The Hoya: October 10, 2025

Admissions Office Ends GU Campus Tour Guides’ Land Acknowledgements

Ajani Stella and Maren Fagan Senior

News Editor

and Editor in Chief

Georgetown University’s admissions office directed student tour guides to stop giving land acknowledgments during their tours, according to multiple sources and emails obtained by The Hoya

The Blue & Gray Tour Guide Society informed its club membership Oct.

5 that the Office of Undergraduate Admissions required guides to remove a land acknowledgment — a statement recognizing Indigenous peoples’ history in a location — from their tours and tour manuals. Multiple sources told The Hoya that the Office of Undergraduate Admissions did not consult Blue & Gray before issuing the notice, leading the club to solicit feedback from guides on the change.

Liam Mason (CAS ’26), Blue & Gray’s president, said tour guides have included land acknowledgments to contextualize Georgetown’s history.

“Each guide provides a slightly different tour depending on how they want to discuss their own experiences and Georgetown’s facts, but the acknowledgement explains that as an institution dedicated to Jesuit values, Georgetown recognizes that the land we currently occupy was and still is the homeland of the Nacotchtank and their descendants, the Piscataway Conoy people,” Mason wrote to The Hoya. “We recognize the effect this has on Indigenous communities and emphasize our commitment to continue learning about Indigenous history and culture.”

A university spokesperson said the policy change is for consistent messaging.

“Each year, representatives of the Admissions office meet with the Blue and Gray club leaders to ensure the tours reflect university practices and deliver a consistent message,” a spokesperson wrote to The Hoya. “This was not in

See TOURS, A7

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY

The Georgetown University Office of Admissions told campus tour guides not to make land acknowledgments during tours.

GU Community Mourns, Marches for Gaza

Nora Toscano and Ruth Abramovitz

Executive Editor and Senior News

Editor

Georgetown University community members mourned the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians and called for an end to the violence in Gaza during a “Week of Rage” marking two years since the start of the Israel-Hamas war amid an Oct. 8 ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas.

About 85 students and faculty members lit candles in Red Square on Oct. 7 while reading the names and testimonies of civilians who

GU’s Right to Life Club to Lead National Anti-Abortion March

Ajani Stella Senior News Editor

Georgetown University Right to Life (RTL), an anti-abortion advocacy club, will lead the national March for Life, the largest annual anti-abortion rally in the United States, in January.

RTL members will hold the banner at the front of the march and RTL’s president will speak at the following rally. Each year, the March for Life selects a student group to lead the march, with past leaders including groups from other Catholic universities, such as Notre Dame and Christendom College.

Georgetown RTL has previously participated in the march, but this year marks its first time leading it.

Matteo Caulfield (CAS ʼ23), former RTL vice president, said he sees the invitation to lead the national march as recognition of RTL’s advocacy.

“It’s a huge honor that Georgetown Right to Life would be invited to participate in the march as it is going to this year,” Caulfield told The Hoya. “It’s really a testament to the hard work and determination of pro-life Right to Life and Catholic students over the course of many decades that our work, despite being a small group on campus, would get national recognition this way.”

The March for Life, which attracts thousands of people from across the country annually, advocates for the end of abortion access across the United States. The protest began in 1974, one

year after the Supreme Court enshrined the right to abortion in Roe v. Wade, but continued after the court overturned its ruling in 2022.

The march’s 2026 theme is “Life is a Gift,” which organizers said focuses on upholding the dignity of human life. The march will also focus on how the antiabortion movement can evolve after the constitutional right to abortion was abolished. The 27th annual Cardinal O’Connor Conference on Life (OCC), the largest student-led anti-abortion conference in the United States, will take place at Georgetown the next day, Jan. 24.

Elizabeth Oliver (CAS ’26), RTL president, said she believes RTL’s participation in the march demonstrates campus support for anti-abortion students.

“It is national news, the fact that Georgetown, a school that some people don’t necessarily think of as pro-life, is leading the march,” Oliver told The Hoya. “And I think that’s a great reminder to show people that there is still a very strong pro-life presence here at Georgetown, a Jesuit Catholic University, and that the pro-life club is supported.” Dean Rosamilia (CAS ’27), RTL’s current vice president, said he was excited to represent the Georgetown community at the March for Life and credited Oliver with coordinating with the march organizers.

“This is such a huge opportunity for Right to Life

because in the 50-plus years that the march has been going on, Georgetown’s never led the march,” Rosamilia told The Hoya “So, to have this privilege and honor to do so is just such a big deal for the club.”

“Elizabeth was able to speak to the president of the march, and she did a great job conveying all of the things that we do as a club, and she was able to get this deal,” Rosamilia added.

In the lead-up to the march, RTL will garner momentum by canvassing, encouraging Georgetown students to attend and reaching out to graduates of the organization.

Katie Liberatore (CAS ’28), RTL’s social chair, said RTL is proud to increase its stature on anti-abortion advocacy nationally amid increasing political controversy surrounding abortion.

“We understand that it’s a controversial topic, but we’re there, ready to proclaim the truth,” Liberatore told The Hoya. “We’re not afraid to take a stance, and we think it’s our purpose and intention to go out and just show that we’re here together as a cohort of students at this university who care about protecting life.”

Abortion is banned in 12 states and partially restricted in 29 as of Sept. 2, according to the nonprofit research group KFF. Abortion access was a major campaign issue in the 2024

See MARCH, A7

were killed in Gaza. Georgetown’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) also led 60 people in a rally Oct. 9, demanding the university divest from companies associated with Israel and the Israeli military.

The demonstration and vigil were part of SJP’s second annual “Week of Rage,” which included a teach-in with Casa Latina, tabling and flyering, a book club event and a general body meeting.

Elliott Colla, a Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine (FSJP) member who spoke at the rally, said many Georgetown community members are not doing enough to advocate for Palestinians.

“History is watching us right now,” Colla told The Hoya. “Most people I know at Georgetown imagine that they would oppose the Holocaust and that they might even step in as citizens to stop it. And I have been struck by how many people just accept genocide in their daily life as they pursue their studies or their careers or their retirement packages or their promotions or whatever. It’s been a real lesson to realize this is how things like the Holocaust happen. It’s just deep, deep denial. Genocide denial runs deep.”

A growing body of scholars and advocates have accused Israel of genocide in its war against Hamas

in Gaza, including the International Association of Genocide Scholars — made up of the world’s leading experts on genocide and crimes against humanity — and a United Nations commission. Israel has consistently denied claims of genocide, often characterizing such claims as antisemitic or anti-Israel. The International Court of Justice, which adjudicates genocide cases, has not yet made a ruling in a case brought against Israel by South Africa. On Oct. 8, Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire and hostage and prisoner exchange deal brokered by President See VIGIL, A7

US Senator Decries Trump, Calls For Bipartisanship in Congress

Noah De Haan

Special to The Hoya

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who is stepping down at his term’s end next year, defended his stances against President Donald Trump and called for increased bipartisanship during a Georgetown University Institute of Politics and Public Service (GU Politics) event Oct. 7.

Tillis, who has held his seat for two terms, announced his retirement earlier this year after a series of attacks from Trump over his bipartisan voting record and recent splits with the Republican Party over the nomination of Ed Martin as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia and support for same-sex marriage. At the event, moderated by GU Politics Executive Director Mo Elleithee (SFS ’94), Tillis stood firmly for his controversial moderate beliefs and called for politicians to be bipartisan amid increasing political polarization.

Tillis said he encourages leaders to speak their minds and refrain from falling into the expectations of a certain party, noting when he was censured by the Republican Party of North Carolina in 2023 for violating their platform.

“What we need from our leaders is to be who you are, not who your party wants you to be,” Tillis said. “That’s why I got in trouble with my base from

MATTHEW GASSOSO/THE HOYA

Georgetown University students, faculty and community members gathered the week of Oct. 6 in a “Week of Rage” to mourn the 67,000 Palestinians killed in the two years since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war.

CAMERON LAU/THE HOYA At an Oct. 7 GU Politics event, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) defended his criticisms of President Donald Trump and called for unity.

OPINION

Standardize Classroom AI Policy

Some professors forbid it. Some professors encourage it. Whether or not students employ it for their academics, artificial intelligence (AI) has become synonymous with the college experience.

The technology has impacted academia in higher education, leaving students and professors alike unsure how to handle the new tool. Its use has grown rapidly in recent years, especially on college campuses. Research on higher education suggests up to 92% of students use AI, while 61% of faculty report using AI. This prevalence is unlikely to disappear in the near future, as AI is expected to become better and more efficient.

Georgetown University takes a laissez-faire approach to AI use in its classrooms, issuing guidelines that largely allow a professor’s syllabus to dictate AI guidelines. While encouraging adaptable AI policy is commendable, the Editorial Board believes this approach creates more problems than it solves.

Without proper direction through a standardized policy, the Georgetown administration risks unregulated AI use that directly harms learning. Alternatively, it risks falling behind other universities if it fails to prepare students to use AI as a tool effectively. The Editorial Board calls on the university to solve these problems by implementing concrete guidelines for AI use and education on campus.

A university spokesperson said Georgetown hopes students learn proper use of AI with a malleable policy.

“Georgetown aims to equip students with the discernment to engage with AI effectively while identifying and mitigating its potential harms,” the spokesperson wrote to The Hoya. “This commitment not only encourages students to approach AI with intellectual rigor, but also affirms the distinctiveness of each course by deferring to course-specific policies, thereby preparing students for future professional landscapes where discernment, adaptability, and responsible use of AI will be essential.”

The spokesperson added that Georgetown’s approach is based on informed input from faculty and staff.

“The University will continue to study the issue and adapt appropriately,” the spokesperson added.

There are certainly ways AI can be additive to education: It can provide direct and personalized feedback to students on writing, help simplify complex concepts and hasten administrative work. AI platforms can help students learn languages through transcription and explanatory services.

Kristina Georgieva (SFS ‘28), who had multiple professors encourage AI use, said AI can be an effective resource to alleviate uncertainty.

“AI should be seen as a resource that students can utilize during uncertainty,” Georgeieva wrote to The Hoya. “Professors should not be intimidated by AI but embrace it as a tool for students who need further explanation of lectures.”

Considering these benefits, banning AI wholesale from Georgetown would be wrong. Students must learn to use AI tools both effectively and ethically to prepare for a workplace increasingly reliant on this technology. Universities should find a balance that emphasizes AI’s use while minimizing its drawbacks.

As AI usage becomes ubiquitous in the workplace, Georgetown students must stay ahead of the curve to

HOYA HISTORY

March 15, 2019

The largest U.S. center focused on artificial intelligence technology and policy is set to open on Georgetown University’s campus in Fall 2019.

The center will be housed in the Walsh School of Foreign Service, offering undergraduates the opportunity to partake in research as assistants and students, according to SFS Dean Joel Hellman.

“First of all, they are going to be doing really interesting research on issues related to AI, advanced computing and security,” Hellman said in an interview with The Hoya. “We hope that we are making available to them a kind of ready group of talented, eager, researchers who want to build up their knowledge and expertise and can help more experienced researchers.”

The new initiative, named the Center for Security and Emerging Technologies, will be funded by a $55 million grant from the Open Philanthropy Project, a nonprofit foundation that aims to improve public welfare, and will host approximately 20 researchers to study cybersecurity, technology policy and artificial intelligence, Georgetown announced in a Feb. 28 news release.

The newly hired specialists will also be encouraged to integrate with the university community through outlets other than research, according to Hellman.

“They could be giving lectures in individual classes, they could be teaching as adjunct faculty members,” Hellman said. “They could be

understand its impacts in a professional context. Currently, there are only four certificate options that deal with AI under the School of Continuing Studies. To prepare students for this adapting workplace, Georgetown should offer increased undergraduate coursework opportunities to contextualize AI, such as a certificate, minor or major program explicitly related to AI.

That being said, it is too easy for student AI use to go too far without clear regulation. Professors and students can agree that certain uses of AI are not constructive, such as using AI chatbots to write essays or answer exam questions. Beyond the inherent issue of plagiarism, research has linked increased AI use to lower critical thinking skills. When students begin to lean too heavily on AI, they risk experiencing cognitive offloading, a reduction in mental effort that can have long-term impacts on memory, attention and problem-solving abilities.

There are further implications for AI use beyond the classroom. Recent developments in deep learning and neural networks have led to the emergence of “generative art,” raising fears AI will undermine human creativity as a whole. Art has always been a fundamentally human pursuit, raising ethical concerns about the future of creativity. AI is also harmful to the environment — training a single AI model can produce 626,000 tons of carbon emissions, nearly 5 times the lifetime emissions of the average car.

Sara Holler (CAS ’28), who has seen different strictness levels of AI, said AI does not belong in the classroom.

“Students need to learn how to use AI responsibly, because the point of education is to grow one’s critical thinking and analysis skills, and I think AI over-reliance is acting counterproductively to that goal,” Holler wrote to The Hoya

We also recognize that social pressures may turn students to generative AI to ease their schoolwork. Students are more overwhelmed than ever before, with over 55% of college students reportedly experiencing academic burnout due to academic and social pressures. Approximately three-quarters of students feel overwhelmed by their workload, and almost half report symptoms of depression. However, the Editorial Board agrees that allowing students to default to AI to alleviate this stress is not the answer.

Instead, we encourage university administrators to evaluate the origins of this stress and take measures to combat them. Efforts like support groups, increased counseling and decreased barriers for students to take leaves at the University of Virginia and Johns Hopkins University have shown promise in reducing student stress and anxiety. Simultaneously, the university should educate students on all facets of AI to prepare them for their professional futures.

Georgetown aims to “educate women and men to be reflective lifelong learners.” This becomes impossible if unregulated, uninformed AI use is allowed to take away the very elements that foster students’ curiosity and drive.

The Hoya’s Editorial Board is composed of six students and is chaired by the opinion editors. Editorials reflect only the beliefs of a majority of the board and are not representative of The Hoya or any individual member of the board.

available for coffee chats and lectures and other things for students who are really interested in this area.”

The CSET will meet the growing need for policy makers in artificial intelligence by dedicating itself fully to the topic, according to Jason Matheny, the founding director of the CSET.

“We will focus mainly on AI and cybersecurity for the beginning, as policy makers are increasingly asking for advice on AI and technology policy,” Matheny said in an interview with The Hoya

The center will work closely with the Science, Technology, and International Affairs program in the SFS to provide the major with new classes and broader expertise, according to Mark Giordano, STIA director.

“Getting people at Georgetown who work on artificial intelligence and cybersecurity, getting the right faculty is really difficult because there’s so much industry demand,” Giordano said in an interview with The Hoya. “This is going to be a huge new injection of skill to SFS, STIA and Georgetown more generally.”

Georgetown was chosen to house the center in Washington, D.C., and abroad based on its ties to public policy, technology and its extensive global network, according to Hellman.

“Knowing that we not only deep ties to the defense community, the intelligence community the legislative and regulatory communities here in Washington but that we also have deep ties and networks across Asia,

across Europe and elsewhere was I think the main feature that attracted the group working on this to Georgetown,” Hellman said.

The Open Philanthropy Project said the mission of CSET embodies its values of reducing the risks of technological advances in AI, according to a post on the foundation’s website.

“We think one of the key factors in whether AI is broadly beneficial for society is whether policymakers are well-informed and well-advised about the nature of AI’s potential benefits, potential risks, and how these relate to potential policy actions,” the website reads.

The $55 million grant is the largest amount ever given by the Open Philanthropy Project, and the second grant given to Georgetown.

The foundation has previously granted the university $250,000 for research on marijuana legalization and health initiatives.

The center will add an important element to the university’s technology curriculum, according to Hellman.

“We really do think the center represents a sweet spot for Georgetown in linking the latest advances in technology to the deep traditional ties that we have in the policy community all based on an ethical and moral foundation of what these changes mean for policy,” Hellman said.

Anya Howko-Johnson

Considering these benefits, banning AI wholesale from Georgetown would be wrong. Students must learn to use AI tools both effectively and ethically to prepare for a workplace increasingly reliant on this technology. The Editorial Board “Standardize Classroom AI Policy” thehoya.com

On Apr. 25, The Hoya investigated the effects of Georgetown’s laissez-faire regulation of artificial intelligence (AI) in its classrooms, largely allowing professors to dictate their own policies. This week, the Editorial Board urged Georgetown administration to adopt a standardized AI policy.

Founded January 14, 1920

Maren Fagan, Editor in Chief

Patrick Clapsaddle and Nora Toscano, Executive Editors

Madeline Grabow, Managing Editor

Ruth Abramovitz, News Editor

Ajani Stella, News Editor

Sophia Lu, Features Editor

Saroja Ramchandren, Features Editor

Thejas Kumar, Opinion Editor

Ella O’Connor, Opinion Editor

Tanvi Gorripati, Guide Editor

Grace Ko, Guide Editor

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Madeline Wang, Sports Editor

Angela Lekan, Science Editor

Ruth Noll, Science Editor

Rohini Kudva, Design Editor

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Caroline Brown, Copy Chief

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Board of Directors

Jack Willis, Chair

Catherine Alaimo, Amber Cherry, Lauren Doherty, Lindsay Eiseman, Caleigh

Sophia Williams,

EDITORIAL CARTOON by Anish Raja

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Peter Sloniewsky, General Manager

Seek Out Your Strengths

Speech and debate. Model United Nations. Journalism.

If you’re a Georgetown University student, you probably did or know someone who did at least one of those activities in high school. As someone who has done all three, I was unsure if I should keep pursuing them or try something different as I entered college. I had a few conflicting thoughts about continuing what I’ve proven to be good at, but one was constant: In college, I would never debate again.

That mindset lasted for exactly 10 days after I arrived at Georgetown. During a walk back to New South Hall, I stumbled upon a poster for the Philonomosian Society, or Nomos, with the resolution focusing on whether deploying the National Guard in Washington, D.C., was the correct decision. On Aug. 27, I dusted off my suit and headed to Hariri 415. Little did I know that exactly five debates later, I would find myself as the first first-year student this semester to keynote a Nomos debate.

While my path doesn’t apply to every Hoya on the Hilltop, I believe that my experience through testing an activity I was unsure about is a testament to the merits of sticking to your strengths and continuing to seek opportunities on campus. I call on Georgetown students, especially first-years, to tread unfamiliar ground, put themselves out there and to persevere above all else.

