complaints against him with Tufts’ Office of Equal Opportunity.
McCarter & English, the law firm hired by the OEO, has inter viewed current and former staff about their experiences in the admissions office and working with Duck, according to emails obtained by the Daily and inter views with former admissions officials. The investigation has been underway since at least
Tufts’ executive director of media relations, Patrick Collins, said the university typically doesn’t comment on personnel matters. “When allegations are made by community members regarding workplace matters, the University regularly reviews those allegations consistent with applicable policies and procedures. The existence of any such review is not evidence of wrongdoing; it is the first step in a fact-finding process,” he wrote in an email to the Daily.
only employees but the appli cant pool as well. At least one former admissions employee was asked to read as many as 90 to 100 applications per day and work on weekends, which they said kept them from spending more than about five minutes assessing each candidate.
“I couldn’t at the end of the day remember anyone I read. I’ve never worked in an admis sions office where I didn’t have three or four standout appli cants I could remember at the end of the day,” a former assis tant director of admissions said. “That sheer amount of volume made it feel like we weren’t giv ing a lot of respect to our candi dates who were applying.”
right of individuals to raise their thoughts and concerns with me and to seek redress from the uni versity’s established processes if they feel their concerns have gone unheard.”
The allegations come just months after the universi ty’s two chief diversity offi cers both left their positions following an administrative reshuffling in the provost’s office and amid accusations of a workplace culture that contradicted anti-racist com mitments. The revelations also coincide with a period of increased public scrutiny of diversity in admissions, as the Supreme Court weighs outlaw ing affirmative action.
June. It remains unclear when it will conclude.
McCarter & English and the Office of Equal Opportunity did not respond to requests for com ment. Duck declined to com ment on the allegations, citing “respect for the university’s pro cesses and procedures, and the important reasons for maintain ing the privacy of all involved.”
Employees said some of the conditions that led to their departures, including what they described as low pay and heavy workloads, are common in high er education. But the allegations contradict the university’s pub lic commitment to equity and inclusion.
Sources also alleged that workplace pressure affected not
One former employee recalled Duck allegedly mis gendering applicants and mak ing jokes about pronouns, and another alleged that an admin istrative push to recruit more “conservative” Jews spawned animosity toward Jewish appli cants while prioritizing some over others.
“I have always sought to cre ate an environment in which dif ferences are respected and val ues of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging are embraced, and I remain committed to doing so moving forward,” Duck wrote in a statement to the Daily. “As a manager, I fully support the
Duck ignored reports of discrimination, employees allege
In an admissions office meet ing following George Floyd’s murder, Duck openly encour aged employees to speak up about their experiences with racism in the workplace, current and former employees said. But when they did, it became clear to some that Duck’s rhetoric was “performative.”
One former admissions employee and alum said that once Duck prompted discus
The office that decides who gets a Tufts education suffers internally from discrimination and poor leadership, employees allege, prompting the university to hire an outside law firm to investigate.
tuftsdaily
“JT rewards loyalty to him above all else, and on the other side of the coin, he punishes what he perceives as disloyalty to him.”
sions of discrimination, it “opened Pandora’s box.”
“People started speaking up about what they were experienc ing, who is doing what to them, how it was impacting their work and their well-being and how they’ve been reporting up the chain — but nothing’s happening,” the former employee said. “From what I experienced, JT Duck got overwhelmed, didn’t realize there [were] this many issues in the office and tried to shove the box closed — but it was too late.”
Following George Floyd’s murder in 2020, Duck allegedly asked two Black female employ ees to run a “professionalism workshop” for the entire admis sions office, a task that the for mer employee said was not included in their job description. They described it as an emotion al burden and an act of perfor mative allyship on Duck’s part.
Multiple former employees said that while Duck had an “open-door policy” for people to share their experiences of workplace discrimi nation, he would dismiss claims of discrimination during discussions.
One former employee alleged that Duck punished them for questioning his decisions.
“JT rewards loyalty to him above all else,” the employee
overrode at least two managerial levels to lower their score.
The employee claimed that the lower-than-expected perfor mance review was a punishment for their tone in a meeting.
Another former employee told the Daily they experienced “a culture of antisemitism with in the Tufts admissions office.”
In a team meeting, accord ing to former employees, Duck asked admissions staff to recruit “more conservative Jews.” But when asked to clarify wheth er he meant politically conser vative Jews or members of the conservative Jewish movement, Duck allegedly did not know the answer to the question.
Following the meeting, an employee said other staff were confused about what Duck meant. They alleged that Duck’s ask — and the ensuing confu sion — built resentment toward Jewish applicants.
Employees say they were overworked while their concerns remained unaddressed
Multiple sources recall feel ing overworked when read ing applications. One source said they worked 60 hours per week over the course of several months. Another employee said the office was at one point “like a
work-life balance, yet none of that came through structurally. We were asked to do twice as much work with less time.”
therapist for the anti-Black rac ism you’re experiencing at work,” they said. “That is why I left, regardless of being an alum.”
said. “And on the other side of the coin, he punishes what he perceives as disloyalty to him. … There were some people who would speak out in staff meet ings about concerns on various processes — and JT targeted them, including myself.”
During their performance review, a process that they said affects employees’ salary, the employee said they were “blind
mill: trying to produce, meet our expectations, but also overwork ing ourselves in the process.” Another said they were “doing the work of at least two people.”
“COVID-19 put everything into sharp focus — all of the stressors, all of the asking people to sacri fice and put themselves second for the students when it’s actually just benefiting the administra tion,” one former employee said.
A former assistant director of admissions said that they were reading triple the number of appli cations each day than at her previ ous job at a large public university.
“That volume … felt like a moun tain you were climbing up every day, and you fell off the side of it the next one, and just were constantly trying to come up and never felt like you quite got there,” they said.
The assistant director worked in the admissions office for seven months before resigning in the middle of the applica tion-reading period.
“I didn’t get into a job that underpays me for an insane amount of work, where I get yelled at 24/7 and was told that I would be helping students, only to end up finding that I’m burning myself on both ends,” they said. “I had planned to be in higher ed for my entire career, and Tufts pretty much broke that for me.”
At a certain point for one for mer employee who identifies as Black, alleged microaggressions in the workplace — coupled with the added stressors of the pandemic — triggered physical health issues.
“[Duck said] just get your work done,” they said. “And at the same time, [microaggres sions are] affecting my mental health, my physical health. My doctors are seeing an impact. My family and friends are seeing an impact.”
The employee later left the admissions office, partially out of concern for their health.
“You should not have to be on medication to do a job; you
‘This is not how you treat your friends’
Multiple employees described Duck’s behavior as “toxic positivity.”
“He would start every meet ing with ‘Hello friends!’” one former employee said. “This is not how you treat your friends. … You don’t allow your friends to be discriminated against and then be dismissive when they bring [discrimination] to your attention.”
Despite his openness to hear ing workers’ experiences of dis crimination, former employees alleged that Duck knowingly promoted people who had for mal complaints of discrimination lodged against them.
Employees also recounted alleged microaggressions from Duck. In one instance, a former assistant director of admissions alleged, Duck repeatedly misgen dered applicants despite being corrected.
“I found myself correcting and correcting … [Duck and] directors about applicants’ pronouns,” she said. “It felt like there was less sen sitivity to queer, trans and non-bi nary students, which affected me, really, mentally as a queer person.”
The same employee recalled reporting instances of sexism to HR, but said that her complaints were largely ignored. She eventu ally decided to leave without hav ing another job lined up.
“Duck was leading Tufts astray from what I enjoyed about the university and admis sions,” she said. “I couldn’t stay
Tufts hires law firm to investigate employee complaints against dean of admissions
“I had planned to be in higher ed for my entire career, and Tufts pretty much broke that for me.”
“That sheer amount of volume made it feel like we weren’t giving a lot of respect to our candidates who were applying.”
Tisch College holds Civic Life Lunch seminar: ‘Can Libraries save democracy?’
by Charlotte Chen Assistant News EditorThe Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life hosted a seminar on Nov. 1 called “Can Libraries Save Democracy?” as part of their Civic Life Lunch series. The event featured Tamara King, chief equity offi cer and engagement officer for Richland Library in South Carolina, and Kelly Linehan, director of the Waltham Public Library, and was moderated by Dorothy Meaney, director of Tisch Library.
King’s role at the Richland Library includes engaging the community in efforts to reach underserved and marginalized populations with Richland Library’s resources.
Linehan spearheaded the Watch Read Listen commu nity story program and the Play Imagine Experience, an immersive educational play space for children.
Meaney began the discus sion by asking the speakers the question posed by the title of the seminar: “Can libraries save democracy?”
King said that libraries alone cannot save democra cy but can provide valuable resources to help the country
take steps toward a more dem ocratic society.
