The Georgetown Voice, 8/25/23

DEAR HOYAS,

By the Editorial Board

GEORGETOWN'S QATAR CAMPUS: A CULTURAL EXCHANGE AND A BID FOR SOFT POWER

By Belinda Li

features Georgetown's Qatar campus: a cultural exchange and a bid for soft power EDITORIAL BOARD

"The beginning of the year is the perfect time to view campus through fresh eyes; if we are not reimagining Georgetown every year, we are holding it back from becoming a better place for the people who come after us."

PG 4

Editor-In-Chief Nora Scully

Managing Editor Graham Krewinghaus

internal resources

Executive Editor for Resources, Diversity, and Inclusion Ajani Jones

Editor for Sexual Violence Advocacy and Coverage Katherine Hawes

Service Chair Lizzie Short

Social Chair Francesca Theofilou

news

Executive Editor Margaret Hartigan

Features Editor Amber Xie

News Editor Alex Deramo

Assistant News Editors Angelena Bougiamas, Eddy BinfordRoss, Ninabella Arlis

opinion

Executive Editor Lou Jacquin

Voices Editor Barrett Ahn

Assistant Voices Editors Aminah Malik, Lukas Soloman, Olivia Pozen

Editorial Board Chair Andrea Ho

Editorial Board William Hammond, Annette Hasnas, Andrea Ho, Annabella Hoge, Jupiter Huang, Paul James, Connor Martin, Allison O'Donnell, Sarah Watson, Max Zhang

leisure

Executive Editor Maya Kominsky

Leisure Editor Isabel Shepherd

Assistant Editors Hailey Wharram, Eileen Chen, Rhea Banerjee

Halftime Editor Zach Warren

Assistant Halftime Editors Nikki Farnham, Sagun Shrestha, Caroline Samoluk

sports

Executive Editor Lucie Peyrebrune

Sports Editor Jo Stephens

Assistant Editors Langston Lee, Thomas Fishbeck, Ben Jakabcsin

Halftime Editor Henry Skarecky

Assistant Halftime Editors Bradshaw Cate, Sam Lynch, Andrew Swank

design

Executive Editor Cecilia Cassidy

Design Editor Sabrina Shaffer

Spread Editors Olivia Li, Dane Tedder

Cover Editor Tina Solki

Assistant Design Editors Grace Nuri, Madeleine Ott, Elin Choe copy

Copy Chiefs Donovan Barnes, Maanasi Chintamani

Assistant Copy Editors Cole Kindiger, Lizzie Short, Eileen Miller

multimedia

Podcast Executive Producer Jillian Seitz

Podcast Editor Romy Abu-Fadel

Assistant Podcast Editor Lucy Collins

Photo Editor Jina Zhao

online

Online Executive Website Editor

Assistant Website Editor

Pierson Cohen Tyler Salensky MJ Morales

Social Media Editor Kristy Li

business

General Manager Rovi Yu

Assistant Manager of Accounts and Sales

Assistant Manager of Alumni and Outreach Sheryn Livingstone

support

Contributing Editors Staff Contributors Adora Adeyemi, Francesca Theofilou Meriam Ahmad, Elyza Bruce, Romita Chattaraj, Leon Cheung, Yihan Deng, Julia Kelly, Ashley Kulberg, Amelia Myre, Nicholas Romero, Carlos Rueda, Ryan Samway, Michelle Serban, Isabelle Stratta, Kami Steffenauer, Amelia Wanamaker, Fallon Wolfley, Nadine Zakheim

“outgoing mail” TINA SOLKI

Page 3

→ LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Dear Voice readers,

An eclectic collection of jokes, puns, doodles, playlists, and news clips from the collective mind of the Voice sta

→ ELIN'S DOODLE SAYS,

As you flip through these pages, whether it’s for the first time or the bajillionth, I’d like you to consider what goes into making our magazine. You’d be on the nose if you guessed lots of caffeine, laughter, and hours and hours of hard work. But creating the Voice, more than anything, is an act of love. Each article, podcast, photo, or design is the physical manifestation of someone’s care—for an idea, an individual, a piece of media, a community, an issue. That love is contagious; writing, designing, or working for the Voice in any capacity is an exercise in engaging with others’ passions. Thus the Voice has always strived to be unconditionally welcoming and connected, not only for its members, but to the larger Georgetown community. It is a space for our innovation and creativity to flourish as much as it is a place for your trust to be reciprocated and your curiosity satiated. Four years ago, I fell in love with the Voice, its people, and its work. Our door is always open, and we’d be delighted to have you. But for now, I hope you feel our care within these pages.

Love, Nora Editor-in-Chief, Fall 2023

→ GOSSIP RAT

Welcome, wretched Hoyas. I hope your new building is worth it—even if “they” are planning on filling it with AI generated students, like those posters foretell. Not that I care—AI can never replace my job. No one can gnaw like me. Speaking of mastication, murder isn’t funny, and if you think I’ll sit idly by while thousands of my brethren, my furries in arms, are evicted from their Henle home, think again. I’m coming for you while you sleep. First years, or should I say fresh meat, while you struggle through syllabus week and sleep your way through your floor, remember my name, it’s the only one worth learning. Rat, Gossip Rat. As you slowly sink into the sleep deprivation that accompanies Georgetown life—I’ll lie in wait to sink my fangs into you.

To all of you upperclassmen who I’m sure have enjoyed carnal things every night this summer, rest assured that I’ve never been hungrier. I’ll feast on your flesh while you pretend to plan coffee with your friends who you haven’t seen all summer. But I move fast—you think I’m sipping pool water to relax during syllabus week, but really I’m pregaming the feast.

Watch out this semester. I’m on the hunt.

xoxo, Gossip Rat

→ THE VOICE 'S MOVE - IN ESSENTIALS

1. Dyson TP07 Smart Air Purifier and Fan - White/Silver

2. Antz on VHS

3. Quibi subscription

4. The 2011 Farmers’ Almanac

5. Several large tubs of protein powder

6. Rainbow Loom kit

7. Trickle down economics

8. Packing peanuts (for consumption)

9. Scrub mommies

10. Sexual tension

11. Roomba

12. The will to live

→ SABRINA AND FRANZI'S 'SHROOMS

Dear Hoyas,

BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD

Each August, the Voice begins the year with a letter to the student body, especially directed at the incoming class, offering advice on how to best conquer the trials and tribulations of a new school year. Chances are you may be feeling some combination of overwhelmed, stressed, and excited. These, on top of anxiety, fear, or a sense of isolation are entirely normal. Whatever you’re feeling, welcome to the Hilltop! To the freshmen and transfers taking their first steps at Georgetown this fall, we’re happy to have you here. To old faces, we’re happy to have you back.

For many of you, life at Georgetown will change not only your surroundings but also complicate various aspects of your identity. For one, Georgetown’s reputation as a highachieving institution may cast doubts on your self-worth. You may have previously oriented yourself around grades or extracurriculars. While you may feel the urge to continue doing so at Georgetown, this may be less manageable or fulfilling than before in large part due to the notoriously rigorous club culture. Not only can this culture be frustrating and disheartening, but its orientation toward upward social and economic mobility can mirror systems that afford uneven opportunities to more privileged groups, namely white students and higherincome students who are often in charge of these organizations to start with.

More often than not, however, the metrics by which you define yourself will shift as your role in our community grows and changes—a process that you have control over now, probably more than ever. As you embark on this journey of self-discovery amid new classes and competitive clubs, remember that conventional sources of external validation are by no means the only nor the most important way to cultivate your sense of self. Although it is often stated, it bears repeating that you are far more than your grades or your extracurriculars.