Being a keynoter is daunting, but my experience with public speaking made it much easier. As Georgetown students, we must play to our strengths — whatever they may be. Those strengths are the reason we’re here on the Hilltop, and whether you continue to develop them or use them to hone new skills, it’s always great to start with the strong foundation you’ve undoubtedly built over many years. Additionally, I’ve found that even if you continue an activity from high school, the flexibility of campus clubs allows you to enjoy it more. In my experience, speech and debate required participants to follow a strict formula of speech and syntax in order to be a strong competitor. Though I tried adjusting small elements of that formula to fit my own style, it still wasn’t “me.”

However, finding a club in college that allowed me to embrace my preferred style of balancing humor and substance has been important for my first-year experience. Whether it was by wearing a fedora during my keynote speech or showcasing my own art pieces to substantiate one of my arguments, I was able to give a speech that

represented me and the way I communicate with others. Furthermore, keynoting pushed me to be more collaborative with others and to think of conflicting perspectives, something essential for first-year students as they encounter a broader world in beginning college. Whether it was by working with my cokeynoter on the framework of the debate or by addressing potential counterarguments to the claims I would lay out, my experience up to and during my keynote has only made me a better thinker and peer, something I believe is integral to a Georgetown experience. When you start with what you know, it’s more likely that you’ll end up sparking a different kind of flame with the same kindling that, over time, will be vastly different from the one you’ve lit before.

Secondly, my experience is a testament to the benefits of simply putting yourself out there regardless of what may follow. At Georgetown, a fixation on perfection and the fear of failure often discourage students from pursuing some opportunities — whether it’s a club application, a job interview or a research project. However, you cannot allow these fixations and fears to stop you from persevering.

My experience allowed me to pursue chances I did not otherwise think would be available. For example, I did not expect Nomos leadership to take me seriously when I asked to keynote; however, I was fortunate enough to be granted that opportunity. Instead of biting my tongue in timid selfcensorship, I asked. Had I not sought to get my foot in the door, I wouldn’t have had one of the best nights I’ve experienced on this campus. All it takes is a single “yes,” and after that, it’s smooth sailing. While it may be intimidating at a university like Georgetown — infamous for its rigorous academic and pre-professional culture — our presence here demands that we take these leaps of faith. This is what the Georgetown education should encourage from students.

My experience with Nomos is a testament to the utility of taking a leap of faith, which is why I urge other students to experiment with new activities. Nobody is counting your misses. Whether or not you shoot your shot by playing to your strengths, the common denominator is that the bullseye you eventually land will be that much more rewarding.

Sven Stumbauer is a first-year in the School of Foreign Service.

COLUMN • ALIDEDEOGLU

Shed Fear of Failure, Embrace Creative Roots

It was my senior year of high school, and I found myself doodling in the margins of my notes. I didn’t think much of it — it was just a few doodles, and half the class was struggling to stay awake, anyway. In my mind, I was at least partially paying attention. Yet as my teacher paused amid one of her long personal tangents, she glanced over my sketches and scoffed, “What are you, five? Grow up.” The class dryly chuckled and the moment passed quickly, but for some reason, what she said lingered with me. She could have said anything: “Pay attention,” or “Quit screwing around.” What necessitated that specific response? Is drawing past the age of five something that should be met with ridicule? What does “growing up” mean in our current culture? Increasingly, it seems to mean relinquishing creativity for conformity. I believe it’s about time we, as Georgetown students, reclaim that creativity as an essential part of adulthood. On the surface, it seems pragmatic: Growing up requires a more practical approach to life. As children, we lack the knowledge and experience to make fully informed decisions, so we rely on our creative thinking to understand the world around us. As we mature, we are able to apply critical reasoning to explain phenomena while we move creative thinking to the

Modernize Campus Cannabis Policy

There is no doubt that the cultural and political conversation surrounding cannabis use and possession has evolved over the last few decades. The smell of cannabis, once an indicator of criminal activity and counterculture, is now a normalized feature of cities and towns across the United States. After decades of racialized demonization that fueled systemic social injustices, public opinion has largely shifted to reflect the fact that cannabis is both a medically beneficial and relatively benign psychoactive drug. It has been decriminalized for those over 21 years old in Washington, D.C., since 2014, and legal in Virginia and Maryland since 2021 and 2023, respectively. The vast majority of Americans live in states where cannabis is legal for medicinal or recreational use. Even traditionally conservative Americans, who for decades promoted a culture of prohibition and criminalization, overwhelmingly recognize the distinction of cannabis from other more dangerous drugs. In fact, a decision to reschedule the substance from a Schedule I to a Schedule III is widely rumored to be handed down from the U.S. Department of Justice in the coming weeks. This rescheduling would see the federal government recognize the medical uses of the substance while decreasing levels of control. The change would make it easier for researchers, doctors and pharmacists to handle cannabis responsibly and result in fewer mandatory penalties imposed by the federal government. Rescheduling alone doesn’t “legalize” cannabis at the federal level but it does meaningfully change classifications and controls. In 2025, cannabis is widely viewed by American society as a substance that is less harmful than alcohol and increasingly used by people of all demographics for a variety of reasons.

However, Georgetown University fails to draw clear distinctions between its disciplinary policy regarding sanctions for cannabis use/possession and those for much more dangerous substances. If our society views cannabis similarly to alcohol, sanctions for students for the two substances should be essentially identical in university policy. I call on the Office of Student Conduct to revisit current policy and ensure that sanction enforcement between the two substances is consistent, clear and promotes student wellness over blanket prohibition.

First-time violators of the current cannabis policy, which is lumped into the “Other Drugs” category along with methamphetamine, heroin and other opioids, can have drastically different experiences than first-time violators of the alcohol policy. Navigating the honor system, residential living and potential criminal charges can vary by case due to the fact that alcohol policy is graduated and specific, whereas the only language in published university policy towards cannabis falls under the larger category of other drugs. Alcohol policy is detailed and education-oriented, while cannabis policy is not separated from other drugs and is brief, legalistic and prohibition-oriented. There exists no clear sanction matrix, meaning the fate of most offenders is entirely at the whim of whether the individual authority chooses to pursue disciplinary action.

The “Go Green” initiative recently launched by the Georgetown University Student Association (GUSA) seeks to remedy this discrepancy through a modernization of the university’s cannabis policy. The initiative passed the GUSA Senate on Sept. 7, where I was happy to join my colleagues in unanimously supporting the legislation. It was made clear from

the beginning that the initiative does not require removing sanctions or force the university to risk federal funding by violating the Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act, which requires college campuses that receive federal funding to prohibit use or possession of illicit drugs and alcohol. Through its proposal, GUSA only seeks policy consistency around cannabis use on campus. The Office of Student Conduct must work to align sanctions with harm reductions, replacing blanket policies of “zero tolerance” toward cannabis use with a tiered, educational approach similar to how alcohol-related violations are handled.

Removing unnecessarily harsh punishments for low-level possession and use of cannabis while maintaining compliance is entirely possible. Adopting measures proposed by the GUSA Senate’s “Go Green” initiative will give students clarity on what is permissible and what is not, demonstrating the University’s commitment to student safety by expanding existing medical amnesty policies. The Office of Student Conduct has a real opportunity to build administrative transparency by creating a public, straightforward regulatory framework that promotes trust by reducing ambiguity and inconsistent enforcement.

“Go Green” advises Georgetown to reevaluate its cannabis policy for the next decade, opting for a more modern solution focused on safety and harm-reduction, as well as keeping the university compliant and treating students fairly and responsibly. The Office of Student Conduct must act now to uphold Georgetown’s commitments to social justice and student equity. Now is the time to Go Green.

Cameran Lane is a sophomore in the College of Arts & Sciences.

back burner. We generally seem to accept this as a natural part of life, but I don’t believe it’s as cut and dried as we make it out to be. As we grow, we become more cognizant of social perception. Our increasing awareness of how we appear to others often becomes a barrier to creativity by creating fear, particularly the fear of failure. We develop this “all-or-nothing” mindset that requires us to have a basic competency in any subject we engage in to avoid facing that risk. As such, we are conditioned to avoid any situations in which we may experience failure, even if insignificant. Children, on the other hand, are largely free — and even encouraged — to fail as much as they please. By adolescence, institutions begin to reward conformity over originality. Schools often preach about the importance of “creative thinking,” but often find themselves actively stifling student creativity. Children quickly learn that straying from general conventions carries consequences — a bad grade for not sticking to the rubric or a trip to the principal’s office for mouthing off. Once again, fear, this time the fear of consequence, binds us to neglect self-expression and critical thought. By the time students arrive at college, they’ve already been beaten down by a barrage of standardized curricula, rigid rubrics and pre-professional expectations. This culture of compliance exists outside of academia as well.

I’d be remiss not to mention the overwhelming amount of book bans, protest crackdowns and curriculum restrictions brought by our governing administrations. When entire books are pulled from shelves under the pretense of defending against “woke ideology” or “radical indoctrination,” when protesters are arrested for expressing ideas in opposition to those of the administration, when high school teachers are told they cannot teach Advanced Placement (AP) Psychology or AP African American Studies, the message is clear: Difference is dangerous. Once more, fear — the fear of difference — leads to the same outcome: a generation of young adults incapable of pluralistic thinking, who seldom deviate from what is deemed safe and acceptable. Space for creativity — specifically divergent thinking — is deliberately constricted. Creativity can not prosper in a culture of fear. To truly reach our potential, we can’t allow these pressures from our culture and institutions to paralyze our willingness to explore new ideas; if we do, cultural and institutional pressures will begin to dictate more and more ideas that are safe to explore and ideas that are off limits. If a society loses its capacity for self-expression, it then loses the ability to question itself. A culture that treats difference as inefficiency produces a passive hive mind of individuals. This stagnation shows itself everywhere: in repetitive cultural

trends being fed to us through algorithms, in public debates where the same topics and narrow arguments are rehearsed, in artificial intelligence chatbots regurgitating what they’ve scraped from datasets of preexisting ideas. Increasingly, we are becoming stagnant at the level of thought itself. We are being limited in our ability to imagine radical new alternatives, much less actualize them. This causes us to grow ever more likely to accept authoritarian policies and become less capable of holding power accountable. Creativity underpins progress itself. A labor force trained to follow instructions is ill-equipped for the rapidly changing global market of today. Scientific breakthroughs cannot be made when research is constrained by rigid thinking and political orthodoxy. The task ahead is not to grow out of creativity but to grow back into it. To reclaim creativity is to reclaim the pluralism of ideas and sustain a free, dynamic society. If creativity is dismissed as childish, then maybe we should keep being children for a little while longer. Ege Alidedeoglu is a firstyear in the College of Arts & Sciences. This is the first installment in his column “Thinking Through the Beltway.”

Over the past several weeks, I have heard many stories of “firsts”: living with a roommate, registering for classes and applying to clubs. My own monumental first, however, was venturing into a real classroom taught by a formal teacher.

Home education has been a staple of the rural United States for decades, yet stereotypes about homeschooled students persist. Images of awkward, antisocial teenagers are common in the cultural ethos. However, these depictions do not accurately reflect the majority of homeschoolers.

Having been taught by my parents my entire life, I believe students from homeschooled backgrounds deserve more accurate acknowledgment from our elite institutions. In this installment, I aim to challenge your traditional views of education by making you consider the benefits and drawbacks of home education. At the same time, I encourage you to discover other Hoyas’ unique learning backgrounds.

I regretfully admit that while I was homeschooled, I did not wear pajamas to class every day. Like many other homeschoolers, I followed a surprisingly structured system: Class started 8 a.m. on Mondays and lasted through Friday — except when I visited local museums, workshops or homeschool co-ops — and ended at 5 p.m. Each subject began with textbook learning or instruction from my mother, followed by practice through, well, homework. Because my mom was an experienced English teacher, I could always rely on thoroughly prepared lesson plans. Unlike traditional school, however, I had the flexibility to slow down or speed up a course, a mainstay advantage of homeschooling. For

instance, I struggled with geometry in the eighth grade, but I was able to extend my learning by a few weeks till I mastered the material.

Once I reached high school and tackled more difficult subjects, I added virtual classes to my curriculum. I took online STEM Advanced Placement (AP) courses, such as Physics I and Calculus AB, while my mother continued teaching me humanities-centered AP courses like European History and English Literature. People are often surprised to learn I took AP courses, with many assuming homeschoolers are never tested under standardized benchmarks. And yet, I had to take the SAT just like my peers; I filled out the same college applications. In many ways, then, homeschooling is less alien than it may seem.

I am frequently asked why I chose homeschooling, and to properly answer, I must describe my hometown, Beaverdam, Va. We’re home to blue-collar workers, farmers and the kind of people you would see in a movie filled with American cliches (think red, white and blue everywhere). Parts of this environment are reflected in local public schools. Patrick Henry High School, for example, only offers 11 AP courses, which is not conducive to applying to elite universities. Further, Hanover County (where Beaverdam is located) spends approximately $3,000 less per student than the rest of Virginia.

After a long discussion, my parents and I decided I would have the best chance for academic growth if I were educated at home rather than at the underfunded schools nearby. Unfortunately, homeschooling is far from a universal solution. When poorly managed, it can produce incredibly narrow-minded,

dogmatic students. I have seen firsthand the political, religious and academic indoctrination that thrives in settings where opposing viewpoints are limited and social interaction is rare. Confederate flags, the “Lost Cause” ideology and whitewashed history are commonplace in this community. Some recent instances of abuse are even related to homeschool environments. Consequently, there is significant merit in debates against unregulated homeschooling. It is important to question whether homeschoolers require greater oversight, what qualifications parents need to teach their children and ultimately, if homeschooling benefits society. In my admittedly biased opinion, home education remains an excellent option for those who are dedicated to learning and have the resources to succeed. I can confidently say my mother’s superb instruction got me into Georgetown University. Though I recognize my experience is far from typical, there are many high-achieving homeschoolers whose best chance for success is likewise within the home. Whether or not they support homeschooling, Georgetown students will inevitably encounter homeschoolers in their everyday lives. As such, I urge students to learn about and better understand the educational experiences of their classmates. We can gain much insight from the distinct perspectives on scholarship that each Hoya offers.

Kendan Hopkins is a firstyear in the School of Foreign Service. This is the first installment of his column “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”

COLUMN • HOPKINS

The Inside-Outside Game: Generations of GU Student Organizers Navigate Divestment Calls

Student activists have historically balanced formal negotiations and more radical protests to push for university divestment.

Saroja Ramchandren and Opal Kendall Senior Features

Editor and Deputy Features Editor

On April 11, 1986, members of the Georgetown University Student Coalition Against Apartheid and Racism (GU SCAR), a student group dedicated to anti-apartheid activism, barricaded themselves in the central entrance to White-Gravenor Hall, set up a TV and pitched sleeping bags. They called their group the Freedom College, vowing to remain until the university committed to total divestment from South African apartheid.

Fourteen days later, the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) arrested Rumi Matsuyama (CAS ’87) and 34 other students after erecting an encampments on Copley Lawn as part of their protest. MPD handcuffed the students on charges of unlawful entry and loaded them into vans bound for the D.C. Jail. Matsuyama said the political statement of an arrest was more important than any potential consequences.

“We knew what the risks were,” Matsuyama told The Hoya. “It seemed like a small sacrifice to make for an important human rights cause, that I might spend a night in jail and have something on my record.”

Exactly 39 years later, on April 11, 2025, Georgetown University Police Officers (GUPD) forcibly removed student protesters with the Georgetown University Student Coalition Against Repression, a coalition calling for the protection of pro-Palestinian campus speech, from Healy Hall.

Fiona Naughton (SFS ’26) — a member of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which endorsed GU SCAR’s protest, and advocates for Palestinian liberation and university divestment from Israel — said student protesters today face renewed challenges with university pushback.

“We’re also seeing a period of increased repression, surveillance of students, cracking down on attempts to cover people’s faces, but also visa deportation, the intimidation techniques of the Trump regime,” Naughton told The Hoya. “I think that that has fundamentally altered what advocating for divestment looks like.” At Georgetown, there is a long tradition of students demanding the university divest from political causes by liquidating its assets in companies that conduct business in certain regions or sectors. In 1997, students called for the university to divest from sweatshops; in 2013, student activism targeted the university’s investments in fossil fuels; and in 2016, the focus was on private prisons. Since 2020, SJP has called for the university to divest from corporations with ties to Israel and its military.

Throughout these eras of student organizing, the university has developed a system to ensure its investment strategy aligns with the administration’s commitment to social justice. Founded in the late 1970s and later expanded in 2012, the Committee on Investments and Social Responsibility (CISR) fields proposals from community members and brings them to the university’s board of directors for further consideration.

A university spokesperson said CISR’s review process is intensive, involving meetings with the authors of proposals and community input.

“While the length of CISR’s review process varies based on a number of factors unique to each proposal, CISR strives to respond as quickly as possible while at the same time ensuring that each proposal receives a thoughtful and fair review,” the spokesperson wrote to The Hoya

Theo Montgomery (SFS ’18) — a member of GU Fossil Free (GUFF), a student group that led the charge for fossil fuel divestment — said the key to organizing was knowing how to play the “inside-outside game.”

Montgomery said the “inside game” required negotiating within university institutions, like CISR, while the “outside game” required student pressure and protests.

“We’d show up, sometimes invited to the meetings, sometimes uninvited to the meetings,” Montgomery told The Hoya. “Sometimes we’d rally outside of them and protest with hundreds of people yelling, encouraging them to do something.”

Since 1986, student organizers have played the inside-outside game to push for university divestment. While the tools of campus protest haven’t changed, the rules of the game have.

The Inside Game Students did not always have a formal arena to play the inside game.

Although CISR was founded during earlier anti-apartheid protests, well before GU SCAR formed in the early 1980s, students found interacting with the community challenging.

Marty Ellington (CAS ’84), a founding member and action coordinator for GU SCAR, said that while CISR existed during his tenure, it was inactive and unable to properly respond to student demands.

“The committee went dormant once the previous movement died down,” Ellington told The Hoya. “When we arose, they sort of reemerged.”

Ellington said there was space to appeal to existing university institutions despite these limitations.

“There were individuals in the administration who were sympathetic to our cause,” Ellington said. “While we weren’t explicitly communicating with them, I think that our actions perhaps enabled them to push for more substantive action.”