“I definitely think we con tinue to have a role to play when we talk about the infor mation marketplace, in making sure that people have access to information that is factual, unbiased and able to inform how they live their lives and who they vote for,” King said.
Linehan emphasized the importance of ensuring that people feel comfortable seek ing out information from libraries.
“We’re in a really unique position to give people access to this information … who may not feel comfortable using our services or may not know about the public library as we know it,” Linehan said.
Meaney then asked King and Linehan about barriers that libraries may face when working towards their goals of improving access to their communities.
King discussed Richland Library’s large staff of social workers and explained that they have received backlash for expanding their resources.
“They think that we should just do books, or we should just do storytime, or we should just do the business of what tradi
tionally they believe a library should be doing,” King said.
King also spoke about the struggle libraries face with mak ing their programs interesting for children and young adults.
“If you can’t even get them in the door or you can’t even engage with them about a fun book they need to read. Sometimes it’s hard to do that part too,” King said.
King then explained the positive results Richland Library saw after its recent campaign announcing its reopening after the initial COVID-19 pandemic.
“We just did a campaign in our library, a welcome-back campaign, to let people know that our doors were still open,” King said. “We did commer cials, we had staff singing on those commercials, we did a social media campaign. … We made a significant invest ment in making sure that this worked, and we saw a signifi cant increase in the amount of people … that started coming back into our buildings.”
Linehan discussed a pro gram at the Waltham Public Library that helped to bring people through their doors.
“[Real Talk is] a youth con versation forum led by the
teams, and it’s a year-long cur riculum that covers a lot of things,” Linehan said. “It does cover some media literacy … [as well as] broader topics like safety, sexuality, gender … [and] evaluating that infor mation and making decisions moving forward from that.”
Meaney asked what pro grams Linehan and King have put in place to counter the idea that libraries are sole ly quiet spaces for self-edu cation. In response, Linehan talked about Waltham Public Library’s Watch Read Listen program and its accessibility.
“We did Hamilton. … You can read it in many, many lan guages; you can listen to the soundtrack; you can get the DVD of Hamilton,” Linehan said. “The idea is you don’t have to be able to read at all, and you don’t actually have to speak English to participate in the stories.”
King described the Let’s Talk Race team at Richland Library that worked to promote discus sions about everything from women’s rights to social justice.
“We were holding facilitat ed conversations, we’re call ing them ‘circles of dialogue,’ where people will sit in a cir cle [with] a trained facilitator
who would lead conversations and ask really bold questions … and help people really talk about them in a meaningful way,” King said.
Meaney then opened up the discussion for questions from the crowd. A member of the audi ence asked the speakers about banned books and how their libraries have handled this topic.
King described the open ness that her library’s team embodies as it engages in con versation about intellectual freedom.
“We’re always talking about it with our team, so they under stand who we are and what we represent,” King said. “I think we’ve constantly been sticking to the Freedom to Read [state ment] as a guide for us, as well as the Library Bill of Rights. And these are things that we don’t waver upon.”
Linehan reiterated King’s point by further detailing her perspective that people have the freedom to choose whether or not they want to read a book pre sented on the library’s shelves.
“I do think that, if you don’t like a book, you don’t have to read it,” Linehan said. “We’ll fight the censorship battle all you want. People need access to information.”
ures
Tufts’ master of Philosophy program promotes philosophical passion, community
by Sam Berman Contributing Writer“If I could choose one book to bring with me to a desert island, … it would absolutely be Plato’s ‘Republic.’ … I teach it every year, and I still discover new and exciting things, it still makes me think; it is by far my favor ite book ever,” said Christiana Olfert, associate professor and director of graduate studies in philosophy at Tufts, who over sees the the top-ranked terminal master’s in philosophy program in the nation according to The Philosophical Gourmet Report.
Such philosophical fervor is likewise present in the program’s student body.
“[Philosophy] is just pleas ing. … Recognizing and knowing truth, beauty and goodness … makes you happy,” said Joshua McKeown, a master’s philosophy student in his first semester of the typically two-year program.
Graduate students from across the United States and the world come to Tufts to pursue their philosophical passions in the school’s master’s in philoso phy program.
“We want to offer an entry point into serious, advanced study of philosophy for folks who may not have had a traditional, extensive experience with phi losophy in their undergraduate education,” Olfert said.
McKeown, for instance, stud ied philosophy as an under graduate at Mississippi College, but there was only one profes sor in the school’s philosophy department.
“There weren’t many histo ry of philosophy courses, [and] there weren’t courses on meta physics,” McKeown said. “I only had to take six [courses for my philosophy major,] and none of them were on analytic philoso phy or Greek philosophy, they were more broad.”
Tufts’ master’s in philosophy, on the other hand, requires at least two courses each in the history of philosophy as well as metaphysics and epistemology, in addition to at least two in nor mative philosophy.
According to Olfert, these curriculum requirements help students form a strong intellec tual arsenal. “[One] of the goals of our program [is] to provide a pathway into professional phi losophy. … We think that kind of breadth makes for good philoso phy,” Olfert said.
Just as the master’s program’s curriculum is diverse, so are the backgrounds of its students.
Mikel Moyer, for instance, is currently enrolled after earning his bachelor’s in chemistry in 1981, working for almost three decades in pharmaceutical research, then returning to earn first a bachelor’s and now a mas ter’s in philosophy.
On the other end of the age spectrum, Helena Fang is cur rent student in the master’s program as an undergraduate senior. She is a mathematics and philosophy double major who is concurrently completing Tufts’ combined four-plus-one B.A./M.A. degree program in philosophy.
“In the spring semester of my sophomore year, … I just decided that I want to pursue academ ic philosophy as a career. And I realized, if I applied to Ph.D. programs in senior year, I’d basi cally only have a year to prepare,” Fang said. “And I realized, if I do the four-plus-one then I [would have] an extra year to take more philosophy classes … [and] think about what specifically I’m going to do in philosophy and also just stay in the department and have deeper connections with the fac ulty and people around.”
The four-plus-one option enables Tufts students to earn a master’s degree with only one year of study beyond their under graduate education. Olfert rec ommends it to everyone at Tufts who is interested in philosophy.
“[Tufts undergraduates] are subject to the same standards that we use for admissions for [any other] students, but we know Tufts students really well, and we know our majors really well. … I think it’s a really excit ing opportunity.” Olfert said.
Avner Baz, the chair of the phi losophy department, explained how the program promotes col laboration between undergradu ate and graduate students.
“We have a graduate program of the highest caliber, which … allows our undergraduates to interact with graduate students,” Baz said. “[The undergraduate program] benefits in so many ways from the fact that we do have this very high quality grad uate program.”
Those salutary interactions would be far less frequent if Tufts had a Ph.D. program instead of a terminal master’s. In fact, the department only offers one course specific to the master’s program, so aside from that, undergraduates and graduates take many of the same philoso phy classes.
“In that way, our graduate students are sort of part of our [undergraduate] major as well,” Olfert said.
Such diversity of students’ backgrounds and philosophi cal inclinations along with the diversity of faculty enhances the philosophical discourse in the master’s program.
“I think it’s good for philos ophy that there are all of these different voices and experi ences and perspectives. I also think that this is one of the great advantages of our department, … that we have very diverse fac ulty representing very diverse
philosophical approaches and temperaments and perspec tives,” Baz said.
On that variety of philosoph ical perspectives, graduate stu dent Luke Jennings, who is in his second and final year in the master’s program, said of his classmates, “The people around me are really interested in epis temology, metaphysics and phi losophy of mind … and psychol ogy and philosophy of language. … It can be quite useful to get different philosophical perspec tives to see an issue which you took to be in some sense settled … and bring them under close inspection.”
Philosophical discourse in Tufts’ master’s program is vibrant even outside the classroom. Fang said she often has philosophical discussions with other master’s students.
“You talk to someone about something you’ve been think ing about that … they haven’t thought about deeply. And then a couple of days later, they’ll come back to you and be like, ‘Oh, I was thinking about what you told me a couple of days ago. Here’s what I thought afterwards.’”
These conversations are espe cially frequent in the Graduate Writing Seminar course, which is required of master’s students and was added to the program after Olfert arrived at Tufts in 2010.
“It’s an opportunity for the students to prepare a sort of cap stone project for their degree, in which they bring a draft of a paper or a detailed proposal for a paper to class. … [They] rework it, take it apart complete ly, put it back together, respond to objections from, like, 13 of [their] peers and then rewrite the paper again,” Olfert said.
Prospective Ph.D. students typically end up using that as a writing sample in their Ph.D. pro
gram applications, and for other students, the course provides an opportunity to prepare a cap stone piece of writing that rep resents the culmination of their degree, in which they put their philosophical skill on display.
Yet how do Olfert and Baz col laborate to decide on the con tents of the curriculum and work to maintain the master’s pro gram’s excellence?
