GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD SINCE 1920 thehoya.com
Georgetown University • Washington, D.C. Vol. 99, No. 9, © 2017
friday, october 27, 2017
GHOSTS AND GHOULS
Take a ghost tour through Georgetown, from “The Exorcist Steps” to Oak Hill Cemetery.
EDITORIAL Legacy preference prioritizes revenue over merit in the admissions process.
B2, B3
DISRUPTION DAY The seventh annual TEDxGeorgetown is set to feature nine speakers tomorrow.
OPINION, A2
NEWS, A5
Activists Criticize University Claims On Advocacy Work Jeff Cirillo And Meena Morar
Hoya Staff Writer and Special to The Hoya
Student activists who urged Georgetown to commit to not investing in private prison companies now say the university is unfairly taking credit for their activism. The university announced the policy in an Oct. 5 news release after a committee of the university’s board of directors accepted a March recommendation of the Committee on Investments and Social Responsibility, which makes recommendations to the board on ethical investment policies. Under the new policy, the university encourages its
external investment managers to avoid investments in private prison companies. The university’s announcement mentioned a student proposal in one sentence, though the proposal came to the CISR after an extensive student campaign: It was submitted by Eman Abdelfadeel (COL ’17), Sophie Bauerschmidt Sweeney (COL ’17) and Salma Khamis (SFS ’17), and accompanied by a threemonth campaign launched last December by the student group Georgetown University Forming a Radically Ethical Endowment. The release made one reference to the students’ involvement, saying the CISR “reviewed a student proposal that included See ACTIVISM, A6
STEPHANIE YUAN/THE HOYA
Amid a push to decriminalize sex work in Washington, D.C., several students at Georgetown engage in sugaring, a practice that relies on gifts or allowances from clients in exchange for sex, and escorting as a space to express their sexual identities.
Behind Closed Doors: Students in Sex Work Lisa Burgoa Hoya Staff Writer
FILE PHOTO: JEANINE SANTUCCI/THE HOYA
Student activists have claimed that the administration is unfairly taking credit for the results of their activism.
Eric/a grappled with the idea of sex work for over a year before their first paid sexual encounter. Since the summer after their sophomore year, they were consumed by a mental calculus of risk. Eric/a weighed the risk of detection by the authorities, the university and fellow students. They considered the potential for sexual assault and sexually transmitted infections. But the fears were superseded by Eric/a’s belief that sex work provided a means to finally, truly, be
themselves as a transgender individual. Eric/a, a senior whose real name has been withheld for anonymity and replaced with a preferred moniker signifying their gender fluidity, said the extra income furnished their ability to purchase makeup and clothes that represented their identity. “It was something I was wrestling with, ‘Should I do this? Should I not do this?’ Because if I do, then I will be able to, in a sense, move forward and realize and explore parts of my identity,” Eric/a said. “Doing sex work was basically having that extra money, having that extra bumper, to live the life I wanted to live.”
Propelled by this hope, Eric/a opened an account last summer on SeekingArrangement.com at the recommendation of a fellow Georgetown student. Describing itself as “the world’s largest sugar dating site,” the platform aims to match up young people with older, wealthier partners who help financially subsidize their sugar babies’ lives in exchange for companionship. Since then, Eric/a has had multiple sexual encounters, sometimes as many as eight or nine times with the same client, for fees as large as $200 per session. At first, most of these encounters qualified as sugaring, a prac-
tice that relies on gifts or allowances from clients in exchange for sex. But after finding the payoff of sugaring to be too meager and at times uneven, Eric/a switched to escorting, which relies strictly on monetary transactions for sex. Now, while juggling midterms and club commitments, Eric/a sets up profiles online and schedules dates with clients. They are not alone — Eric/a knows of similar arrangements among their peers who have taken up sugaring to offset tuition costs. All the while, these students risk apprehension by See SEX WORK, A6
Mulvaney Touts White House Trans People Face Increased Tax Code Reform Proposal Discrimination in DC, Nation Mariel Mendez
Sophie Rosenzweig
Special to The Hoya
President Donald Trump’s recently proposed tax reform will stimulate the economy by simplifying the tax code, said Director of the Office of Management and Budget Mick Mulvaney (SFS ’89), on Wednesday. Mulvaney highlighted two pillars of the plan: reducing taxes for the middle class and for corporations. “At the end of the process, we will look at the final product with that same prism that we did going into, which is: Is the corporate tax rate lower and is the middle class lower and simpler?” Mulvaney said. Cathy Koch (GRD ’94), Americas tax policy leader at Ernst and Young, moderated the discussion hosted by the Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service. Mulvaney said the administration’s attempts to rewrite the tax code will not dramatically increase the national debt, which stands at $20 trillion. The tax cuts provided by the policy amount to a $1.5 trillion cut in revenue, effectively adding that number to the deficit over a span of 10 years. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, however, estimated in a Sep. 29 report that the bill will give the See MULVANEY, A6
featured
Special to The Hoya
WILL CROMARTY FOR THE HOYA
Director of the Office of Management and Budget Mick Mulvaney (SFS ’89) promoted President Donald Trump’s tax reform plan.
Discrimination against transgender individuals is causing disproportionate mental health issues in the Washington, D.C. area, with 37 percent of trans respondents reporting psychological distress compared to an overall 5 percent national average in 2011, a National Center for Transgender Equality study found. The survey responses, coupled with increasing rates of homelessness and unemployment in the trans community in D.C., are raising concerns about resources available for trans Georgetown students. A rise in hate crimes and disproportionate discrimination against trans individuals in housing and employment matches a trend of violence toward trans individuals nationwide and in the District. The number of anti-trans hate crimes has increased 90 percent from 2015 to 2016, from 10 in 2015 to 19 in 2016, according to statistics from the Metropolitan Police Department’s hate crime report. Nationwide, hate crimes rose 6 percent in that same time period, according to the FBI. According to a New York Times article published June 2016, 39 of the total reported 88 LGBTQ homicides in the country between the years 2012-15 were committed against black transgender women.
The NCTE survey reports 27 percent of 214 D.C. respondents who were employed experienced workplace discrimination, despite efforts by advocacy groups and the D.C. Council to raise awareness of bias-related incidents and push for greater legal protections for trans-
gender individuals. Eleven percent of respondents said they have experienced homelessness in the past year because of their identity. Sixteen percent said they are living in poverty. See DISCRIMINATION, A6
STEPHANIE YUAN/THE HOYA
The National Center for Transgender Equality reported that 37 percent of transgender respondents experienced psychological distress.
NEWS
OPINION
SPORTS
No Fare D.C. Council and Metro officials are divided over a bill to decriminalize fare evasion. A5
Lackluster Languages Georgetown’s limited offering of language courses reflects a deeply ingrained Eurocentrism. A3
Conference Champs The women’s soccer team won the 2017 Big East Regular Season Championship with its 1-0 victory over Xavier. A12
NEWS Not Fonda Capitalism
opinion The Middle Stretch
SPORTS Bottom of the Barrel
Actress and activist Jane Fonda speaks out against unfair labor policies in the services industry. A7 Printed Fridays
This part of the semester, though often arduous, can be deeply rewarding. A3
Georgetown football currently sits at the cellar of the Patriot League standings heading into Saturday’s matchup against Holy Cross. A12 Send story ideas and tips to news@thehoya.com