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friday, october 12, 2018
THE HOYA
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Obama Backs Alumnus for State Senate Kenna Chick Confirmed as GUSA Vice President will cassou Hoya Staff Writer
Katrina schmidt Hoya Staff Writer
Kenna Chick (SFS ’20) was confirmed as Georgetown University Student Association vice president by the GUSA senate Oct. 3, following a series of executive resignations in September. President Juan Martinez (SFS ’20) nominated Chick for the position on Oct. 1. Martinez, former transition chair of the senate, became president under GUSA’s bylaws Sept. 16 following the resignations of former President Sahil Nair (SFS ’19), Vice President Naba Rahman (SFS ’19), Chief of Staff Aaron Bennett (COL ’19) and nine other senior staff members. Nair resigned Sept. 11 amid sexual assault allegations. Martinez approached Chick, former chair of the mental health policy team, about the possibility of being nominated Sept. 26. The pair previously worked together on the off-campus therapy stipend to provide mental health support for low-income students. The stipend successfully launched last spring after a $10,000 university contribution and a Saxafund fundraising effort. “I could tell that Juan and I had (and continue to have) a similar passion for improving the college/ university experiences of Georgetown students,” Chick wrote in an email to The Hoya. “Ultimately, I decided to accept the nomination because I know that GUSA and, more importantly, the student body at large face many difficulties, particularly now, and I want to do all that I can to help ease those difficulties, rebuild student confidence in GUSA and advocate for student wellness on campus.” Chick is the first GUSA executive of East Asian descent, and Martinez is the first Latinx and undocumented president. Improving diversity and creating an inclusive GUSA environment are critical for Martinez and Chick. “I think this speaks to the larger lack of diversity when it comes to people of East Asian descent in
positions of leadership,” Chick wrote about her heritage. “I am also proud to announce a senior staff that is diverse in a number of ways, from race to ability.” Martinez and Chick plan to focus their administration on advocacy, transparency and student health, according to Chick. Both have experience in policy and advocacy with GUSA, and hope to encourage other students to work for change, Chick wrote. Chick’s passion for improving student health and wellness is why she first became involved with GUSA, she said. “I originally became involved in GUSA to serve as the GUSA Chair of the Mental Health Policy Team because I was very passionate about creating a Georgetown that is conducive to the health and wellness of its students, especially those who are experiencing difficulties in mental health,” Chick wrote. Continuing this work as vice president is a top priority for Chick, from educating students on well-being to eliminating barriers for health resources. “I also want to work towards promoting a more survivor-centric campus culture by advocating for healthier student interactions and greater awareness,” Chick wrote. Given the atypical circumstances surrounding Chick’s appointment as vice president, rebuilding student confidence in GUSA is vital, she said. Chick hopes to better communicate GUSA’s role and purpose to the student community. “Oftentimes, there’s a perception that GUSA is all about a selfserving pursuit of ‘status’ or ‘attention,’ but at the end of the day, I got involved in GUSA and I’m remaining involved in GUSA because it’s really about working to make Georgetown a better place for all Hoyas,” Chick wrote. “Whether it’s academics, quality of life, mental health, or any other area, my priority is making the experience better for all students.”
Will Haskell (COL’18) knows it may be hard for some to take a 22-year-old’s State Senate campaign seriously, but he has at least one supporter: former President Barack Obama. Obama tweeted his support for 260 Democrats, including Haskell, running in gubernatorial, U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Senate and state legislature races in his second wave of endorsements Oct. 1. His long-awaited first round of endorsements was announced Aug. 1. “Today, I’m proud to endorse even more Democratic candidates who aren’t just running against something, but for something—to expand opportunity for all of us and to restore dignity, honor, and compassion to public service. They deserve your vote,” Obama wrote in the tweet. Haskell launched his campaign to represent Connecticut’s 26th congressional district in the State Senate in March, during the spring semester of his senior year at Georgetown University.
Haskell deferred his plans to enroll at the Georgetown University Law Center to focus on his campaign, which has been thrust into the national spotlight in the days following Obama’s endorsement. In the days since, Haskell has been profiled by several national publications, including The New York Times and ABC News. Despite Haskell’s inexperience compared to his opponent — State Senator Toni Boucher (R-Conn.), who has served in state legislature since 1997 and as a senator for Connecticut’s 26th congressional district since 2009 — he has received significant support from more established Connecticut politicians. Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), as well as Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), have all endorsed Haskell and campaigned for him. Though Haskell’s campaign reached out to the Democratic National Convention about the possibility of being endorsed by Obama after his first wave of endorsements in August, the news on Oct. 1 came as a surprise to Haskell, as he was initially unsure whether Obama would get involved in state
will haskell for connecticut
Former President Barack Obama endorsed Will Haskell (COL ’18) in his bid for the Connecticut State Senate on Oct. 2.