“Either I come to [Olfert], as the [director of graduate stud ies], with a certain kind of idea or concern … that I want to consult with her about, or she comes to me with some issue that has arisen in connection with a graduate program. … And we think about it together. … She is more familiar with the graduate program, and I have the broader picture,” Baz said.
That collaborative work has helped Tufts’ Master of Philosophy program become one of the best in the United States.
“There [are] a lot of real ly fantastic master’s programs, but Tufts is really, really great for the reason that it just has a lot of faculty members that do a lot of different things. You come away from doing a mas ter’s at Tufts having encoun tered a lot of different types of philosophy,” Jennings said. “[The faculty] are incredi bly supportive and incredibly helpful.”
The program’s excellence has resulted in Ph.D. placements at Oxford, Princeton and Harvard, for example, across its last three graduating classes alone.
“A couple of weeks ago, we had one of our former [master’s] stu dents come back to the depart ment — now he’s an associate professor at Howard — to give a talk. … On Nov. 18, … another student of ours who went to MIT and now is an assistant professor
at Boston University will come to give a talk. These are very signifi cant moments,” Baz said.
No matter one’s area of phil osophical study or background, Baz believes that philosophy can be applied almost everywhere.
“[Philosophy] encourages you to and teaches you how to be more reflective and self-critical,” Baz said.
‘Philosophy’ is a word with Greek origins that means “the love of wisdom,” which evokes the most fundamental questions of humanity.
“The questions that animat ed Greek and Roman philoso phy were: How do I live well? What is happiness? Should I fear death?” Olfert said. “It’s important to me to do my best … in my work to keep in mind that the philosophy I do is sort of deeply interconnected … [to] the existential questions that we all have. And even if we’re reading about it a bunch of mil lennia later, there’s still some thing that we connect to.”
Echoing Olfert’s sentiment, Baz elaborated on philosophy’s everyday relevance in provoking questions.
“[For example,] why am I doing what I’m doing? What puts me in [this] position? What would come for me as success in doing it? Why do I care about it?” Baz said.
Tufts’ Master of Philosophy program helps students contem plate such essential questions more effectively and completely. Baz, Olfert and other esteemed faculty with wide-ranging philo sophical interests make the pro gram excellent for Ph.D.-seeking students of varying backgrounds like Fang, Jennings and McKeown. That excellence elevates Tufts’ philosophy department as a whole, fostering a rich and lively intellectual environment.
New exCollege class investigates the changing rights to abortion in the us
by Madeleine Hudgins Contributing Writerrights and a law degree. Coming from such a background has motivated Day to pursue a career in advocacy and reproductive justice. This experience has in turn influenced her teaching style.
This fall, Tufts’ Experimental College added a new course, The Right to Abortion, which dives into the history of abortion in the United States. Taught by reproductive rights activist Sarah Lee Day, the class aims to explore American society before and after the Roe v. Wade ruling and the future of repro ductive justice in the nation.
This May, the leak of the U.S. Supreme Court draft decision regarding the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization revealed a possible repeal of the constitutional right to abortion secured by Roe v. Wade; it was around this time that the ExCollege administrators decided to offer a course on the subject.
The ExCollege connected with Day through her employers at Reproductive Equity Now, which advocates for access to safe and legal reproductive health care. After volunteering to teach the course, Day started to form its outline in collaboration with Amy Goldstein and Howard Woolf, the associate director and director of the ExCollege.
“Between talking with Amy and meet ing with Howard, I had already developed a rough syllabus for the class and was just incredibly grateful to have the opportunity to teach a course like this and to dive into it,” Day told the Daily.
The resulting course covers a wide variety of content, including the history of abortion, the women’s movement, legal and medical perspectives on abortion and the implications of Roe’s reversal on other protected rights.
The planned curriculum shifted slightly when Roe v. Wade was overturned in June. Now, students will read Justice Clarence Thomas’ concurrence from the Dobbs case and other articles about crisis pregnancy centers and the broader impacts of abortion loss on medical care.
Day explained the context behind the changes in reading materials in light of the Dobbs decision.
“I [will] have the students reread the … Thomas concurrence from Dobbs … because in Thomas’ concurrence, he basi cally says that the court should reevaluate all of their substantive due process law because anything predicated on the right to privacy is suspect,” Day said.
The teaching philosophies used in the course development were shaped by Day’s educational and professional history. Day has bachelor’s degrees in fine arts and psycholo gy, a master’s in social justice and human
Day shared that she wants to prepare stu dents for their future classes and academic careers at Tufts and beyond.
“I view my job as really preparing students to feel confident going into grad school. That might have come as kind of a shock to my freshmen, but so far, they have all risen to the challenge,” Day said.
She has structured the classes using week ly themes with a combination of readings, discussions and assignments. Although Day is preparing students for the rigor of further education, her first-year students have sim ply been enjoying her course as an introduc tion to the wide variety of classes Tufts offers.
Petra Tannous, a first-year student enrolled in the course, is planning to study political science and has enjoyed the different pedagogical style Day offers in comparison to some of her other lec ture-based courses.
“We sit at tables, and they’re arranged in a circle,” Tannous said. “Professor Day encourages a lot of discussion. ... It’s an open space where we all feel comfortable sharing what we think and our opinions related to what we read for homework or what we have discussed.”
The class does not shy away from the con troversies surrounding abortion, but rather confronts them head-on. Day started stu dents off with readings from landmark cases, including Roe v. Wade, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Planned Parenthood v. Danforth and more.
Through the course, Day breaks down the different issues surrounding abortion, both social and political.
“Abortion, it’s a form of health care, but it is also a deeply politicized issue,” Day said. “It is an issue that is very wrapped up with judicial proceedings and nominations. It is an issue that is about national identity for some countries such as Poland or Ireland. It is a deeply personal issue, and at the same time, it is a public health issue.”
Day added that the class will also touch on questions of what might come next in a postRoe world, including what the Dobbs ruling could mean for same-sex marriage, trans gender rights and rights to contraceptives.
To this end, Day shared that she brings her students’ attention to the different bar riers to abortion access and laws that could potentially be enacted in the future.
“Alabama is already using the logic in Roe to say that it can ban gender-affirming
care. So we’ll talk about the way it relates to trans rights,” Day said. “I make it very clear that [this part of the syllabus] may change because this is still an evolving area of law.”
A key part of the course is the cumulative final project which, according to Day, is an opportunity for students to demonstrate their individual interests. Its goal is not sim ply to satisfy a curriculum requirement but instead to demonstrate the importance and purpose of this topic in students’ lives.
Students may choose to draft their own legislative opinion on the Dobbs case or write a research paper on how abortion reg ulations affect specific communities, among other options.
Students can also incorporate their per sonal interests into their final, which is what sophomore Ruby McElhone Yates is doing. McElhone Yates, a political science major, plans on studying the effects of the Hyde Amendment, which restricts the use of federal Medicaid to cover the majority of abortions.
“I am interested in studying the effects of the Hyde Amendment, specifically on [the] IHS, which is the Indian Health Service. … Even though the Hyde Amendment isn’t in the budget anymore, the effects haven’t gone away through the Indian Health Service. … I’m interested in seeing how that specifically affects abortion rights,” McElhone Yates said.
Tannous shared that she has already developed a rough draft for her final project in collaboration with another student in the class. Together, they want to campaign for a new training module to be added to the Tufts’ Office of Equal Opportunity’s current list of mandatory training seminars for students.
“We’re going to try to campaign with the OEO to … add to the summer training [on Canvas], just an extra section that explains what reproductive health care Tufts offers, because a lot of people don’t know that they have access to a lot of reproductive health care at Tufts,” Tannous said.
Day will return and teach The Right to Abortion again in the spring, accord ing to the ExCollege’s spring 2023 course announcement.
McElhone Yates praised Day.
“She’s a great professor. She’s very open to hearing … our thoughts on the read ings, [and] also … figuring out how to make the class more doable and approachable,” McElhone Yates said.
Tannous found value in having an instruc tor with field experience.
“It’s just really cool that we have the opportunity here at Tufts to take a class taught by someone in the field who has a lot of experience and is sharing the experience with us,” she said.
Sense of home: The little things
Packing up every material good you will need for an entire semes ter into one large suitcase and a carry-on is stressful. To approach the problem, I made a color-coordinat ed spreadsheet that masterminded every outfit combination I could make with my given inputs. Needless to say, there was little room for room decorations. My “Natasha, Pierre and The Great Comet of 1812” poster featuring Josh Groban had to be left behind in Medford. To fill my empty flat, I brought pictures of pets and friends. As I’ve traveled to different countries, postcards have been added to the collage. Postcards have always had a spe cial place in my heart. My grandpar ents took advantage of traveling during their retirement and sent my family hundreds of postcards over the years. We have a shoebox dedicated to our collection. In elementary school, I remember digging through the mail and reading postcard after postcard of places I had only read about and had no plans of visiting.