There are many ways to find a meaningful sense of community at Georgetown that go beyond pursuing prestige and clout. In our opinion, this pursuit should at least partly involve reckoning with Georgetown’s

problematic history, and subsequently demanding a more just and inclusive Georgetown for all Hoyas. As reiterated in our past welcomeback letters and other editorials, our history is fundamentally grounded in settler colonialism and slavery. Any attempt to distill Georgetown’s historical transgressions into a single editorial wouldn’t even come close to painting a complete picture; instead, take the time to peruse the resources that we have compiled online as a starting point.

Even though we only get to call ourselves Hoyas because of these ongoing injustices, we are also afforded the opportunity to help rectify them. Some incredible on-campus organizations are already doing this work and have been for decades. These movements are intersectional, driven, and, though we might not initially realize it, creative. They do not merely react to an exclusionary past but also dare to imagine what an inclusive future could look like outside oppressive frameworks. And as inspiring as their goals are, they are not only mechanisms to fight against injustice—these movements are also spaces to build solidarity and be in community. Activism is, at its core, taking care of one another.

On that note, we encourage you to seek out activities that spark joy for yourself and others. Get involved in some of the many activist movements on campus, as well as other clubs that simply make you happy; despite the general campus culture, many groups here have low to nonexistent barriers to entry. Some of these are affinity groups, like the South Asian Society, the Caribbean Culture Circle, and the Disability Cultural Initiative, to name a few. As affinity groups, they are geared toward unifying communities of students and providing support networks to allow them, no matter their background, to flourish on campus. Other programs like ESCAPE, the first-year retreat, do wonders to foster a sense of community and engage with those around you as fellow students and friends.

These organizations and programs exemplify what is so wonderful about college. They present you with the opportunity to explore interests you might not have had the ability or autonomy to discover before. With this newfound freedom, we urge you to reconceptualize your priorities and dive into activities you’ve always hoped to try. We realize the transition into college can often be jarring, but immersing yourself in community can be a means of prioritizing yourself and your well-being; they can offer both excitement and a slice of something familiar as you settle into a new home.

And as cheesy as it sounds, there is no understating how important it is to say yes to things, even if it might initially feel outside of your comfort zone! Go out; say yes when your new friend from class invites you to get a meal; go to that event you’ve been hearing about but keep finding reasons not to attend. Relish in the unfamiliar and explore new opportunities. They might surprise you. It can be nervewracking to dive into the unknown, but we urge you to take that in stride.

To the upperclassmen who have likely heard some or all of this advice before, we invite you to consider it once again. The beginning of the year is the perfect time to view campus through fresh eyes; if we are not reimagining Georgetown every year, we are holding it back from becoming a better place for the people who come after us. It can be easy to grow used to the way things are and remain stagnant, but don’t forget: in everything we do, we form the foundation that future students will use to imagine and enact change. Let’s make it the best it can be.

Even among challenges that may sometimes feel insurmountable, there are exciting and creative things to do, places to see, and people to meet. So when—not if—you take the Hilltop by storm, we hope you will step into your responsibilities with enthusiasm and leave Georgetown having made a positive difference for the school and yourself.

Much love,

The Voice Editorial Board

On Cape Cod, a "surReAl" sumMer batTinG amonG tHe besT

BY GRAHAM KREWINGHAUS

Ipull into the parking lot of the Falmouth Rec Center on June 13 to find it completely full of fans looking for a good game of Cape Cod Baseball League (CCBL) play. I park at Staples a block away.

When I make it back to the ballpark, I scan the bench of the Falmouth Commodores for #1. He’s not there. I look at the plate. Not there, either. I look at first base, but he’s already gone.

Michael Eze (CAS ’24) makes a break for second, beating the pitcher’s throw to steal the base. Then he steals third. Then, on a catcher’s error, he trots home.

Eze put the Commodores up 1-0 before they’d even registered a hit. He was released by the team the next week. Roster turnover is more than common in the early weeks of the CCBL, the premier collegiate summer league; it’s practically the law.

But Eze wasn’t out of it yet. On July 27, he got a call from the Commodores.

“I was at the beach with one of my friends from home,” Eze said. “You can’t pass up playing in the Cape, so the next day I drove from, like, 6

for college ballplayers. At every game, kids line the fences, asking for autographs from every player they can reach—because, as the prevailing wisdom goes, many will be in the big leagues soon enough.

Eze was one of four Hoyas who made an appearance in the CCBL this year at a time when Georgetown baseball seems to improve on school records every season—recently notching its first conference tournament win in May and getting a player drafted in the third round of the MLB draft in June.

On the Cape alongside Eze, catcher Owen Carapellotti (CAS ’25) played for the Orleans Firebirds throughout the summer, accompanied at points by outfielder Jake Hyde (SFS ’24) and pitcher Everett Catlett (CAS ’24).

Another familiar face joined Eze in Falmouth: the Georgetown team’s student manager Willie Baker (MSB ’25). Baker is from nearby Mashpee and worked as a dugout coach for the Commodores, whom he grew up watching.

“It’s been surreal,” he said. “We got pictures of me signing autographs for kids, and I think, wow, that kid was me. Some of my teammates would laugh at games where a foul ball goes up and you see 30 kids running everywhere trying to

Baker recalled watching the ball sail over the outfield fence in Eze’s stellar return game. Because of the roster turnover, he said, only one other player on the team had even been there for

“All the pitchers in the bullpen were like, ‘Wait, who is this guy? We already had him?’” Baker said. “And I was just so

The Commodores, exciting as they were in the regular season, made an unfortunately s with two first-round losses. On the other side of the Cape, the Firebirds turned it on late with the help of last-minute addition Catlett, who was brought up after his

“My team lost at 9:30 at night; I had my bags packed and I was driving up to Orleans by 10,” Catlett said. “I checked into my hotel at, like, 4 a.m., fell asleep, woke up at 8 o’clock, got up to Orleans at like

take the win on a grand slam in the eighth.

Though the Firebirds made it to the championship series streaking hot, it wasn’t all positives this summer, Carapellotti acknowledged. He felt he went through difficult stretches in his offense, and his biggest takeaway from the summer was how to handle failure and bounce back.

But ultimately, he said, the opportunity to play in the CCBL would have been hard to pass up.

“In Game 3 there were over 7,000 fans,” Carape llotti said of the championship series. “That was really cool.”

“I hadn’t pitched in front of that many people before—I was trying not to let it get to me,” Catlett said. “As a lefty pitcher, you look down the first base line where there’s like 2,000 people right there. So they’re sorta all up in your face when you’re a lefty pitcher at Eldredge Park.”

Unfortunately, the Firebirds came up short in the championship series—Catlett again took the mound while the Firebirds were trailing and played well in Game 1, but the team couldn’t muster the runs to make a comeback. They went on to lose in three.

But the real disappointment? Because of the roster turnover, the Orleans Hoyas never got to play the Falmouth Hoyas head-to-head.

“Me and Owen were talking trash the entire time, like, ‘Oh, if I get down there, I’m stealing every time I get on base,’” Eze said, laughing. “So he lucked out a little bit.”

Carapellotti didn’t consider himself lucky. “He rejoined them a day or two after we played them for the last time,” he said. “He knew I was gonna throw him out if he played me.”

The urban myth of rural life

BY KAMI STEFFENAUER

When you hear the word “rural,” what do you think of? Miles and miles of cornfields? Whatever image may have come to your mind, let me offer you mine: I think of my sister and me sitting down at our favorite local coffee shop, sipping lavender honey lattes as we run into multiple friends from high school, who are off at college studying everything from cybersecurity to bioengineering.

My guess is you didn’t have that picture in your head. Why? Because when many of you read the word “rural,” you already have preconceived notions of what the word means.

