The Hub | The Emory Wheel Magazine, December 2021

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The Emory Wheel Magazine

A CLASSROOM DIVIDED How the debate over slurs and academic freedom splintered the law school

By Matthew Chupack & Madi Olivier

Plus: Dear President Fenves, Here's what you need to know about mental health at Emory | By Sophia Ling

Table of Contents The Emory Wheel

Cover illustration: Ha-tien Nguyen and Cailen Chinn Back photos (Clockwise From Top Left): Tiffany Namkung, Ally Hom, Oluwaseun Abitogun, Michael Mariam, Alexia Marriott and Lin Yu

Emory’s only independent student newspaper www.emorywheel.com December 2021

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Magazine designed by Isaiah Poritz and Cailen Chinn

In the pool with Wilson: Reflecting on the journey to Olympic Gold

Crossword Aidan Vick

Michael Mariam

How the debate over slurs and academic freedom splintered the law school

Dear President Fenves, Here's what you need to know about mental health at Emory

Matthew Chupack and Madi Olivier

Sophia Ling

Queer food: The good, the bad, the unspoken

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Zimra Chickering

IN THE POOL WITH WILSON

Reflecting on the journey to Olympic Gold

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By Michael Mariam

f the nearly 2,300 swimmers who qualified for the 2021 U.S. Olympic Team Trials, only 53 secured a spot on the team headed to Tokyo. It was already a historic accomplishment when Emory alum Andrew Wilson (17C) made that cut, becoming him the first Division III swimmer in history to qualify for the Olympics. But the history-making continued when Wilson became part of the relay team that won Olympic gold.

Wilson’s path to the Olympics began at Emory in 2012 when he started swimming on the Division III team under head coach Jon Howell. While at Emory, Wilson was named the NCAA Division III Men’s Swimmer of the Year twice, set three Division III records and was a national champion in five events at the 2017 NCAA Division III Championships. Wilson was also a part of four University Athletic Association (UAA) Swimming & Diving Championships not to mention winning two UAA Swimmer of the Year awards as well.

In Tokyo, Wilson swam in the individual 100- and 200-meter breaststroke competitions and contributed to the country’s 4x100-meter men’s medley relay team. Wilson finished in sixth place in the men’s 100-meter breaststroke finals and narrowly missed the men’s 200-meter breaststroke finals.

Although Wilson felt great about his individual races bringing a gold medal back home was sweeter, even if he didn’t swim in the finals race.

Wilson swam in the 4×100-meter men’s medley relay preliminaries, but Team USA selected Michael Andrew to race in the breaststroke portion of the final race instead of Wilson. In the finals race, Team USA broke the World record, and the team earned gold.

Following his return to the U.S.,

Wilson’s celebrations included a return to the communities that played a role in his success. On Aug. 24, Emory Athletics welcomed Wilson back to campus and honored him with a reception for Emory athletes, coaches and administrators.

Wilson spoke with attendees and brought his gold medal to the Woodruff Physical Education Center for everyone to hold and put around their necks. He expressed his gratitude to the Emory community for helping shape him into the gold medal winner he is today.

“I felt so much support from the Emory community, and it’s not unnoticed,” Wilson said. “I really appreciated [the support] and [Emory’s] always felt like a home for me. I’ve always been able to reach out to Jon [Howell] when I’ve gone through tough times in my swim career or just life in general, and I just really love this place. I think it’s a really special place and helped make me who I am now.”

The Wheel sat down with Wilson following his on-campus celebration for a conversation about his experience in the Tokyo Olympic Games.

This transcript has been edited for clarity and length.

Michael Mariam, The Emory Wheel: Can you talk about what it was like in the U.S. Olympic Team Trials qualifying and the leadup once you qualified and then got on the flight to Japan?

Andrew Wilson: Going in, I was a lot more confident, probably than I was in 2016. I knew what it was going to take to get there, and I knew they were going to be really close races. Just kind of the way that American breaststroke has been over the last five, six years, I knew it was going to be close. I wanted to have the best race I could and see what happened, and I ended up beating them out. Once that was over, I was

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obviously a lot more relaxed for the 200 breaststroke because I was already going. And that made it a lot easier to do my job in the 200 and get there for that as well. Then after trials, we went home for a week, so I was back in Athens, Georgia training. Then we left for training camp in Hawaii and were there for a couple of weeks. From there, we went to Tokyo.

TEW: When you arrived in Tokyo and had your first Olympic race, what were you feeling as you put the goggles over your eyes? Were you nervous, more excited?

AW: I mean both. Obviously, it's a crazy stage, but I was excited to have that opportunity finally. It was something that I thought about for a while. The fact that there were no fans made it maybe a little bit easier in that first race because you're nervous and emotionally all over the place. Walking out and it being a little bit calmer, it kind of reminds you like “Now wait a minute, this is just another race. It’s the same pool, I know how to do this.”

TEW: You set your teammates up to win the Gold medal in the Olympic medley relay. What was it like knowing that you were one of the swimmers who put them in that position?

AW: That’s one of the things that makes the U.S. do so well at these meets, the fact that we can keep everyone fresh. For us, we just wanted to make sure that we did enough to get the guys into the final and have a decent lane so that they could do their job in the final and swim as fast as they could. It's always an honor to be on U.S. relays, and I think preliminary relays are definitely important because some other countries have to run the same people. When you start adding swims over the course of a long meet, it just adds up.

TEW: Can you talk more about life inside the Olympic bubble? What were the protocols and the COVID testing like?

AW: We couldn't leave the Olympic village. It was daily testing when we were in the village.

We would do the saliva tests first thing in the morning, and then drop them off on the way to breakfast. So that was pretty easy, honestly, and also obviously mask requirements everywhere.

TEW: What was it like being in a dining hall with people from all over the world?

AW: The dining hall was a lot of fun. It's just really cool to see all the different athletes and these people who are so specialized for one super-specific thing; but then it's so many different things. You see a female gymnast who's 4-foot-8 and just tiny, and then a male thrower who's 6-foot-7 and 300 pounds. So you're just like, “How are we all the same thing? This is just crazy.” The dining hall was honestly a lot of fun and the people-watching in there

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was crazy.

TEW: You're obviously around the world's top athletes for a few weeks, not just in your sport. Were you ever starstruck, or were you able to learn some stuff from them in terms of the way they train and handle themselves?

AW: We didn't really see anything for training outside of the people at the pool. But, I don't know that I was necessarily starstruck.

It was more like, you're in the dining hall and you look over and you're like, “Oh, that's Novak Djokovic, that’s kind of cool.” It was just stuff like that where it was really funny to see these people who are these mega superstars and multimillionaires, and then they're reduced to trying to pick the best piece of chicken the same way you are. So that was probably one of the funnier things about the village.