Just over a year ago, I was asked to name an item on my bucket list. I responded that I wanted to travel to Europe and proceeded to have a bit of an existential crisis because I realized that I would have that opportunity very soon through study abroad (to cure the existential crisis, I resolved that a bigger bucket list item would be going to the moon). Now I find myself in Europe, collecting postcards to paste on my walls and pass out to friends and family upon my return.
I enjoy the little things in life and creating a sense of home falls into that category. Right now, the only materials I have are postcards. I wouldn’t say I’m feeling homesick (the culture shock between Wisconsin and Massachusetts was far greater than the U.S. and U.K.), but I miss my essential oil diffuser, bulb lights and quilt that my grand mother (on the other side of the fami ly) made for me.
I love home goods. I’ve gone abso lutely feral when ordinary things are in museums. Jewelry? Glazed pots? Pianos? Gowns? Seeing the objects that the average individual, the aver age woman, interacted with throughout history scratches an itch I didn’t know needed to be scratched. My Medieval London class held a “handling session” in the Museum of London this Tuesday. We passed around trays of ceramics and leather: the objects of the common peo ple predating Shakespeare. The expen sive pieces were kept behind the glass, of course.
Traversing cities across Europe has brought me to many museums. While one does not have to attend muse ums when visiting cities, I have found much value in learning about the histo ry of the place I am in. From Barcelona’s Picasso Museum to London’s theatre scene, I’ve experienced so much art and culture over the last six weeks. I now have opinions on museum curation and museum labels. I like the art and histo ry of the mundane the most. Even this far away from home, I think that’s the Midwest emo streak peaking through.
r T s & Po P Cu LT ure
Taylor swift navigates her insecurities on ‘midnights’
by Jack Clohisy Executive Arts EditorTaylor Swift is a mastermind; she said it herself. The effortless sonic transitions from country to pop to alternative records cement the songstress as an unwavering force in the music industry. A country legend who ushered in a new era of crossover country-pop. A pop titan who invigorated the 2010s mainstream scene. An unlikely, but welcomed, alternative experimenter who comforted the masses with quarantine albums to cling to. The groundwork was laid, and it was only a matter of time before Swift returned with her lat est effort. With her milestone 10th studio album “Midnights” (2022), Swift returns to her most success ful battleground: pop music. Taking inspiration from the synths and success of “1989” (2014), the darkness of “Reputation” (2017) and, at times, the lyricism of “Folklore” (2020), Swift produced an amalgamation of her most note worthy endeavors into a new body of work. Featuring 13 standard edi tion tracks and an assortment of bonus cuts, “Midnights” is a tri umphant return to form from the veteran artist.
Dropped without a pre-re leased single, “Midnights” fol lowed the pattern of Swift’s previ ous two studio albums. The body feels cohesive, less of a mixture of overplayed pop songs that had their time in the sun well before an album’s release. “Anti-Hero,” the effective lead single, is Swift’s most personally intimate track in recent memory. With much of “Folklore” and “Evermore” (2020) focusing on the imaginings of Swift, “Midnights” recapitulates Swift’s inner monologue into song. Stricken with self-hatred, she laments, “I’ll stare directly at the sun, but never in the mir ror.” Swift leans into her darker thoughts, oftentimes overlooked even in her most intimate prior works. A shift is evident: Swift is publicizing her own self-iden tified flaws rather than those spotlighted or purported by the media outlets that have plagued her for most of the past decade.
In “You’re On Your Own, Kid,” Swift dives further into her insecurities. With much of her private life scrutinized by the media, especially during the mid 2010s, Swift has been subject ed to relentless criticism. The ever-glaring public eye took a
Is amber riley the harp in ‘The masked singer’? signs point to yes
by Ryan Fairfield Assistant Arts EditorThe premise of “The Masked Singer” (2019–) is fairly simple: A panel of judges attempts to guess the identity of a celeb rity contestant who performs in an absurd, extravagant cos
tume, eliminating a contes tant each week until there is a winner. Some contestants are talented music artists, such as Natasha Bedingfield, the sing er of “Unwritten” (2004) and “Pocketful of Sunshine,” (2007) while others are definitely not great singers, but stand out for
their hilarious performances — look no further than Wendy Williams’ iconic performance of “Native New Yorker.” This sea son, with 22 contestants, has many fans of the pop culture phenomenon “Glee” (2009) on the edge of their seats as many think the Harp is Mercedes Jones actress Amber Riley.
In the first episode, the Harp covered “Perfect” (2010) by Pink and fans quickly took to social media with their prediction that Riley was the one performing. Riley was a series regular on “Glee” for five seasons and a recurring star for one, appear ing in a total of 93 out of 121 episodes. Having spent about seven years of her career on the show — which heavily featured Riley’s vocal abilities — many fans have grown extremely familiar with her voice.
Riley was known as a vocal powerhouse on “Glee.” Her voice is one of the best in the cast, and she is featured in many of the show’s best songs. In a Billboard ranking of the 15 best duets from the “Glee,” Riley appears four times and her duet with Naya Rivera in “River Deep — Mountain High” (2010) tops the list. Her mashup of “Rumor Has It / Someone Like You” (2011) from season 3 peaked at number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100.
The conclusion that Riley is the Harp comes from a com bination of the clues the show provides and the familiarity
people have with her voice. If you listen to her performance of “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” (1982) from “Glee” and her “Perfect” performance from “The Masked Singer,” there are great similarities between the two. Riley’s ability to project her voice, hold notes for extended periods of time and superb breath control are all commonalities between the two performances.
In week two of “The Masked Singer,” the Harp performed the classic Whitney Houston song “I Have Nothing” (1992). There is no information about whether or not the contestants pick their own songs or have them chosen for them, but if the creators or producers pick the songs, they made a mistake in making the Harp sing this one. On YouTube, there is a video of Riley singing the same song — albeit more toned-down featuring only her vocals and a piano. That being said, listening to the perfor mances back to back, especially the first verse and chorus, they sound almost identical.
The clues for the Harp also align with the prediction that it is Riley. In the first round of clues, the Harp says they audi tioned for “the biggest show in the world” as a teenager and were turned down. At the age of 17, Riley was rejected from “American Idol” (2002), a show that was extremely popular at the time. The Harp further goes on to state that it was her
“uniqueness that later landed her the opportunity of a life time,” a potential nod to her role on “Glee.” The second round of clues, after the Harp was crowned the first “Queen” of the season, features 3D glass es, a witch hat and theater bin oculars. Riley was in “Glee: The 3D Concert Movie” (2011), a production of “The Wiz” (1978) in which she played Good Witch Addaperle and received mul tiple awards for her theater performance in “Dreamgirls” (2006) in 2017. With all of these clues and the performances themselves, it is hard to not reach the conclusion that the Harp is Amber Riley.
One of the judges, Nicole Scherzinger, stated that her prediction for the Harp’s iden tity is Amber Riley, while her fellow judges guessed other celebrities like Ashanti and Yvette Nicole Brown. If the Harp is Riley and she wins — which many predict she will after she was crowned “Queen” in the first episode — the trophy could rest next to her Mirrorball Trophy from “Dancing With the Stars,” her Screen Actors Guild Award for “Glee” and her Laurence Olivier Award for “Dreamgirls.” Needless to say, Riley is an exceptionally accomplished performer across a variety of different aspects of the enter tainment industry. She is a solid prediction for the Harp’s identity and a likely winner.
Taylor Swift looks inward on her latest record, ‘Midnights’
toll on Swift, and she cuts, “I gave my blood, sweat, and tears for this/ I hosted parties and starved my body/ Like I’d be saved by a perfect kiss.” Swift’s honesty is praiseworthy despite the devastation her lyrics illustrate.
Rounding out the most gut-wrench ing standard tracks of “Midnights” is “Maroon.” Is this an ode to the title track of her country-pop crossover “Red” (2012)? Swift is left marooned, thrown away with no hope of return. Loving him wasn’t red, it was maroon, darker, emptier and more damaging. Swift’s elevated lyri cism is commendable, and it is equally as impressive how many soul bearing tracks she can pack into one record.
There are glimpses of love on this album. As is evident in “Lavender Haze,” Swift glows with affection. She subverts the expectations the public pushes on her relationship and chooses to remain in her blissful bubble of love — a beauti ful testament to her relatively mysterious relationship with actor Joe Alwyn. Outside of small bits here and there, the two keep much of their relationship private, which Swift almost boasts about on the track.