The majority of these perceptions are less than flattering, painting people from rural areas as uneducated, uncouth white people proudly donning infamous MAGA hats and espousing bigoted ideologies regarding minority groups. Yet these details are often overemphasized, leading to the idea that rural voters are the opposite of their urban, liberal counterparts. Studies on rural voters highlight a greater level of diversity in opinions and demographics that are not often seen or acknowledged by urban voters—although rural areas still underrepresent communities of color compared to their urban counterparts, Asian and Hispanic communities in rural areas have grown by 60 percent in the past decade. In addition, rural people do not often see themselves represented in either local or national news stories, meaning mainstream representation of rural life is often limited or inaccurate.

Many rural communities were created through socioeconomic and racial isolation, from English settlers looking to profit off Southern cash crops to European immigrants escaping religious and political persecution in the U.S.’s urban centers. Yet not all rural inhabitants made the choice to move there. Historically, enslaved people were forced to live on remote plantations, and after the Emancipation Proclamation, faced financial barriers—at times, even bodily harm—in moving to urban areas due to postbellum sharecropping and Jim Crow-era racism. Rural

communities, while not a monolith, are likely to be more homogenous than metropolitan areas.

The negative stereotypes surrounding people in rural areas tend to undermine the problems faced by these individuals. Rural communities were once an integral part of the American economic system through farming, mining, and local economies. But in the last 50 years, these industries have fallen into despair as industrial jobs have been shipped overseas by megacorporations, stripping people of financial independence and access to healthcare along with other resources—disparities exacerbated by an individual’s race and ethnicity.

This surface-level understanding of rural history and culture has permeated Georgetown, resulting in prevalent stereotypes of rural people as prejudiced and uneducated, even for individuals in higher education. From being called a hick (who even says that anymore?) to witnessing an outlandish comparison between cannibals and rural Iowans, my first semester at Georgetown showed me that those at Georgetown are not exempt from these biases. So, if bias against people from rural communities permeates our campus, why are we not proactively addressing it?

As a four-year university, Georgetown attracts students pursuing careers that require non-manual training, such as attorneys, politicians, and business people: white-collar jobs often concentrated in urban or suburban areas. Since kids who grew up in white-collar homes are more likely to pursue whitecollar careers and attend college, students at universities—especially elite universities like Georgetown—are more likely to come from urban and suburban areas. Rural students, on the other hand, tend to have blue-collar parents and are more likely to obtain blue-collar jobs and attend alternative learning establishments like trade schools. And while nearly 90 percent of Americans believe trade schools won’t generate high-paying jobs, more than a third of Americans choose to attend one, highlighting the bias that most impacts rural communities.

At Georgetown, this prejudice is so pervasive that many either ignore or actively perpetrate it. I can still remember the heat flooding my cheeks when a professor compared me to a “country bumpkin” who “made it to the big city” in the middle of class, as if where I was raised had anything to do with my intelligence, success, or life goals. At Georgetown, we’ve gotten so used to categorizing people from rural areas as lesser-than that we accept it as a hardwired truth instead of a cultural construct.

Another reason this bias is rarely discussed stems from the lack of academic resources we have to study it. It’s quite likely that since people from rural areas face more barriers in joining the highest levels of academia—like having limited local access to higher post-secondary education—there is no academic field of ‘rural studies’ or college courses that critically analyze the history and current situation.

The conversation must also begin within the Georgetown community by asking rural students, staff, and faculty about what they need and want to achieve full inclusion. Directly naming and discussing this “anti-rural bias” in conversations about socioeconomic elitism and inclusion is an important first step toward remedying it. Students from rural areas are already directing this initiative with actions like forming an affinity group or advocating for classes on rural studies. Institutional recognition and support can help address the pervasive cultural bias displayed by professors and students. But that doesn’t mean we can do it alone. What we need is for people to start examining their own blind spots on the subject and to inform themselves by asking rural members of our community about our experiences. I’m happy to share my story, and trust me, I’m not the only one.

When you think of the word “rural,” perhaps you also think of intense hometown pride, and you’re not wrong; my roots run deep, and I’d love to share my regionality with y’all. So just ask and listen, and we can move that much closer to ending Georgetown’s anti-rural bias.

Georgetown forced to rethink admissions as affirmative action is struck down

BY ANGELENA BOUGIAMAS

Georgetown will be one of many institutions of higher education forced to reconsider its admissions practices this fall following a Supreme Court decision on June 29 that ruled affirmative action unconstitutional. In response to the ruling, the university emphasized a commitment to diversity as well as recruitment and support programs for students of all backgrounds, though how the admissions process will be affected remains unclear.

Advocates of affirmative action argue diversity is necessary at elite institutions to provide equitable access to higher education, job opportunities, and potential economic advancement, especially to historically marginalized or underserved communities.

“[The ruling] goes against precedent, it goes against legal doctrine, it misconstrues the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, and what it does is it further entrenches inequality,” associate professor and director of the Georgetown Law Racial Equity in Education Law and Policy Clinic Janel George said.

Georgetown has filed three amicus briefs in the last 20 years to support the legality of affirmative action. The university’s most recently filed brief was cited in Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissenting opinion of the ruling that banned affirmative action on June 29. The brief argued that race-conscious admissions were “key” to the university’s Jesuit spirit, which encourages a commitment to the common good, social justice, and service to others.

The 6-3 ruling overturned legal precedent on affirmative action dating back to 1978, prompting the university to release several statements hinting at its next steps.

“I’m looking forward to deploying all permissible measures available to us so we can benefit from the tremendous advantages that flow from a diverse campus community,” Olabisi Okubadejo, Georgetown’s associate vice president of equal opportunity, affirmative action, and compliance, said in the university’s response to the ruling on June 29.

A spokesperson for the university cited various recruitment initiatives as ways that the university has and will continue to encourage diversity on campus, including DC Reads, the Institute for College Preparation, and the Summer College Immersion Program, which provide pre-college academic preparation.

“Georgetown will pursue all available efforts to cultivate and support a diverse Hoya community,” a university spokesperson wrote to the Voice. The spokesperson declined to specify what actual changes will be made in response to the Supreme Court ruling.

As universities navigate the new legal landscape, applicants, advocacy groups, and law firms will be watching their next move.

“The real issue here is America’s profound racist history. Affirmative action, race-conscious affirmative action was essentially a band-aid on a gaping wound,” research professor and director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce Anthony Carnevale said.

“I think that it’s slim pickings on remedying the results of the cases,” he added.

In the majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts sanctioned the consideration of race in situations in which race is tied to an applicant’s individual character, like in applicants’ personal essays. Other possible adjustments to admissions practices include a heavier consideration of applicants’ economic background, eliminating legacy admissions, and increasing financial aid. Georgetown currently provides preferential admission to descendants of faculty, staff, and alumni, in addition to GU272 descendants, though legacy status only impacts admissions for students on the border of acceptance and rejection.

A study Carnevale co-authored concluded that class-conscious admissions models can potentially help level the playing field for applicants of color.

“Racism and classism are distinct but overlapping phenomena that operate most powerfully in combination,” Carnevale and the coauthors wrote in the study.

Despite potential mitigation efforts, Carnevale and numerous experts agree: the loss of affirmative action will nearly undoubtedly impact the attendance of Black and Latino students at universities. With primary and secondary education in the U.S. shaped by disparities in resources, teachers, and funding that exist largely along racial lines, affirmative action was one of the few tools available for colleges to account for these differences in opportunity.

“In a way, our K-12 system is the source of the problem,” Carnevale said. “The colleges are the end of that game. They’re the capstone on the system, so they’re going to get blamed.”

Some, like Richard Kahlenberg, writer and expert witness for the plaintiffs, applauded the ruling in hopes of a greater use of economicconscious admissions.

“Universities like Harvard and UNC tried to achieve racial justice on the cheap by recruiting fairly well-off students of color to be on campus alongside of even wealthier white and Asian students,” Kahlenberg wrote to the Voice. “I hope universities reach out to meaningful numbers of low-income and working-class students as a new way of producing racial diversity and stop giving affirmative action to the rich in the form of legacy preferences and preferences for the children of faculty and donors.”