TEW: What did you and your teammates do when you all weren't swimming? Were you able to attend other events or do anything else?

AW: Because of COVID protocols, we couldn't go to anything else. Most of it was hanging out in our room or in each other's rooms just doing whatever. We had a little projector that we bought, so we were streaming some of the other events and watching those in our room.

Not anything crazy honestly, just hanging and enjoying each other's company.

TEW: Do you have a favorite story from the Olympics?

AW: My favorite part of these trips is always the training camps beforehand. There's a lot of people who I'm good friends with from trips in the past, but maybe they train out in California and the only time I see them is at swim meets. You'll say hi to them and catch up a little bit, but you don't really get to hang out that much. But at the training camps, there's so much time that you're just spending with each other sitting around playing cards or watching some sports. Training camps are when you actually really get to know people.

TEW: So now just transitioning a little bit to your post-Olympics life. How did you celebrate? What's it like walking around with a gold medal?

AW: I traveled around to see some people in August. Just seeing people that I haven't seen in a while because of COVID or just because the schedule for swimming is so crazy, so a lot of the time you have to say no to a lot of things.

But yeah, it was just enjoying some time off.

I'm kind of letting it all sink in.

TEW: And you mentioned you took a lot of time to travel to other people, and you came back to Emory. Can you talk about that experience and what that meant to you?

AW: Yeah, I knew from the start that I was going to want to stop by Emory to see the coaches. You know, obviously Emory helped me get to where I am today. So you know, of course I'm going to want to stop by and see people.

TEW: What are your future goals and plans?

Do you see yourself continuing swimming in any capacity?

AW: I'm going back to school and going to grad school at the University of Oxford. It's the immediate plan, and I’m moving there in a couple days. In terms of swimming, right now I'm planning on swimming for [Oxford]. But I'm definitely done with major internationals.

I’m just going to enjoy swimming and stay in shape but not take it as seriously. I'm definitely a student first at this point.

TEW: Do you have any advice for Emory athletes that now look up to you as motivation?

AW: Trust your coaches and teammates, and work hard and see where you can go. I don't think that I did anything different than what most of the athletes at Emory are doing.

[Emory athletes] show up to practice, they work hard and they see what they can do. I don't know that I necessarily have a secret or anything. Keep working and trying to get better, a little bit better every day. And that was what I tried to do. ◊

Crossword

By Aidan Vick Answers:

Down

Across

1. Playful act, caper 6. Western Europe, to the Romans 10. Weapons manufacturer for Wile E. Coyote 14. Michelangelo sculpture of Jesus and Mary 15. Recess in church containing the altar 16. Fertile ground 17. Thespian 18. Seemingly boundless 19. Fraudulent scheme 20. Turn this to embrace pacifism 23. 2013 Joaquin Phoenix movie 24. Burn the midnight ___ 25. Keyboard shortcut for switching windows 28. Federal law enforcement 29. Funeral cloth, dark cloud 31. Actress Gardner, ex-wife of Frank Sinatra 32. Shortlists for an award 36. Nighttime cow kidnapper 38. Medical residency application 39. Language group including

Swahili, Xhosa and Zulu 41. “Breezeblocks,” “Left Hand Free” band 42. Owned by Zeus’ wife 44. “___ ___ the best of us” 46. Jay-Z record label: ___ Nation 47. Odd Future alumnus 49. Airport security 50. Final Grand Slam tournament in pro tennis 52. Alley-___ 53. Kings of Leon hit “___ Somebody” 56. Feigning death 60. Noise of surprise 62. Cry out in grief 63. Flavor of meats and mushrooms 64. Crusades rallying cry: “Deus ___!”

65. On the schedule, a road game against the Patriots 66. “How I Met Your Mother” actor Jason 67. “That’s not good” 68. Opposed to the nays 69. Medieval room for storing water

1. Go your own way- “Forge ___ ___” 2. Having limited appeal 3. Gold medal snowboarder Hannah 4. Patriotic Langston Hughes poem 5. i.e. “BoJack Horseman,” “Big Mouth,” “The Last Airbender” 6. Courtroom keeper of order 7. Equal quality- “On ___ ___ with” 8. Highest legal authority, abbr.

9. Deadly 10. Item of value 11. Mojito, Manhattan, moscow mule 12. Actress Farrow 13. Common tree type 21. Muslim veil 22. Jazz singer Fitzgerald 26. Folk band The ___ Brothers 27. Woodruff Library coffee shop 28. Agency formerly known as the DCA 29. Punishable by law 30. World War II technical training program 32. First prime minister of India 33. Milk’s favorite cookies 34. Silk Road merchant 35. Endangered relative of goats and sheep 37. “Born to Die” singer 40. High five!

43. Old euphemism, “___ ___ man about a dog” 45. Adopt a cause 48. “As I was saying” 51. “The Bell Jar” author 52. Stares creepily 53. How often something is employed 54. River valley civilization 55. American poet Dickinson 57. “I can’t believe ___ ___ the whole thing!”

58. Legendary singer Simone 59. Species of duck 60. University of Pittsburgh rival school 61. Noise of disbelief 4

A CLASSROOM DIVIDED

How the debate over slurs and academic freedom splintered the law school

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n a cloudy lateSeptember afternoon, throngs of Emory Law School students departed their classes and rushed Bacardi Plaza to engage in a walk-out protest.

As the swarm of students overflowed the plaza’s groundlevel capacity, many had to stand on the stairs and the overlooking bridge. Tables that normally dotted the plaza were moved aside to accommodate the swath of over 100 law students, administrators, including Law School Dean Mary Anne Bobinski, and faculty who were supposed to be teaching classes at the time.

“It was way, way more

By Matthew Chupack crowded than any event that I'd ever observed at Bacardi Plaza,” said Ariana Ortiz (22L), president of the Latin American Law Student Association. “I went inside to facilitate the walking out, to help guide students out, and it was the vast majority of students who were walking out of class in solidarity with the protest.”

The uproar was a response to Associate Professor of Law Alexander Volokh’s use of a homophobic slur in a lecture earlier that month—the most recent in the school’s history of slur usage by professors in the classroom. Volokh was teaching his torts class at the time of the walk-out.

Several law students who

and

Madi Olivier

spoke with the Wheel confirmed that Volokh used the Fslur without warning on Sept.

2 while discussing Snyder v.

Phelps, a case involving the Westboro Baptist Church. One of these students, who identifies as bisexual, was in the class when Volokh used the slur. “[Volokh] decided that he wanted to refer to the Westboro Baptist Church by their ideology and not by their name, so he says, ‘The God hates F-slur church. Those guys,’” the student said.