“Snow On The Beach,” essentially the sister track of “Lavender Haze,” paints another romanticized picture of a rela tionship. Featuring one of Swift’s idols and songwriting-savant Lana Del Rey, the two piece together an ethereal account of ser endipitous attraction. Swift self-described this track as two people falling in love with each other in a “cataclysmic, fated moment,” and she couldn’t have summed it up more accurately. It’s giddily baffling, described by Swift and Del Rey as “flying
in a dream / stars by the pocketful.” That rush of exhilaration that escapes words but can be compared to snow falling on the beach, “weird, but f---in’ beautiful.”
Swift rarely missteps, but at times she can come off rather “millennial.” In “Vigilante Shit,” she opens with “draw the cat eye, sharp enough to kill a man.” However comical the line may sound, Swift is unapologetically herself, and that is something to revel in. Swift has been criticized for far more trivial reasons, and though such lyricism cannot be compared to her prior works, this record is authen tically autobiographical. What “Vigilante Shit” does have going for it is its reminis cence of “Reputation.” With the class of a more mature Swift, where “Reputation” felt like Swift versus the world, “Vigilante Shit” feels like Swift and the world versus her challengers.
Swift takes extreme liberty with her metaphors in “Karma.” Karma is seem ingly everything and anything, with Swift highlighting the positives in her life that are lacking in those of her foes. While the point comes across, it would’ve been lovely to see Swift harness that scorned energy built up over the past decade of scrutiny and truly dig into her enemies. Nonetheless, Swift retains her authenticity and chooses the high road, another laud able feat of her maturity.
“Midnight Rain,” “Question…?” and “Sweet Nothing” are solid album tracks, but aren’t the standouts that flesh out “Midnights.” The three tracks are familiar to those of which Swift would’ve crafted back during her earlier pop days, but by no means detract from the record. The pop track which shines through — pun intended — is “Bejeweled.” Yes, Swift can
really still walk in a room and “make the whole place shimmer.” Here she flexes her track record, and she’s right — no mat ter how many sonic change-ups she rolls through, Swift’s pop remains the standard.
In “Labyrinth,” Swift dives back into the confusion of love. She thinks it’s over, but just as she’s moving on, she’s drawn back into the labyrinth. It’s the slower tracks that Swift gleams on. Taking advantage of her soft-spoken vocals and cutting lyr icism, Swift can elucidate the emotions where words often fail.
Swift pokes the most fun at her self, and summarizes herself best, in “Mastermind.” Though still critical of her self, Swift acknowledges the systems in which she communicates as “cryptic and Machiavellian,” but it’s only because she cares. With lots of emotional and inter personal intelligence often comes over whelming introspection. “Am I the vil lain?” Swift may ask herself. She seemingly views her confidence as overconfidence, her success as ostentation, her kindness as manipulation. This is what happens after years-long campaigns to tear her down in the media. These ruminations, smeared across the entirety of “Midnights,” are what make the body so cohesive.
Her stories all come from the different corners of her mind, but that is not a result of disorganization — it is a product of her vast capabilities. With setbacks come growth, and Swift has had her fair share of both, as is evident on her latest album. The lyrics aren’t perfect at times, but can anything be? What Swift is tearing down is the perception that perfection is the goal. Can the goal not be authenticity? Swift navigates this labyrinth well, and because of it, “Midnights” is her most introspective record yet.
Layla Noor Landrum The Book Nook
Jake Maia Arlow’s debut young adult novel, “How to Excavate a Heart,” is a warm and tender les bian rom-com released Nov. 1 from HarperCollins. A Jewish lesbian, Shani, plans to spend her winter break after her first semester of college studying fish fos sils at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, not thinking about her recent breakup with her ex-girlfriend. Things get off to a rough start when she and her mother almost hit a pedestrian while trying to navigate Washington, D.C. roads in the snow, but luckily no one is harmed. Shani’s internship begins; she moves into a house with other college students and an old woman who calls them “doll” and begins getting to know her housemates. So, when she agrees to do one of them a favor and take over their dog-walking gig for a few weeks, she doesn’t think much of it. That is until she comes face to face with May — the girl her mother almost ran over. As Shani finds herself coming to May’s house in order to walk May’s father’s corgi, the two inevitably learn more about each other. Shani comes to find out that May is a Jewish lesbian too, and she’s just as passionate about atmospheric science as Shani is about paleoichthyology. While the two don’t get along at first, they’re forced to spend Christmas Eve together due to inclement weather, and they find themselves growing closer as a result. As Shani finds herself falling for May, she can’t help but worry about the risk of heartbreak in the aftermath of her ex-girlfriend’s harsh rejection.
Amid the cold, unforgiving winter set ting, this lesbian love story is full of ten derness and light. Arlow brilliantly crafts a character-driven narrative through Shani’s first-person perspective and a romance that’s impossible not to root for. From their banter to their growing attrac tion to one another, the evolving relation ship between May and Shani is so well written; the lingering, quiet moments between them are just as enthralling to read as their more intimate ones. But beyond its lighter tone and laugh-outloud moments, “How to Excavate a Heart” also explores difficult topics — one of which is sexual assault. The topic is one handled with care, nuance and sensitivity, bringing to light conversa tions about trauma and consent that are vital for young queer readers to have. At the end of the day, “How to Excavate a Heart” is about how love can heal us if we let it. Shani and May both get to heal from their past relationships together, taking the risk of loving one another despite what they’ve faced. Ultimately, this novel reminds us that our pasts don’t define us, and our futures can be bright if we let them be.
“How to Excavate a Heart” is the per fect autumn read for anyone looking for something light and cozy with vivid set tings, messy lesbian characters and the cutest boots-wearing dog I’ve ever envi sioned while reading a book. The book is available for purchase now.
Layla Noor Landrum is a junior studying engineering psychology and English. Layla can be reached at layla.landrum@tufts.edu.
‘How to Excavate a Heart’ is a Jewish, lesbian rom-com full of humor and warmth
MISSED CONNECTIONS
You: Tapped Louis on the shoul der at the intersection as my friends and I tried to get his atten tion. You were wearing a brown jacket. Thanks <3 Me: Girls trying to get Louis’ attention. One in purple, one in blue, one in black. One with straight blonde hair, one with straight black, one with curly brown. When: Friday (the 21st) Where: Cum Center intersection
You: Saw me reach for a bag of commons french fries in the heating section and gave me the tip to ask for a fresh batch. Me: I noticed how cute you were, those dazzling blue eyes, but i still SNATCHED a bag of cold soggy french fries and shuffled into the checkout line.
You: Shin Godzilla, broken Beats. Me: Chainsaw Man. Where: Gym
VIEWPOINT
Stop voting for celebrities
by Julieta Grané Staff WriterWhat do lawyers, soldiers, peanut farmers and movie actors have in com mon? They are all former professions of U.S. presidents. While the first two seem like a better fit to the presidency title, the different professions of politicians influ ence the way they serve constituents in different ways. The benefit of public offi cials with a background in law is that they tend to comprehensively understand sys tems of government; soldiers have experi ence serving their country; farmers under stand the food and agriculture industry that feeds the nation. However, celebrities’ benefit to their constituents seems more ambiguous.
The first example of a president who swayed from popular culture fame to political power was the United States’ 40th president, Ronald Reagan, who acted in over 60 films and TV series before enter ing politics. Meanwhile, the most recent and ostentatious example of a celebri ty-turned-politician is none other than the United States’ 45th president, Donald Trump. Before winning the electoral col lege vote in November of 2016, Trump was a prominent New York real estate mogul and game show host. Celebrities run for office at every level of government, from city council — like actor Ben Savage — to governor, like former Olympian and reali ty TV star Caitlyn Jenner.
The rise of social media in the 21st cen tury has added a new dimension to public recognition as the mass media has shifted from strictly print, television and film to Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and stream ing services. When Reagan announced his candidacy for president in November 1979, he had already risen to fame through films like “The Killers” (1964). This popularity added to the allure of voting for a future president whose past as a Hollywood star set him apart from the lawyers and busi nessmen before him. Those who might
not have seen his films or followed his career might have known him primarily from his stint as California governor from 1967–75. However, in the era where almost everyone carries a five-inch supercom puter in their front pocket, it has become increasingly difficult to block out the noise surrounding a celebrity’s candidacy.
This November, several celebrities will be on ballots across the country. Former NFL running back Herschel Walker is running against incumbent Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock. While cam paigning for Sen. Warnock in Georgia, former President Obama called Walker a “celebrity who wants to be a politician.” Rather than landing as the scathing insult Obama may have intended it to be, this description perfectly captures the inten tion of most celebrities who run for public office: capitalizing on anti-establishment sentiment and using politics as a noisy platform to bolster their own careers. A prime example of a public figure who was more interested in garnering popularity than enacting change is 2020 presidential candidate Ye, the musical artist formerly known as Kanye West, who embodies the idea of ‘any press is good press.’ His cam paign gained notoriety for its erraticism when he announced his candidacy in a Tweet on July 4, 2020.