Nonetheless, it is unclear the extent to which economic-conscious admissions can be deployed as a means of increasing racial diversity since the ruling explicitly bans raceconscious admission. For some institutions, economic-conscious admissions also can force universities to take on increased costs when fewer students who can pay full tuition are admitted, according to Carnevale. His study found that effectively increasing socioeconomic diversity at selective universities often requires considering race in the admissions process.

“One thing that is relatively clear, I think, at least the college presidents I talked to, they’re going to try. They’re very nervous,” Carnevale said.

This year’s admissions cycle will put admissions reforms to the test as colleges that see diversity as central to their educational missions seek to maintain it.

“All students deserve access to an education that is eye-opening, that may challenge some of their assumptions, that inspires them to learn and grow,” George said. “And that’s what I hope education will continue to be, a place where students can grow and learn and reflect, engage in selfreflection, and collaborate with peers and people of all different backgrounds.”

Georgetown's Qatar campus: A cultural exchange and a bid for soft power

BY BELINDA LI

Many Georgetown students are not well-informed on the happenings of the Georgetown community in Qatar (GUQ). The most recent or prominent interaction some may have had is mistaking GU-Q classes for main campus classes in MyAccess. But the school is more than a registration roadblock.

“I think it’s very striking that there’s an entire other Georgetown University campus that exists on the planet that so many people on our campus either don’t know about or know very superficial things about and haven’t really engaged with in a meaningful way,” Sanchi Rohira (SFS ’24), a main campus student who studied abroad at GU-Q during the spring 2023 semester, said.

A Jesuit university in a Muslim country, Georgetown University in Qatar acts as a space for people of different faiths, ethnicities, and cultures to engage and learn from one another’s perspectives. It is also part of an education initiative to provide higher education to both Qataris and international students while generating soft power for Qatar.

by invitation of the Qatar Foundation (QF), an organization founded by former emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani and his second wife Sheikha Moza bint Nasser to encourage domestic education and research. Neighboring GU-Q are international branches of five other U.S. universities, one British, one French, and a local Qatari university as a part of Education City, a QF development that began in 1998. Each university satellite campus has its own specialty—among them are journalism, art, and, of course, Georgetown’s specialty, international politics. Although fully funded by QF, GU-Q operates autonomously and reports directly to the provost in D.C., just like the various schools on Georgetown’s main campus.

“[Education City] is like a little college town, but it’s gated. So what we would call ‘campus’ at our D.C. campus would actually be Education City in Qatar. The Georgetown campus in Qatar is actually just one building,” Rohira said. As a whole, Education City comprises a total of 4.6 square miles; Georgetown’s D.C. campus is only 0.1625 square miles.

in many respects, it is distinct from her previous three years on the D.C. campus.

“[Qatar] is a conservative society. And that’s not a judgment. It is an observant society, religiously. That’s something that one should respect,” Safwan Masri, the dean of GU-Q, said. “I think our presence over there is quite significant because we’re a Jesuit university.”

The placement of a Jesuit university in a Muslim country (constitutionally, Islam is Qatar’s official religion) is not in conflict, according to professors and administrators. Rather, it provides the opportunity for students to engage in cross-cultural connections.

“Although Georgetown is a Jesuit school, it also instills in students these values that I think are universal, and that cross quite many other religions as well, including Islam,” Zarqa Parvez, a GU-Q assistant professor, explained.

Qatar’s cultural norms necessitate certain rules and structures, like gender-segregated dorms, with male and female dorms on opposite sides of Education City, and a dress code where shoulders and knees are to be covered. While

many aspects of Arab and Muslim culture may feel unfamiliar to American students and many professors and attendees, learning to adapt and coexist is part of the inherent value of studying abroad in Qatar.

“To be a global citizen, you need to be able to negotiate a fair conscience. You need to be able to operate effectively in different parts of the world,” Masri said. “You grow by being uncomfortable. If you’re always comfortable, then you’re complacent, and you’re not growing, and you’re not evolving.”

Interreligious life is not as comprehensive nor as emphasized at GU-Q as within the D.C. campus. There are, however, abundant opportunities to learn about Islamic culture; the Museum of Islamic Art is less than 10 miles away from GU-Q’s campus, and students are offered the option of attending religious services at the mosque and breaking fast with their Muslim peers during Ramadan.

“It was really beautiful to be able to interact with Muslim culture and Arab and Qatari culture that closely and be part of traditions with so many people that started to be like family to us and really brought us into their lives,” Rohira said.

Qatar’s central location in the Middle East makes it accessible to people from a variety of countries and allows the campus to curate a diverse student body. The student body is roughly one-third Qatari, one-third non-Qatari foreigners who reside in Qatar, and one-third international students, according to Masri. Collectively, students at GU-Q represent over 50 nationalities and five continents, according to GU-Q’s website.

Notably, QF provides funding for needand merit-based scholarships for students; unlike most American universities, it doesn’t limit these scholarships to domestic residents, making it an attractive option for international students.

In the classroom, this diversity of backgrounds has proven eye-opening to some American students studying at GU-Q, including Rohira. On the first day of her Lawfare and Warfare class, Rohira said her professor asked who in the class had been directly or indirectly impacted by war. Every single person raised their hand.

“What that told me was not only how diverse the backgrounds were of the people that were in the class and in the university, but also it speaks to how much richer the conversation in the classroom will be when people have a personal stake,” Rohira said.

Parvez welcomes disagreements between students holding different beliefs; to her, it is an essential component of healthy discussion that allows students to broaden their perspectives.

“Until coming to Georgetown, people have already gone through multiple education

systems, and they already have certain belief systems and upbringing and experiences that shape their perceptions of the world,” Parvez said. “What I can do best is to help them unlearn some of that, or to at least challenge that what they might hear today may not resonate with them or might challenge their belief system, and that is absolutely very healthy.”

Another unique aspect of the GU Qatar community is its cross-university integration within Education City. All students, regardless of university affiliation, live together in QF dorms. Students also have the opportunity to crossregister to take classes and attend events hosted by other universities.

Qatar’s investment in international education initiatives also serves as a source of soft power on the world stage. Hosting satellite campuses of well-established universities like Georgetown supports Qatar’s diplomatic efforts through international engagement and building its reputation, and attracts students to stay and work in the country.

“It is also a form of soft diplomacy. More people come from all over the world and study in Qatar,” Masri said. “Many of those students end up staying in Qatar and working in Qatar. So Qatar is a country that, because of its small population, relies a lot on—if you will—foreign expertise and skills.”

Establishing a global education hub is also part of creating an image, which is also part of Qatar’s security strategy in a region of constant conflict, according to David Roberts, associate professor at King’s College London. To him, many of Qatar’s actions are taken as preparation for conflict: if it were to be invaded, Qatar would want the world to be aware of the country—and subsequently such threats and events.

“Everything—from Al-Jazeera, to the gas, to the U.S. relationship, to the educational stuff, to the museums, to the sport, the culture—[is] about creating a huge image for Qatar around the Middle East, Asia, around the world,” Roberts explained.

Despite its efforts, Qatar has faced backlash due to its laws that limit the rights of women and LGBTQ+ individuals. Male guardianship rules are in place, and same-sex couples can face prison time. Its hosting of the 2022 World Cup was similarly controversial for its use of migrant laborers in exploitative conditions under the Kafala system. While some students have criticized Georgetown’s establishment in Qatar, others contend that its presence contributes to broader social change.

To Roberts, a liberal education equips individuals to foster change from the bottom up. “I think it’s more about creating global citizens … who are fundamentally more open to begin with to all of these ideas, and then just opening their eyes. And, so change comes slowly,” he said.