Over the years, CISR formalized its processes and interacted more frequently with student proposals. The Georgetown Solidarity Committee (GSC), a group founded in 1996 dedicated to advocating for workers’ rights and critically engaged in the sweatshop divestment movement, experienced an ebb and flow in its negotiations with the university and CISR. Virginia Leavell (COL ’05), a GSC member, said the existence of institutions like CISR offered formal channels for complaints.

“There was a formal process through which to address the fact that there were sweatshop goods in the bookstore,” Leavell told The Hoya However, Leavell said she saw CISR’s policies as meant to stall student activists and wait them out until graduation.

“You need to build a campaign that will go longer than four years,” Leavell said. “They literally were waiting for us to graduate, so the campaign would go away. But we would

always train and build and empower younger students to be taking leadership roles because you might have to run an extended campaign.”

While the university never formally agreed to divest from sweatshops, GSC experienced individual wins, such as the university suspending its contract with Nike due to unethical labor practices in 2016.

Other organizations negotiated with the university more successfully.

Caroline DeLoach (COL ’16), the founder of GUFF and former undergraduate representative on CISR, said the organization had many constructive interactions with the university and then-University President John J. DeGioia (CAS ’79, GRD ’95).

“We got a lot of very positive engagement from President DeGioia’s office,” DeLoach said. “His chief of staff was very willing to meet with us; we had a lot of meetings with him.”

In 2015, GUFF recommended that the university establish a working group on socially responsible investments (SRI) to develop an SRI policy, which the board of directors adopted in 2017. The policy called for “stewardship for the planet and promotion of the common good.”

GUFF used this policy to ultimately advocate for full fossil fuel divestment, with the university board of directors adopting a proposal in 2020 to fully divest from fossil fuels following a student referendum.

Lucy Chatfield (COL ’22), a former GUFF member, said university institutions, like CISR, slowed the tide of change.

“It felt like they didn’t want to deal directly with the student body, so they created this committee so that there would be this theoretical process,” Chatfield told The Hoya Like its predecessors, SJP is engaged in negotiations with the university administration. However, according to an SJP media liaison, direct negotiations with the university ceased in 2024 — Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine (FSJP), a faculty organization advocating for Palestinian liberation, has since submitted proposals to CISR.

Juan Ramirez, a third-year doctoral student serving as the graduate student representative to CISR, said CISR heavily engaged with student, staff and faculty calls for divestment, citing the relatively high frequency of CISR meetings in Spring 2025.

“I think we are in a moment of back and forth,” Ramirez told The Hoya. “Last spring CISR, almost in an unprecedented way, took FSJP’s proposal and debated it a lot.”

CISR declined to recommend FSJP’s most recent divestment proposal. However, the committee recommended that the board of directors avoid investments in companies that are directly and significantly involved in gross violations of human rights, as defined by international law.

Ramirez said this proposal exemplified CISR’s slow-moving processes.

“At the moment, the best case scenario is that the board of directors adds a sentence to the SRI policy, and that is frustrating,” Ramirez said.

“That’s a recommendation right now, it’s not even changed.”

Naughton — like Chatfield, Leavell and Ellington — said the

systems in place are inadequate in addressing student calls for divestment and that, in addition to playing the inside game, student protesters must also play the outside game.

“These mechanisms are fundamentally set up to work within the university’s timeline and resources and their will, and I think that if the university doesn’t have a will, then all of these inside mechanisms will be fundamentally ineffective.”

The Outside Game

Thus, when the inside game stalled, student activists turned to more radical organizing to draw attention to their cause.

Marguerite Fletcher (SFS ’86), the GU SCAR president during the Freedom College protests, said regular meetings with the university’s then-president, Timothy S. Healy, did not yield meaningful progress.

“We’d go in with our list of demands, he would listen to us and tell us that it was difficult or say that he would take it up with the trustees,” Fletcher told The Hoya

At the time, the university was committed to maintaining its investments in companies that followed the Sullivan principles, a set of corporate responsibility guidelines aimed at improving the living and working conditions of Black South Africans while maintaining business operations in the country.

Neil Donahue (CAS ’89), one of the Freedom College protesters arrested in 1986, said GU SCAR members had very little appetite for the Sullivan principles, instead urging the university to divest entirely from companies investing in South Africa.

“Their arguments all required a certain amount of patience — ‘Don’t worry. Wait and you’re going to see that by staying invested in these companies, we will do good. Just give us time,’” Donahue told The Hoya. “I think we realized that they’re under no pressure to do anything.”

To force a university response, students occupied White-Gravenor and erected shanties on Copley Lawn, an escalation that then-Dean of Student Affairs John J. DeGioia had promised to answer by ending the demonstration.

To prepare, GU SCAR retained legal counsel and trained students in civil disobedience in anticipation of arrests.

Donahue said the strategy was intended to draw attention from university stakeholders.

“Bodies in jail were also what got press coverage,” Donahue said. “I don’t remember feeling personally scared. I’ll get taken in, I’ll be released. I didn’t really care about the consequences.”

When the university divested in September of the same year, less than five months after the arrests, they cited recommendations from the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Conference of Catholic Bishops of South Africa and CISR, not university protests.

Leavell said GSC’s approach to the outside game was staging large protests that exuded student support for the university’s proclaimed values.

“With the sweatshop stuff, we wanted to be like, ‘We’re better than this. We’re a Jesuit university. At the protests, we did wear blue and gray, we were really pro-Georgetown.”

Samantha Panchèvre (SFS ’19), a GUFF member, said much of GUFF’s momentum relied on its ability to call back to Jesuit values and Pope Francis’ 2015 environmental encyclical.

“They didn’t want to make a statement on Israel, but with climate change, they were like, ‘The pope believes in it and says we should do something about it,’” Panchèvre said. “They had permission.”

DeLoach said outside student protests and pressure — like a GUFF protest at the Georgetown University Law Center — were central to creating change.

“We made a big show of being there and having sit-ins outside of the board of directors meetings,” DeLoach said. “We were always trying to toe this line between going through it the way that we were supposed to, with the right meetings, with the right stakeholders, while also having very direct ways of showing how much student support there was.”

Although GUFF found success in these tactics, SJP’s efforts have had little impact on university investments.

In April 2025, two-thirds of Georgetown students who voted in a student government referendum endorsed calls for the university to divest from companies associated with Israel. Interim University

President Robert M. Groves quickly announced the university would not implement the nonbinding referendum’s calls.

An SJP media liaison said the university has only responded to divestment campaigns aligned with their political objectives.

“It just really goes to show that Georgetown really only will listen to us and listen to our opinions and our voices when it also falls in line with Georgetown’s agenda as a university,” the media liaison told The Hoya. “It really just showed the conditionality of Georgetown values.”

Naughton said a strong outside game was necessary for students pushing for divestment, given the mechanisms like CISR.

“SJP has tried to go through the formal avenues and venues for advocating for this kind of divestment policy, but the university administration has refused to acknowledge the power and legitimacy of those vessels for change,” Naughton said, “which I think must encourage the student body and the Georgetown community to reevaluate whether or not these ways of advocating for change within the system have any power or legitimacy.”

The Fear Factor

Over the last four decades, student organizers have successfully employed the “inside-outside” strategy to influence university investments within various divestment movements. Today, protesters said their approach is different — student protesters face added threats to their physical safety, place in the university community and immigration status.

Since taking office, the administration of President Donald Trump has led a national crackdown against non-citizen residents, particularly targeting students and faculty involved in pro-Palestinian speech with an expanded directive to combat antisemitism on college campuses.

Leavell said universities’ and the government’s crackdowns on campus protests have stifled student activism.

“The way they’re acting now is so anti-democratic,” Leavell said.

“Think of the students that are graduating, going into the world having experienced that kind of authoritarian response.”

In March, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security detained Georgetown postdoctoral researcher Badar Khan Suri based on accusations of opposing U.S. foreign policy with his pro-Palestinian speech.

Although Khan Suri has since been released from immigration detention due to First Amendment concerns, his detainment prompted protests for the protection of speech in support of Palestine, including the Healy Hall occupation this past April. This fear around student organizing was not always so rampant. Fletcher said Freedom College protesters anticipated university pushback, but never believed their activism would threaten their education.

“It wasn’t like what’s been happening on the campuses this year, that they’re going to suspend you from school or expel you,” Fletcher said. “That didn’t even cross my mind.” The SJP media liaison said traditional free-speech zones on Georgetown’s campus may be under threat given the university’s new free-speech policies.

“There is a lot more fear that we have now in protesting,” the media liaison said. “Will we be detained if we’re protesting on campus, in Red Square, which was always recognized as a place of free speech? Are we not entitled to that anymore?”

“There is a growing sense of fear,” they added. “However, that fear is definitely not something that’s going to stop people from speaking up. People are going to speak up regardless of how scared they are.” Georgetown University’s Policy on Speech and Expression designates Red Square as a “public square,” though the university reserves the right to regulate speech based on time, place and manner. However, during his July 15 testimony, Georgetown University Interim President Robert M. Groves announced a partial ban on masks. Under this new policy, students who wear masks while engaging in conduct that violates university policy must remove them at officials’ request.

Naughton said she believes these changes threaten free speech for student protesters on Georgetown’s campus.

“All of the changes to the new code of conduct have been really horrifying in terms of free speech expression. You do have to, in some ways, play a dual response, like a dual role. You have to be both inside and outside,” Naughton said. “But the university isn’t allowing that to happen.” Ramirez said, despite the changing political landscape, the original strategies of student organizing still apply.

“I am a student of history, and when I look at social movements, the reality is that activists, those pushing for change, have played the inside and outside game,” Ramirez said. “And so if anything, history tells us that successful movements have played both.”

ILLUSTRATION BY ARIA ZHU, PHOTOS BY AJANI STELLA, ISABEL BINAMIRA

HOYA

White House’s Autism Messaging Prompts Concern of Stigmatization

Sasha

Ahmad Deputy Science Editor

President Donald Trump promoted a number of unproven or discredited claims about autism and announced a series of policies aimed at combating a perceived “autism epidemic” in a White House press conference Sept. 22. In addition to alleging links between autism and vaccines, Trump also made unsubstantiated claims that pregnant women who take acetaminophen — a drug known as Tylenol, used to treat fever symptoms and alleviate pain — are at increased risk of having children with autism. Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, announced a proposal to update Tylenol’s safety label and award research grants with the goal of “ending the autism fever.” Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder typically diagnosed within the first 2 to 5 years of life and characterized by a broad set of cognitive and behavioral differences. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 1 in 31 children aged 8 years old lives with autism. Trump and Kennedy’s claims prompted outcry from medical ex-

perts and public health officials who disputed the assertion of a causal link between taking Tylenol during pregnancy and the development of sociobehavioral disorders in children.

While autism’s origins are unclear, current scientific literature proposes it emerges through a complex interplay of inherited genes and de novo (new) mutations.

Patrick Collins (CAS ’28), a Georgetown University student studying biology, said the administration’s rhetoric reduces a complex psychological condition to a widely used medication with no evidence to support such claims.

“I don’t think that we should be taking advice from a person who can’t pronounce the drug he is claiming to link to ASD,” Collins told The Hoya. “It simplifies a complicated neurological disorder to the most commonly taken drugs in the country. The variables are too complex, and implying causation is far too irresponsible given the large amount of factors at play.”

Trump and Kennedy also voiced concern about the “horrible, horrible crisis” of autism, with Trump expressing condolences for parents of children with autism.

Ari Delaney (CAS ’26), a senior studying psychology and justice and

peace studies, said she is particularly concerned about how the administration’s actions could exacerbate persistent negative perceptions about individuals with autism.

“People with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) already face a significant stigma, one which is only magnified when an administration uses dehumanizing language in reference to it, presenting autism as an ‘epidemic’ that parents should be fearful of, something that ‘destroys families,’” Delaney wrote to The Hoya

Joel Reynolds, director of the disability studies program at Georgetown and associate professor of philosophy and disability studies, said public health recommendations should focus on inclusion rather than elimination of neurodivergence.

“What we should be doing as a society that presumably values freedom and justice is to utilize the best scientific and social scientific research to provide care and support that meets the real needs of disabled populations, including the autistic community, as opposed to acting as if being disabled in some way or another is automatically bad — that we need to cure things and get rid of entire ways of being in the world,” Reynolds told The Hoya. “What we’re seeing is not just a complete failure of scientific

integrity, but also of ethical and moral integrity on the part of these leaders.”

Delaney said politicians must tread cautiously when disseminating information on health issues that impact how people interact with the world around them.

“It is so important for people, especially governing officials, to be critical in their research and precise and empathic in their language concerning medical conditions that affect human beings,” Delaney said.

“I would hate for this stigmatizing perception of ASD to be perpetu-

Health Misinformation, Autism, Age of MAGA’s

Keerthana Ramanathan Science Columnist

What do autism-causing Tylenol, the war against processed foods and vaccine mandate cuts all have in common? These headlines are leading the crusade against science and cultivating a credibility crisis caused by the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement.

MAHA is a movement led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. aiming to reform America’s food, health and scientific systems. In September, the Trump administration unveiled a report detailing a comprehensive plan to enhance children’s health and address the growing prevalence of chronic diseases through executive actions and policy reforms. Kennedy described the surge in childhood chronic illness as an existential crisis and called the report’s 128 recommendations “historic and unprecedented.” Though much of the report is factually correct, including statements on the growing diabetes rates and excess sugar and fat in some processed foods, the report includes multiple instances of misinformation. Scientific discourse has become increasingly politicized, and the MAHA movement exemplifies the dangers of politicizing health, especially health misinformation. Health misinformation refers to false or misleading medical information, which is commonly shared online or through social media. Health misinformation also encompasses health disinformation,

which is a specific type of misinformation intentionally designed to deceive people by spreading inaccurate or distorted facts. Both are present within the MAHA movement.

In a Sept. 22 White House Press Conference, President Trump and several officials announced that the Food and Drug Administration would revise drug labeling to caution against Tylenol use during pregnancy, citing a possible connection between the widely used painkiller and autism. This claim is a miscontrusion of scientific data; the study cited does not claim the relationship between Tylenol and autism is causal. Applying a causal classification to a relationship not empirically determined to be causal creates a ripple effect of misinformation, possibly affecting the well-being and health of millions across the country. Similarly, MAHA has been deeply engaged in a battle against processed foods, from seed oils to pasteurized milk. Food processing has long been viewed as a technological advancement that improves the flavor, nutritional quality, shelf life, portability and safety of essential foods, such as olive oil, preserved fruit and some types of cheese, among others. Kennedy claims seed oils “poison” consumers and has advocated “raw,” or unpasteurized, milk in contradiction to federal health standards. In contrast to Kennedy’s claims, researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that seed oils are not necessarily dangerous to consume and may even have some benefits. Pasteurizing milk is a process long utilized to kill harmful bacteria while

MAHA

COMMONS

The Trump administration unveiled a MAHA report detailing a plan to enhance children’s health through policy reforms.

retaining milk’s nutritional benefits and is recommended by numerous federal agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

Vaccine mandate debates have also been subject to misinformation. On Aug. 8, a gunman attacked the CDC’s Atlanta campus, killing a police officer and himself in a shooting motivated by anger over the COVID-19 vaccine, prompting former CDC Director Susan Monarez to warn staff that misinformation has resulted in deadly consequences.

The mass firing of the country’s vaccine advisory panel, the spread of rampant misinformation regarding vaccines and Florida’s removal of youth vaccine mandates have been among the leading actions in MAHA’s crusade against vaccines.

As discussed in detail in a previous installment of “The Intersection,” vaccine hesitancy is a key problem for the U.S. health care system, as the system relies on credibility as much as funding. Vaccines have

been proven to be safe despite misinformation, with essential vaccines against 14 diseases saving at least 154 million lives. These events underscore how dismantling scientific credibility and fueling vaccine misinformation not only endangers public health but also threatens the trust that underpins an effective health care system.

To confront the very tide of falsehoods movements like MAHA embody, experts recommend a multi-pronged approach, one that emphasizes transparency, clear communication and empowering individuals with tools to distinguish fact from fiction. By leveraging evidence-based journalism, encouraging “prebunking” — the practice of forewarning audiences about misleading techniques — and promoting media literacy across all demographics, the credibility crisis can be met with resilience, and the public can begin to reclaim trust in health, science and institutions.

Surveillance Capitalism With Privacy Disappearance

Jay Liu Science Columnist

For just $129, you too can make a friend. Technology startup Friend has taken over the New York City subway system with walls of minimalistic and dystopian advertising as part of a new ad campaign — one of the largest the city has seen. These white posters present supportive commitments and reassurance, such as “I’ll never bail on our dinner plans,” or “I’ll binge the entire series with you.” The campaign feels like it’s designed to instill dissatisfaction with real-life friends, presenting Friend as an alternative. However, this supposed selling point is also its key point of controversy. Friend is an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot housed within a pendant worn around the user’s neck. The pendant includes a microphone that listens to the user’s conversations as they live their daily life, gathering information about and providing moral support to the user, just like a friend would. Friend is meant to be highly personalized for the user, being shaped by its interactions with the user as well as the user’s everyday conversations with others in real life. The eeriness of the technology creeps up when one considers the

amount of data it collects. The device detects and stores every interaction and tone shift, allowing it to better understand the user and predict their behavior. One could argue that this isn’t very different from a human person eavesdropping; however, unlike a regular person, Friend is present 24/7 and remembers everything. These distinctions between a regular person and Friend are what the device’s developers are most proud of. Avi Schiffmann, web developer and founder of Friend, compared speaking to the device to speaking to God because each is an omnipresent, judgment-free and super-intelligent entity — one which is with you always.

In some ways, this is understandably appealing because human relationships are based on the needs of two people. Hence, a friend or partner can never fully accommodate one’s needs at all times. Having an AI friend who’s always present when you need it and always up-to-date with the developments in your life undoubtedly provides convenience and support. On the other hand, the effectiveness of this support is questionable to say the least.

Although Schiffmann has discussed Friend’s priceless ability to support users through difficult situations, in real life, it has prov-

en to be shallow and lackluster when faced with the same situation Schiffmann himself brought up. For the amount of data Friend collects, one would expect it to be able to provide highly specific, tailored responses for every user and every situation. However, when journalist Eva Roytburg tested Friend and experienced a breakup during the testing, Friend had nothing to say outside of muttering, “Sounds like it’s been pretty active around you. Everything all good on your end right now?”