Many celebrities who run for public office tend to hold strongly conservative opinions, aligning with the Republican party. This may stem from a conservative tendency to be more receptive to rheto ric-focused candidates — such as Trump, Walker and reality TV show host Dr. Mehmet Oz — rather than their policy-fo cused liberal opponents. Another expla nation is that celebrities who are worth $100 million and more in assets may be interested in protecting their bracket’s tax breaks through policy.
However, because their campaigns are rooted in self promotion rather than policy, these celebrities tend to switch positions on political issues haphazardly. Donald Trump referred to himself as “very pro-choice” on television in 1999 and then
VIEWPOINT
“strongly pro-life” in a tweet in 2019. While it is not unheard of for politicians’ posi tions to change with time, like President Biden’s stance on abortion, a celebrity who runs for the presidency, like Trump, seems to be, as presidential scholar and Supreme Court expert Barbara Perry put it, a “gross opportunist.”
Egotistical motivations behind running for office compromise a candidate’s abil ity to serve their constituents. Walker is estimated to be worth between $29 and $65 million while Oz holds assets worth at least $100 million. Some voters may see this as a favorable trait because of the aspirational association with voting for someone of a higher socioeconomic sta tus, but the reality is that electing celeb rities from the 1% would only exacerbate the problem of inadequate representation that voting for “non-establishment” politi cians is supposed to fix.
If you are voting in Georgia, Pennsylvania or any other state where a celebrity will be on your ballot next Tuesday, I urge you to consider their plat form, policies and position through a particularly critical lens. Your vote holds power, and name recognition should not make a football player or TV personality worthy of representing you.
Asher Berlin It’s Happened Before
A more violent normal
The late Roman Republic is, in many minds, synonymous with political violence, civil war and the erosion of republican values. Less remembered, however, is how it got there. Rome wasn’t built in a day, as the saying goes, and neither did it — or at least its republican version — fall in a day. Thus the long path to Caesar began with a man who, unlike Caesar, never got a Shakespeare play: Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus. Gracchus’ life and career are sur prisingly unimportant in examining his impact. Suffice it to say that, after pursuing radical populist solutions to economic prob lems and obtaining political power through uncustomary methods, he incurred the wrath of a conservative faction of the Roman senate. Given his policies, this was unsurpris ing. What was surprising is how they stopped him: by gathering a mob to massacre him and his followers. Violence had, for the first time, become a political tactic, one that soon became irresistible.
On Oct. 28 at 2:30 a.m., a man broke into Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco home looking for her. Unable to find her, as she was in Washington D.C. at the time, he con tented himself with attacking her husband, Paul Pelosi, with a hammer, leaving him with serious, though luckily not life-threat ening, injuries. One shudders to imagine what might have happened had the targeted Pelosi been home. Though a motive has not been officially announced, it is hard to believe that an attack on the Speaker of the House of Representatives could have been motivated by anything but venomous ideol ogy. In other words, this was an instance of violence used for political reasons.
by Annabel Zhang Staff WriterOriginally published Oct. 24.
Content warning: This article includes mentions of suicide.
On Thursday, Nov. 17, life as we know it will stop in South Korea, with planes not allowed to take off or land, military training suspended momen tarily and banks altering their typical hours of operation.
These precautions are not taken for military or diplomatic activities. These are all for the Suneung, or the Korean College Scholastic Ability Test, which is often considered the Korean equiva lent of the SAT. However, differing from the SAT, it plays a much larger role in Korean college admissions process es. China, South Korea’s close neighbor in East Asia, has a similar test called the Gaokao, or the National College Entrance Examination. It is the one test
that determines the university destina tion of most Chinese students.
Even though the Suneung and the Gaokao are often compared to the SAT, they are more significant than the SAT in the college admissions process and in society as a whole. The SAT is only one of many factors in the U.S. college admis sions process. Special measures, such as suspending military training for the SAT, are unheard of. In comparison, the Suneung and the Gaokao are seen as an important event on a national level. Each year when the Gaokao happens, news headlines and social media discussions in China are dominated by the Gaokao.
Why is there such a difference between college admissions processes in the U.S. and those in China and South Korea? South Korea and China have a “one exam determines all” system, where one exam can determine where students will be getting their higher education. Hence, it is natural for students and the government to attach the utmost impor
tance to this exam. In South Korea, many wealthy students spend the greater part of their time in academies preparing for the Suneung. In comparison, the United States has a holistic review pro cess in college admissions which makes standardized testing significantly less important.
The difference between education systems in many East Asian countries and the U.S. education system extends beyond the college admissions process. Many have argued that education sys tems in East Asian countries, including China, South Korea and Japan, tend to focus on memorization with less empha sis on critical thinking. This may explain why some East Asian students perform extraordinarily well in international tests, such as math and science olympi ads. However, it can also be argued that this is only a result of intensive training in test-taking skills.
There are many differences between this and the murder of Tiberius Gracchus. To start, this was a lone wolf attack not orches trated by political rivals. Unlike Gracchus, Pelosi is not a radical (or a populist) nor has she flagrantly violated American political norms. But Pelosi’s political opposites are not fully innocent either. This attack comes after years of violent rhetoric directed against Pelosi including but not limited to a Super Bowl ad depicting a congressional candidate firing at an actor playing Pelosi, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene indirectly advocating for violence against Pelosi on social media, and a tweet from Rep. Tom Emmer depicting him firing a rifle with the hashtag #FirePelosi. Even after the attack, despite broad condemnation from both sides of the aisle, people as prominent as former first son Donald Trump Jr. were posting memes about it.
This attack is not as poisonous to the country as Gracchus’ murder was to the Roman Republic, yet it still car ries the same troubling signs. Political violence, while most dangerous when orchestrated by politicians, is not limit ed to them. There are more radicals than ever before, radicals that will seize upon extreme political messaging as justifica tion for their violent tactics. For them, at least, political violence is becoming more normalized as a means of thwart ing policy. Paul Pelosi will not be the last victim to it.
Asher Berlin is a sophomore study ing history. Asher can be reached at asher.berlin@tufts.edu.
Despite different college admissions processes, pressure is universal
The pressure to do well on exams can lead students to cheat
In contrast, the American education system seems to value critical thinking. Many Americans have probably had to write an essay with the typ ical “one argument, one coun terargument” formula, with rubrics that ask for well-sup ported answers instead of memorized ones. The results of the difference between East Asian and American education styles appear unclear since crit ical thinking is an ambiguous concept and therefore difficult to measure.
Despite stark differences, a potential commonality between some East Asian and American students is a need to compete, sometimes to a toxic degree, in order to get into top univer sities. In many American high schools, especially high-achiev ing ones, students constantly feel the need to compete with each other, which can lead to mental anguish in some cases.
Teenagers on the other side of the planet can feel the same way. According to a 2019 sur vey by the National Youth Policy Instituite, a Korean research institute, nearly 34% of South Korean adolescents have thought about suicide because of academic pressure.
This pressure, unfortunately, sometimes leads to students’ seeking illegitimate shortcuts to get good grades, such as cheating. Recently, there was a cheating scandal in South Korea, when twin girls, whose father was a school adminis trator, suddenly rose up to the top of the class ranking from the middle. This could increase their chance of gaining admis sions to top universities and, consequently, hurt the chances of others of doing so. However, cheating is not only happen ing on the other side of the world. In the U.S., there was the infamous 2019 college admis sions scandal, where students who might have never played
the sports they claimed to play were recruited as athletes in order to get into more presti gious universities.
Despite the immense differ ences between East Asian and American education systems, the huge pressure to enter a presti gious university is a shared expe rience. Everyone who has gone through the process of college admissions has most likely felt stressed at one time or another. Despite such a big difference in the form and content of college admissions, the commonality of pressure and competition still holds for education systems on opposite ends of the Earth.
Students can reach the coun selor-on-call or the dean-oncall by calling the Tufts 24/7 Help Line at 617-627-3400. Ears for Peers, Tufts’ anonymous, student-run and confidential hotline, is also available from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., daily. Tufts’ on-campus Counseling and Mental Health Service can be found here.
VIEWPOINT
GRAPHIC BY CAMILLA SAMUELNetflix’s harmful obsession with serial killers
by Idil Kolabas Opinion EditorOriginally published Oct. 27.
Content warning: This arti cle discusses murder, cannibal ism, violence, rape and necro philia.
Last month, Netflix released a new series about notorious seri al killer Jeffrey Dahmer’s mur ders of 17 men, where he not only slaughtered them but also had sex with and photographed their corpses. The series seems to disagree with Dahmer’s hor rendous actions, but nonethe less has put them back out into the media during a digital age where everyone can access all sorts of information.