Roberts sees hosting these world-class institutions as a long-term economic strategy as well. “[The founders of QF] fundamentally believed in the importance of trying to give

Qataris a liberal Western education, based in English, critical reasoning, all these sorts of things because they wanted to prepare Qataris for the post-oil and gas future, economic diversification, all these kinds of things,” Roberts said.

“I believe it’s part of the vision of a knowledge economy through which the country would train people to capitalize on their intellectual output, innovation and scientific research,” Parvez said. “The resources of the country, as one of the richest countries with ambitious development plans, allow it to invest in such projects, [and] therefore the ability to bring in well renowned American branch campuses to Qatar.”

As QF searches for more international partners, Georgetown hopes to expand its international presence in Qatar. While the expansion is in the preliminary stages, Masri hopes that more students will study at the Qatar campus and more faculty from the main campus will teach there. He hopes that as more people around the world learn about GU-Q and apply to undergraduate and master’s programs, selectivity in admissions will increase. For GUQ’s class of 2025, its acceptance rate was around 28 percent.

“It is a great opportunity for the university to engage with the world and contribute to its development, and to contribute to education, particularly women’s education,” Masri said. In the 2021-22 academic year, GU-Q enrolled nearly twice as many female students as male students.

Georgetown also hopes to expand the course offerings beyond those for the School of Foreign Service. Every 10 years, Georgetown renews and renegotiates its agreement with QF to better reflect its evolving goals for the Qatar campus. The last time the agreement was renewed in 2015, the decision was made to broaden the School of Foreign Service in Qatar (SFS-Q) to Georgetown University in Qatar, although courses remain limited to core requirements and major courses in the SFS-Q.

Masri is working with colleagues at the D.C. campus, including the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, to create opportunities that will attract more students to spend a semester abroad in Qatar. Masri has considered additional fields of study including energy, Middle Eastern geopolitics, and Arabic.

To students, however, the invaluable experience of learning firsthand about Arab and Muslim culture, as well as interacting with an international and diverse community, is the biggest pull. Rohira hopes that more main campus students will study there in the future.

“I was able to really just take a step back from my life at Georgetown in D.C. and look at things with a broader eye for once to see that there’s not just one way to do things and there’s not just one way to look at the world,” Rohira said. “There are different lives you can live and different ways that you can look at the world, and they can all be simultaneously good and true.”

Barbie: a return to monoculture

BY FRANCESCA THEOFILOU

On July 21, masses of moviegoers dressed in head-to-toe pink and flocked to theaters in a show of solidarity unprecedented in modern cinema. Strangers complimented each other on their inventive outfits in the bathroom, and gushed about what they hoped this movie could be. Greta Gerwig’s Barbie (2023) had swept the nation, surpassing the box office sales of all former Warner Brothers movies, and still draws in crowds over a month later.

With an ever-growing catalog of films to choose from, this degree of shared interest seemed like a thing of the past. We no longer watch the same movies or tune in each week for a TV show together. Spoiled by choice, with massive catalogs now available at the tap of a button, streaming allows nearly everyone to burrow into their own niche subgenres of media.

This summer, however, pink has dominated, in both the box office and the zeitgeist—so much so that it may have temporarily revived the Anglo-American monoculture—pop culture marked by homogeneity.

The film’s success began in its press run. Beginning with the “She’s Barbie, he's just Ken” Instagram posts, Barbie uses the existing brand to let us envision ourselves as Barbies. Barbie is also uniquely suited to monoculture mania because of its instantly recognizable, immersive world. The film is a masterclass in cohesive art direction and worldbuilding, creating an elaborate Barbieland through the life-size replication of real Barbies, costumes, and dreamhouses. The vibrant, glittery costumes emphasize the unique traits of each Barbie, but still allow for Robbie—who often dons pastels and light colors in Barbieland—to stand out.

Barbie follows Robbie’s Barbie and her friends living in Barbieland, a colorful, fantastical matriarchy where women (the Barbies) hold all positions of power and men (the Kens) hang out around them. When Barbie begins to experience nightmare scenarios like thoughts of death and flat feet, she goes to the real world to help the girl playing with her. Appalled, Barbie finds that the real world is nothing like she expected: here, sexism and misogyny dominates.

Barbie returns to Barbieland with human companions Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt) and her mom Gloria (America Ferrera), only to find that

Ken (Ryan Gosling) has brought patriarchy to her home. Kens have taken over all of the Barbies’ jobs and brainwashed them into dressing for men’s pleasure and attending to them with non-stop brewski beer and attention. Barbie, Sasha, and Gloria must break the Barbies out of their trance, reclaim their world, and create an equitable society where both Barbies and Kens feel appreciated.

Defying expectations, Barbie isn’t just a pretty pink playground: the film depicts the beauty and triumphs of girlhood alongside the heartbreaking reality of sexism gracefully. The contrast between the paradisiacal Barbieland and the ever-present threat of gender violence in the real world is at the movie’s core. One of the most telling scenes is when Barbie is sexually harassed and catcalled for the first time—this moment feels like an awful rite of passage most women have encountered. (70% of girls experience street harassment by age 13.) Throughout the movie, the commentary is steeped in humor to force the audience to laugh first, then pause to think: why is this funny? Was Barbie in the wrong for assuming she could roam freely without being harassed? The scene struck a chord with women who recall the moment they had the same revelation: to some, they existed solely as objects of desire.

The film also resonated in its representations of the positive (if bittersweet) aspects of girlhood. Towards the end, the film departs from candy-colored Barbieland with a montage of real women in all stages of life set to Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?” Gerwig had asked members of the cast and crew to submit videos of the women in their lives, which help Barbie feel the human experience. The emotional song—Eilish’s soft vocals contrasted by a swelling orchestra capture the heartwarming yet heartbreaking duality of growing up in the real world—is combined with raw, real videos and images of motherhood, community, and girlhood.

The most pivotal scene is when Gloria delivers a monologue about how exhausting it is to be a woman constantly subjected to contradictory criticism. Women are told they are too fat or thin regardless of appearance, and too vain for caring; too meek if they are quiet but too

loud if they dare to speak their minds.

Critics of this moment have expressed that it is an elementary take on feminism, and society has moved beyond this revelation. However, this take is missing context. The speech is not for us, but for Barbie, a woman displaced from her ‘perfect society,’ who just learned about sexism, misogyny, and more that same week. Gloria’s speech is addressed to the younger versions of ourselves who discover the unfair reality of what being a woman, femme, or person assigned female at birth means in our world. What Gloria says may not be revolutionary, but it is rare that these experiences are so explicitly acknowledged on screen. Gerwig successfully addresses sexism and feminism in a manner palatable to all ages.

Barbie, of course, has never just been for women, and as such, the movie attempts to tackle both the complexities of womanhood and of gender as a whole. Take Allan, for example; his pronouns are he/him in the film, but as an outlier in Barbieland, he can be interpreted as nonbinary. While Barbies and Kens form a rudimentary gender binary, Allan is the only of his kind, and lies outside of this structure. Allan’s willingness to help the Barbies overthrow the patriarchy illustrates the zero-sum game of this oppressive system—a truth that Gosling’s Ken comes to realize when he must constantly suppress his emotions. Barbies are forced into submissive roles of service, but Kens are also forced to be tough, cold-hearted cowboys. There is no room outside the binary, creating a simultaneously dull and dangerous society.

Despite the challenges of making a film constrained by the history of a major corporation, Gerwig and the Barbie team managed to use the doll’s iconic image to communicate a message about the harm of misogyny, gender roles, and patriarchy to a vast audience. Better yet, due to the incredible acting, writing, and art direction, the flawlessly-executed film remains wildly funny and entertaining without getting bogged down by its important, yet weighty messaging. By crafting a film with potential to feel universally personal, Barbie brought a comforting sense of community to movie theaters across the world this summer.

BY SOFIA KEMENY

“Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to man. For this, he was chained to a rock and tortured for eternity.”