The promise of having an AI friend that’s always perceptive, understanding and supportive seems unfulfilled. What is fulfilled, though, is the promise of Friend always being there: It is always gathering information about its users. Surveillance capitalism — the marketization of user attention and information, similar to the extraction of raw materials — is not new. However, it has become increasingly pervasive and invasive. More traditional platforms that practice surveillance capitalism — such as e-commerce sites, browsers and search engines — mainly operate as an exchange of sorts. Users give up their information privacy in exchange for well-developed, convenient and useful services. This ex-

change has become so normalized that most don’t even consider it.

Now, however, actors beyond these traditional platforms are gathering and accumulating unforeseen amounts of user data. Products like Friend promise a utopian future built upon groundbreaking AI technologies, but they are simply gathering more and more information behind the scenes. Friend’s terms and conditions — which require users to waive their right to participate in class or representative action or to resolve disputes with a jury or court of law — make their data collection practices all the more chilling.

People aren’t happy about Friend, especially New Yorkers. They have vandalized Friend advertisements, voicing resolute disapproval by spraying “AI wouldn’t care if you lived or died,” and “AI is not your friend,” onto the posters. In a world with increasing surveillance, customers must take mindful actions to understand the products they interact with to protect themselves, their data and their privacy.

“My suggestion is to maintain meta-cognitive awareness and ‘think outside the bots,’” Moon wrote. “Don’t let polished language fool you. Novelty comes from ideas that reach beyond what AI can predict.”

ated and to impact any student on campus, whether they have or know someone who has autism.”

Reynolds said inclusion is connected to a number of core Georgetown principles.

“Autism is a part of what it means to be human,” Reynolds said. “It’s based on cura personalis, care of the whole person. We can’t care for people by acting as if it’d be better for them to not be alive than to be the way that they are.”

Reynolds added that public health officials should be crafting pol-

icy and speech based on scientifically supported ideas, but that doing so in the current political environment is becoming increasingly more difficult.

“I think being supportive and science-backed in the way that we think about differences at the level of people’s bodies and minds, that is a Jesuit value,” Reynolds said. “Freedom of inquiry and valuing facts and data are central to higher education, and this is a moment where students, staff, university leaders and everyone else need to defend and stand up for these values.”

Exploring the Effects of AI, Green Lab Investigates Creativity in Cognition

Angela Lekan Senior Science Editor

Researchers in Georgetown University professor Adam Green’s lab are investigating creativity as a predictor for academic success and the impacts of artificial intelligence (AI) tools on originality.

The primary focus of Georgetown’s Laboratory for Relational Cognition, led by Green, is relational thinking, or how the brain forms connections between concepts, which is closely related to creativity. Green explained that creativity has many cognitive benefits.

“Creativity has always, firstly, been something that really leads to a lot of enjoyment and well-being, and is very closely tied to mental health, but also it’s a spark for innovation in creating new products or new ways of doing things that at least sometimes can benefit people,” Green said.

Green said the lab’s goal is not only to investigate how the brain forms creative thoughts, but also to discover ways technology can be used to encourage creativity.

“We look at how brains think creatively and how we can help brains learn to think more creatively, but also how we can directly intervene in brain function by stimulating what brains are doing with different technologies, including electrical stimulation, transcranial magnetic stimulation and even focused ultrasound,” Green told The Hoya. “So we’re interested in enhancing creative thinking, helping the brain think more creatively, both in classrooms and in the lab.”

Green said the lab’s work is especially important in light of increasing AI use, as AI often acts as a substitute for creative thinking.

“AI is homogenizing ideas, so it can come up with ideas that are really great, but at scale, those ideas are really similar to each other, and so it’s becoming really evident that we need to help people keep thinking creatively as AI makes a lot of other things, a lot of other kinds of thinking, less valued,” Green told The Hoya. “We need to make sure that the value of human creativity is measurable and is emphasized in ways that both encourage and reward creative thinking.”

A recent survey found that 52% of adults use AI systems like ChatGPT. Another survey discovered that 86% of college students use AI, with 54% using it on a weekly basis.

Kibum Moon, a doctoral student in the psychology department who works in Green’s lab, investigates the impact of AI on human originality in his work.

Moon said that in a new preprint of recent research, the lab’s findings demonstrate that, while essays written using AI vary linguistically, their ideas have grown increasingly similar.

“We found that essays written after the public release of ChatGPT appear more linguistically diverse, yet the underlying ideas have grown more similar within and between essays,” Moon wrote to The Hoya. “We call this paradoxical homogenization, where linguistic variety masks a narrowing diversity of ideas.”

The lab also found that, although AI models can be useful in the college admissions process by evaluating students’ creativity and other qualities, the models cannot completely evaluate students’ applications, as they tend to be biased towards writing that sounds similar to themselves. One such model is the large language model — a type of AI that can generate human language and perform related communication activities — GPT.

“We found that AI models, particularly the GPT model, show a kind of ‘narcissistic’ tendency, preferring their own writing over text produced by humans or other AI,” Moon wrote. “In the context of college admissions, recognizing and mitigating these biases is essential if we want to use AI responsibly in one of society’s most high-stakes decisions.”

While the results imply that AI can hinder originality, Green’s lab is also using AI as a tool to analyze creativity.

Nola Melvin (CAS ’27), a research assistant in the Green Lab, said her work involves training AI models to examine the creativity in students’ writing to see whether writing can predict educational outcomes.

“Along with another research assistant, I’ve been training large language models (LLMs) to analyze creativity in student writing samples and to predict academic outcomes such as GPA,” Melvin wrote to The Hoya. “We’re exploring how AI can identify subtle patterns in language that correlate with creative thinking, self-expression and academic performance.”

Moon said that after analyzing half a million college application essays using AI, they found that taking creativity into account results in more accurate predictions of future academic success.

“Our results showed that adding creativity to the prediction model improves accuracy beyond what standardized test scores (e.g., SAT, ACT) alone can achieve,” Moon said. “Just as important, creativity scores show much weaker links to socioeconomic background, suggesting this approach could help reduce disparities.” Melvin said the lab’s work demonstrates that AI can serve as a tool to determine how creativity manifests itself in different contexts.

“Our work highlights how artificial intelligence can support psychological assessment and education. If language models can measure creativity reliably, they might eventually help educators and psychologists understand cognitive strengths that aren’t captured by traditional testing,” Melvin wrote.

Moon said the research demonstrates the importance of thinking for oneself, instead of using AI tools in creative endeavors.

“My suggestion is to maintain meta-cognitive awareness and ‘think outside the bots,’” Moon wrote. “Don’t let polished language fool you. Novelty comes from ideas that reach beyond what AI can predict.”

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Trump’s comments on Tylenol’s link to autism face criticism from Georgetown students and faculty for spreading misinformation and deepening stigma about neurodivergent communities.

WIKIMEDIA

IN FOCUS

DC Councilmember Launches Bid for Congress

AP Photographer Recounts Capturing

Sam Fishman Hoya Staff Writer

A photojournalist for the Associated Press (AP) reflected on his career and advised students to take advantage of the experiences they have at a Georgetown University Lecture Fund event Oct. 9. Evan Vucci, the AP’s chief photographer in Washington, D.C., has captured several famous moments throughout his career, including the “raised-fist” photo of President Donald Trump after his attempted assassination in Butler, Pa., on July 13, 2024. At the Georgetown event, Vucci recounted taking that photo of Trump, positioning it as the pinnacle of his career.

Vucci said that when he heard the shots go off, he immediately knew he had to capture the following moments.

“At that moment I knew exactly what it was, and I told myself, ‘Okay, this is going to be the most important thing you’ve ever covered, so you’ve got to do the best job you can,’” Vucci said at the event. “The first thing is — I always tell young journalists, I was telling myself over and over — ‘slow down, slow down.’”

Vucci said until that moment, he expected the rally to be just like countless others he had attended throughout his career.

“As a photographer, I’m just looking for anything that stands out to me,” Vucci said. “How can I paint this day? I did this probably the day before and the day before that, and the day before that, and the day before that, and the day before that, for months and months and months. It is a grind. So every single day as a photographer, I’m like, ‘Okay, I gotta find something different today. I gotta find some light, find some shadow.’”

Vucci said he used his years of rally experience to help him

Pragnya

Two Georgetown University history professors are leading a group of volunteers to archive exhibits across the Smithsonian Institution in anticipation of federal directives that could alter or remove museum content.

The organization, Citizen Historians for the Smithsonian, was founded by Georgetown professors Chandra Manning and James Millward after the White House sent an Aug. 12 letter to Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch III instructing museums to replace what it described as divisive content. As of Oct. 6, the initiative has documented 81% of content in the Smithsonian museums with over 40,000 photographs in the system, according to the latest internal statistics from the organization’s technical lead Jessica Dickinson Goodman (GRD ’26).

Manning said she and Millward saw the project as a way to involve the public in their mission to protect the Smithsonian’s historical record.

“There are professionals in the Smithsonian who have dedicated their lives to that place,” Manning told The Hoya. “We’re not going to be able to replicate that. But we’re outside the Smithsonian. Our jobs aren’t somehow on the line or endangered because of this plan to review the Smithsonians, so we felt like we were in a position to be able

navigate the minutes after the assassination attempt.

“So I ran to the front, he came to the front of the lectern, he started pumping his fists, I saw his face, I had something,” Vucci said. “Then I know they’re going to come down, so I got next to the ramp, I got into this spot.”

Vucci said in the heat of the moment, relying on the discipline and technique he had developed over the years helped him execute the now-famous shot.

“I have taken this photo 1,000 times before; the only difference is the events around it changed,” Vucci said. “As a photographer, as a journalist, you are still going to do your job the exact same way. I am going to compose, I am going to think about where my light is coming from, I’m going to think about what I’m doing.

I’m going to think about where I’m standing. I’m thinking about where they’re going. None of that changes just because everything’s been amped up a billion degrees.”

“When it cleared out like this, and he puts his fist up and he’s got the blood going down his face, I knew I had something,” Vucci added.

Vucci grew up in Olney, Md. As a student at the Rochester Institute of Technology, he fell in love with photojournalism after hearing Michael Williamson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist, speak about

his adventures as a photographer for The Washington Post.

Vucci said he began his career to make a difference, which he thought best worked through photography.

“I wanted to tell the story of the world,” Vucci said. “I hate to say I wanted to change the world because I never had those kinds of aspirations, but I just wanted to make some sort of difference, and I thought photography was the best way for me to do that.”

Rebecca Sinderbrand, the moderator of the event and the director of Georgetown’s journalism program, said other journalists harness this focus in high-stress situations.

“I’ve heard this from other reporters as well: that focusing on the task at hand helps to power you through and just remove the emotion,” Sinderbrand said at the event.

Vucci said the shot gives him a sense of pride to be in the long line of photojournalists who have captured iconic moments.

“At the end of the day, your job as a journalist, and especially a photojournalist, is to get the shot no matter what,” Vucci said. “I work for AP, and we have a long, distinguished history of photojournalism. I don’t care about the work I did that day, but I am super proud that when it was my time to hold that standard in that situation, I didn’t let anyone down. I’m walking in the footsteps of giants.”

to do something, and we knew that people cared. We knew people are dying to have something to do as a way of registering their concerns.”

Millward said the project began after the two professors were alarmed by the White House letter’s implications.

“This letter made demands that the Smithsonian provide digital files for all of the texts and scripts and plaques and didactics on the wall and a lot of other information like that,” Millward told The Hoya

“This was framed as trying to put the Smithsonian in compliance with the president’s program.”

“It seemed clear that this was aimed at an effort to censor and rewrite the exhibits at the Smithsonian, about history, about our art, about our culture, about who the American people are,” Millward added. According to the letter, the Trump administration is reviewing exhibits dedicated to history, ethnicity, art and science. However, the letter did not specify which museums may be reviewed in the second phase of the initiative, though the administration did not elaborate on what that phase would entail.

Under a March executive order, some national parks have already removed signs about slavery and climate change.

Manning said the organization grew quickly following their initial call to action.

“We put out a call, just through emails and neighborhood listservs, to say, ‘Hey, anyone want to help us take pictures of the Smithsonian?’”

Manning said. “The response was truly overwhelming. Luckily, one of the people to respond was a graduate student at Georgetown, Jessica Dickinson Goodman, who actually had skills that Jim and I do not.”

Dickinson Goodman said the group’s timeline has tightened as the Smithsonian faces potential closure by Oct. 12 amid the current government shutdown.

“In the world of consequences of the shutdown, this is an extremely minor one,” Dickinson Goodman said. “But, for our project, it obviously means that we have said a number of, ‘You have to go today, it might be closed tomorrow,’ emails. It isn’t ideal, but so far, volunteers have really understood that the chaos and the urgency is not coming from inside the project.”

Rosie Click (GRD ’27), a doctoral candidate at Georgetown and co-captain for the project’s National Portrait Gallery team, said the project facilitates civic engagement during a politically uncertain time.

“This is a really positive example of public participation in history and preserving history and preserving our institutions and the knowledge that has been generated,” Click told The Hoya. “And I think that in a time when a lot of people are losing hope for a variety of very

DONATE TO THE HOYA GALA

Jacqueline Gordon Special to The Hoya

The Georgetown neighborhood’s Starbucks Coffee location on the corner of M and 34th Streets closed indefinitely Sept. 27, disappointing Georgetown University students who frequented the shop. Starbucks, which had been facing corporate layoffs amid competition from nearby coffee shops, notified customers Sept. 25 of the closure through a flyer posted on the door and an official statement from Brian Niccol, Starbucks chairman and chief executive officer. The location was among nine stores across Washington, D.C., that closed the same day.

Starbucks said in the posted flyer that the decision to close the M Street location was a difficult one, expressing appreciation for the store’s customers.

“We’ve made the incredibly difficult decision to close this Starbucks location,” Starbucks wrote in the statement. “We know this may be hard to hear — because this isn’t just any store. It’s your coffeehouse, a place woven into your daily rhythm, where memories were made, and where meaningful connections with our partners grew over the years.”

The M Street location first opened in 2017, according to a local news outlet. Many Georgetown students have used the Starbucks as a study space in addition to a coffee shop, providing a more informal setting for work that offered a change of scenery from campus.

Clancy Killebrew (CAS ’29), who frequented the location, said the closure surprised her and she will miss the location, which was recommended to her by her mother, a Georgetown graduate.

“When I first came here, my mom studied here in graduate school, and she said that her favourite spot to study was at that Starbucks,” Kil-

legitimate reasons, this is one thing that can give people some hope.”

Sophia Nimlo (GRD ’28), a doctoral candidate and team captain for the National Zoo, said her team thought creatively about what exhibits the federal government may target.

“Anything about evolution or things that might be questionable for religious reasons are things that we worry might be targeted,” Nimlo told The Hoya. “There’s obviously a lot of denial of climate change. The other thing is the pandas are actually something that could be a great concern because of the issue of panda diplomacy.”

“We also are documenting things that go beyond just the exhibits themselves, so any other kind of signs, like non-gendered bathrooms,” Nimlo added. “Even lactation rooms, if there’s attacks on women’s rights, could be something that could be politicized.”

Click said the project is ultimately about preserving public access to shared history in an American institution.

“The thing with the Smithsonian is that that is the history that belongs to all Americans, whether the topic is about them or not,” Click said. “These are public institutions. Their purpose is to serve the American public. The historical work and documentation has been paid for by American taxpayer dollars. The American public has the right to access that information.”

The Hoya Gala

The Hoya Gala will take place Nov. 22 at the Planet Word Museum, featuring a keynote speaker in the journalism industry, hor d’oeuvres and dancing. Scan the QR code to donate to support our gala and journalism, and check out CampusGroups to buy tickets in advance.

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lebrew told The Hoya. “I’m sad that they’re closing it down.”

“I have no idea why they would close it down — it does really well,” Killebrew added.

Niccol said in the statement that Starbucks closed underperforming locations across the country.

“We identified coffeehouses where we’re unable to create the physical environment our customers and partners expect, or where we don’t see a path to financial performance, and these locations will be closed,” Niccol wrote.

Diya Patel (CAS ’28), who also often visited the location, said she will miss the familiarity and warmth of the connections she made with the Starbucks baristas, formally called Starbucks Partners, at the location.

“I was heartbroken when they closed, because I have a barista there who knew me by my name,” Patel told The Hoya. “She knew my order, and every time I would come in, she would always smile, always say ‘Hi’ and I think that is what made me keep coming back — that sense of community and that sense of belonging. I felt like every time I stepped in, she would have the biggest smile on her face and she would make me so happy in the morning.”

“It was a central part of my routine, every single morning I would go and I would see her, get my coffee or whatever it was, and go back and have a good day of my classes,” Patel added.

Patel said it will be difficult to replace those connections despite the plethora of coffee shops in the Georgetown neighborhood.

“Finding a new coffee spot in Georgetown, it’s not that hard, but it was definitely a cheap, affordable option that I think will be missed by a lot of Georgetown students,” Patel said. “I know when I was there every morning, I wasn’t the only one.” Patel added that she loved having a welcoming space to get coffee and study that was separate from campus, but still nearby.

“The Corp and the Starbucks in Leavey, obviously, are really popular spots for Georgetown students, and it’s very convenient, especially if you live on campus which most students do,” Patel said. “So I think that just made the M Street location a little bit more personal.”

“They always had a really cheerful smile and they would always write cute little messages on the cup — they never forgot to do that,” Patel added.

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Robert White, a Democrat who represents Washington, D.C. at large in the Council of the District of Columbia, challenged long-term incumbent Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), who is seeking reelection for a 19th term.

Kaginele Special to The Hoya

THE HOYA FILE PHOTOS

Two Georgetown University professors are working to document the Smithsonian Institution amid fears of federal censorship.

THE HOYA FILE PHOTOS

Starbucks Coffee closed its M Street location in the Georgetown neighborhood amid mass layoffs and declining revenue.

OPAL KENDALL/THE HOYA

An Associated Press photojournalist recounted his famous picture after President Donald Trump’s assassination attempt.

GU Removes Tour Guides’ Policy

On Saying Land Acknowledgments

TOURS, from A1

“response to any federal guidance.”