legislative races. “I was amazed that President Obama decided to get involved in this race, but I think it speaks to the importance that the Connecticut State Senate goes blue this year, and just what’s at stake in state legislative races and in state houses across the country,” Haskell said in an interview with The Hoya. The Connecticut State Senate currently includes 18 Republican and 18 Democrat senators and is the only tied state legislature in the country, which makes this race especially significant, Haskell said. “People are really starting to look at the 26th district, and a seat that hasn’t been held by a Democrat since the 1970s, all of a sudden, might actually flip,” Haskell said. “We think of this state as a blue state very often, we see Jim Himes and Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal on TV, and Connecticut go blue in almost every presidential election, and we forget that actually this is a very purple state with the only tie in the whole country.” Though Obama’s endorsement has given Haskell national attention and an boost in volunteering numbers, it will not be a defining factor of the race, Haskell said. “For anybody who’s paying attention, they’re not going to see a huge shift in this race, they’re going to see just more of the same, of exactly what we’ve been doing: listening to, and learning from, voters,” Haskell said. Haskell’s campaign manager and college roommate Jack Lynch (COL ’18) said that, while he and Haskell are excited about the endorsement, they are not taking anything for granted. “I think the excitement in this race is definitely on Will’s side of things, but we’re challenging an incumbent who has been in office for over 20 years,” Lynch said in an interview with The Hoya. “We’re more confident than we were a couple of weeks ago, but we’re not going to be complacent at all, only cautiously optimistic really until the polls close on election day and we see how things have gone.” Lynch acknowledged that Haskell’s youth has the potential to make voters apprehensive in backing him. “The biggest concern with his age is that people aren’t going to
take him seriously, but anyone who meets Will or talks to him at an event knows how seriously he takes this race, and how much he knows about the policies that are affecting Connecticut,” Lynch said. However, Lynch also said Haskell’s youth has benefitted his bid. “It makes him stick in people’s minds; it gets people’s attention that a 22 year-old is running for office,” Lynch said. Despite recent upticks in voter registration, the campaign is still concerned about voter turnout on election day, Haskell said. “The problem is we need to make sure those newly registered voters actually become voters, actually get to the polls. So an obstacle facing our campaign is that it’s too hard to get absentee ballots,” Haskell said. Haskell hopes that young people especially will make their voices heard this election season. “I read recently that three out of four millennials plan to sit out the midterm election. To be frank, that’s insane. We have more at stake than anybody else,” Haskell said. “Our generation, we’re not just going to be at the ballot in November, we’re going to be on the ballot and our futures our going to be on the ballot.” Sanford Ungar, a government professor and director of the Free Speech Project of Georgetown University whom Haskell worked under, also has high hopes for Haskell’s chance in November. “I was pleased, but not really surprised, that President Obama had endorsed him,” Ungar wrote in an email to The Hoya. “Will is one of the most interesting political candidates in the country this fall, and the outcome of his [s]tate Senate race in Connecticut will be a bellwether of things to come.” Haskell is hopeful for election day, from observing reactions to recent political events. “With everything that’s been happening in the news recently, with Justice Kavanaugh taking his seat on the bench and throwing into jeopardy reproductive health and freedom, environmental regulation, voting rights, LGBTQ equality, people are getting involved and they’re frustrated and energized in a way that is really inspiring to me,” Haskell said.
Inaugural CAB Fair 2.0 GU Professor on Leave After Looks to Combat Exclusivity Facing Criticism for Tweet CHELSEA HAFER
ELIZABETH DOUGLAS
Special to The Hoya
The inaugural “CAB Fair 2.0,” hosted by Georgetown’s Council of Advisory Boards, is scheduled for Sunday, Oct. 14. The fair was organized to combat club exclusivity on campus. The second CAB Fair, which will take place on Harbin Hall’s patio, was proposed as a way to highlight clubs that are inclusive or do not require an application, according to CAB Chair Carley Mambuca (SFS ’18). “This CAB Fair is open exclusively to those organizations with open membership,” Mambuca wrote in an email to The Hoya. “Any group that is tabling either does not have an application process or is only signing folks up for the aspects of their organizations that do not have an application (EX: GUSA policy groups).” The fair is aimed at elevating the status of open-membership clubs to help students find a club aligned with their interest, Mambuca wrote. “All Hoyas deserve to find their community on the Hilltop and it is hard to think that our peers are the judges as to whether or not that can happen with certain application-based groups Openmembership organizations are just as worthy and welcoming,” Mambuca wrote. “I do believe that Georgetown students celebrate each other for their diverse passions, but that in some ways has not transferred to the way those view clubs and organizations on campus, and CAB is actively pursuing solutions to this phenomenon.” The first CAB Fair of the semester took place Sept. 8 and featured over 200 student organizations, many of which require applications and interviews. The “CAB Fair 2.0” comes after a largely student-led effort to mitigate the effects of Georgetown’s club culture based largely on application-based clubs. Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs Erika Cohen Derr convened a working group of student leaders and representatives from student groups such as the Georgetown University Alumni and Student Federal Credit Union, Students of Georgetown, Inc., and Blue and Gray Tour Guide Society in the spring of 2017 to look into potential solutions. “Georgetown really has deferred to student leaders to lead the fight
Hoya Staff Writer
center for social justice