The student, who requested to remain anonymous because Volokh is still his professor, said hearing that language in school was upsetting and ir-

responsible. “I got sick to my stomach,” the student said.

“I’ve done school for a long time. Before I came here, [using slurs] has never been necessary.”

Volokh, who chairs the University Senate’s Open Expression Committee, told the Wheel in a statement that he had a pedagogical purpose for using the slur. He wanted to prepare them to discuss slurs with “clinical detachment” while working on court cases in the future.

“Expurgating downplays the offensiveness of the term,” Volokh wrote in an email. “I think it's appropriate to get the full force of the term in a case where the offensiveness is

relevant to the legal principles being covered.”

Volokh’s use of the derogatory term divided the law school and reignited a debate over slurs and academic freedom in the classroom.

Many students and professors were outraged by this incident and other episodes of law professors using slurs in the classroom. Students who organized the walk-out protest created flyers asking the community “stand in solidarity with [their] Black and LGBTQ+ communities” and “against the use of slurs in our classrooms.” Others created a petition to change the University’s Open Expression policy.

Black Law Students Association President Annia Rochester (22L) said that seeing so many people at the walkout was uplifting, noting that it was “helpful that there are some people who are willing to kind of stand with us and support us.”

Law students from different identity groups spoke during the walk-out. Professor of Law George Shepherd, who also spoke during the walkout, told the Wheel he felt the protest had a feeling of “great anger” at both Volokh for using the slur and at the law school administration, which did not discipline him.

“There's no excuse for a faculty member to use such a slur,” Shepherd said. “There's always some other pedagogical means to get across the same message.”

But others defended Volokh.

They argued that he and other professors should have the freedom to use slurs when they have an academic purpose. At the same time as the walkout, some students decided to engage in a “walk-in” counter protest where they sat in Volokh’s class while he taught.

One of those students was Carlton Powers (23L), who said he admires Volokh and wanted to support his former professor. “I felt like he needs to know some people stand by him for one reason or another,” Powers said. “He's not alone.”

When Volokh concluded class and left the room, many

students remained seated. The walk-in counter protest wasn’t as organized — Powers didn’t even know about it until the day before — so they didn’t plan speakers. But Powers stood up and took the podium at the front of the room.

“I said what I have also said online, publicly, that I thought he was a good teacher and a good person,” Powers said. “I personally felt that it was OK for him to say what he said in the context in which he said that.”

This wasn’t the first time an Emory law professor’s use of a slur has caused turmoil at the school. Since fall 2018,

without a clear pedagogical objective, is highly inappropriate and is not protected.”

The professor is no longer teaching this semester, Bobinski wrote. The University declined to identify the professor when asked by the Wheel.

Rochester said it was “jarring” when she first heard about a professor using the Nword in her first week at the law school. But after hearing this has occurred several times in recent years, Rochester just felt disappointed.

“You just feel tired because it's the same thing over and over again, and somehow it always manages to be frequently within the first week of class,”

Since fall 2018, at least four law professors have recieved backlash for having admitted to saying or having allegedly said the N-word in an academic setting. at least four different law professors have received backlash for having admitted to saying or having allegedly said the Nword in an academic setting.

The most recent of these incidents came three days into the semester, when Bobinski, the school’s dean, wrote in an Aug. 18 message to students that a professor used the Nword in a class. Bobinski said the professor was referencing a previous incident where a law professor used that slur.

The professor apologized to his students in the following class, according to Bobinski.

“The University does not ban the use of particular words or the expression of controversial ideas,” Bobinski stated in a letter to students a week after her first message. “However, a faculty member’s use of racially-charged, derogatory language — such as the explicit ‘n-word’ — with students,

Rochester said. “Friends and I joke that it's like a ritual at this point, that it just keeps on happening.”

Rochester, who also spoke at the walk-out, met with Bobinski a week after the professor used the N-word this semester to discuss how she thought the law school should respond.

Rochester’s main requests were to listen to student opinions on the matter.

“Something I would have liked to see and I have requested but didn't happen, is for the dean to hold a town hall just to discuss how students from that community are feeling,” Rochester said, “and how they are taking concrete steps to make sure these things don't happen.”

Assistant Vice President of Communications and Marketing Laura Diamond told the Wheel that Bobinski was unavailable for an interview.

Before this semester, the last time a professor’s use of the N-word in class sparked controversy was fall 2019, when two adjunct law professors were accused of using the slur in their respective classes.

The incidents motivated former Black Law Students Association President Enuamaka Mkparu (20L) and former Student Bar Association President Amneh Minkara (20L) to write a letter to the student body describing the incidents and asked one of the professors to apologize.

Although the University declined to identify the professors, one of them, Adjunct Professor Robert Saunooke, told the Wheel that he was one of the professors who used the slur while teaching a Federal Indian Law class.

Saunooke, who is a citizen of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and the president of the National Native American Bar Association, said he was attempting to describe racist terms used against Native Americans which, he said, include “sand N-word” and “red N-word.”

Saunooke said he apologized immediately after using slur in the class. He later met with Mkparu and Minkara to apologize.

But perhaps the most wellknown incident of a law professor using the N-word in class came in fall 2018, when Law Professor Paul J. Zwier II used the N-word during a torts lecture. He was discussing Fisher v. Carrousel Motor Hotel, Inc., a case that involved racial discrimination against a Black customer.

In an Aug. 17, 2018 letter to faculty addressing the incident, Zwier admitted to saying the N-word when he called on a Black female student and asked whether the Black customer in the case had been called the N-word by an employee. The case documents showed that the Black customer had been called a “Negro” by the employee. Zwier apologized the next morning and said he should not have used the slur.

Zwier was placed under in-

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A ngel Li/Staff

On Sept. 21 at Bacardi Plaza, over 100 students, faculty and administrators protested law professor Alexander Volokh's use of a homophobic slur in a lecture. Volokh argued the slur provided pedagogical value during the class.

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vestigation by the Office of Equity and Inclusion shortly after the incident. He was barred from teaching mandatory firstyear classes for two years and was required to participate in sensitivity and unconscious bias training, but was allowed to resume working after the three week investigation.

However, in November 2018, Zwier allegedly repeated the N-word during office hours with a Black law student and was placed on paid administrative leave. He would later face potential termination.

Zwier’s second alleged use of the slur, and his subsequent punishment, gained national attention.