The series “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” has become Netflix’s second most popular English series in the time since its release. However, it is not the first to talk about a serial killer’s story — not even the first series to talk about Dahmer, joining “Jeffrey Dahmer: Mind of a Monster” (2020) and “Conversations with a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes,” (2022) along with “Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer” (2021) on Richard Ramirez and “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile” (2019) on Ted Bundy.
It is one thing that Netflix keeps publishing gruesome con tent, but it is another when they do not contact the people affect
ed by the events behind their series before production. The relatives of Errol Lindsey, one of Dahmer’s victims, in particular, have been vocal in condemning the release of the new series.
Rita Isbell, the sister of Lindsey, has described how uncomfortable she felt when she saw a scene where an actress played her, saying how she feels as though she is going through those traumatic years again. Tatiana Banks, daughter of Lindsey, was disturbed by the show to the extent that she had nightmares of Dahmer. She was also not contacted about the show. Eric Perry, cousin of Lindsey, tweeted that his fami ly was “pissed” about the show.
It is incredibly traumat ic to go through the experi ence once, but to go through it again, just because of Netflix’s economic motivations, is an entirely unnecessary experi ence. Isbell told Insider that the shows are only “Netflix try ing to get paid,” going on to say that she thinks that Netflix at least should be providing monetary compensation to the victims’ children instead of taking all the profits. Clearly, Netflix’s series has not provid ed victims’ families with relief for telling their story, only exacerbating their grief.
On top of the disturbing nature of Netflix insisting upon selling evil, young adults’ reac
tions to serial killer stories is also a cause of concern, as TikTok has popularized a trend of peo ple reacting to crime scene pho tos regarding the Dahmer case. More people have been exposed to grisly, grimy and gruesome content, as they would have oth erwise likely not have googled “Jeffrey Dahmer polaroids” if it weren’t for these videos. On TikTok, there have been at least half a million searches for these reaction videos.
In addition to this, young adults, mostly young girls, have started to post content imagining how Dahmer would murder and eat boys who hurt them. As we get exposed to such violent content every day through platforms such as Netflix and TikTok, these violent actions get normalized to the extent that they become the subject of jokes. It’s as if people think it’s fiction just because it’s a series on Netflix, which is also Netflix’s fault.
But who is to say Netflix cares about the feelings of victims’ families or the welfare of their viewers when they have demonstrated a willingness to dramatize the story for profit without consulting real wit nesses and families?
If Netflix wanted to do jus tice to the victims and their stories, there was a very easy way to go through: asking them how to tell their own story. Jan
Broberg went through this pro cess with Peacock for the series “A Friend of the Family,” which tells the story of Broberg being kidnapped by Bob Berchtold during her childhood. She reveals how involved she was with the production of the docuseries, being able to make detailed suggestions to the writ ers, with the team constantly consulting with her. Netflix should take notes.
No series related to any per son getting hurt by another should be published without consent. This is hurtful to peo ple who had to live through this tragic experience. In addition to this, the popularization of grue some fiction has blurred its own lines with real life horrendous crime, partly because of various platforms such as TikTok giving us 15 seconds to process a video, which gives us the ability to go through a range of emotions in under a minute, slowly desen sitizing us to these emotions. As we get thrown more violent content at our faces, we slowly become numb to the emotions that these should make us feel.
Streaming companies should consider the risks of publish ing violent content in terms of both hurting victims’ families and influencing the perception of true crime among their audi ences and prioritize the welfare of people affected by these inci dents over their monetary gain.
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Tufts club cricket makes triumphant return to the field
by Arnav Sacheti Assistant Sports EditorIf you passed by Tufts’ Ounjian Field this past Saturday just before 4 p.m., you would have seen each player of the 15-mem ber club cricket team with their arms around each other’s shoul ders. They were taking part in a pregame huddle led by senior captain Pranav Jain, senior vice-captain Archit Jain and senior team president Saumya Mehta in advance of their match against Harvard. A team huddle before any sports game is not uncommon.
“[When] you’re in a huddle, you’re creating that energy, right? You just take the field feeling a part of a team,” Mehta said.
For club cricket, however, experiencing that feeling before a game on their home field has never happened before. This was the first intercollegiate match in three years, and it was the first ever at Tufts. The journey to the match, and that feeling, was a long one.
The club was first recognized by the TCU Senate in fall 2019, and during that semester, it built a team full of dedicated players. Mehta, Pranav Jain, and fellow seniors Sharan Bhansali, Adhiraj Saboo, Syed Taswar Mahbub, Annika Chauhan and Madhav
Prasad are all those that were part of that original group who are still on the team. The team played matches at different Boston-area colleges and traveled to New York to compete in a regional tourna ment. Things were looking up, but then COVID-19 hit.
“In 2020 when we came back in the fall semester, club sports were decommissioned at that time, so there was no question about playing or even attempting to play cricket,” Mehta said.
By the time COVID-19 restric tions were lifted for the fall 2021 semester, much of the initial core group had graduated. In addition, since the club was a spring sport, they had to wait a semester in order to practice. Those who were still remaining used the fall semester to generate interest in the club. For the first time, they were able to take advantage of an in-person club fair.
Oliver Fox sports and society
Brooklyn’s Inferno
I have a toxic relationship with the Brooklyn Nets.
To watch the super team-from-nothing experiment play in New York City’s most pop ulous borough is like examining a series of violent automobile acci dents on the Brooklyn-Queens expressway. As the speeding cars flew by, I was at first exhilarat ed — unsure yet not altogether against what was unfolding in front of me — wondering if Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant, along with their friend and mentor Steve Nash, could truly create an enlightened basketball uto pia from endless salary cap flex
“I remember [that] whenever people showed up to our desk, they were surprised that we had a … cricket club sport, but they were all willing to join,” Pranav Jain said.
With the excitement and interest built in the fall, the club kicked off regular practic es in spring 2022. With a clean slate, the club wanted to make a change.
“In 2019 … we had a formi dable squad with a bunch of players with very different skill sets. But one thing which I found
matches as well. Without pro tective gear, however, playing with a hard leather ball can be unsafe. They opted for a softer hard tennis ball instead.
“Cricket at Tufts has changed over the last three years where in my freshman year, we used to play with the leather ball, and we were actually trying to eventual ly reach nationals,” Pranav Jain said. “However, what I noticed since COVID is that the new classes coming in over the last couple of years have preferred keeping cricket as [an activi
es are not only opportunities to learn and grow in the sport but a way to connect on a deeper level with his heritage, all in a safe and encouraging environment.
“I definitely feel a lot more proud watching Indian cricket matches and can connect with them closer and also just discuss it with other people. So that’s kind of what motivated me to play here. I want to continue and I knew a lot of people on the team but I was also able to meet others during the cricket club,” Dugar said.
knowledge of the game, the team felt comfortable and con fident to start the match. Tufts batted first, and four of their players got out very early on without too many runs being scored. Since only 10 outs were allowed, the game seemed to be slipping away.
The fifth and sixth batsmen, Saboo and graduate student Tejas Joshi, were able to bring back that sense of comfort in the match by scoring 80 runs together, contributing to a com petitive team total of 122 runs before handing the batting off to Harvard.
Although Harvard was able to score more than 122 runs and win the match, there was nothing but positivity from the Tufts side.
“We had so many … people come cheer for us,” Pranav Jain said. “The thing is it was more than [just having] spectators, they were all our friends right? So watching your friends watch you bat and ball and field and just make fun of you and having banter with them was just really, really fun.”
Dugar described how the loss didn’t matter as he was grateful for the chance to play cricket with a team.
“It’s so exciting because I’ve always wanted to play team cricket. So the result didn’t really matter. … there’s more to learn from [the loss] because we still have three or four more matches this year,” Dugar said.
was missing at that time was a deep connection between every body in the team,” Mehta said. “But this year, our goal was to first build a team and then think about playing games.”
This was reflected in two major ways: First, the spring semester was focused solely on casual practices, and second, a softer ball was used.
Cricket, similar to baseball, is a bat-and-ball sport with the objective being to score more runs than the other team. A hard, red leather ball is generally used not only in professional compe tition, but in intercollegiate club
ibility and unparalleled cohesion between player, coach and orga nization.
I wondered for a moment if they could do what the rest of us only dreamt of. Could they really escape the drudgery of everyday basketball existence that plagues the rest of the NBA? Could they evade the gridlock, merely by slamming on the accelerator? Two players — both alike in dig nity — were to be our basketball messiahs. And for a millisecond I believed it.
But then I was blinded by brake lights, heard the screeching of tires and saw my transitory belief vanish like a fleeting shad ow. Irving’s refusal to get vaccinat ed crashed the Nets’ party before they even broke out the chips and guacamole. One of their key con verts, James Harden, ran for the door as soon as he could. Durant, the architect of Brooklyn’s bas
ty] where they’re just enjoying and playing, so they’re not as comfortable playing with leath er balls. … So as a club, we’ve become more relaxed where the purpose has changed and has been modified to enjoy it.”