Against a backdrop of roaring fire, the epigraph that opens Oppenheimer (2023) foreshadows the intense, apocalyptic nature of the film. It is unlike anything we have seen in recent cinema, emanating a heightened sense of violent tension without any of the graphic violence typical of a war film. Even among director Christopher Nolan’s impressive oeuvre, Oppenheimer is his magnum opus.

Oppenheimer follows the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, inventor of the atomic bomb, played by a gaunt and dramatically intense Cillian Murphy. Structured à la The Social Network (2010), the film cuts between three legacy-defining events: the creation of the atomic bomb during World War II, the trial that would revoke Oppenheimer’s security clearance, and politician Robert Strauss’s (Robert Downey Jr.) confirmation hearing for the position of U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union. While the constant back-and-forth between scenes was jarring, the rapid pace enlivened this three-hour monster of a film.

We first meet Oppenheimer in 1926 during his studies at Cambridge, where his flippant attitude toward human life is quickly established. After his professor slights him, Oppenheimer injects cyanide into an apple on the professor’s desk, attempting to kill him for insulting his intellect. While he regrets his decision and retrieves it before anyone takes a bite, Oppenheimer has already revealed himself as a prideful egomaniac acting in his own self-interest.

Murphy plays Oppenheimer with a swagger that seems incongruous with his appearance; with hollowed cheeks and a lanky stature, Murphy more closely resembles a frail Victorian boy than a diabolical scientist responsible for unparalleled human destruction. However, Murphy expertly imbues him with an eerily composed demeanor that opposes his physicality. As Oppenheimer is lauded by his idol, physicist Niels Bohr (Kenneth Branagh), he accepts this admiration without apprehension or celebration, acknowledging that his intellect warrants praise. While Oppenheimer presents as a frail shell of a man, his mind and pride make him a formidable figure.

After establishing himself as an expert in quantum physics, Oppenheimer is sought out by the U.S. military to lead the Manhattan Project: the plan to create the world’s first atomic bomb. As Oppenheimer and his colleagues work diligently to construct

the bomb, there is shockingly little forethought to the impact of a weapon of mass destruction on humankind.

Nolan demonstrates his mastery of storytelling by harnessing the audience’s knowledge of the bomb and its devastating effects in Hiroshima and Nagasaki to create highstakes dramatic irony. As the Manhattan Project accelerates, there’s an impending sense of dread that accompanies the construction of the atomic bomb. Military officials decide where to drop the bombs with a disgustingly glib approach. When one of the officials declares that the bomb should not be dropped on Kyoto as he honeymooned there, the audience witnesses firsthand how American exceptionalism gave the government the gall to play God. Through the dichotomy of the “mundane” actions of those involved in the Manhattan Project and the destruction the bomb will bring, Nolan induces a sickening helplessness, as we can do nothing but watch the Manhattan Project usher in the nuclear age.

The scene that established Oppenheimer as Christopher Nolan’s magnum opus was the Trinity test of the atomic bomb in New Mexico. The swelling score and the chitterchatter of anxious military officials and scientists in the twilight of the New Mexico desert evoked a twisted sense of passion among participants that the Manhattan Project needed to be successful––even if success meant unprecedented destruction. None embodied this corrupt attitude more than Oppenheimer. For him, the Manhattan Project was legacy-defining. Any semblance of

failure would injure his reputation, and, consequently, his fragile ego. The inevitable consequences of his tireless work, which would conjure insatiable feelings of regret, were yet to be seen.

Once the test bomb is detonated, the audience faces a wall of silence. Instead of the instant cacophony of noise that usually follows a blockbuster explosion, Nolan stops time. The fire swirls around the desert, with each individual flame thrashing against the screen. As the audience waits for the aftermath with a pit in our stomachs, Oppenheimer comes to his own dreadful realization, declaring, “I am become death”—a line pulled from the Bhagavad Gita and robbed of its spiritual context. From now on, the world will forever be divided into two periods: pre- and post-atomic bomb. Oppenheimer is living in a historical moment of his own creation, but it is characterized by ruin. The world will forever remember him—but not in the way he wants.

The audience sees nothing of the destruction of Nagasaki and Hiroshima—a controversial directorial choice that established the movie as one about Oppenheimer, the man, without using Japanese lives as torture porn. The lack of focus on the populations most directly impacted by the bomb, including both the Japanese victims and the Indigenous inhabitants of New Mexico, continues a long history of silencing the victims of this tragedy, but not without cause. On the other hand, keeping the story anchored in Oppenheimer’s own narrative is further demonstration of the scientist’s self-centeredness.

Not showing the destruction in Japan kept the film focused on the impossible—but inherently human—journey of establishing a legacy when we have little say in how we are remembered. After the deployment of the bomb, Oppenheimer’s realization that his Frankenstein-esque creation was not for his own use or mere accolades turned him to ruin; his weapon of mass destruction was always for the U.S. government to use however it liked. Oppenheimer was never the one to deploy the bomb, but the responsibility he undertook in its creation has stained his hands crimson. Oppenheimer literally played with fire, and he will feel the burns for the rest of his life.

Nolan urges us to look at the things we have created and think critically about the destruction they may cause; he is begging us to learn from our past. Oppenheimer is a war film unlike any we’ve seen before; that’s because it’s not a war film. It’s a fragment of history immortalized.

followed by the Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAGAFTRA) on July 14. Both organizations walked out after contract negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) failed to produce satisfactory agreements.

Both WGA and SAG-AFTRA have published a comprehensive list of similar demands that the AMPTP has failed to meet. These include higher financial compensation from streaming, industry guidelines for using artificial intelligence, and standard worker protections. Critically, SAGAFTRA highlighted that pension and healthcare contribution ceilings for actors have not increased in 40 years to account for inflation—a particularly vicious fact given that only 12 percent of union members currently qualify for health insurance. Regarding AI regulation, WGA is open to employing AI tools in the writing process but wants to ensure that writers won’t consequently lose credit or residuals; for their part, SAG-AFTRA is fighting to protect actors’ likenesses from being artificially reproduced without consent and compensation.

These demands aren’t excessive—they’re long overdue. But the AMPTP is labeling them impractical: Disney’s CEO, Bob Iger, accused the unions of being unrealistic, referring to their decision to strike as “disturbing.” But in July, SAG-AFTRA granted interim agreements to 39 independent projects. These agreements permit actors to continue filming with certain non-AMPTP-affiliated projects, including two films from A24. If an independent studio like A24 could meet every demand, it’s unclear why the world’s biggest entertainment companies find them unreasonable.

This walkout marks the first joint strike of Hollywood’s writers and actors in over 60 years. In 1960, SAG (not yet merged with AFTRA) joined the month-long WGA strike in a landmark double strike that won salary raises and a pension system. It also standardized the pay structure of residuals, ensuring writers and actors would receive a percentage of income made from reruns or other airings after initial release.

industry work in 1960, streaming services and artificial intelligence are the 2023 strikers’ main grievances—eerily resonant of past existential concerns surrounding Hollywood employment under disruptive technology.

As of publication, major studios like Disney and Paramount have adamantly refused to meet both unions’ demands. In her speech announcing SAG-AFTRA’s strike, President Fran Drescher likened the AMPTP’s behavior at the negotiation table to moving around furniture on the Titanic— superficial and futile. Choosing to walk off set wasn’t a decision made lightly, but a commitment driven by the fact that while Hollywood’s business models have radically changed, employee contracts have not, trapping workers on a sinking ship.

While the lack of movement from these big studios is indicative of larger issues in entertainment, it is the alleged actions of these studios outside the negotiation rooms that truly reflect their intransigence. Universal Studios allegedly illegally trimming trees that provided shade to picketing guild members amid record-breaking heat waves is only one of several instances of suspected anti-strike efforts. Shady tactics like this make one thing clear: studios and their executives lack empathy and would rather force the two unions into a stalemate than attempt to compromise. Moreover, the coincidental push to raise streaming prices reinforces long-standing narratives that wrongly place the cost of fair labor practices on consumers.