At Georgetown, student organization land acknowledgments typically recognize the university sits on territory that some Indigenous peoples — including the Nacotchtank and Piscataway Conoy peoples — resided on before they were forcibly removed.

Scholars in Indigenous studies outline the continuing effects of colonialism and violence against Indigenous people through the present day. These academics often point to the longstanding impact of the removal of Indigenous people and resulting racism, citing continuing extreme inequalities in health outcomes and socioeconomic status.

Georgetown’s Division of Student Affairs, which manages programming and support to students, includes a land acknowledgment on a diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) webpage. The university has also sent a similar twosentence statement to celebrate Native American Heritage Month, which is celebrated every November, in 2022, 2023 and 2024. Native American students and community groups have pushed the university to develop a formal land acknowledgment policy.

Blue & Gray’s membership has mixed reactions to the change, according to Mason, Mykah Boye (CAS ’26) — the group’s vice president — and Suzie Ahn (CAS ’26), the DEI director. Mason, Boye and Ahn all said Blue & Gray is seeking membership feedback on the policy since announcing the change at their Oct. 5 meeting.

Mason said Blue & Gray is collecting this feedback to convey the guides’ feelings to the university administration.

“Our main goal in this endeavor is to have the voices of our organization heard and relay that sentiment to the Office of Admissions,” Mason wrote. Harrison McCarty (SFS ’26), who has been a tour guide for three years, said land acknowledgments are important for touring students and families.

“I was disappointed to hear that land acknowledgements were not allowed to be

included in our tours,” McCarty told The Hoya . “It’s something that I think is very important to make sure prospective students and parents know about this university, and I think it is an example of our core values to make sure that they’re aware of that.”

Ashland Ross (CAS ’28), a guide since Spring 2025, said she was taken aback by the removal of land acknowledgments from the tours.

“They’ve always presented to us that Georgetown is a very inclusive campus,” Ross told The Hoya. “A big part of what we talk about on our tours is diversity and inclusion of all viewpoints and identities here on campus.”

McCarty said prospective students who do not hear a land acknowledgment may not understand the United States’ violent history that subjugated Indigenous people.

“I’m really proud to be a Hoya, but I also think a proud Hoya needs to understand what this university was built upon,” McCarty said. “I think students are missing out on the future of the school and ways in which we can improve and think about how to better fulfill our mission and our values as a university.”

While land acknowledgments often point to recognizing the indigenous people of a region, many scholars and activists have argued that these acknowledgments are not enough to advocate credibly for Indigenous people.

Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer — co-coordinator of Georgetown’s Indigenous Studies Working Group, a group dedicated to collaboration between Indigenous people, students and faculty — said land acknowledgments can recognize the history of an area but may be inadequate.

“Many of us who study and work cooperatively with Indigenous peoples understand the symbolic nature of land acknowledgements,”

Mandelstam Balzer wrote to The Hoya . “Simple acknowledgement is not enough to encourage true engagement with living Indigenous communities.”

Lisbeth Fuisz, an English professor and another member

of the Indigenous Studies Working Group, said land acknowledgments can connect history to the present.

“In the United States, you talk about history and the best ones acknowledge the fact that colonialism is ongoing and that native people still reside and still consider whatever place it is that you’re talking about as a homeland,” Fuisz told The Hoya “So it’s an acknowledgement of the history, but also an acknowledgement of an ongoing relationship to place.”

Fuisz also said land acknowledgments can be performative and purport to absolve institutions without active engagement with Indigenous issues.

“There have to be other steps that accompany it, like investment in native communities or at a university, investment in native students or some additional action that’s required,” Fuisz said.

Ross said she believes the change ultimately does not reflect the Jesuit mission of community in diversity to support Indigenous people.

“I think that if we’re going to portray the university as diverse, that includes representing all opinions and Indigenous peoples and Native Americans on campus, who already represent such a small portion of the population,” Ross said.

“This was kind of the only recognition that Georgetown was giving to this unfortunate part of our past, and then now it’s being taken away.”

McCarty said land acknowledgments should continue because they demonstrate the connection between Georgetown and the United States’ colonial history.

“I think land acknowledgements are much more than just remembering,” McCarty said. “They’re also starting active conversations about what this community is built upon, both land-wise, but also our values and who once used to be here.”

“Doing that and remembering that, my hope is that students can work towards justice and really fulfill that promise of being Hoyas for others,” McCarty added.

GU Anti-Abortion Group Will Lead National March for Life

MARCH, from A1

presidential election, and surveys suggest 63% of the United States public supports the legal right to abortion in all or most cases.

Rosamilia said abortion is an important political issue to many students, especially given Georgetown’s location in Washington, D.C., and being in the march will show student perspective on the issue.

“Given that we’re in such a political city, it just makes sense that a lot of people have very strong opinions on political matters, especially this one,” Rosamilia said. “So, to be able to show not only Georgetown, but the rest of D.C., really the whole country, that Georgetown is a prolife university is great.”

As a Catholic institution, Georgetown does not support access to abortion or prescriptions for solely contraceptive care through the Student Health Center or MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, in accordance with guidance for Catholic health services.

Ava Lewis (CAS ʼ28) — who tables for H*yas for Choice, a student organization that advocates for reproductive rights and abortion rights — said RTL does not accurately represent the Georgetown community since many students favor abortion rights.

“I think most Georgetown students are pretty progressive, and I think they do support women’s rights and women’s reproductive health, and so I thought it was just a little disappointing that they would represent Georgetown in that way at such a national pro-life march,” Lewis told The Hoya Gabriella Bautista Bolvito (CAS ’29) said RTL members share the goal of supporting women with students who do not support the

RTL organization or its central role in the March for Life.

“I believe Georgetown Right to Life in general would love to engage in more discourse with them just so that we can understand that we’re all humans,” Bautista Bolvito told The Hoya. “I think our end goals are the same: to support women, to support people. We need to understand that we might have a different means to get there, but we overall have that same vision and that same goal and that should be more unifying than anything.”

Oliver said the belief in the dignity of all human life is an important value among RTL members, which she hopes leading the march will show.

“We believe every human person has equal dignity and has an equal right to life, and ultimately those are values that are protected and have always been protected in our nation,” Oliver said. “And so to help people recognize the dignity of every human life, we’re excited to share that message.”

Students Hold Vigil, Protest Two Years of Israel-Hamas War

VIGIL, from A1

Donald Trump, with multiple Arab heads of state endorsing the deal. The deal would return more than 40 remaining living and dead hostages to Israel, and permit at least 170,000 metric tons of medical and nutritional aid to enter Gaza.

An SJP media liaison at the rally said the organization’s demands and advocacy will persist amid the ceasefire.

“We’re still going to be pushing for the same goals of divestment that we always have been,” the liaison told The Hoya. “And it’s also worth noting that even though we are approaching a ceasefire, which is hopefully going to happen, our demands are always going to be the same. We can’t view just the genocide in Gaza in its own vacuum. The ethnic cleansing of Palestine has existed for literal decades beforehand, and there are still ongoing instances of repression in Palestine.”

Military and political conflict in the region has been ongoing since before the establishment of the Israeli state in 1948, which led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.

Colla said the ceasefire agreement does not wholly address the extent of the destruction in Gaza.

“This is essentially an Israeli proposal,” Colla told TheHoya. “It is not a peace proposal by any means. It will not address any of the injustices, like the apartheid system, like military occupation, like the siege on Gaza. It addresses none of those. All it does is propose a ceasefire. We, of course, like our brothers and sisters in Gaza, we welcome a ceasefire, anything to stop this genocide, anything to bring in humanitarian aid. We, of course, welcome that, but we have no illusions that this is a solution, let alone a peace plan.”

Students and faculty also called for the university to abandon its plan to subcontract Georgetown University Transportation Shuttle (GUTS) drivers and sever ties with heads of military defense industry companies. Students specifically named Board of Directors members Adam Norwitt — the president and CEO of Amphenol, a technology defense contractor — and Joseph Amato, the president of investment firm Neuberger Berman Group LLC,

which has invested $1.59 billion in military contracting.

Students at the Oct. 9 protest also criticized a change the university made to the free speech and expression policy, which permits university officials to require any individual on campus to remove face coverings to be identified.

“These policies use intentionally uncertain language,” a pamphlet distributed at the protest read.

“Georgetown has changed its Code of Conduct multiple times since 2023, all quietly, without consulting students, in direct response to Palestine protests.”

A university spokesperson previously said that the university regularly updates its policy and implementation guidelines.

“Georgetown is committed to ensuring that all members of our community have a safe and welcoming place to learn and receive the support they need to do so,” the spokesperson wrote to The Hoya in July. “The vast majority of activism on campus is peaceful and takes place without incident. We all have a responsibility to work together to foster a living learning community that is free of bias and geared toward thoughtful, respectful dialogue.”

At the Oct. 7 vigil, students mourned the deaths of the estimated 67,000 Gazan civilians who were killed in the war, including children, doctors and Palestinian journalists.

Layth Malhis (GRD ’26), an Arabic studies student who read names at the vigil, said it was inspiring to see the community that gathered at the vigil.

“Despite the onslaught, we need to make community, and we need to cultivate the spaces where we’re able to honor those that are gone and also show one another that the fight against Israeli aggression should continue,” Malhis told The Hoya “And I think the vigils and spaces that honor martyrs help us recenter ourselves and heal.”

Lukas Solomon (SFS ’26) said he found the vigil unifying and uplifting in a time of grief.

“I’m encouraged by the turnout here tonight,” Solomon told The Hoya “I think it’s really telling that even two years later, there are people here from all sectors of campus. There are Arabs, there are Jews, there are non-Arabs,

there are people from all different backgrounds coming together to grieve together and to say that this is unacceptable.”

Romy Abu-Fadel (SFS ’26), president of Georgetown’s Lebanese Student Association and a journalism student who spoke at the vigil, said she has been disappointed that primarily Western news networks have not been more precise when covering the destruction in Gaza.

“Watching NPR, the newspaper that I’ve adored for so long and respected and strived to work for, the way that they’re covering this is so deeply disappointing,” AbuFadel told The Hoya. “I noticed the use of passive voice so frequently — which I mentioned in my speech. There seems to be a lack of agency.” Oct. 7 marked the second anniversary of Hamas’ attack on Israel, which incited Israel’s retaliation and the sustained war. Hamas killed more than 1,200 Israelis and took 250 hostages in the attack, including from the Nova music festival.

After the vigil ended, a survivor of the Nova festival attack, who was on campus for a speaking event hosted by the Georgetown Israel Alliance (GIA) and Students Supporting Israel (SSI), approached the students who remained at the vigil. The Hoya observed the survivor approaching the students who remained gathered in Red Square. The survivor said “open your eyes, guys” as she walked out of Red Square accompanied by members of SSI and GIA.

Solomon said the event allowed community members to grapple with the international response to the crisis in Gaza.

“I have personally felt very disoriented all day today, just contending with the fact that it’s been two years of inaction from the international community, two years of continually being gaslit about the deaths and the genocide of our own people, two years of having to engage in repeated politics of appeal, to try and convince people to care about our people’s blood,” Solomon said. “This space allowed us to come together in community and to grieve together and to remind us that there is a community we can rely on,” Solomon added.

Retiring Republican Senator Calls For Congressional Birpartisanship

TILLIS, from A1 time to time. It’s why I have a statewide censure against me for taking the policy that I did — and I stand by all that.”

Throughout his two terms in the Senate, Tillis was known for championing bipartisan legislation, supporting conservative justices through the Senate Judiciary Committee and criticizing the attempted insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He serves on a number of committees, including the Judiciary, Finance and Veterans’ Affairs committees.

Tillis said he chose to announce his decision to retire after voting against Trump’s signature spending bill, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, because he disagreed with the bill’s opposition to a Medicaid expansion policy.

“I had decided not to run for reelection after my first term, and had it not been for a discussion with really one or two people, I wouldn’t have run the second time,” Tillis said at the event. “I’m just not wired to do this sort of job; it’s not who I am. I had the disagreement on the so-called Big Beautiful Bill with the President, and it just seemed like the right time to let him know that I don’t change my vote, and it was time to find a replacement.”

Tillis said he expects Democrats to act to end the ongoing government shutdown only after the No Kings protests scheduled for Oct. 18.

“I think it will last at least past next Saturday, because they’ve got a No Kings parade,” Tillis said. “I mean, it’d really rain on their parade if we actually came out of a shutdown before then. I really do want to come out of the shutdown, but I’d say the chances are pretty low that we will come out of it before the parade.”

Tillis said he frowned upon his Senate colleagues who refused to take political stances out of fear for future re-election bid consequences.

“It’s amazing to me that people I talk to every day, and they’re not up until 2030, are worried about a campaign threat,” Tillis said.

“There’s a reason why we have sixyear terms, and a part of that is to be able to exercise our oversight role, to be in a position to do that even when your party is in power, and to have two-thirds of the body at any one time pretty much free of the immediacy of political consequences for your decision.”

Avery Hughes-Davis (CAS ’29), who attended the event, said he values bipartisanship from elected officials like Tillis.

“I think it means more trust,” Hughes-Davis told The Hoya . “I’m not from his state but I would hope that a lot of my leaders in Washington state would embody those same characteristics because that would make me feel like I was being represented in government by someone who actually was trying to make our country successful.”

Tillis said he hopes to see congressional Democrats compromise with the Trump administration, as he did under the Biden administration alongside fellow North Carolina Senator Richard Burr (R-N.C.).

“Every time we would finish a vote, the Democrats would come up and high-five me and say ‘Thank you for being bipartisan,’” Tillis said. “The only question is, ‘Are you really capable of being bipartisan?’ I hope in my remaining 453 days in the U.S. Senate that I can find at least one example of where they’ve done what 12 to 15 Republicans did in the Biden administration,” Tillis said.

Tillis reached across the aisle many times during former President Joe Biden’s tenure, including supporting Biden’s infrastructure package, working with a bipartisan group to reform gun laws and voting to pass the Respect for Marriage Act, which codified protections for same-sex and interracial marriages.

Tillis said policy discussions have devolved into partisan debates despite much of the United States favoring moderation.

“We’ve gotten less focused on an intelligent discussion about policy differences and more about fundamentally how can you be Republican or how can you be Democrat,” Tillis said. “We need more of these so-called ‘bipartisan sellouts,’ because I really know in my heart that’s where 60 to 70% of America is.” Emma García Gupton (SFS ’28), who attended the event, said she appreciated Tillis’ bipartisan spirit.

“It’s important to represent politics for the sake of politics itself, not an ideological viewpoint,” García Gupton told The Hoya. “What stuck with me was really the importance of bipartisanship, particularly his examples of finding common ground and going through the policy on its merits and not who has sway in Congress.” Elleithee said the event with Tillis was part of GU Politics’s larger efforts to examine the future of public service and commemorate the institute’s 10th anniversary.

“We’ve been living in this era of mass destruction, economic destruction, cultural destruction, social destruction, political destruction over the past decade,” Elleithee said at the event. “We thought that this entire year would be a great time to examine what the future of public service looks like 10 years from now.”

Tillis said civil servants should continue doing their jobs and refrain from politicizing their roles in serving the United States.

“It has nothing to do with getting people elected and it has everything to do with serving the American citizens,” Tillis said. “There is increasing evidence that on either side of the aisle, we’ve got large amounts of people who are politically influenced, and I think they need to just check those opinions at the door.”

HAAN JUN (RYAN) LEE/THE HOYA

The anti-abortion student group Georgetown Right to Life will lead the national March for Life for the first time in January 2026.

GU Journalism Program Welcomes Veteran News Editor as Fellow

Sofia Thomas GUSA Desk Editor

Georgetown University’s journalism program welcomed a veteran news editor and reporter as the Fall 2025 Sakka family religion and international journalism fellow, bringing expertise in journalism, politics and long-form reporting.

The journalism program and the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs announced Oct. 1 that Terence Samuel would join the university through the fellowship, which aims to expand students’ understanding of the role of religion in world events. Samuel previously served as the editor-in-chief of USA Today, the vice president and executive editor at NPR, and the White House editor for The Washington Post.

Samuel said events during his fellowship tenure will focus on the importance of truth in journalism and broader society.

“We’ve spent a lot of years as journalists trying to chase down the truth, and I think there’s some question about how effective that is and whether we need to do something more or different,” Samuel told The Hoya. “And there are a lot of conversations about that and so we’re going to talk a lot about why truth matters, not just in journalism, but in society in general, and how we can continue to elevate it.”

Rebecca Sinderbrand, director of the journalism program, said Samuel will bring both experience in journalism and student mentorship to Georgetown.

“We’re so thrilled that Terry Samuel was able to join us to have someone not only with his experience, but also with his special ability to connect with students and guide students,”

Sinderbrand told The Hoya. “I’ve seen him work with young journalists for many years, both alongside him as a colleague at The Washington Post and from a distance, seeing the way he worked with students in the Princeton journalism program.”

Sinderbrand said students will benefit from Samuel’s professional advice and his personal experience as a journalist with a decades-long career.

“I think that there is so much that students have to gain from connecting with him,” Sinderbrand said. “He has insight into both your professional path as you’re looking to make your way in this very tumultuous industry, but also just generally. He is someone who has just an amazing life story and life path, just generally.”

Anahita Asudani (SFS ʼ27) said she looks forward to hearing from Samuel about his experience reporting on politics for The Washington Post.

“I’m excited to hear more about Mr. Samuel’s expertise in political journalism, especially given his experience with The Washington Post,” Asudani wrote to The Hoya. “As an international politics major and English minor, I’m interested in how Mr. Samuel’s insights in political writing bridge these two areas.”

Samuel said he was drawn to Georgetown by seeing students’ on-campus reporting and the op-

Three GU Professors

Receive Annual Magis Prize For Research

Jacqueline Gordon Special to

The Hoya

Three Georgetown University professors received the annual Magis Prize, a research award for recently tenured professors, the university announced Oct. 1. The Magis Prize, which includes a $100,000 grant and two semesters of dedicated research time over the course of three years, focuses on providing funding and time for early-career associate professors whose research has a significant impact and involves undergraduate students. This year’s awardees include Ian Lyons, a psychology professor; Blythe Shepard, a human science professor; and Andrew Zeitlin, a professor in the McCourt School of Public Policy studying and developing approaches to improve learning practices in Rwanda.