Using a softer ball also allowed the club to attract play ers who had limited cricket exposure. Cricket is predom inantly played in South Asian countries, and junior Armaan Dugar, although of South Asian heritage, was born and raised in the U.S. and had not played cricket in an official setting. For Dugar, the practices and match
ketball salvation, spent the sum mer demanding he be traded with four years and $194 million left on his contract. Irving also tried to leave, flirting with his ex-partner LeBron James on the Lakers, the last person who may have made him feel seen. Neither managed to escape.
And finally — as if the uni verse had passed final judgment on Tuesday, Nov. 1, coach Steve Nash was gone. He had endured all the strife of perenni al playoff failure, endless roster turnover and exasperating inter personal drama. Yet five losses in the first two weeks of the season was the straw that caved in the roof of the Barclays Center, and he agreed to step away. I shed a single, reflective tear.
Among all the carnage, it would be easy to forget Durant’s call for Nash’s firing all the way back in August. Or, when the
The club was able to convince other schools to play matches with them using the softer ball, including the match this past Saturday. During the match, that sense of comfort was built as well on a variety of fronts.
“You need an [Archit Jain] on the team who just shouts and says ‘guys we’re not going to lose today.’ The tone in which he says it and the passion which he says it just energizes people. I don’t think that it makes anyone feel pressured,” Pranav Jain said.
Led by Archit Jain’s passion, Pranav Jain’s extensive in-game experience and Mehta’s vast
Brooklyn Bunch was in its infan cy, Irving said that he didn’t see the Nets as really “having a head coach” on Durant’s podcast “The ETCs.” One could just as eas ily forget too that, for most of the Irving-Durant experiment, Nash was considered a pretty bad head coach.
I was sure the Nets could not hurt me anymore after besmirch ing the basketball nirvana I believed in. But nothing could prepare me for the aftershock: Ime Udoka, recently suspended for having an improper relationship with a female coworker after lead ing my beloved Celtics to two wins away from an NBA Championship last year, was reporteded to be Nash’s replacement.
Udoka’s unprecedented rebound is hard to stomach and shows how far from grace the Nets have fallen. He now poten tially faces zero consequences for
The match also allowed the team to develop a newfound sense of connectedness and motivation because of that shared experience.
“In future practices, people are going to be a lot more com fortable [and] connected, of course, but also motivated and energetic to seize whatever chal lenge you might throw at them,” Mehta said.
Post-match, a huddle was once again in store. This time around, though, the players were huddled just a little bit closer to each other. The club will play its next match this Saturday against Boston University at 2:30 p.m. on Ounjian field.
his actions and is afforded anoth er chance after serving about two percent of his punishment. The trust he broke with the Celtics and their millions of fans, myself included, is now void. In place of our collective pain, he can now substitute leadership of one of the Celtics’ division rivals.
By pursuing Udoka, the Nets’ dreams of an enlightened team are dead, buried and spit on. In place of superior ideals now sits desperation, and the morality of hiring Udoka is irrelevant when faced with the necessity of mak ing their half a billion-dollar car crash work. Their vision began as something sacred — player power at its pinnacle — but has since descended into hell.
Oliver Fox is a sophomore study ing history. Oliver can be reached at oliver.fox@tufts.edu.
or T s
a look at the 2022 women’s soccer season as the Jumbos head into Nes CaC semifinals
On Saturday, the Tufts wom en’s soccer team traveled to Williams for a 2022 NESCAC Women’s Soccer tournament quarterfinal matchup. They came away with a 2–0 victory over the Williams Ephs, who were the No. 2 seed in the tour nament. Goals were scored by first-year forward Elsi Aires in the 75th minute and senior midfielder Maddie Pero in the 84th minute. The upset victo ry avenged Tufts’ 1–0 loss at Williams earlier in the season and boosted the Jumbos’ chanc es of earning an NCAA Division III tournament bid. It also rep resents a turning of the tides between the two women’s soccer programs, as the Jumbos had gone 15 years — between 2006 and 2021 — without beating the Ephs, but have now won two of the last three matchups.
The Jumbos will travel to Amherst on Saturday, Nov. 5, for a NESCAC tournament semifi nal matchup against the hosts, who are the No. 1 seed in the NESCAC. The Jumbos won 2–0 against the Mammoths earlier in the season. Goals in that game were scored by junior forward Erin Duncan and sophomore defender Caroline O’Neill.
The winner between the Jumbos and Mammoths will face the winner between No. 6 seed Wesleyan and No. 5 seed
Trinity in the NESCAC champi onship game. During the regu lar season, the Jumbos won 2–0 away at Wesleyan and lost 0–1 at home against Trinity.
Although the tournament seeding suggests that Tufts entered their quarterfinal match up with Williams as significant underdogs, the Jumbos’ upset victory should come as no sur prise to those who have watched them play this season. With monumental 2–0 victories on the road against Wesleyan, ranked No. 10 in Div. III at the time, and Amherst, ranked No. 4 at the time, Tufts showed early in the season that they are a team for the big occasion and can compete with any team in the NESCAC. Later in the season, they came up with another big 2–0 victory on the road over No. 17 MIT.
The foundation that the Jumbos had built in the NESCAC standings crumbled as the sea son progressed, as they won only one of their final seven NESCAC games. Tufts’ lowest point of the season occurred when they lost 1–2 at Bates, which gave the Bobcats their only NESCAC win of the season and their first vic tory over the Jumbos since 2013.
“I think we could have been a little bit more consistent. I think that we really showed up for a lot of big games because we were excited,” Pero said. “We knew we had to start really hot because we had a really front-loaded schedule, like that big stretch
of away games that were really hard. We knew we had to come in hot, but then we didn’t nec essarily follow through with the same energy on the back end of the season and that’s definitely what hurt us.”
The Jumbos tore up their non-conference opponents this season, winning all five of their games against them and out-scoring them 25–2 in total. Against New England College, first-year forward Camille Lu scored four goals, which broke the program record for most goals scored in a game by an individual player.
Lu is not just part of a strong first-year class, but also part of a group of players that burst onto the scene in 2022 to make a sig nificant positive impact on the Jumbos’ season for the first time in their collegiate careers. In her first season as a starter, junior midfielder Thalia Greenberg leads the team in scoring with seven goals. These include the opening goals against Connecticut College, Wesleyan and UMass Boston.
After missing the entire 2021 season due to injury, sophomore defender Caroline O’Neill was a force on both sides of the field. In addition to playing stellar defense all season long, O’Neill created lots of scoring chances for the Jumbos on free kicks and corner kicks. Her six assists on the season leads the team in that category.
First-year center-back Lena Sugrue provided a reliable presence in defense all season long and also got on the end of O’Neill’s corner kicks for the opening goals against Colby and Bridgewater State.
On the more experienced end, Pero has scored five goals this season and has become a pivotal asset offensively for the Jumbos down the stretch. Late in the sea son against Middlebury and in the NESCAC quarterfinal against Williams, Pero made runs with the ball from midfield deep into the opponent’s territory where she found the back of the net with powerfully-struck shots.
Another pivotal offensive asset to watch this postseason is Aires. The first-year forward has started three of the last four games for the Jumbos as a part of the ongoing effort to replace the production of junior forward Nicola Sommers, who has been sidelined with a concussion since Oct. 2. The importance of Aires to the team has become evident, as she scored goals in victorious games against UMass Boston and Williams during those starts and played a sea son-high 75 minutes against Williams.
“[Being thrust into a starting role] is definitely a little difficult to deal with since I am a freshman, but my teammates are all so sup portive and we’re like a family,” Aires said. “[Martha Whiting] is a great coach and she’s always
said [that] it doesn’t matter what grade, we’re all the same. And so it [has been] really great.”
Despite the large discrepan cy between how long Pero and Aires have been with the team, both have had a special experi ence with this 2022 team on and off the field.
“We’re playing the nicest soc cer that I’ve played in my time here,” Pero said. “We’re doing a much better job connecting passes and playing calm and being really confident in our technical abilities so that we keep the ball and have posses sion the majority of the game. And that lets us dictate the pace of how we play so making sure that we build up to our attack and then can go really quickly, at like the drop of a dime, when we see that there’s an opportu nity to take.”
“I would say my favorite thing about my first season is just the team itself and how they have welcomed us fresh men. They’ve just been so open to us, and we’ve truly felt like we’re a part of the team since the beginning of our ‘pre-pre season,’” Aires said, referring to a week of captain-led prac tices, which takes place before the coach-led preseason, when players get to meet and bond with their teammates.
Tufts plays Amherst away in a NESCAC tournament semifi nal matchup on Saturday, Nov. 5, at 11 a.m.