On Jan. 19, 2019, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting free speech at universities, sent a letter to interim Law Dean James Hughes in response to the University’s suspension of Zwier. It was written by Adam Steinbaugh, FIRE’s individual rights defense program director, who argued that Zwier’s use of the N-word should be protected under academic freedom and denounced his penalization.

“The decision of what material to discuss and how to discuss it and how to approach

America's thorny and painful legacy of racism is a decision that needs to be left to the faculty member who is in the classroom,” Steinbaugh told the Wheel, “not the administrator who was outside of it.”

Zwier was ultimately reinstated in March 2020 by the Faculty Hearing Committee, which handles cases that may result in the termination of tenured faculty members. On Aug. 6, 2020, Zwier filed a lawsuit against Emory University and Hughes for “unlawful race-based discrimination and retaliation in employment.”

The University and Hughes submitted a stipulation of dismissal with prejudice on June 15, 2021. The case was officially terminated the next day.

For many LGBTQ+ law students, Volokh’s use of a homophobic slur felt unecessary and offensive. Some are demanding that he face consequences.

In addition to the walk-out protest, a group of law student leaders composed a list of demands for the University and law school and released a petition open to all University students.

One demand implores the University to “remove any professors who use slurs in class from their Open Expression

Committee,” which would affect Volokh, who chairs the committee. Another demand asks the law school to incorporate critical race theory in the legal curriculum and hire more professors of color.

Ortiz, the president of the Latin American Law Student Association, noted these demands are “not new” and stem from past demands made by Black law students years ago.

Carson Cook (23L), the director of outreach for the school’s LGBTQ+ student group OUTLaw, said the administration failed to adequately respond to Volokh’s use of the slur, only meeting with students after the walk-out had happened.

The OUTLaw executive board met with Bobinski to express their concerns about the administration’s lack of communication with the school following the comments.

“We wanted to get across … how the silence from the administration had really hurt the community,” Cook said.

“How it had emboldened homophobic classmates to say sort of hurtful, bullying things to the community.”

However, Cook said that the administration was “deflective” of their requests to change the University-wide academic freedom policy.

“Moving forward, I would like to see a policy of no slur words being said aloud in class, or at the minimum, that you have to give a warning before you talk about cases involving slur words,” Cook said.

Shabib Ansari (23L), the secretary of OUTLaw, said he was not surprised when he heard that Volokh used the homophobic slur because he believes the legal profession is often discriminatory.

“They don't recognize the humanity of certain groups of people, and they hide behind so-called principles like, 'Oh, freedom of speech,' [because] it's also the kind of thing that we study, that we practice in our profession,” Ansari said.

He said he sometimes feels uncomfortable as a minority student in the school, but others may have worse experiences. “As a queer person of color, especially recently, it's just very awkward at minimum,” he said. “At worst, you feel inherently unsafe.”

Shepherd, the law professor who spoke at the walkout protest, also organized a statement with other faculty members that condemned slur usage and offered support to those affected. Signatories were kept anonymous to protect the identity of those who

chose not to sign the statement, Shepherd said.

The law school’s communications department emailed the statement to law students before the walk-out. It was also published by Above the Law. “We promise that, in our choice of words, we will practice empathy and respect,” the statement read. “Gratuitous invocation of hateful words in the classroom not only debases the students in the class who hear them, but indirectly debases the entire law school community … The words tear the fabric of respect that should protect us all.”

Volokh, who provided the Wheel with a lengthy statement about his decision to use the homophobic slur, argued that saying the full word in a classroom setting helps prepare law students for when they encounter slurs in their legal careers.

According to Volokh, the full homophobic slur was used in lawyers’ briefs and arguments and judges’ opinions, as well as said aloud when the cases’ opinion was announced.

“Of course, we shouldn't call people by offensive slurs,” Volokh said. “But we should teach our students to discuss the use of the word with clinical detachment, because we need to socialize our students into the norms of the profession.”

Emory does not ban the use of certain words or phrases when they serve a pedagogical purpose, according to the University’s Equal Opportunity and Discriminatory Harassment Policy.

“Emory recognizes the centrality of academic freedom and the University’s determination to protect the full and frank discussion of ideas,” the policy reads. “Thus, discriminatory harassment does not refer to the use of materials for scholarly purposes appropriate to the academic context.”

Volokh has not received a punishment from the law school. According to course atlas, he is expected to teach six courses in spring 2020.

“Although deeply and under-

standably upsetting to many in our community, this incident has not been found to be a violation of university policies,” Bobinski stated in a Sept. 17 message to law students.

The day before the walkout protest, then-SBA President Teddy Randel (22L) sent an email to the student body outlining plans for a “walk-in” counter protest aimed at supporting free speech, a culture of open discourse and engaging with others with “charity and understanding.”

One student in Volokh’s class, who wished to remain anonymous out of fear of backlash, said he was not offended by the use of the slur and helped organize the walk-in counter protest. The student said many of his classmates who identify as LGBTQ+ or consider themselves allies spoke overarchingly for the community as a whole.

“If [taking offense] is true for you, you have every right to say it, but to a certain point, you're speaking on my behalf,” the student said. “So I felt the need to raise my hand and say, ‘I don't agree. I wasn't offended by it. I didn't think you were trying to target anyone or be hurtful. It was relevant to the class material.’”

But both the student and Powers, one of the other students who supported Volokh at the walk-in, said that defending what they saw as academic freedom was isolating. Powers said he had to leave a class GroupMe and Facebook page because of angry messages he received after sending a statement in support of Volokh.

There is, however, an Emory law professor who uses a slur in the classroom without sparking a campus-wide controversy.

Each spring, Assistant Professor of Practice Kamina Pinder, who is Black, says the N-word in class while reading aloud “Letter from Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King, Jr. But unlike Volokh, Zwier or the other professors who have received condemnation, she gives the text to students

in advance, provides warning that she will use the word and explains why she chooses to do so. Pinder also provides students the opportunity to leave the classroom if they don’t feel comfortable hearing the slur, which she said no student has ever done.

Pinder explained that speaking the N-word out loud contributed to the emotional power of the letter.

“I want my students to hear this pain; I want them to recognize the hurt,” Pinder said.

“I choke up everytime I read the passage because it’s that sense of inferiority, that circumstances, inequities, racism, how they impact Black people psychologically from a very young age.”

However, given that there have been multiple incidents over the past few years of students feeling harm after professors used the N-word, Pinder said she considered not using it this year. She wonders, now, if using the slur can provide the same value even when she warns students and gives appropriate context and safeguards for them.

“The way that I use that word is very different from the context in which some of my colleagues have used slurs, so, there’s a part of me that says they’re not in the same bucket,” Pinder said. “I don’t want what they’ve done to impact what I do in my classroom. I don’t want to give them that power.”