Shepard said she looks forward to utilizing the two semesters of protected research time to mentor undergraduate students in a lab setting, a core goal of the Magis Prize, without having to also juggle teaching and grading coursework.

“This is an opportunity for me to not only support the students that I do have in the lab, make sure that they maybe can graduate with a scientific publication, but I can also be taking on more students and mentoring those younger students,” Shepard told The Hoya. “Especially with the protected time, it will give me the ability to really train the younger students with the hope that then they can stay in the lab for a number of years.” Shepard — who is researching an understudied subclass of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), a common protein researchers have used to develop inhalers and drugs targeting metabolism, in the liver and kidney — said she had to explain her research in lay terms so the panel would understand and be excited about it.

“Normally when you write a grant, like a scientific grant, you’ve got to be really detailed,” Shepard said. “You have to provide a lot of preliminary data. You have to write it because you need to be an expert, seen as an expert in the field and it’s reviewed by a lot of leading experts. With this Magis prize, I know it was reviewed by people that are in the field, but it was also being reviewed by a large lay audience.”

“That was a huge challenge to write this in a way that allowed for me to communicate the importance of the work without hopefully trying to oversell it or undersell it,” Shepard added.

portunity to share his journalistic experience with students.

“Last fall, I attended the endof-year journalism program where I saw all of the prizes that were handed out and saw some of the work that was done,” Samuel told The Hoya. “So I knew the place a little bit. And, a few years ago, I taught a class at Princeton and the opportunity to pass on things that I’ve picked up over many, many years — I really enjoyed that aspect of teaching.”

Samuel said high-quality journalism is essential for fostering communication across societal differences and keeping diverse people connected.

“I think that is a basis for connection and communication, and we can’t lose that, and to the extent that we’ve slipped, I think, some of the divide in the country is essentially about people not being able to communicate because they have such different information systems and information inflows and outflows,” Samuel said.

Through the fellowship, Samuel said he hopes to emphasize to students the importance of storytelling in reporting to foster intercommunal understanding.

“The thing that has essentially been a throughline for my entire career is how important good journalism is to communities and community building,” Samuel said. “I believe that storytelling is essentially one of the building blocks of community, and as journalists, the thing that we do is help people understand themselves and their communities and the world around them.”

At MSB Summit, Tech Leaders Advocate for AI To Work Alongside Human Creativity in Business

Joshua Lou Special to The Hoya

Lyons, who is the principal investigator of the Math Brain Lab, which studies the cognitive science of mathematical thinking, said he has been developing theories on people’s aversion or avoidance of math as they get older, examining the phenomenon of “math anxiety” and trying to determine the root cause.

“We’ve been interested in math anxiety, but over the years, what has sort of emerged is a lot of these theories, these ideas about, ‘How does math anxiety operate in the moment and how does it operate over time?’” Lyons said. “This notion of avoidance, this choice — ‘Do I engage or not engage?’ — has emerged as this piece that we all assume is there, but the actual clear hard evidence — can we see the smoking gun empirically — that’s what we’re really missing in the literature.”

Ginny Marshall (CAS ’29), a student who decided against taking a math course since arriving at Georgetown, said she looks forward to seeing the findings of Lyons’ research, noting the importance of taking a diverse range of subjects in becoming a well-rounded student.

“I think the study is important to the global development of mathematics,” Marshall wrote to The Hoya. “If students are apprehensive about pursuing math in college due to a fear of failure, then the mathematic field will eventually be homogenized. As with all academic communities, the benefit of a diverse range of scholars who possess different strengths is crucial to the success and progression of the field. Personally, I chose against taking higher level math in college.”

Shepard said the Magis Prize comes as associate professors have less time to devote to their research because they teach more, so the award allows them to focus more on research, setting them for long-term success.

“I think they strategically pick newly promoted faculty because there’s evidence, at least in the sciences, that faculty have a lot of support when they’re just starting out, then they lose that support,” Shepard said. “They get the promotion, which is fantastic, but then the teaching load goes up, you have less time to devote to your research, and it kind of stalls a little bit.”

“I would speculate the Magis is somewhat designed with that in mind to keep the momentum going so that this is not just the ending, but the beginning of something,” Shepard added.

A group of technology and business leaders positioned artificial intelligence (AI) as a crucial advancement that can pair with human ingenuity during an Oct. 3 Georgetown University McDonough School of Business AI and Work Summit.

The summit included speakers from companies including Amazon, Microsoft, Google Cloud, Morgan Stanley, Apollo Global Management and AG Consulting Partners to explore the future of business, finance careers and quantum computing amid AI developments. In light of rising student concerns about AI’s dominance, these financial and business leaders encouraged collaboration with AI rather than shying from it.

Alex Goldenberg (SFS ’98), AG Consulting Partners’ president and managing partner, said the rapid development of AI is exciting because of its unprecedented evolution and potential for a bigger role in business.

“It reminds me of the early days of the idea of the iPhone and all the apps that were being built,” Goldenberg said at the summit. “Technology is so cool right now — everyone’s trying to build something just to play around with it. But over time, there’ll be a top tier 20% of agents

that will prove to be useful, and the rest will be taken away.”

Goldenberg said AI currently focuses on simplifying complex processes and maximizing return on investment (ROI) but will soon move to more advanced business models.

“Right now, everyone’s focusing on low-hanging fruit, automating complex processes; it’s all about ROI and adoption,” Goldenberg said.

“But I think as we move forward, there’ll be new business models emerging. People are talking about billion-dollar companies run by one or two people and their agents.”

Mariam Naini, vice president of Microsoft’s commerce engineering customer engagement team, said Microsoft is in the process of using AI to improve customer experience using the Kaizen approach, a business model focused on incremental changes, and Gemba Walks, a management practice that identifies inefficiencies.

“At Microsoft, we’ve adopted the Kaizen approach, this kind of continuous improvement, and implementing Gemba Walks across all of our processes to understand where the inefficiencies are,” Naini said at the summit.

“The first exercise is to understand what you need to stop doing. The second exercise is figuring out what you can hand off. And then the third is ‘agentifying’ what you’ve got left.”

AG Consulting Partners has also been using AI for customer service, including automating customer outreach, sales, scheduling and other manual processes, Goldenberg said. He added that decision-making still requires the human mind, with which AI is only capable of assisting.

“While the technical skills are becoming super important, the business side of things is also critical,” Goldenberg said. “Building agents is one thing, but ensuring things like organizational alignment, cross-team collaboration and proper adoption is another. We become super important.”

Elizabeth Dennis, Morgan Stanley’s managing director and head of global client coverage, said human connection is an important part of financial asset management.

“It can cause a lot of disruption in families, even those that are quite high net worth,” Dennis said at the summit. “You’re talking about next generation planning and what to do with a family business or philanthropy and giving back. Those are mostly human, high-touch decisions.”

Roshanak Roshandel, Amazon’s head of Kuiper trust and privacy, said young graduates entering the workforce should see AI agents as assets, not competition.

“The important thing is to look at this as a tool,” Roshandel said

at the summit. “Jobs are not going anywhere — they are changing. The skill sets that they require might be different. 25 years ago, everybody was learning HTML because they needed to put a web page together for their organization. You’re going to have to adapt and reinvent yourself.”

Mitra Azizirad, Microsoft’s chief operations officer and corporate vice president of strategic missions and technologies, said quantum computing, a new type of computing that utilizes quantum mechanics to exponentially accelerate data processing, has the potential to solve problems that would otherwise take years.

“If we just relied on classical computing and AI, we would not be able to solve these problems in 100 or 1000 years,” Azizirad said at the summit. “But with quantum, it will be a very different sort of proposition.” Dennis said that no matter how advanced AI and computing becomes, there will always be a place for humans in finance.

“I would really encourage students to work on their interpersonal skills, whether that’s debate in the classroom or going to a dinner and being able to have a lively dialogue,” Dennis said. “What makes you interesting is the way you put your own lens on everything.”

Former US Ambassador Urges Global Communication

Ali Cappola Special to The Hoya

A former U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom and France defended international dialogue and recounted her diplomatic experiences at a Georgetown University event Oct. 6.

Jane Hartley, the former ambassador, argued in favor of international alliances, drawing on her experience representing the United States, focusing on counterterrorism, climate diplomacy and international conflicts. The event, hosted by the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service (SFS) and moderated by SFS Dean Joel Hellman, was held in Riggs Library.

Hartley said the international community underestimates allyship’s importance, especially given the United States’ increasingly tenuous relationships with allies throughout President Donald Trump’s second term.

“Countries that we work with are realizing now they may have to be on their own,” Hartley said at the event. “We cannot do it alone — not to realize that allies make you stronger, not weaker, is a mistake.”

Gary Hayes (SFS ’79), the executive director of the non-profit

Institute for Global Collaboration, who introduced Hartley, said Hartley had an inspiring career across the public and private sectors.

“Not only are your observations and insights enlightening, they’re also inspiring,” Hayes said to Hartley at the event.

“Equally inspiring is the example you’ve set with your own career, moving between the private and public sectors as opportunities presented themselves, so you could contribute to the issues you most believe in.”

“She’s really practiced what I think the School of Foreign Service tries to do so well — which is to bring all the different influences and interests together,” Hayes added.

In addition to her diplomacy experience, Hartley previously worked for a global consulting firm and a broadcasting group.

Hartley said she hopes for the United States and the United Kingdom’s long-standing relationship — known as a “special relationship” — to be rebuilt, as many diplomats fear the alliance is deteriorating.

“Everybody talks about the ‘special relationship,’ but it is deep and it is real,” Hartley said. “This is what the special relationship is

and what that means — it is trust, it is history, it is having each other’s back, it is working together on the toughest problems. We knew what the U.K. strategy was; they knew what ours was. We knew whatever our goal — supporting democracy, freedom, rule of law — we were in it together.”

Hartley added that strong international connections between the United States and the European Union are necessary.

“It is government-to-government, but it’s way more than that,” Hartley said. “It’s the exchange in terms of education, it’s the exchange in terms of arts — even sports. That’s important and that will keep the bond, so when it is the right time, we have to re-activate these alliances.”

Hartley said she faced difficulties navigating her career and encouraged students to remain engaged in public service.

“Every piece of what I’d done, whether it was in the foreign service or not, added up to something,” Hartley said. “For me, the main way I felt I could make a difference was public service. Don’t give up your dream. Your patriotism, your commitment to our country, are going to be important.”

Amanda Bell (SFS ’28), who attended the event, said Hart-

ley what working in diplomacy could be professionally.

“I think that’s very inspiring to see what day-to-day life at an embassy is like, and I am so inspired by everything that she’s accomplished and the way she’s been able to form such powerful connections,” Bell told The Hoya Before her time as a diplomat, Hartley worked for the Democratic National Committee as the executive director of the Democratic Mayors’ Conference and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development as the director of congressional relations. Karen Sunando (SFS ’28), who also attended the event, said she found Hartley’s experiences helpful for understanding foreign affairs career paths.

“I feel like when she was talking about how her career in the private sector connected to her experiences in the way she worked as an ambassador — that was super insightful as I try to navigate my own career path,” Sunando told The Hoya Hartley said open communication is vital for nations to maintain strong relationships.

“Even when we disagree, the dialogue and communication has to continue,” Harley said. “We never should stop talking to each other — never, never, never.”

COURTESY OF GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY

Former USA Today Editor-in-Chief Terence Samuel joins the Georgetown University journalism program as Sakka family religion and international journalism fellow for Fall 2025.

National Retail Foundation Donates

$6 Million to MSB for Retail Studies

Pritika Patel Academics Desk Editor

The Georgetown University McDonough School of Business (MSB) launched an initiative to expand retail studies and provide funding for professional and real-world retail experience, the university announced Sept. 30.

The initiative, which is called the National Retail Foundation (NRF) Business of Retail Initiative, aims to position Georgetown as a hub for retail studies, funding an annual NRF summit, two NRF-backed masters of business administration (MBA) fellowships, research grants, new faculty positions and an NRF chair in retail studies. NRF, the world’s largest retail trade association, donated $6 million to fund the initiative.

Matthew Shay (GRD ’11), NRF’s president, said the initiative will make Georgetown the epicenter of retail and its integration into academia.

“Many of the business school faculty who were my professors and instructors will now support this new initiative,” Shay told The Hoya. “Retail is a sophisticated industry driven by innovation and opportunity, and this program will elevate the importance of retail studies and shape the future of retail.”

The retail industry, which employs 55 million workers in the United States and contributes $5.3 trillion to the country’s gross domestic product, is often overlooked in academic research, according to industry leaders. NRF leaders have said

this initiative is a driving force in encouraging current and future MSB students to pursue an education in retail.

Adam Lukoskie (GRD ’16), the NRF’s executive director, said he looks forward to collaborating with Georgetown faculty on this investment.

“Our investment through the NRF Business of Retail Initiative allows us to connect Georgetown faculty and staff with thousands of retail executives who lead small, mid-size and multibillion-dollar retail businesses and are constantly working to solve their most complex challenges in supply chain, operations, new market development, finance and policy, to name just a few areas,” Lukoskie told The Hoya. “I personally love collaborating on forward-thinking solutions to modern issues.”

Rebecca Hamilton, marketing professor and Michael G. and Robin Psaros chair in business administration, said the initiative opens the door to connecting the MSB and students with future collaborations and real-world insight, including the senior vice president (SVP) at Walmart.

“Students in our ‘Global Retail Marketing’ course will be working on a live case with Macy’s and will have an opportunity to meet a top executive from Macy’s when he serves as a guest speaker,” Hamilton told The Hoya. “Andrea Albright, SVP at Walmart, will also be a guest speaker in this course.” Sophia Leissner (CAS ’27) — president of Georgetown Retail and Luxury Association (GRLA), a student-run organization that ed-

ucates students on the retail and luxury industries and professional opportunities — said the initiative presents a new and interesting opportunity for students.

“The NRF Business of Retail Initiative is an incredibly exciting opportunity, as it recognizes the importance of retail as a field of study and innovation,” Leissner told The Hoya. “For the GRLA, it will help facilitate our engagement with the industry in a meaningful way.”

Leissner said the initiative grants her invaluable insight into the industry and provides her with an opportunity to directly connect with leaders in the space.

“From gaining key insights into the changing retail landscape and the challenges ahead to connecting with leading organizations and employers in the industry, we are gaining access to a dynamic resource,” Leissner said. “For students like me who are pursuing careers in the retail and luxury sectors, it is an exciting chance to learn directly from leaders driving change and about how we can participate in fostering innovation and resilience across the industry.”

Shay said helping establish the NRF Business of Retail Initiative represents both a professional milestone and a personal return to his roots.

“NRF’s endowment to Georgetown University is a full circle moment for me,” Shay said. “I attended the McDonough School of Business Executive MBA program while also joining NRF as president and CEO because I wanted a degree and an experience that would have immediate application to my work.”

GUSA Senate Passes Bills on Menstrual Products, Transportation, Free Speech

Sofia Dominguez Zapata and Sofia Thomas Special to The Hoya and GUSA Desk Editor

The Georgetown University Student Association (GUSA) Senate, Georgetown’s student government, passed eight bills, including legislation on student engagement in GUSA, transportation services and free speech at its Oct. 5 meeting.

The non-binding legislation the GUSA Senate approved included bills that establish specific email addresses for each class to improve GUSA’s student outreach, call for more reliable Georgetown University Transportation Shuttle (GUTS) buses to the Capitol Campus route and advocate for a sustainable Halloween event in partnership with the Earth Commons, a university sustainability initiative.

The senate also passed bills urging the university to establish a space studies minor, create a free speech zone at the Capitol Campus, add reporting forms for menstrual products to bathrooms and create a LinkedIn premium trial program for the Georgetown Scholars Program, a program for first-generation and low-income students.

A final bill amended the bylaws of GUSA’s Diversity Fund, a fund that offers financial support to cultural organizations on campus.

Senator Jacob Intrator (CAS ’27) said the university lacks the infrastructure to foster student engagement with GUSA, something the outreach bill aims to address.

“All of us are very involved in GUSA, but the student body as a whole is not as involved in GUSA as we want,” Intrator said at the meeting. “There is not a direct known mechanism for the student body to directly engage with the senate.”

The bill, which passed 10-3, calls for the creation of email addresses for each class to increase student communication with GUSA.

The GUSA Senate unanimously passed a bill advocating for reliable arrival and departure times for GUTS buses on the Capitol Campus route.

Senator Asha Gudipaty (CAS, McCourt ’27) said GUTS buses to the Capitol Campus and 55 H St., the building for Capitol Campus housing, often arrive and depart off schedule.

“Specifically, the Capitol Campus and the 55 H weekend shuttle have not been as reliable as they could be, regarding specifically leaving early and then on weekends not showing up, and so students on the Capitol Campus are quite frustrated about this,” Gudipaty said at the meeting.

Senator Roan Bedoian (CAS ’28) said the bill may interfere with GUSA’s support for the GUTS bus workers in response to a university plan to require workers to either transfer to an outside contractor, which would mean they are no longer university employees, or shift to a position in another department, which often pay less.

“I worry right now about jeopardizing those employees who are already about to have their benefits and their positions with the university cut so significantly,” Bedoian said at the meeting. “So, it’s not that I disagree at all with any of the intentions of the bill. Rather, I’m worried about passing it at this exact moment.”

The senate unanimously passed an act supporting the creation of a space studies minor program and another urging the university to establish a free speech zone on the Capitol Campus.

Senator Zadie Weaver (CAS ’28) said student organizations are limited in their ability to put up flyers and table at the Capitol Campus in comparison to the main campus.

“This act establishes a free speech zone on the Capitol Campus,” Weaver said at the meeting.

“Student groups, especially ones that have Capitol Campus representatives, who are on the Capitol Campus flyering or tabling

— they don’t have a designated place for free speech.”

“This is focused on students because, right now, students have no mechanisms to express themselves,” Weaver added.

Saahil Rao (SFS ’27), speaker of the senate, said creating a free speech zone on the Capitol Campus would ensure that organizations that are not recognized by the university, such as H*yas for Choice, a student group that advocates for reproductive rights and abortion rights, can express their beliefs.