In spite of these suspect practices, members of both unions remain steadfast in their commitment to uphold the strike, even though many members have already begun to feel the financial impact. In an interview with Evening Standard, Tony-award winner Billy Porter shared that he had to sell his home in California.

“The life of an artist, until you make fuckyou money—which I haven’t made yet—is still check-to-check,” he said.

Audiences have also started feeling the effects of the strike, although in less impactful ways. The

pose an unprecedented drought for Hollywood entertainment—especially ironic given streaming price hikes. Award shows have already been postponed several months in advance, and future releases have seen multiple delays amid the halt in production.

Promotional interviews and red-carpet appearances from stars have also noticeably disappeared. For instance, the red carpet premiere of Oppenheimer (2023) saw the entire cast walk out in solidarity with the SAG-AFTRA strike. Still, the big studios remain the least impacted and have the most to gain if the strikes are unsuccessful as they will continue to find other avenues to make a profit, like taking advantage of non-unionized influencers.

Recognizing the weight of these strikes and what is at stake, we as viewers have a certain responsibility to support the unions in their fight—we can donate to the Entertainment Community Fund or join picket lines. But even if the strikes are successful in the short term, the conversation surrounding fair compensation in Hollywood cannot end there.

Real change needs to be implemented to reflect the conditions of an ever-evolving entertainment industry. Writers and actors should not only be justly compensated for their worth, but they should also receive fair protections from non-consensual replication of their likenesses in a world where the capabilities of AI stray closer to science fiction every day.

Other Hollywood factions, such as VFX artists and reality TV stars, are also beginning the process of unionizing. As more issues within the entertainment industry garner attention in the public eye, the corporate greed at the root of these predatory labor practices has been brought further into the spotlight. While each day raises the stakes for those at the picket line, their call to action can be amplified. At this crossroads, only a complete overhaul of Hollywood’s flawed labor system can do strikers justice.

"OBJECTIVITY" IN JOURNALISM NEEDS A REWRITE

BY LOU JACQUIN

Sometimes I get mad at journalists. And this is not just because I work with them and my coworkers can be annoying. My anger is directed at articles rife with what I find to be unethical reporting standards that fail to critically examine issues and ignore which voices should be heard.

I felt this outrage keenly in January when listening to an episode of The Daily, The New York Times’s daily news podcast. This particular episode, “An Aggressive New Approach to Childhood Obesity,” discussed new American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) guidelines which recommend rather extreme interventions for children with “obesity.”

The episode missed the mark repeatedly, only briefly mentioning that a lot of “obese” people are quite healthy without explaining why: the correlation between higher BMI and health risks is loose and not causal, a fact that jeopardizes the premise of the AAP’s guidelines. It also explicitly stated that “obese” children should welcome the guidelines, and subsequently weight loss, because they are surely tired of being shamed by society. Host Michael Barbaro was mindlessly regurgitating the new rules without any critical analysis, further entrenching the idea that fat individuals are inherently ill, an idea which puts fat people at risk of social and medical discrimination.

The piece felt unethical because it refused to consider the people impacted by the guidelines, much less provide the necessary scrutiny to a subject well-entrenched in fierce, longdocumented debate. As I reflected with others, I began to wonder what standards, if any, are universally held by the journalism industry.

A news journalist’s job is often portrayed as reporting on the world in an objective manner. Objectivity aims to put emotions and personal beliefs aside and state the cold hard facts. This is often interpreted as showing both sides of a story, with the intended purpose of presenting readers with all the facts to draw their own conclusions. However, this emphasis on objectivity in journalism is problematic as it doesn’t require context, asks for two sides to be presented equally, and has been used to silence marginalized groups.

The standard of objectivity does not demand context, but it should. In the 60 Minutes episode “Recognizing and treating obesity as a disease,” Lesley Stahl reported that “[obesity is] the second leading cause of preventable death in the country after smoking,” killing 365,000 individuals every year. This statistic comes from “Years of Life Lost to Obesity,” a study which counted any death of an “obese” individual as

someone who died from obesity. These individuals, however, could have died from a number of different illnesses or confounding factors, thus rendering that figure inaccurate.

Technically speaking, Stahl simply reported the findings of a study, and thus maintained journalistic objectivity. Nevertheless, her failure to contextualize this statistic against its flawed methodology perpetuated misconceptions surrounding obesity. Journalists ought to be obligated to present the possible flaws and confounding factors in the information that they are presenting.

Another reason objectivity is problematic is that the “both sides” aren’t always equal when reporting on a topic. Framing topics as binary arguments can sometimes mean including perspectives that question the right of others to exist or that actively perpetuate harm against communities—a common example being the emphasis on detransitioning in pieces about trans healthcare. Publishing these arguments can frame detransitioning as more common than it actually is, as well as opening the door for transphobic attitudes. Especially when it comes to issues of human rights, presenting both sides harms the oppressed and supports the oppressor.

In other situations, presenting “both sides” does not ensure that all relevant parties were included. In 2022, parents sued the Montgomery County School District over its policy of not informing parents if their children choose to socially transition genders at school. An Education Week article about the lawsuit included interviews with parents as well as polls and press releases to represent both sides, but left out the voices of trans youth. The piece’s failure to interview trans people themselves means that it ignored the most important voice in the story: those directly impacted.

To remedy this exclusion, a potential solution may be to increase the number of writers from impacted communities or those who experience these issues firsthand. While some reporters choose not to report on these issues due to the high emotional toll, others find that they are most equipped to do so sensitively and responsibly; they are more knowledgeable about the issues that impact their own community and are better positioned to gain the trust of sources, ensuring that they are more true to the lived

news outlets to pull journalists off of pieces they are deemed too close to under the guise of impartiality. This policy has allowed outlets to ban sexual assault survivors from reporting on #MeToo, Black reporters from writing about police violence, and even Black reporters from covering the trial of O.J. Simpson.

These standards are outright hypocritical: white journalists are allowed to report on trials with white defendants and on white supremacy. Consequently, journalistic objectivity as a concept is weaponized against marginalized communities and perpetuates the harmful idea that whiteness is a neutral identity while every other racial identity is seen as a political position.

Used to silence writers of color, our current standards of objectivity are steeped in white supremacy. But journalism isn’t here for the few in this country who are white, cisgender, and male; journalism is the democratization of information for everyone. Reporters of color have suggested alternatives to journalistic objectivity, advocating for “moral clarity” and “intellectual honesty,” which promote transparency and diligent sourcing.

We must reimagine our standards of journalistic ethics. We must break away from both sides-ism and strive for equity rather than equality. We must make sure the people our work impacts are given the space to speak and write rather than shunted aside in the name of objectivity. This process will take a while and may change the landscape of journalism as we know it, but it is a process we must be willing to engage in for a better, more ethical future of journalism.

by nicholas riccio

How Corporate Greed damaged Baseball Cards by Trading Trust for Dollars

Fingers trembling with excitement, the crinkle of the plastic wrapping only adds to the eagerness. Could I get an Aaron Judge autograph card, or maybe a Shohei Ohtani? As the cards are pulled from the wrapper, images emerge: snapshots of triumph, an instant of maximum effort, all frozen in time. Facts scrawled across the glossy backs: a player’s bio, their stats, their entire careers condensed to 3.5 inches.

A full set of cards used to act as a yearly almanac for Major League Baseball fans. Now, a lot of “collectors” don't even bother turning the card over. Even fewer save the cards for their enjoyment. It’s all about the investment and the eventual sale. Maybe it’s a sign of the times: the nicer the cards are, the less people want to keep them. Or maybe it’s something else: the people most likely to treasure something as simple as a baseball card of their favorite player aren’t the same people who can afford to buy it anymore.