There is a difference, Pinder said, between a professor using a term gratuitously and “without thought or regard for how it may land” and taking time to genuinely consider the term and the subsequent discussion with students.

She recognized, however, that the race of the person saying a racially derogatory slur can be an important factor for students in the class. “I would defend my colleagues to the very end if a white colleague did exactly what I’m doing,” Pinder said. “But, I do recognize that if I were a white person doing the same thing that my students might receive it differently and I may have to

adjust accordingly.”

Pinder, along with other faculty and students, is left looking to the future for the University’s response, which she hopes will foster a “cultural shift.”

On Sept. 13, Emory Law School faculty approved annu-

al mandatory diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programming for all faculty members to ensure their pedagogical decisions are informed by research. The training will also detail the impact derogatory language has on student learning.

Chief Diversity Officer at the law school Derrick Howard could not be interviewed because he is on leave for the rest of the year, but told the Wheel in a statement that he “[does not] encourage anyone to use such language.”

Associate Professor of Practice Robert Parrish was named the interim chief diversity officer on Nov. 16. He was previously a member of the law school’s DEI committee.

“My own view of the use of slurs within the classroom space is that they should be avoided given the disruption such expressions create within the classroom itself and the discomfort it creates for students, other faculty members, and staff,” Parrish said in a statement to the Wheel.

However, Parish said he recognizes that many other faculty members do not share the same perspective, and he would be “resistant to any suggestion or attempts to constrain” the rights protected under the open expression and academic freedom policies.

For Pinder, maintaining academic freedom and sensitivity towards students is not mutually exclusive. She believes the polarizing fight between those who advocate for or against the use of slurs in the classroom fails to address a more foundational issue.

“I don't think that we should have to have a rule in place that restricts,” Pinder said.

“We should have a culture in place that makes us thoughtful.” ◊

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Dear President Fenves, Here's what you need to know about mental health at Emory

By Sophia Ling

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ear President Fenves, On World Mental Health Day this October, you sent students an email telling us you overheard a conversation between two Emory students. “I just feel so anxious now,” one of them said. Although you had well-meaning intentions, you quote them like you’ve made some revolutionary discovery, realizing for the first time that students aren’t actually the constantly smiling pictures on Emory’s admissions brochures.

So, as an opinion editor, I couldn’t help it but try to make your story hit a little harder. Here are a couple quotes I’ve also overheard in the last 20 days that I recommend using to strengthen your argument.

Let’s compare: “I lost 12 pounds because I was so stressed about midterms.”

“I literally went to sleep at four last night, and I never go to sleep that early.”

“I haven’t walked home this early (1 a.m.) in more than three weeks.”

“Yeah, I took a mental health week from this class.” The guy sitting next to her responded, “You were literally gone for a month.”

I understood your sentiment, standing in solidarity as a oncecollege student. But as students, we don’t want someone to say it’s powerful to know how to eloquently express we’re lonely and in pain. The system needs change.

My best friend committed suicide last December. I write this for him, for the so-called “best years of his life” that he didn’t get to have because our fucked-up system failed him. I write this for everyone who has suffered from mental health issues and for one reason or another, weren’t able to get the help they needed — I’m sorry for what you’ve gone through.

I write this with one thing in mind, that hiring more therapists and counselors to treat young adults is only temporary. While lack of accessibility for these resources is part of the issue, advertising raffles for free iPads doesn’t encourage more people to sign up and use TimelyMD, Emory’s new virtual mental health service. It’s taking the easy way out and a cruel commodification of mental health. But something in the fabric of our culture and our society is failing and in desperate need of change.

Maybe we’re just too afraid to admit that fixing these problems means upending what we already know. Maybe it’s our belief in the failed meritocracy which is a veneer to pretend that we care more about honest academic success than prestige and wealth.

Unfortunately, the higher education system feeds into its pretentiousness and creates a mental health crisis where college students report more anxiety than psychiatric patients in the 1950s.

The college experience has fostered an environment where anxiety, depression and stress are the norm. As students, we compete in a cruel game of who can get the least amount of sleep, skip the most meals and still somehow attend class, do extracurriculars, get good grades and be a socially functioning college student.

How much sleep did you get last night? Six hours? I got four. Yeah, well I didn’t sleep. As I write, I can’t stop myself from chuckling just a little bit. Glamourizing the extent to which we can torture our bodies is not the purpose of college. It’s pathetic that we’re all chasing after the award to be “the most unwell person” and wear it like a badge of honor.

Being able to fill up the “accom-

plishments” section of your resumé with a list of mental health issues that you’ve faced does not make you successful, nor is it indicative of how well you’re doing in school. Students shouldn’t feel guilty for sleeping at 1:30 a.m. because it’s two hours earlier than usual. But it is impossible to escape from this culture. We live under the expectation that college students are meant to be mentally unstable, incredibly overworked and sleep deprived. “If you’re not stressed,” said Emily Ogden (21Ox, 23C), “you’re not working hard enough.”

“Being sick at college is the worst,” my friend Isha, who goes to Brown University (R.I.), complained to me over the phone.

When she called, I was wrapped up in three blankets, surrounded by a box of tissues and feeling like I was just run over by a bus.

Within a couple of days, not only did all my friends end up sick, but my classes were also filled with sniffling and coughing.

Despite the constant hacking, people still show up to class out of fear of neglecting their grades.

On the Friday before Halloween, I was studying on the 7th floor of the library. I overheard a girl on

the phone, presumably with her parents.

“It’s okay,” she said, “I took a lot of medicine, I went to class, but now I’m in the library trying to study.”

Our professors constantly tell us to take care of ourselves because our physical wellbeing ensures peak academic performance. Yet grading policies that fail to account for sick absences or family leaves nurtures an overachieving college culture where our mental and physical health are not a priority.

But after receiving three midterm deficiencies, where a student is in danger of failing a class, Ogden emailed one of her professors, explaining that she knew she wasn’t doing well and was worried about her success in his class. Her professor wrote back in response, “At this point, you should just drop this class.”

The transition from online school to campus has also forced students to completely readjust how they manage their time.

Despite being in classes he feels he should be “breezing through,” Noah Gentry (23C) still feels

overworked. “In order to get all my responsibilities done, I have to neglect doing my laundry, cleaning my house … in a lot of cases, forgoing sleep,” Gentry said.

Some professors have been cognizant of this shift, like Professor of Psychology Andrew Kazama, who threw out all his exams in light of the pandemic. While Kazama values student mental health above all, he also focuses squarely on the students’ responsibility to recalibrate their expectations: that self-worth should not be determined by grades. Simply asking students to know that “pressure is a privilege” or to stop feeling pressure of attending an elite university is laughable. When the structure of our campus culture is so flawed, that is easier said than done.