“I’m hearing from a lot of people in H*yas for Choice that they want to extend their operations to Capitol Campus, but the fact that there is no free speech zone can make it difficult,” Rao said at the meeting.

Senator Cameran Lane (CAS ’28) said it is important for GUSA to defend students’ right to freely express themselves.

“I think free speech shouldn’t be something that ticks people off,” Lane said at the meeting. “I get that in this day and age, we are in a very complicated spot, but free speech is still fundamentally free speech. It’s something that I think every group should have access to, that every person should have access to.”

The senate also passed a bill introducing a trial program to offer students in the Georgetown Scholars Program access to LinkedIn Premium, as well as a bill to create a reporting form for menstrual products in bathrooms. Weaver, who introduced the bill for menstrual product reporting, said it is important to maintain an appropriate supply to remain in accordance with D.C. code.

“This is specifically a violation of D.C. code and has been a specific thing that people have asked to rectify,” Weaver said. In addition to the meeting, the GUSA Election Commission announced Oct. 8 that Eli Amos (CAS ’27) won the special election for a vacant Class of 2027 senate seat.

GU Professor’s New Book Details

Neglect of Undergraduate Teaching

Connor Paoli

Special to The Hoya

A professor of Jewish civilization at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service (SFS) critiqued the doctoral education process for its neglect of undergraduate teaching in a Sept. 30 book.

In “As Professors Lay Dying,” Jacques Berlinerblau, the professor, argued faculty devote less time to undergraduates because they are focused on research as opposed to teaching, creating a nationwide crisis within higher education. The book, which is an update to a previous edition, shows that since the graduate study and hiring process is centered around research, faculty view anything that distracts from that, such as undergraduate teaching, as a negative.

Berlinerblau said doctoral programs, which focus on research, do not prepare faculty to teach undergraduate students.

“The doctorate doesn’t prepare you to teach undergraduates,” Berlinerblau told The Hoya. “American higher education developed an ideology that really cool stuff doesn’t involve undergraduate teaching. The cool stuff is working with graduate students, or ideally not teaching at all, and just being able to do research.”

Berlinerblau added this dynamic harms undergraduate teaching.

“The professorate has emphasized research at the expense of teaching undergraduates, and now we have this kind of crisis in undergraduate teaching,” Berlinerblau said.

Berlinerblau, in his book, argued that faculty are not prepared to

teach students because doctoral experiences often focus solely on research and universities do not invest in pedagogical training. Professors gain and maintain positions at universities through research, resulting in a faculty that views teaching as a distraction from research, according to Berlinerblau.

Berlinerblau, who teaches a comedy class in the English department at Georgetown, said the book was a deviation from the scholarly work he typically publishes, noting his casual and comedic tone, including making jokes throughout the book.

“I do mostly scholarship, but this book is a trade book; it’s meant to be funny,” Berlinerblau said. “It doesn’t have any footnotes. I’m not trying to document or discover something. I’m just trying to describe where I am.”

Jonathan Bar-On (SFS ’25), who worked with Berlinerblau on the book, said the book provides college students and applicants with unique insights on what to look for in a mentor and what to look for in an education respectively.

“I think that for most college students right now, it’s an important read so they can understand a lot of their frustrations with their professors and their classes,” BarOn wrote to The Hoya. “I think the people that will benefit the most from this are high school juniors and their parents.”

Berlinerblau said the book examines the difference between how people earn their doctorates and obtain a tenure-track position and what that faculty position — which professors often keep for decades — entails.

“I talk about this massive disconnect between what

we’re training doctorates to do and what they do,” Berlinerblau said. “What in theory we’re supposed to do is teach undergraduates for 50 years or so. But we’re never trained to do that in graduate school.” Lainey Lyle (SFS ’27), who also assisted Berlinerblau with the book, said an issue with undergraduate teaching is a lack of tenure offers.

“When professors are tenured, they’re going to be much more dedicated to the school,” Lyle told The Hoya. “You can guarantee that they will be doing more research but also more teaching in their tenure job.” Lyle said helping Berlinerblau with the book taught her new ways of thinking about higher education.

“I think it was very interesting. Berlinerblau certainly has a lot of opinions on the idea of the undergrad education experience,” Lyle said. “I read through the entire book three separate times, leaving comments and double-checking all of his footnotes on the back end.” Berlinerblau said recent cuts in higher education grants by the federal government made a new edition timely and necessary, serving as a commentary on the perils modern education faces.

“As I understand it, the Trump administration is doing its best to tell private universities that, ‘We’re watching you, and we will inflict pain if we can,’” Berlinerblau said. Berlinerblau said students should pursue their interests to maximize their college experiences even amid this apparent crisis.

“Cultivate your own garden, and that’s the advice I’m giving to people, artists, musicians, journalists,” Berlinerblau said. “Do your thing and do it well.”

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY

A $6 million gift from the trade association the National Retail Federation to Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business will fund a new retail studies initiative.

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY

The Georgetown University Student Association (GUSA) Senate passed eight bills on student engagement with GUSA, transportation shuttles and a space studies minor at its Oct. 5 meeting.

COMMENTARY

DC Council Proposes NIL Changes Wizards’ Young Core Looks to Avoid Repeat of League-Worst Record

The Council of the District of Columbia is inviting public comment until Oct. 13 on a bill that would allow Georgetown University and other universities in the District to directly compensate student-athletes.

The Uniform College Athlete Name, Image or Likeness Amendment Act of 2025 would lift current Washington, D.C. restrictions on direct payments from institutions to student athletes and enable schools to negotiate directly with recruits. The bill comes after a settlement between a group of student athletes and the NCAA in June that established a new framework to allow universities to directly pay student athletes.

The D.C. bill would implement the legal settlement into local law since the District does not currently allow universities to pay student-athletes.

Indya Davis (CAS ’28), a player on the Georgetown University women’s basketball team, said the bill would rightfully allow studentathletes to be compensated.

“I think it’s time for athletes to be able to be paid directly, especially if they’re bringing money in for the school,” Davis told The Hoya. “I think it’s going to give us better opportunities to get our money’s worth and be able to show what we can do out there.”

Since 2021, collegiate athletes have been allowed to receive payment for use of their name, image or likeness (NIL) from third parties such as advertising agencies. Universities have set up NIL collectives, which connect donors with athletes to practically create an unregulated pay-for-play system.

Davis said the legislation could render collectives obsolete.

“You really didn’t know when you were getting anything,” Davis said.

“It was a little chaotic, honestly.”

Hoyas Rising, Georgetown’s NIL collective, closed over the summer, the university announced in May.

Allowing universities to directly pay athletes will likely increase disparities between small and large universities, and between college football and men’s basketball and sports that do not generate revenue of their own, according to a CBS Sports analysis.

Three George Washington University (GWU) men’s basketball players submitted testimony in favor of the amendment.

The three players — Rafael Castro, Trey Autry and Christian Jones — said the proposed legislation would position D.C. universities to attract top student-athletes.

“Student-athletes can confidently choose to study and compete in D.C., knowing we are valued and on equal footing with our peers nationwide,” Castro, Autry and Jones wrote in the joint statement. “Without it, we risk falling behind in recruiting and retaining top student-athletes.”

Following the June 6 decision, the White House issued an executive order titled “Saving College Sports,” ordering the implementation of guardrails in athlete remuneration. It argues that allowing direct payment to players could turn NIL deals into bidding wars between schools as opposed to paying athletes in proportion to the money they earn their programs. It called this phenomenon an “unprecedented threat” to collegiate athletics.

Michael Lipitz, associate vice president and director of athletics at GWU, said at the Sept. 29 Council hearing that he

is concerned about extortionate fees charged by NIL agents, which are unregulated, unlike agents for professional athletes.

“That’s a particular point, to make sure our student athletes are educated and informed to make good decisions in terms of who they select to represent them,” Lipitz said at the hearing.

Andrew Knispel (CAS ’26), a member of the Georgetown men’s heavyweight rowing team, said he thinks the new legislation will not create new imbalances in college athletics.

“I think the disparities are already felt,” Knispel told The Hoya. “I don’t know if this really alleviates them. I think it really does depend, school to school, how that money is allocated by the athletics director.”

Most NIL spending is funneled toward the revenue-generating sports, men’s basketball and football, with some of the top-paid college athletes in the Southeastern and Big Ten conferences receiving multiple millions of dollars in compensation.

Knispel said student athletes — especially those in popular or financially successful programs — deserve to be paid by their university.

“I think there should be a baseline as a whole for a team that does bring in a lot of money, because a lot of these, almost 99% of these sports, are team sports that involve more than one guy,” Knispel said.

Knispel said tensions may arise if one player is paid more than another on a team, but he believes the best players should be compensated.

“I think it’s a question of both individual locker rooms as well as level of competition,” Knipsel said. “But I think it makes sense that, you know, people who really excel and our stars on the team should be paid more.”

Commanders Beat Ailing Chargers

On Sunday, quarterback Jayden Daniels returned both from a knee injury and to his native Southern California, steering the Washington Commanders (3-2) to victory over the Los Angeles Chargers (3-2). Los Angeles’ proliferation of penalties, injuries and turnovers aided the Commanders’ efforts. Rookie running back Jacory Croskey-Merritt starred with 111 rush yards and 2 touchdowns. The game did not start well for Washington, though. The Chargers got the ball first and tore down the field. Wide receiver Ladd McConkey caught a pass in the end zone from quarterback Justin Herbert to cap off a 9-play, 76-yard drive to open the game, making it 7-0 for the Chargers with 9:49 left in the first quarter. The Commanders then went three and out before Los Angeles drove down the field again. Cameron Dicker kicked a field goal to make it 10-0 for the Chargers with 2:57 left in the first. Another quick punt from Washington gave the ball back to the Chargers, who again marched into opposing territory with ease and were on the verge of scoring. Then, at the Commanders’ 23-yard line, safety Quan Martin punched the ball out of wide receiver Quentin Johnston’s hands, and cornerback Marshon Lattimore recovered the fumble for the Commanders.

The Commanders’ offense came to life. Passes to rookie receiver Jaylin Lane and receiver Deebo Samuel followed by a Daniels scramble led the team into Chargers territory,

before Croskey-Merritt broke free for a 15-yard touchdown run, shrinking the Commanders’ deficit to just 3 points with 4:15 left in the half. The Chargers then punted, pinning Washington on their own 7-yard line. After 2 incompletions and a sack, the Commanders punted out of their own endzone, which McConkey returned for a touchdown. However, the referees called Chargers linebacker Marlowe Wax for roughing the kicker, negating the score and giving Washington a fresh set of downs.

On the next play, receiver Luke McCaffrey caught a Daniels deep ball for a 50-yard completion, continuing the receiver’s hot start to his sophomore season. Matt Gay capped the drive off with a field goal as time expired. Los Angeles went into the half tied with the Commanders 10-10. Opening the third quarter, CroskeyMerritt led the way with a 28-yard rush and an 11-yard catch before punching in a 5-yard run for another score, giving Washington a 17-10 lead with 10:58 to go in the third quarter.

On the drive following CroskeyMerritt’s second touchdown, defensive tackle Johnny Newton got through for a sack, and an illegal formation penalty negated a 31yard Keenan Allen catch and forced the Chargers to punt again.

Croskey-Merritt ran for 27 yards on the first play of the next drive, setting up another Gay field goal to make it 20-10 Washington with 5:49 to go in the third quarter.

On the following Chargers drive, they found more success, but, facing a fourth and 2 from the Commanders’

39-yard line, LA head coach Jim Harbaugh went for it instead of giving the ball to Dicker for a 56yard field goal attempt. On the play, Herbert passed incomplete to tightend Tyler Conklin while running back Omarion Hampton hurt his ankle, adding injury to insult.

Following the turnover-ondowns, Croskey-Merritt, in the only blemish on his otherwise impeccable performance, fumbled on the first play of the fourth quarter, giving the Chargers possession on their own 43-yard line. The next drive began well for the Chargers. Allen and Johnston caught passes, leading the team to Washington’s 1-yard line. On third and goal, however, disaster struck again. Herbert’s pass, intended for Allen at the front of the endzone, was tipped by Newton, and cornerback Mike Sainristil intercepted it. Daniels then orchestrated a 13play, 99-yard drive, culminating in a fadeaway throw to Samuel in the back right corner of the endzone. This made it 27-10 Commanders with 1:08 left to play, killing any hope of a comeback for the Chargers.

The Chargers’ own ailments leave some debate as to how good a performance it was from the Commanders. What is not debatable is that the Commanders are 3-2 and one game behind the Philadelphia Eagles for the NFC East lead going into Monday night’s matchup with the Chicago Bears (2-2), a rematch of last season’s game, which ended with Daniels’ famous “Hail Maryland” walkoff touchdown pass.

After a combined 33 wins over the last 2 seasons, an NBA-worst, the Washington Wizards are looking to turn the rebuilding process in a positive direction. The Wizards have not had a winning season since the 2017-18 season, where all-star backcourt duo John Wall and Bradley Beal led the team to the NBA playoffs.

Despite an unsuccessful streak of seasons, the Wizards’ front office and coaching staff, led by Head Coach Brian Keefe, have made several promising offseason moves.

With the sixth pick of the 2025 NBA draft, the Wizards selected University of Texas standout guard Tre Johnson. They also selected forward Will Riley from the Illinois Fighting Illini with the 21st pick and Florida State University guard Jamir Watkins with the 43rd pick.

Johnson — along with a strong young core of center Alex Sarr and guard Bub Carrington, who both earned all-rookie honors last season — provides a young core for the team to build around.

Additionally, the Wizards acquired veteran guard CJ McCollum and forward Cam Whitmore from the New Orleans Pelicans, along with guard Malaki Branham in a trade with the San Antonio Spurs.

Forward Marvin Bagley III also re-signed with the Wizards in July after a short stint with the Memphis Grizzlies, an attempt to increase the infamously weak depth of the Wizards’ frontcourt.

Lastly, veteran forward Khris Middleton re-signed with the team, providing a more balanced roster between young players and experienced ones.

The rest of the roster features a returning core of French guard Bilal Coulibaly, forwards Corey Kispert

and Kyshawn George and center Tristan Vukcevic. These players will look to answer the questions and concerns surrounding positional depth, as fans are expecting a breakout year from George following strong showings in Summer League and Team Canada play.

The Wizards’ identity seems to be trending toward a young, athletic and defensively focused squad looking to develop their youth through internal development, with an existing balance of veteran knowledge and play.

Keefe said in an Oct. 4, 2025 interview with WJLA that he still thinks the team is building and that there is promise.

“We’re still in the building phase,” Keefe said. “People are going to start separating themselves. We’re in that phase of, now, we know how to do stuff. Now we got to translate it more to the games.”

Looking ahead to the Wizards’ regular season schedule, they open with a tough road test against the Milwaukee Bucks Oct. 22. Shortly after is their home opener against the Charlotte Hornets, a Southeast Division opponent, on Oct. 26.

Their NBA Cup in-season tournament play opens with a matchup against the Cleveland Cavaliers Nov. 7. Depending on their performance in the NBA Cup group stage, their last guaranteed group game at the Indianapolis Pacers on Nov. 28, marks an important point in the season. The Wizards will have upcoming holiday games, including an away matchup against the Bucks on New Year’s Eve, and home matchups against the Los Angeles Clippers on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the Brooklyn Nets on Easter. In order to find success this upcoming season, the Wizards will need a lot of things to go right, including a quick mesh of veterans and young players and their high upside to deliver effective results right out of the gate. Keefe said he believes fans will start to notice improvement.

“We’re going to give it our all every night,” Keefe said. “We’re going to be relentless in how we pursue getting better and we’re going to show that on the court and I think our fans are starting to see that.”

@WASHWIZARDS/INSTAGRAM

The Wizards struggled last year, but a young core could show signs of improvement as the team continues rebuilding.

Dueling NIL Bills to Reshape College Athletics Introduced In Congress

Three Democratic senators introduced legislation seeking to reshape the future of college sports by standardizing rules for name, image and likeness (NIL) deals, expanding revenue for women’s and Olympic sports and setting federal regulations for transfers, scholarships and academic protections.

If passed, the Student Athlete Fairness and Enforcement (SAFE) Act, sponsored by Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), would codify federal protections for student athletes and amend the 1961 Sports Broadcasting Act (SBA). The SBA currently allows professional leagues like the NFL to sell their media rights collectively, but it excludes college conferences, so universities must negotiate individually. The system therefore favors powerhouse programs in the Southeastern (SEC) and Big Ten conferences that can command massive media deals, while smaller schools and conferences are left behind.

Expanding the SBA to include collegiate leagues could allow schools to pool their media rights, boosting revenues to help smaller schools maintain at least the same number of roster spots and scholarships they offered during the 2023–24 academic year, if not more.

Lawmakers have long viewed SBA changes as a possible solution to the growing financial challenges facing college athletics, though SEC and Big Ten leaders have opposed such consolidation. Given that both conferences currently negotiate their own media deals, pooling rights with smaller schools could reduce the value of their exclusive arrangements.

When announcing the bill, Cantwell said it was designed to balance resources across schools.

“This legislation is a path through the new world of NIL,” Cantwell wrote in a press release. “This bill will protect athlete rights, preserve women’s and Olympic sports, and help smaller schools compete. It is a

fair shake for everyone, instead of the biggest, richest schools.”

At many schools, revenue from men’s athletics underwrites women’s and Olympic sports, which tend to bring in less ticket and media revenue.

Under the current system, smaller, less lucrative schools struggle to fund those teams, leading to cuts or reductions in scholarships. Supporters of the SAFE Act argue that pooling media rights could stabilize revenue across all conferences.

Blumenthal said the NCAA has previously failed to protect athletes’ rights.

“For far too long, college athletes had their basic economic rights denied while the NCAA failed to protect their health, safety and academic success,” Blumenthal wrote in the press release. “Our measure centers athletes’ rights and wellbeing with real reforms while bringing schools the clarity they need and promoting women’s and Olympic sports.”

The bill outlines a broad set of protections for studentathletes, including a national NIL standard, limits on agent fees and a federal certification system for NIL agents. These protections guarantee scholarships for 10 years after a player’s athletic eligibility expires — allowing athletes to return to school and complete their degree — and five years of post-eligibility medical coverage. The bill would also allow athletes to transfer schools twice without penalty.

These protections intend to reduce the academic and medical setbacks athletes often face once they stop competing.

