TUFTS WOMEN’S SQUASH
SOC becomes Spirit of the Creative after criticism see FEATURES/ PAGE 3
Jumbos gear up for CSA Nationals
Author Christopher Golden talks about adversity on the path to becoming a writer see ARTS&LIVING / PAGE 5
SEE SPORTS / BACK PAGE
THE
VOLUME LXXV, ISSUE 11
INDEPENDENT
STUDENT
N E W S PA P E R
OF
TUFTS
UNIVERSITY
E S T. 1 9 8 0
T HE T UFTS DAILY tuftsdaily.com
Monday, February 12, 2018
MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, MASS.
Student activism leads the push for gender-neutral bathrooms by Sarah Minster Staff Writer
Gender-neutral bathrooms are being installed in Carmichael and DewickMacPhie Dining Centers and in the Mayer Campus Center by the Department of Campus Planning, in accordance with the LGBT Center student demands, according to sophomore Shannon Lee, the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate Diversity & Community Affairs Officer. There is no set date for these installations, though coordinations with janitorial staff to install single-stall bathrooms are under way, according to Associate Director for Campus Life Ashley Austin and TCU Senate President Benya Kraus. According to Austin, the gender-neutral bathroom in the Campus Center will be a converted janitorial closet, and according to Lee, floor plans exist for new bathrooms to be constructed in the dining halls. Lee said that the Department of Campus Planning has created floor plans for the construction of all-gender bathrooms in the Campus Center, Carmichael and Dewick. The Department of Campus Planning is also in the process of relabelling all single-stall restrooms on the Medford campus as gender-neutral, Lee said. The installation of gender-neutral bathrooms is the result of many years of student activism and demands, TCU President Benya Kraus, a senior, stated. “Students have been very clear that there are not enough all-gender or gender-neutral bathrooms on campus,” Hope Freeman, director of the LGBT Center, told the Daily in an email.
According to a Daily article from September 2016, advocacy for gender-neutral bathrooms was the basis of a campaign led by former Chief Diversity Officer Mark Brimhall-Vargas and former LGBT Center Director Nino Testa. An October 2017 article in the Observer entitled “We Just Want To Pee: The Fight For All-Gender Bathrooms on Campus” spurred action from TCU Senate, according to Kraus. Kraus also emphasized trans and queer students’ activism around this issue. “I think it’s important to highlight that this is a project that is coming from the trans and queer community, and it is their activism that has gotten it to the attention of administrators,” Kraus explained. “When we wrote our resolution, it was just to amplify … the demands that were already there.” Senior Liam Easton-Calabria, the personnel manager of the Rez coffee shop, is a student voice advocating for gender-neutral bathrooms across campus. EastonCalabria said he wrote a petition for multistall gender-inclusive bathrooms available at the Rez for students to sign, attracting support from the student body. “There should be gender-inclusive bathrooms all over campus, hands down, and it’s shocking that there aren’t any in the Campus Center. Some of my coworkers have to leave the building to find a suitable bathroom,” Easton-Calabria told the Daily via email. “We decided to collect signatures and set up meetings with the administration, as a way of saying, look, we have student support in this. Let’s make the signage on the upstairs bathrooms inclusive.” Austin stated that a primary goal of the Office for Campus Life is to listen to student voices and respond with supportive action.