“Did you know that we’re the fourth most depressed university in the U.S.?” It’s the perfect conversation starter with your friend who just pulled yet another all-nighter studying for their QTM 100 midterm.

Whether that fact is true or not no longer matters. What’s more concerning is the number of times people reference it as the punchline to a joke.

Today, becoming highly anxious and moderately depressed is a rite of passage for newly minted adults as they enter college. We so casually link arms with death, to the point where trying to figure out the difference between people saying “I want to kill myself” and a true cry for help is frighteningly impossible.

It’s worth reflecting on the drastic evolution in higher education since the 1960s, when college was marked more by enjoying high culture and fighting for social justice rather than obsessing over career opportunities and grades. An increasing demand for higher education leads to more competition, breeding a community that sees each other as a hurdle to jump over to make it to the top.

Students navigate not only the new challenges of financial insecurity, college debt and rigorous job competition, but must

also balance a healthy social life. Between 70-80% of students also work while going to school – nearly half of them for more than 30 hours a week – likely causing their academics and mental health to suffer greatly.

There is only so much time in the day, but trying to toe the ever-thinning line of academics, work and social life is proving to be a daunting task.

I always love finding that section in our syllabi on stress and mental health, when professors ask us to reach out when we need help. To me it reads, “Hey y’all, I’m sorry you’re stressed, but here are some Saturday night deadlines and some unavailable mental health resources.” I can’t blame them, of course. They’re doing their best to solve a nearly unsolvable societal problem but sometimes I can’t help but want a scapegoat to carry all my distress.

I find it funny sometimes, watching my seminar classes of 42 people on the first day dwindle down to the same seven people who continue to show up for the rest of the semester.

While it is a student’s responsibility to take ownership of their education, people don’t skip classes simply without reason. If people aren’t consistently showing up, perhaps it’s for other invisible causes that professors don’t know.

“If you’re taking a break or need an extension,” said Ogden, “it’s not about laziness but the larger question of: ‘Are you okay?’”

College “weed-out” classes, or difficult intro level courses for overpopulated majors like computer science, are designed to crush people’s enthusiasm. They deter freshmen from trying to figure out what they might be interested in and instead purposelessly make them suffer for no other reason than to eliminate students from majors and force them to pursue something else. There isn’t any real purpose to doing so, besides work-

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ing as an arbitrary barrier to keep people out and away from primarily STEM subjects.

At Emory, for each credit hour of class, students are expected to work for 2-3 hours outside class as well. But is there ever a break to the monotonous hours that we spend toiling away? Midterms are a misnomer; they tend to last unofficially from the second week of school to the two weeks before finals. But is all the hard work and effort we put into school going to correspond to how successful our future will be when we graduate?

There are so many qualified students on the job market that holding an officer position in every club while maintaining a full course load with a 3.9 GPA will not guarantee you success.

Despite all that, you still might not get the job you want.

Professors often assign a lot of homework – from readings to writing essays, and sometimes I wonder what the purpose really is when I’m not explicitly told.

In a conversation with a friend, I admitted to not having done a single reading since the beginning of class and passed down some sophomoric wisdom. Figure out the assignments that are worthwhile and only do those, anything else is a waste of time.

“I’ve learned that it’s the only way to get things done,” I texted him. As soon as I sent it, I realized that my professors were not entirely to blame for busy work or meaningless assignments.

Instead of genuinely engaging in the material, I decided that the utility of assignments, whether they were graded or not or when they were due, would ultimately determine my effort.

It’s pitiful how college is a formula that we’re all trying to master in our own way. One of my fondest memories of high school was when I sprawled on the floor of the library, making up a book for my AP Literature exam just to see if I could. But even on topics I’m fascinated by, like my paper on government censorship, I have

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lost the same sense of engagement I wish I still had.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, by fall 2019, about 19.9 million students were enrolling into U.S. colleges and universities. People go into college with lofty dreams and the pressure of the future weighing on them. Unfortunately, colleges neither have the resources to help everyone nor should they be making those promises in the first place. But while universities have the onus to care for their students, it’s unfeasible to expect administrators to fulfil the roles of parents, therapists, professors

future employer will inevitably weed-out hopefuls by looking at their GPA and call it an assessment of whether they can handle the rigorous workload or not.

Sound familiar?

But as many students tell me themselves, they know it’s up to them to tell professors when they are struggling in class. They know that obsessing over one or two points is not reflective of the real world, but when their future goals of getting into graduate school or applying for a job is so deeply intertwined with their college GPA, every single grade boost matters.

Students are so frequently cre-

We live under the expectation that college students are meant to be mentally unstable, incredibly overworked and sleep deprived.

"If you're not stressed," said Emily Ogden (21Ox, 23C), "you're not working hard enough." and guidance counselors all at the same time.

This college mental health crisis isn’t going away soon. In fact, cases of depression and anxiety are projected to rise exponentially if we don’t make substantial changes now. But herein lies the question: what is truly responsible for this crisis? Who is responsible for helping students? Or if this system is so ingrained in our society, is it even anyone’s responsibility to solve these issues?

“You are not your grades,” Kazama, the psychology professor, told me. But in so many ways, whether we like it or not, we are.

Professors rarely sit down and evaluate the character of each of their students; they enter in empirical data of tests, quizzes, homework and participation. My

ating their own safety mats to succeed in school. Most recently, I remember my sociology professor this semester asking us if anyone needed extra credit. A ripple of chuckles washed across the classroom, and slowly, every single hand went up. I know for a fact that none of us are truly failing this class – Canvas shows us the overall average, high and low scores on each assignment. But it’s all about the extra padding, anything to ensure that if something were to happen, there would be some cushion to fall back on.

And we know it’s unhealthy too.

In the week leading up to Parent’s Weekend, my friend and I noticed whiteboards spread across the second floor. “Hey undergrads,” it said, “What’s one challenge you face at Emory?”

I took pictures of each board as they were updated each day.

Among them, some of my favorites include, “staying sane,” “making friends,” “work-life balance,” “not sleeping problems away,” “lonely,” “depression,” “eating three meals a day” and perhaps my all-time favorite, “hate it here.”

Students were brutally and necessarily honest.

Colleges are trying. They are making an effort to help, or at least show that they care. After all, Title IX offices, counseling services and crisis hotlines don’t pop up out of nowhere – they exist because students have demonstrated more than a prevailing need to feel safe, to feel worthy, to feel somewhat in control in this world.