The bill also preserves the revenue-sharing cap agreed upon in the recent House settlement, which sets a 22% cap on distributing revenues to athletes while also approving a $2.85 billion payout for lost NIL opportunities between 2016 and 2024.

However, the SAFE Act faces a steep climb in Congress. It currently lacks Republican support, and Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Technology Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who will decide if the

bill moves forward, was unaware of its introduction. In the House of Representatives, Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) has already expressed opposition to altering the SBA. The SAFE Act does not address whether athletes should be classified as employees or grant the NCAA liability protections to enforce its rules, both of which are mentioned in the competing Republican-backed Student Compensation and Opportunity through Rights and Endorsements (SCORE) Act, introduced in the House earlier this summer.

The NCAA and Power Five conferences — now the Power Four since the Pac-12 conference dissolved in April 2024 — strongly back the SCORE Act and have spent millions of dollars lobbying Congress since 2019 to set and enforce their own set of rules without running into antitrust laws. Protections outlined in the SCORE Act would allow individual conferences to implement rules on compensation, transfers and eligibility, while also ensuring that athletes are never classified as employees or able to unionize. The Republican-proposed bill also mirrors parts of the House settlement, establishing national NIL standards, regulating agents and requiring schools to maintain a minimum number of sports programs. The reform bills and wider debates over the future of college sports have drawn significant lobbying from major players in college athletics. The NCAA reported $520,000 in federal lobbying expenditures so far in 2025, while the SEC spent $400,000. The Big Ten reported $460,000 in lobbying in 2024. Still, the SCORE Act has run into some resistance within the Republican Party itself. Several Texas Republicans have criticized the NCAA’s role in the bill, arguing it grants the association too much power. The SAFE Act now lies with Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who will decide whether to advance the bill. Without his support, the legislation is unlikely to advance to a full Senate vote.

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Sophomore quarterback Jayden Daniels returned to Southern California and led the Washington Commanders past the Los Angeles Chargers by a score of 27-10.

Ava Hult Sports Staff Writer

Julian Brown Special to The Hoya NEWS

Brendan Fijol Special to The Hoya

Sam Fishman Sports Staff Writer

FOOTBALL

In Wild Card Round, Red Sox Fails to Beat Yankees Hail Mary

HERMAN, from A12

no team has overcome a Game 1 loss in the wild card round.

No team, that is, except the 2025 Yankees. They won a backand-forth, stress-inducing Game 2 on Wednesday, leaving it up to dueling rookie pitchers to decide the series in the rubber match. I placed all my faith in Cam Schlittler’s postseason debut, and holy Schlitt did he deliver.

Schlittler pitched 8 shutout innings, striking out 12 and walking no one. The Yankees won 4-0, punching their ticket to meet the Toronto Blue Jays in the American League Division Series (ALDS). Have I mentioned that I have developed a sudden disdain for maple syrup? In the other three wild card series around the majors, things were just as hectic. Except in Los Angeles. Nothing fun ever happens in LA. At home, the Cleveland Guardians faced their division rival, the Detroit Tigers, not even a week after the two teams met in the regular season. The Tigers had at one point been 15.5 games ahead of the Guardians in the division race — insurmountable, until it wasn’t. The Guardians won the division by one game, earning home field advantage against the Tigers in the wild card series. Had the Tigers lost the series, it would have marked the end of a prolonged disaster of a season — but Detroit survived a strong effort from the

young Cleveland team and won the series in three games.

In the National League, the 90win San Diego Padres squared off against the 92-win Chicago Cubs. The Cubs took Game 1 and the Padres responded by winning Game 2 before dropping a close Game 3. If you’re counting, that means there were three dramatic, leaveit-all-on-the-field, winner-takeall games played this season. It could have been four, but the Los Angeles Dodgers ruin everything. Invariably.

The Dodgers quickly dispatched the Cincinnati Reds, approaching both games as if they were insulted to have to play a wild card series. If I were watching, I would have seen MVP frontrunner Shohei Ohtani delight the crowd and hit 2 home runs. I wasn’t watching, though. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss.

“Ignorance is bliss” would have been a great thing to consider before I turned on the Yankees game just now to see that the Blue Jays were leading 10-1 in the ninth inning of Game 1 of the ALDS. Perhaps the Yankees are just excruciatingly bad in Game 1s yet perfectly competent in every other situation. Yankees in four? Nope — Yankees in five? Please? By Friday, you’ll know if I am back to hating baseball, or if I still somehow believe in the month of October. If you’re hoping for another edition of this column, you better hope for the latter.

Stuns Morgan State for Homecoming

Win

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HOCO, from A12

found the end zone fourth and goal. With an extra point, the Hoyas maintained their lead at 14-7.

Anderson nearly put the Hoyas up by 10 heading into halftime, but Bears defensive lineman

Rasheen Duncan blocked the 39yard attempt, keeping the lead at 7 heading into the break.

Georgetown fell apart defensively to start the second half after allowing a strong 64-yard kickoff return to near midfield.

On Morgan State’s third play of the half, they found the end zone with a 64-yard touchdown pass, evening the score at 14 all.

Thomas refused to stay down; he led the Hoyas down the field as soon as they got the ball back. After a clutch third down conversion and a roughing the passer penalty, Thomas took the ball into the end zone himself on a 12-yard rushing touchdown.

Anderson made the kick to put Georgetown up once again, 21-14.

After gifting the Bears 5 yards on an offside penalty, the Hoyas were able to stop their offense on a big third down, limiting Morgan State to a 32-yard field goal.

Just a few minutes later with under a minute to play in the third quarter, the Bears found the end zone again, going up 2124 after a made extra point.

Georgetown nearly evened it to begin the final quarter, but Duncan blocked his second field goal of the game to keep the score even.

After fumbling with less than 2 minutes in the game, all hope seemed to be lost for the Hoyas, but after forcing a turnover on downs, Georgetown had the ball at midfield with 32 seconds on the clock.

Thomas searched for Kibble with his first 2 attempts but was unable to find his hands. Then, Thomas heaved a desperation prayer towards the end zone. Kibble jumped up and came down with a contested catch. As the Hoya bench stormed the field in celebration, Georgetown went ahead of Morgan State for a final score of 27-21.

Head Coach Rob Sgarlata said he always tells his players to stay in the moment and fulfill their assignments, no matter how big the moment.

“We talk to the players a lot about staying in the moment and being where your feet are,”

Sgarlata told The Hoya. “Really just focusing on that play and making sure everybody knew what their assignments were, and give ourselves a chance to get a position to make that play at the end.”

After a bye week, Georgetown will host Colgate University (23, 1-0 Patriot League) at Cooper Field on Oct. 18 at 1 p.m. in search of their first conference win.

ST. JOHN’S, from A12

from a cross which just missed the top corner.

Tippins later won Georgetown a penalty in the 12th minute; she was tripped in the box and after a replay review, the Hoyas were awarded a penalty.

Tippins fired home, giving Georgetown a well-deserved 1-0 lead.

After scoring the opener, the Hoyas kicked into another gear and dominated the rest of the match.

In the 31st minute, the referee once again signaled for a video review on a possible foul as St. John’s midfielder Julia Lombardo tripped Georgetown senior forward Natalie Means. This time, Means stepped up and scored despite the keeper getting a hand to it. The Hoyas led by 2.

Following the second goal, Georgetown was still putting pressure on the St. John’s defense.

The Hoyas’ backline and keeper were largely given a day off.

With just five minutes left in the first half, Means got her head on the cross, but the ball smacked the crossbar, and Means was unable to convert from the rebound.

Georgetown ended the first half up by 2 — St. John’s was yet to record a shot in the match, while Georgetown had 19 of their own.

The Hoyas came out for the second half with a foot on the gas. In the 53rd minute, Lardner got on the end of a low cross and tapped home to make it 3-0. Lardner’s goal was her eighth of the season in 13 games.

The Hoyas were not done yet as Tippins bagged her second goal of the game in the 65th minute. The ball fell at her feet in the box and she smashed it into the bottom corner.

The half went on and the Hoyas were still creating chances and looking for more goals.

The Red Storm posed a threat on the counterattack but couldn’t create a shot on goal.

St. John’s finally got their first shot recorded in the 83rd minute of the game, but it did not trouble sophomore goalkeeper Cameron Gabrielson.

Shortly after their first shot, the Red Storm created two more chances, which were both saved comfortably by the keeper.

Dave Nolan, the head coach, said he was proud of Georgetown’s composure as they entered conference play and he had the opportunity to rotate his squad.

“Tonight was another good performance by the team at a venue where we have struggled in the past,” Nolan told Georgetown Athletics.

“The most rewarding part of the evening was the opportunity to get some minutes and experience for our younger players and some who we haven’t been able to get on the field much.”

The game ended 4-0 and the Georgetown win was thorough-

ly deserved. The Hoyas outshot the Red Storm by 29 shots to 3. The Hoyas have had an impressive season so far and will want to continue their red-hot form as they welcome DePaul University on Saturday at 5 p.m. on Shaw Field.

DENVER, from A12

amassed 3 yellow cards throughout the half, and the Hoyas amassed 2 and a red card. In the 76th minute, play stopped as chaos seemed to erupt on the field. Viera was taken to the ground another time in what would land Denver a yellow card — and Viera did not respond favorably. Losing his cool, Viera pushed over Pioneers forward Keegan Kelly and was shown a red card, forcing the Hoyas to play down a man for the final 14 minutes of play. The red card also lost the Hoyas Viera for Saturday’s match against the University of Connecticut (UConn) Huskies (7-2-3, 2-1-0 Big East). Sophomore forward Jordi Sada-Paz was shown a yellow card a few minutes later for not stepping away from the ball fast enough after a foul was called. The Hoyas sent up a total of 7 shots throughout the second half, but none found any success. In the final minute of play, the story turned out a little differently for Denver. Capitalizing on the Hoyas’ loss of a player, the Pioneers drew 4 fouls in the final 14 minutes of play. The fourth of these fouls gave the Pioneers a free kick outside the penalty box, and Schultz lofted the ball

into the right half of the net as Manske failed to move waiting for a second Denver touch. Despite being challenged with VAR review, the goal remained.

With just 16 seconds left to play, the Hoyas saw an unfortunate end to their 9-game undefeated streak as the Pioneers edged into the lead 2-1.

The Hoyas were missing a key element to their success Tuesday night: sophomore forward Mitchell Baker. In Georgetown’s Oct. 3 match against Seton Hall University (5-2-4, 2-0-1 Big East), Baker was sent off the pitch with a red card in the 89th minute. Baker, with that red card, received an automatic one-game suspension, forcing the Hoyas’ second-lead scorer to sit out the match against Denver. The Hoyas inevitably missed out on some scoring opportunities. Despite Georgetown outshooting Denver 14-5, both teams only had 3 shots on goal — a strict departure from the Hoyas’ average of over 7 shots on goal per game.

Head Coach Brian Wiese said the team made a number of fatal errors throughout the match.

“At the end of the day, we laid our own landmines that we stepped on,” Wiese told The Hoya. “So, the first goal we created for them, the red card we cre-

ated for them and, in some ways, it’s the second goal.”

“A lot of our heartache was self-induced today,” Wiese added.

The Hoyas will return to play Saturday, Oct. 11, at 7:30 p.m. in a doubleheader against UConn at Shaw Field, where George-

town will look to

their

(9-2-2, 5-0 Big East) will take on the DePaul University Blue Demons (3-8-1, 0-3-1 Big East) prior to the men’s match.

regain

winning momentum in their fourth Big East matchup. The No. 15 Georgetown women’s soccer team

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

The New York Yankees narrowly beat the Red Sox in the Wild Card round to advance to the ALDS, against the Blue Jays.

GEORGETOWN ATHLETICS

Senior forward Henley Tippins moved her season total to 5 goals with a brace against St. John’s Saturday.

EVE CARON/THE HOYA

Senior midfielder Zach Zengue (right) scored his 10th goal of the season, tied for the fourth-most goals in the country.

ForBaseball’s Wild Week, A Super Mild MLB Recap

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 10,

TALKING POINTS

At the end of the day, we laid our landmines that we stepped on. A lot of our heartache was self-induced. Men’s Soccer Head Coach Brian Wiese

Oct. 11 @ 7:30 p.m.

Shaw Field

ended with me at Yankee Stadium on a Tuesday evening, watching as the sky darkened and the Yankees ruined my night. They led for most of the game — the first in a three-game series against the Red Sox — until relief pitcher Luke Weaver gave up the lead and the offense quietly disappeared. The Yankees gave me false hope in the ninth inning by loading the bases without recording an out, but nothing came of it. I slinked out of the stadium as Liza Minnelli played over the speakers, using the last of my voice to declare repeatedly that I hate baseball. I spent my train ride back to Washington, D.C., trying not to think about the game. I figured we were doomed. After all, since MLB implemented a new playoff format in 2021, and the single wild card game became a three-game series,

See HERMAN, A11

Kibble the Homecoming Hero on Late Hail Mary

Ethan Herweck Deputy Sports Editor All hope seemed to be lost for the Hoyas late in the Oct. 4 homecoming game trailing by 3 points with under 30 seconds left, but late-game magic from senior wide receiver Jimmy Kibble saved the day, coming down with the ball on a Hail Mary as time expired to capture the win. The Georgetown University football team (3-3, 0-1 Patriot League) won on a walk-off

touchdown pass against the Morgan State University Bears (24) to get back into the win column.

Senior quarterback Dez Thomas II, who has struggled in past weeks as a replacement for injured senior quarterback Danny Lauter, started off the game hot against the Bears. Thomas completed 3 of his first 4 passes on the opening drive, capping off with a short touchdown pass to junior tight end Isaiah Grimes for the early lead.

Following a made kick from sophomore kicker Thomas Anderson, the Hoyas led 7-0.

The Georgetown defensive unit started off strong as well, forcing a three and out on Morgan State’s first possession that included a tackle for loss from junior cornerback Quincy Briggs. Thomas finished off the Hoyas’ second possession the same way he did the first: with a short touchdown pass, this time to junior wide receiver Coen Sutton. This drive also included an impressive 22-yard run from Thomas, who looked more confident following his struggles in the past weeks. Another made extra point for Anderson put the Hoyas up 14-0.

Hoyas Keep Rolling, Dispatch Red Storm

Golnar Jalinous Deputy Sports Editor

The No. 15 Georgetown University women’s soccer team (9-2-2, 5-0-0 Big East) traveled Oct. 4 to Belson Stadium to take on the St. John’s University Red Storm (26-4, 0-3-2 Big East) and kept their hot streak rolling with a 4-0 win. The game kicked off at 7 p.m., and it only took a minute for the Hoyas to record their first shot of the night. Senior forward Henley Tippins connected with the ball from the cross and her effort was just wide of the near post. Despite the early miss, the Hoyas had set the pace.

Two minutes later, Georgetown’s top scorer, graduate forward Maja Lardner, took a shot from outside the box, which was saved well by St. John’s keeper Kayla Bower. After two good chances missed, the Hoyas kept pushing forward and creating opportunities. In the sixth minute, Tippins once again connected with the ball from a corner, but the Red Storm defense was able to scramble it away. The first five minutes of this game were all Georgetown, and St. John’s continued to struggle to get out of their penalty box. Tippins controlled the top half of the pitch; she dribbled past the St. John’s players with ease, creating chances and taking good shots. Her hunger showed again in the 11th minute when she took a half-volleyed shot

On the final play of the first quarter, Georgetown’s defense stacked up well again against the Bears. Senior linebacker Naiteitei Mose forced and recovered a fumble. The turnover gave the Hoyas the ball to start the second quarter and kept Morgan State scoreless through the first.

Following an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on Mose and a holding call once on offense, the Hoyas were nearly 30 yards from a first down to start the second quarter, and the drive unsurprisingly ended in a punt.

The Bears were unable to do anything on their drive and were forced to punt. Georgetown senior wide receiver Keynan RichardsonCook made a crucial play on special teams and blocked the Morgan State punt, giving the Hoyas an even better field position. However, Georgetown was ultimately unable to turn this advantage into points on the board. The Hoyas nearly kept the Bears scoreless for the entire first half, but with just over a minute left, the Morgan State offense

Madeline Wang

Senior Sports Editor

The No. 14 Georgetown University men’s soccer team (63-3, 2-0-1 Big East) lost to the University of Denver Pioneers (6-6, 1-1 Summit League) 2-1 Tuesday night, Oct. 7, under the lights of Shaw Field. In the final 20 seconds of the match, the Hoyas lost their 9-game undefeated streak to a team that had so far amassed more losses than wins this season. Denver got off to a dominant start, controlling possession for most of the first 15 minutes of play. Despite the Pioneers’ hold of possession, the Hoyas managed to fire off the first shots of the match with senior midfielder Zach Zengue sending off a shot that was blocked in the fifth minute and a second shot from far out that flew over the goal in the 17th minute. A minute later, Zengue was given another opportunity for a goal as senior midfielder Max Viera was taken to the ground in the box and subsequent video assistant referee (VAR) review awarded the Hoyas a penalty kick. Zengue lined up to take the shot and sent the ball bounding into the back of the net as the Pioneers’ goalkeeper Gabe Schwartz dove to the opposite side, putting the Hoyas up 1-0 18 minutes into the match. With

this goal, Zengue, who was tied for fourth most goals in the country to begin the week, netted his 10th goal of the season. The Pioneers responded rapidly, charging up the field and securing a corner kick within the next minute of play as first-year defender Will Caldwell used his body to block a potential goal. Denver midfielder Luke Schultz sent an outswinging corner to wide-open Pioneers defender Trevor Wright who knocked the free header into the back right corner of the net, tying the match 1-1 in the 19th minute. The rest of the first half saw both teams pursuing a goal to no avail. Throughout the first half, Georgetown sent up 1 shot on goal and Denver sent up 2, limiting the chances of success for both teams. The beginning of the second half saw much of the same. Junior midfielder Mateo Ponce Ocampo sent up a shot on goal in the 51st minute that the Pioneers keeper ultimately blocked. In the 66th minute, the Pioneers looked like they had a chance at a goal as senior goalkeeper Tenzing Manske found himself outside the goal; Denver neared the net yet, miraculously, the Pioneers did not score. As the match continued in a draw, the intensity increased and the referees handed out a collection of cards. The Pioneers

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