Georgetown’s Council of Advisory Boards is set to host the inaugural CAB Fair 2.0, exclusively for clubs with open memberships. against Georgetown’s current club culture, which is why I have installed the second CAB Fair this year,” Mambuca wrote. “I think this is a great first step, but it is in no way fixing the issue in its entirety.” Mambuca wrote that following a survey conducted by the 2018 Senior Class Committee last Spring, discomfort with the club application processes seemed to be a persistent complaint for freshmen and an isolating feature of Georgetown’s culture that made the campus inaccessible for many new students. “Very few folks said that they felt at home in the Hilltop during their freshman year. Most mentioned sophomore or junior year,” Mambuca wrote. “It is reasonable to believe that is, at least in part, a result of the organizational exclusivity faced by many freshmen.” In 2016, GUASFCU accepted 7.6 percent of 290 applicants and Blue and Gray accepted 10.2 percent of 313 applicants. In 2015, the Corp accepted 18 percent of all applicants. These organizations no longer release their acceptance rates, according to club representatives. The exclusive club culture at Georgetown can be a shock for freshmen, Georgetown University Student Association freshman representative Connor Brennan (SFS ’22) said. “A lot of us come from schools where we’re big fish in a small pond. We come from a high school where we were leaders and
the best in everything, and that’s how we got into Georgetown. Now, we are big fish in an ocean of very big fish,” Brennan said. “It’s sort of jarring to the mentality that has driven many of us, and I think it’s a culture shock.” Former Chair of the Georgetown University Lecture Fund and representative to the informal working group on club culture Aiden Johnson (COL ’19) criticized club exclusivity at Georgetown and helped established open membership for the Lecture Fund. “At some point along the road, we embraced this idea that for clubs to be efficient or attractive they have to be exclusive,” Johnson said. “That is a myth; it’s a lie that we tell ourselves, just look at the astounding and inclusive clubs at the second CAB fair. The cost of turning a student away from a club they care about is, in my opinion, far higher than the cost it takes to find a place for them.” The current efforts to reduce pressures from clubs that require applications offers hope for a more inclusive club environment on campus, Johnson said. “The students who worked on the second CAB Fair are reminders that only students can fix Georgetown’s club culture because we are the ones who created it,” Johnson said. “I’m thrilled that new students get this extra chance to find a community at Georgetown; they deserve an explanation as to why it is so hard to find one in the first place.”
Professor Christine Fair is on immediate research leave after a tweet on her personal Twitter account calling for violence against Republican senators received backlash last week, according to an email sent by Dean of the School of Foreign Service Joel Hellman on Oct. 5. Fair’s tweet was a response to the Sept. 27 testimony in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee by then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh — who is now a confirmed justice — in which he denied sexually assaulting Christine Blasey Ford in high school. “Look at [this] chorus of entitled white men justifying a serial rapist’s arrogated entitlement. All of them deserve miserable deaths while feminists laugh as they take their last gasps,” Fair wrote in her tweet. “Bonus: we castrate their corpses and feed them to swine? Yes.” Hellman wrote in an email to the SFS that the decision to begin Fair’s research leave immediately, rather than wait until the previously scheduled date, was reached mutually between Fair and university administrators. The planned date for the beginning of her research was not included in the
email. “To prevent further disruption to [Fair’s] students and out of an abundance of caution for the security of our community, we have mutually agreed for Professor Fair to go on research leave effective immediately,” Hellman wrote in the email. Some of the complaints about Fair received by the university were threatening, prompting an institutional response, Hellman wrote. “It’s become clear that incivility begets incivility. While we have received many legitimate concerns from members of our community and beyond regarding the social media posts Professor Fair has made in her personal capacity, many other complaints registered have been provocative and threatening,” Hellman wrote. “Our Threat Assessment Team and Georgetown University Police Department (GUPD) have taken preventive steps to secure our campus, conduct safety assessments, and continue to monitor the situation.” Brahmachari Vrajvihari Sharan, the university director for Hindu life, will take over Fair’s “Intermediate Hindi” classes, according to Dan Byman, vice dean of the SFS. Fair’s tweet received backlash from alumni, students and conser-
vative-leaning media. A poster was hung early in the morning on Oct. 4 in Red Square, displaying Fair’s tweet, followed by an add-on reading: “Why won’t President Degioia [sic] condemn this?” President John J. DeGioia released a statement Oct. 4 condemning Fair’s use of violent imagery but defended school officials’ right to freedom of speech, in an email sent to the Georgetown community. “We protect the right of our community members to exercise their freedom of expression. This does not mean the University endorses the content of their expression,” DeGioia wrote. “We can and do strongly condemn the use of violent imagery, profanity, and insensitive labeling of individuals based on gender, ethnicity or political affiliation in any form of discourse. Such expressions go against our values.” Fair described the backlash as censorship intended to discipline her free speech as a woman in an interview with The Washington Post. “It’s another way to discipline women’s bodies, by asking us to discipline our rage,” Fair said. “I cannot tell you the rage and hurt it feels as all of those men on that Judiciary Committee kicked sexual assault survivors in the gut.”
subul malik/the hoya
Christine Fair, associate professor in the security studies program, went on research leave following a tweet on her personal Twitter account advocating violence against Republican senators during the Kavanaugh hearings.