But these institutions and services are overpromising. Despite encouraging students to seek help when they need it, Emory’s Office of Respect is confusing and difficult to navigate.

Incidents of sexual harassment and violence occur frequently across college campuses and universities. Among undergraduate students, 26.4% of females and 6.8% of males have experienced rape or sexual assault. However, these cases are rarely being reported out of fear of retaliation and the lack of help from the university to mitigate those issues.

I can’t definitively claim anything about the number of students with Title IX allegations under their name, nor can I be the judge of whether or not it’s true.

But by simply walking to class and talking to my friends, I’ve heard enough stories to make me wonder if Emory is treating each report as seriously as it should.

“That guy,” my friend points out to me as we walk toward class, “he raped my friend. My friend reported him, but the University isn’t doing anything about it.”

So, while Emory has a comprehensive Office for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion that includes both a department for Title IX allegations and one for Equity

and Inclusion, it’s not enough to simply say that these resources exist.

Whether or not the University chooses to take disciplinary action, the impact that it has on the survivor’s mental health is immeasurable by disciplinary reports and shoddy corporate speak emails. In reality, people suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, substance abuse and other long-term damage. At Emory in particular, the procedural definitions to filing a formal report or formal claim is never taught – nor is the process itself post-allegation made clear and easy to navigate. In fact, I didn’t even learn of these differences until after I attended the Wheel’s mandated sexual assault training at our editors’ meeting last week.

Existence doesn’t constitute action, nor should schools that talk boldly of sexual assault prevention and mental health claim they know better otherwise.

The way universities are currently run, teenagers are molded into the ideation of the perfect adult. But we’re not. Students fear failure more than ever.

Learning is no longer for the sake of enjoyment but for figuring out how to cheat the system for the best grades. Instead of being driven with the purpose of enlightening young minds, universities are profit and reputation-driven, a stark reflection of an underlying issue in our society. Universities are not their own insulated bubbles. College students overwork and overcommit themselves in an effort to stand out against the crowd; dropout rates have increased since 2015 because college is too expensive and that there is a lack of support for marginalized and disadvantaged students.

In the 2020 Center for Collegiate Mental Health Annual Report, it reported that of 602 colleges and universities, there are 185,440 unique students seeking treatment,

3,890 clinicians and 1,385,685 appointments. This means that each clinician would see an average of 47 students in one academic year.

Emory’s mental health resources, though comprehensive, are just like other colleges: an elaborately marketed, underfunded Ponzi scheme. The Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) is notoriously known for being inaccessible, with wait times for some appointments stretching more than two weeks out from the initial phone screening. When Claire Marchand (25C) attempted to schedule an appointment, the CAPS website was blocked on Emory’s internet servers.

For Gentry, trying to schedule appointments with therapists has been a rollercoaster ride that started at the beginning of sophomore year. The first time, he called CAPS on Sept. 3, asking for help when he was suffering from severe depression.

They failed to schedule him for an initial screening until Oct. 3.

The second time, when Gentry felt himself sinking back into depression, he scheduled another appointment. When the time came, he sat in front of his computer, watched the counselor enter the meeting and leave the session immediately. Shortly after, he messaged and emailed the therapist – he didn’t get a response.

Gentry said he felt better when the school year started.

But when he needed another meeting, he was forced to do another initial screening. CAPS asked him to fill out some paperwork before the appointment.

“You basically have to recount every bad thing that ever happened to you for 45 minutes,” Gentry said. After submitting the paperwork, Gentry waited patiently, but a link to his appointment never appeared in his email.

Now, Gentry is trying to motivate himself to call in again, believing that one day he’ll be

successful. “I’m just frustrated because the quality of care when I actually get it is good.”

Similarly, after hearing from a friend who tried to use CAPS services that it took three weeks to even get an appointment, Ogden never even tried.

“She was basically saying to my friend, ‘you have issues that I can’t deal with,’” Ogden said.

Consistent with these student interviews, the earliest a student can receive an initial screening is a week after their first call. If they’re lucky, students can get an appointment the week after that, but most have been unsuccessful. While there are crisis options, like the Emory Crisis Line, students often cannot receive necessary long-term help until weeks later. “[CAPS] put [my friends] on hold for five minutes and then said they should altogether take a Buzzfeed quiz to see if they have depression,” Marchand said.

CAPS allows for up to eight counseling sessions per academic year. Though I refuse to defend the University’s mental health resources in any way, I understand their limitations.

There aren’t enough therapists in the world to treat every college student and their unique struggles. This, in it of itself, begs the question: why are college students experiencing such a drastic increase in mental health issues?

I asked this same question during my interviews with students and a professor, and frankly, the answers weren’t ones I thought I would get.

Perhaps it’s because people are used to speaking about their mental health and how college mental health resources have failed them. But then someone told me, “Maybe it’s because they’ve never thought about it.”

People know the effect of college on mental health all too well, but they’ve never thought of why.

Like Ogden, Gentry hasn’t had any direct interactions with college administration, but it infuriates him when he sees emails advertising mental health resources on campus.

“I can tell all my friends that I’m struggling and stressed and don’t feel good, but it won’t change anything because they all are struggling and stressed and don’t feel good either – it’s not a superpower,” said Gentry.

“I’m exhausted and I want therapy.”

Random emails don’t make people feel better either. “All of my friends are complaining about how bad their mental health is and how they need to go see a counselor,” he continued.

While counseling services may be helpful for many people, it’s only a temporary solution.

The problems of the meritocracy, of overworked and overachieving students toward no tangible goal is still present.

In 2018, The Sunday Times labeled us “Generation Snowflake.” They called us thinskinned, too coddled by our parents and too fragile to handle the brazen truths of the world.

Sure, call us easily offended and weak. But try your hand at juggling two sports, a 40-hour job, a 17-credit course load and hanging out with friends. Try to seek help and wait hopelessly when the website to schedule a CAPS meeting is blocked on school WiFi. Wake up and wish you could just go back to sleep for the rest of your life. Wonder if the school really cares or if it just wants to churn out the most successful, most unwell students of this generation so it can brag about its award-winning scholars and raise tuition yet again. Leave college with that crumpled up resumé in your back pocket, wondering when you’ll pay off your accumulating student debt. Go through all of this, and if you still want to tell me we’re fragile and weak, that’s okay. I’ll wear that label with pride. ◊

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Queer food The good, the bad, the unspoken

By Zimra Chickering This article contains discussion of eating disorders

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package of luscious French chocolate truffles, shared among friends after a homemade meal of refreshing papaya salad and a breathy thai curry may be one of the most unintentionally queer things I have ever done. Food can be a conduit of identity, and Kyle Fitzpatrick, writer and editor for BOYS CLUB, has perfectly stated that “Queer food is not the ingredients, the cooks, the diners, the labels — it’s in the make.” There is an undeniable intersection between queerness and food, one that can strengthen and celebrate our community. Yet issues surrounding food and body image have also become insidious in the LGBTQIA+ community, often associated with shame or embarrassment. Within the queer community, food and body confidence can serve as healing modes of connection and nourishment, as well as a form of resistance to cisgender and heterosexual norms. However, eating disorders and lack of access to food detrimentally impact the queer community, an issue that has often been misrrepresented or ignored by mainstream media.