It's becoming difficult to avoid the consequences of increased profitization across America. Yes, I know profitization is not a word, but I’m at a loss trying to describe the avarice of capitalism that has engulfed every facet of this country. Corporate profits are at an all-time high, customer satisfaction is nearing an all-time low, and the middle class continues to be squeezed into extinction. Corporate greed shouldn’t have anything to do with baseball cards, but it does. And that’s the point. The profitization of baseball cards, a universal collecting hobby, is the perfect encapsulation of modern American culture.

The card collecting hobby, on its surface, seems pretty straightforward. It’s about collecting the cards of players, usually printed on 18-pound cardboard or plastic. The cards come in packs which one can open to hopefully get the

see on the shelf.

The company that’s stocking the shelves with card packs is Topps—becoming synonymous with the hobby as the biggest producer of baseball cards for decades. But after a buyout by Fanatics, the support for Topps among dedicated fans has waned. Baseball cards were already getting more expensive, but rising prices combined with Fanatics’s public missteps in the baseball card world has resulted in boxes of baseball cards collecting dust on the shelves of retail stores—a sign of corporate greed’s deteriorating effect on consumer loyalty.

Consumers bought and treasured these cards because they were snapshots of the past, providing insight into the evolution of American culture and design: the beautiful, realistic profile paintings of the 1953 set, in stark contrast to the photographs used in most years; the floating player heads of the 1960 set, when the cutouts were still done by hand; the distressed border framing player action shots of 1995, evoking successful contemporary grunge albums like Nirvana’s Nevermind (1991) and Pearl Jam’s Vitalogy (1994).

The major break in the linear progression of the cards’ pricing came about in the early ’90s. For decades, the price of packs stayed mostly the same. A five-card pack cost a nickel throughout the ’60s and a 10-card pack cost 10 to 15 cents in the ’70s; even by 1991, a normal pack of cards was still just 50 cents. Other than some short print cards, a couple of extra sets for players that had been traded, and the total number of cards in the “flagship” set yearto-year, that was everything that came through the printing press. How quaint.

Then Topps started inserting limited-edition “Topps Gold” cards into their packs, which included cards with gold-foil accents stamped on the player’s

was offering a new “super-premium” product. Called “Topps Transcendent,” it costs $25,000 (the equivalent of 50,000 card packs in 1990). The reward for such a gaudy purchase? Numerous exclusive parallels and autographs, as well as a VIP invitation to a major Topps event that features a superstar player with the opportunity for photos and autographs. The hotel stay is included, but the flight—Topps isn’t a charity after all—is not.

The “Topps Transcendent” collection feels like the “jumping the shark” moment when the baseball cards officially passed the point of being an accessible hobby and instead turned into just another industry for people with too much money to sink their vast fortunes into.

Maybe it’s always been this way, and I’ve just been naïve. But my dad used to wrap rubber bands around his baseball cards and cherish them all the same. He didn’t care about crimping the corners or damaging the surface of the cards to preserve their resale value. Neither did the kids who kept their cards in bicycle spokes to make their bikes sound like a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

But that’s not the hobby anymore. Modern collecting is now clearly separated by different tiers of products from different manufacturers, from the entry-level to the premium and even the super-premium. Topps has created a barrier to entry based on wealth. Unsurprisingly, premium boxes have come to dominate the hobby, and the most sought-after cards, such as cut autographs of players like Babe Ruth, come from boxes outside the price range of the average collector.

The modern hobby also features a new format that exploded during COVID-19: breaking. Sports card breaks are when a person, known as a “breaker,” buys an entire box, but instead of opening it and keeping the cards for themselves, they sell spots to

other individual collectors to “buy in” to the box. Instead of spending $300 on a box, for example, a collector only has to spend $20 for a single spot. The collector is randomly assigned a team for the break, and they receive any opened cards which feature a player for the designated team.

The whole breaking format is not a fad. “Unboxing” content is huge across Twitch and YouTube, with four of the 10 most popular YouTube channels in 2021 starring kids unboxing new toys, and breaking builds off the hype of watching the unknown become familiar. Breaks are also the clearest form of gambling the hobby has seen, with TikTok taking the step to ban live box breaks over worries that the practice constituted illegal gambling. Fanatics so far has ignored concerns, deciding to lean heavily into breaking and the potential profits it represents. Fanatics announced Fanatics Live, providing a platform for “breakers” to host live videos of opening packs. The most recent editions of Topps merchandise now feature better odds for valuable cards in the boxes that are bought and sold by breakers rather than those available to an average collector. The decision has been controversial, to say the least, as some high-profile breakers have been embroiled in numerous scandals relating to stealing high-value cards from those that buy into their breaks.

But Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin is no stranger to controversies. A recent unboxing video with superstar soccer player Antoine Griezmann raised eyebrows as both men managed to pull expensive cards in back-toback boxes: Rubin’s pack featured a one-of-one Mike Trout autograph relic card—worth at least $4,000—and Griezmann pulled a one-of-one Jackie Robinson autograph card—worth around

$10,000. The odds of pulling the one-of-one Jackie Robinson is one in 8,034 packs, and the one-of-one Trout is one in 8,228 packs. The odds of the pair being pulled in back-to-back boxes? Ludicrously rare—enough to warrant accusations of loaded boxes. But I know if I was still a kid watching that miracle unfold, I’d run to the nearest Target and clear out the shelves, chasing a similar-quality card and helping Fanatics reach their sales targets in the process.

Fanatics is the future of the hobby in the U.S. because it will soon be the only game in town for licensed cards, and even the appearance that it is unfairly distributing its strongest cards and boxes undermines the integrity of the hobby— although Rubin has theoretically promised to be more transparent. Associations with unfair practices can and likely will hurt the value of boxes. After all, few people will spend money on a product where the best cards have already been taken out of circulation. As Fanatics continues to try to corner the sports memorabilia market, collectors may not have any other options.

Players come and go, but the greed that left the regular Joes of this country in the dust will always find a new form of conspicuous consumption. It’s been seven years since “Topps Transcendent” started, and yet the boxes have sold out every year. There will always be a bigwig who can spend more on a box of cards than a federal minimum-wage worker makes in a year. There are still people with both the money and the desire to pay whatever it costs, meaning Fanatics has no real incentive to change their strategy.

Talk to any normal collector or read any message board and it becomes obvious that the connection between collectors and the hobby has been broken at some level. How many

people, when faced with eye-watering prices and unfair card access, let go of their passion that first drew them to collecting in the first place?

I think of all the kids who will grow up loving sports but miss out on the added joy of showing that love through collecting. It’s not a stretch. If you were born before the ’90s, the best cards available were the only cards: the Topps flagship set. The cost per pack was the same for everyone. A kid and their parent could each open a dozen packs for just over $10 and have as good odds as anyone to get the big rookie. People have to pay breakers to do that now.

At some point, greed trumps love. When a card isn't just a collectible of a favorite player but rather an investment, you lose sight of what makes the hobby fun. Checking the stats for players becomes less about hoping your player succeeds for the thrill and more akin to watching the stock market rise and fall. Everybody has a breaking point where they can no longer stomach the cost—I still haven’t hit mine yet, since my passion continues to keep pace with my wallet. I sit content with my collection of cards, a mix of Yankees and a few of my favorite players from other clubs—nothing worth thousands of dollars, at least price-wise. Just like how the sets of Topps cards used to be snapshots of seasons past, each of my cards is a snapshot into my life: moments from opening cards at Christmas, a purchase at my local card shop, a card I got signed in person. A lot of the cards on my shelf likely won’t ever be priced at more than a few hundred bucks, but to me, they’re worth more than that, no matter what eBay says. I just have to think back to one of my dad’s favorite sayings: “Always remember what you have that is valuable. Because you will meet a lot of people in this life that know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”