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A gender-neutral bathroom in Richardson is pictured here on Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2015. “Our goal is to just offer a space in this building for students, faculty, staff, members of the general public who frequent this building as well to feel like they have a safe space,” Austin explained. However, student demands remain unsatisfied, according to Easton-Calabria. Plans for bathroom implementation have not been communicated to students, and the building plans remain unclear, according to Easton-Calabria. Easton-Calabria stressed that multistall inclusive bathrooms remain a top priority. Lee and Austin both said that there are no plans to install multi-stall gender-inclusive bathrooms in the short term, though these bathrooms are a longterm priority. Easton-Calabria also spoke about the difficulty students have faced in receiving support from the administration. “The most difficult part has been getting answers from the administration. For a school that claims to have high regard for its queer students, it has not been forthright with its bathroom plans. Shouldn’t we be celebrating these upcoming developments? Why are they being so silent?” Easton-Calabria said. “Trans and GNC [gen-
der-nonconforming] students need to be involved in this process.” Though some students remain unsatisfied with the administration’s efforts, Kraus said she feels that this is a positive action to make Tufts a more welcoming and supportive place. She said that the push for gender-neutral bathrooms is an effort to re-examine Tufts’ priorities as an institution. “This is both a symbolic and material effort to [ask] … ‘Will we invest and build both the physical space as well as the social space to be welcoming of trans and gender-nonconforming folks?’” Kraus said. Freeman echoed her support for the gender-neutral bathrooms. She, like EastonCalabria, stated the long-term goal of creating multi-stall gender-neutral restrooms. She said she hopes that through this change to the bathrooms, Tufts can become a national leader in conversations surrounding the rights of trans and non-binary students. She emphasized the importance of listening to student input. “Students have been the leaders in creating pathways to what they want to see on campus,” Freeman wrote. “Access to restrooms is a right, especially to the community that we are trying to foster here at Tufts.”
State Department officials advise about travel abroad by Natasha Mayor News Editor
Michelle Bernier-Toth, acting deputy assistant secretary for the Office of Overseas Citizens Services, and Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) Study Abroad Representative and Gilman Program Officer at the State Department Theresa Gagnon spoke via webcam to a room full of close to 25 study abroad and international safety advisors from the greater Boston area during a roundtable discussion in Dowling Hall on Friday. Bernier-Toth and Gagnon were originally supposed to be in Medford for the talk but were unable to travel from Washington D.C. because of a government shutdown, according to Diplomat in Residence for New England Jon Danilowicz.
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The shutdown in question was in regards to the national budget and lasted from 12:01 a.m. on Friday morning to around 8:40 a.m. that day, when President Trump tweeted that he had signed a bill that would allow the government to reopen. Bernier-Toth, who said she has worked for various overseas services for 17 years, began by saying that in the 2015–2016 academic year, more than 325,000 U.S. students went abroad. “A fundamental responsibility of the State Department is taking care of U.S. citizens abroad,” Bernier-Toth said. “Students are a key part of that.” Bernier-Toth said the Bureau of Consular Affairs in the State Department works closely with the ECA and Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC) to disseminate important security information to U.S. citizens abroad.
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She talked about the four steps of a traveler’s checklist: getting informed, getting required documents, getting enrolled in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP) and getting insured. STEP is a program that allows travelers to register their trips with the government so they can receive pertinent information while abroad. Bernier-Toth showed the audience the newly redesigned, mobile-friendly Consular Information Program website, which details the levels of risk for traveling to any given country. She said that Level 1 is associated with low-risk countries like Canada, whereas a Level 4 travel advisory is given to Syria because of terrorism and armed conflict. There are travel advisories assigned to every country, detailing the specific risks and regions to avoid, according to Bernier-Toth.
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“We will be very specific about what those risks are and specific steps we want people to take to mitigate the risks to themselves if they choose to travel,” she said. Bernier-Toth said that if a place is not safe for embassy officials to travel to, then the State Department will warn U.S. citizens against traveling to that region as well. “Under the ‘No Double Standard Policy,’ these are places that we tell our embassy staff to not go, and so therefore we’re going to tell the public that too,” she said. Bernier-Toth listed the variety of services the State Department provides to U.S. citizens abroad, including aid with emergency passports, medical emergencies, crisis response, voting assistance and ensuring fair process for arrests.
NEWS............................................1 FEATURES.................................3 ARTS & LIVING.......................4
see STUDY ABROAD, page 2
COMICS.......................................6 OPINION..................................... 7 SPORTS............................ BACK