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Food can encompass many different joyful experiences whether they be expressing identity, creating bonds, or communicating non-verbally. A recent Food & Wine Roundtable, part

of the “Queer As Food” series, explored this celebratory role of food in LGBTQIA+ communities, and the ways in which food serves as a mode of expression for non-

Queer people have continued to use many mediums, including food, to subvert cisgender and heteronormative societal expectations

traditional queer culinary experimentation and connection. As John-Carter Ayanna, executive chef of The Macintosh, explained, “Cooking is art. And it's our way to express ourselves … connectivity and community is a big part of queer food.” Thinking about food as an art allows us to see chefs through the same lens that we see artists. Artists use their medium for self expression and to connect with or enhance the experience of their audience. Each plate of

food is not only an arena for personal expression, but also serves as a way to nourish and care for one’s chosen family. For example, the Boston Bisexual Women’s Network has held monthly bibrunches since the 1980s, using those meal times to reinforce and celebrate the community.

Nourishment is particularly significant in the LGBTQIA+ community and other marginalized communities, because feelings of insecurity, unsafety and fear can oftentimes supersede our own self-care. Food is a way to show each other something that may be missing.

Frankly, queer food is also very fun. You may be wondering exactly what I mean now when I refer to queer food, and I found that Fitzpatrick provided quite a lucid explanation of how we can view queer food. Fitzpatrick states that “queer food isn’t a rainbow cupcake — just ask the viral (and extremely straight) rainbow bagel.

It is less about what is literally eaten, but it’s more than just the presence of queer people at the table. Queer food is the food of a temporary utopia, one where unexpected eating styles and culinary creativity thrive, where things that seem too weird to work actually do.”

Queer people have been known to experiment, not only with sexual identity or gender expression, but with art, language, fashion and, most deliciously, with food.

Our experimentation with food has coincided with our resistance to the status quo, and it

has transformed culinary trends and innovations as we know them today. For example, veganism and other forms of plant-based eating have been used by queer people to critique America’s politiziced food system and obsession with meat consumption. Fitzpatrick discusses how our use of camp and ironic culinary humor has been used in the kitchen to undermine American heterosexual norms of “hamburgers and housewives,” specifically referring to the iconic queer restaurant chain Hamburger Mary’s.

In this sense, queer people have continued to use many mediums, including food, to subvert cishet societal expectations.

Joseph Hawkins, director of One Archives at USC Libraries, explains this by citing queer food culture as “a means of coping and improvising, adapting a facet of life to reflect an interiority few truly understand.” Food is an impeccable mode through which we can express our antiestablishment queerness.

Food offers immense benefits for our community, but nourishing foods that are culturally-relevant and nutrientdense are not always a guarantee for many. Food insecurity is particularly prevalent in the LGBTQIA+ community. A new 2021 Pulse U.S Census survey estimated that LGBTQIA+ adults are facing hunger at almost twice the rate of non-LGBT adults. A Williams Institute data analysis further revealed that LGBTQIA+ adults are 1.8 times more likely to receive food stamps and 1.7 times more likely to be food insecure.

These disparities in food security and food access deeply affect our community and a myriad of other minority groups as well.

Due to major systemic inequalities including pay gaps, economic disenfranchisement, housing discrimination and job discrimination, Black, Indigenous and

people of color (BIPOC) and many other minority communities face these issues with food accessibility and security. The intersection of these identities creates particularly vulnerable sub-populations, as explained by data from the Williams Institute: about one in four white LGBT adults experienced food insecurity in 2014, compared to more than one in three Black LGBT adults and more than one in two LGBT Native Americans.

Additionally, those who identify as LGBTQIA+ women or are in female same sex marriages are more at risk for needing food stamps and experiencing food insecurity.

As members of this community we must look out for each other, not only through joyful moments and pride parades, but through our struggles with food insecurity, economic security and food access.

While food access and economic insecurity deeply affect how we eat, there are many other psychological factors that can negatively impact our relationship to food. Eating disorders and behaviors that lead to eating disorders predominantly impact those in the LGBTQIA+ community.

The National Eating Disorders Assocation found that 42% of males who have eating disorders identify as gay, compared to 5% of the total population, and LGBTQ women are twice as likely to report bingeeating behaviors than their nonLGBT peers. Disordered eating behaviors can have lifelong effects on our growth, physical and mental health, socialization and mortality risk, so it is important to not sweep these struggles under the rug, especially when feelings of shame and judgement play such a critical role in the development and persistence of EDs. Disordered eating behaviors arise specifically within the LGBTQIA+ community due to

a myriad of factors, including discrimination, shame, body image and body confidence. Dr. Norman Kim, national director for Program Development at Reasons Eating Disorder Center, theorizes that queer people may experience more harmful eating habits because of chronic minority social stress. The feelings of isolation and insecurity as a minority, especially when aligned with insecurities which revolve around heteronormative body standards, may prompt these disordered eating tendencies. Eating disorder risk is also heightened for nonbinary and transgender people, as the comfort one feels in their body may intersect with their food consumption, yet disordered eating research has primarily focused on cisgender women.

Eating disorder treatment is also more complicated for trans and nonbinary people, as treatment facilities can pose not only economic barriers, but mental barriers, due to the lack of research surrounding nonbinary body image and eating disorder treatment.

Ultimately, food and food systems reveal much about societal expectations, identity intersections and community structures, particularly concerning the LGBTQIA+ community. It is critical within our community for us to work together to combat issues of food insecurity and eating disorder prevalence that are often silenced. Small steps we can take include supporting — through our time, discussion, or donation — organizations that work to combat these issues, like LGBTQIA-friendly food banks and queer-aligned eating disorder treatment centers.

Only when we address these issues can we ensure that the positive, healing power of food is accessible to the LGBTQIA+ community as a whole. Let us celebrate that culinary superpower by supporting our local Atlanta LGBTQ-owned restaurants and bars, and rethinking our relationship with food as a way to nourish our creative, beautiful, and unique bodies.

Now I am craving my queer mom’s matzah ball soup... ◊

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