The Tufts Daily - Thursday, September 25, 2025

The Tuf T s Daily

CUSTODIAN-SUPERVISOR FIRED, ALLEGES MISTREATMENT

Employee of 31 years, nine additional laid-off janitors allege abusive and coercive conditions.

company property as soon as possible and stating that pay and any health benefits would stop at the end of the month.

Editor’s note: Quotes from several C&W employees were translated from Spanish to English.

A series of layoffs and schedule changes from Cushman & Wakefield Services, the facility services company contracted by Tufts for custodial work, has caused significant consternation among workers, including a longtime supervisor who was fired following months of rising tensions.

Marci Coleta, a C&W custodial supervisor at Tufts since 1994, received a termination letter on Sept. 11. The termination was effective immediately, mandating that she return

According to Coleta and other custodial workers, nine employees on the afternoon shift were given an ultimatum: Transfer to the overnight shift or be laid off. Those who accepted were given three months to learn unfamiliar machinery, with the threat of termination if they did not.

Multiple workers who were laid off told the Daily, on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution, that employees were dismissed without much explanation. Several workers said they could not work the overnight shift due to health or child care. They said that despite pleas

to supervisors, they were told bluntly to take the company’s offer or be laid off.

“I think that, as superiors, they should be a little more professional in explaining to people why they are being dismissed or why changes are being made,” one worker told the Daily. “As human beings, I think we deserve a little more [respect].”

Coleta believed her firing to be retaliation for calling irregular layoffs and employee overload “stupid.” Her boss, Omar Matos, had reportedly told her to just “manage” when she raised objections to the burden on workers and coercive shift changes.

Coleta asserted that the layoffs stem from the university reducing C&W’s contracted

work in certain dorms, including Sophia Gordon Hall, Latin Way and Hillsides Apartments.

As a result, students were instructed to begin cleaning their own apartments, according to Coleta.

Coleta said C&W made up for lost revenue by cutting employee hours for second shift workers and forcing others into the overnight shift, which C&W knew they were not able to work.

She claimed that, due to staffing cuts, she had often been forced to assign single workers to clean entire buildings, including the Science and Technology Center.

“I got more buildings than staff,” she said. “You have 10 bathrooms. You got those classrooms, you got the

Over 100 protest reported housing of ICE agents outside Hyatt Place Medford

Deputy News Editors

Originally published Sept. 24.

Residents protested Tuesday night outside the Hyatt Place in Medford in response to reports of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents staying at the hotel. The demonstrations were a follow up to a similar protest on Saturday on the Hyatt’s premises.

The neighboring city of Somerville has seen increased detainments of immigrants and Latin Americans. Among them, Tufts graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk — who was arrested by ICE on March 25 and held in detention for 45 days.

Ron Newman, a Somerville resident who attended Saturday’s protest, heard about the demonstration from a Facebook post by Lucy Pineda, a coordinator from the group “Latinos Unidos en Massachusetts.” Protesters

from the Service Employees International Union and Party for Socialism and Liberation were also present.

“[Pineda] posted about it a few hours before it started,” Newman said. “That night, it started at 8:30 [p.m.] and I just happened to see it on her page, and said, ‘I’ve got time to go to this. I’ve got to go to this.’”

Protesters carried signage targeting President Donald Trump administration’s broader deportation agenda and ICE’s increased presence in the greater Boston area. Signs carried messages including “STOP DEPORTING OUR FAMILIES” and “ICE OUT OF MA.”

Daven McQueen, a former visiting instructor at Tufts Experimental College, said that “the goal is really to draw attention to the fact that Hyatt is operating with ICE.”

A 12-year-old girl present at the protest first heard about the demonstration on social media, and attended with her father.

see PROTEST, page 2

hallways and you have the stairs. How [are] you gonna do it?”

In a four-page complaint addressed to C&W last October, Coleta made allegations of harassment and favoritism against company managers, writing that she and other employees had been intimidated and disrespected. She describes incidents involving managers assigning easier or more desirable shifts to certain workers and examples of other employees being pushed out.

One worker corroborated Coleta’s claims, saying Matos and other managers lacked professionalism and respect but that people were afraid of speaking up due to the risk of losing their jobs.

Anika Parr and Zach Halverstam

JOSUÉ PÉREZ / THE TUFTS DAILY

Protestors walk down Riverside Avenue from Hyatt Place in Medford on Tuesday.

Zach Halverstam and Julian Glickman Deputy News Editors

Students, faculty unpack significance of Tufts Tuition Pact

The recent announcement of the Tufts Tuition Pact, a program that will cover tuition for U.S. students from families who earn less than $150,000 per year, has received many responses from the university’s community. While some concerns exist over the program’s timeframe and level of comprehensiveness, the Tufts Tuition Pact has received overall positive feedback due to its ability to make attending Tufts more affordable for middle-income families.

Beginning in fall 2026, Tufts will cover tuition for U.S. students from families who earn up to $150,000 per year, the university announced on Sept. 9.

With the new policy, Tufts will join a growing number of Massachusetts universities that have waived tuition for students from low-and-middle-income backgrounds in an effort to increase affordability.

“Universities have tried myriad ways to expand their financial aid investments and to communicate their policies in ways that prospective students and families will understand,” JT Duck, Tufts’ dean of admissions, wrote in a statement to the Daily. “The Tufts Tuition Pact is an important step forward in that work as it expands our commitment to financial aid and clarifies just how strong that commitment is to financial aid for middle and low-income families.”

Natasha Warikoo, a Tufts sociology professor who studies inequity in college admissions, described the steep cost of a Tufts education as the “No. 1 barrier” to expanding socioeconomic diversity on campus. Tufts’ tuition is $71,982 for the 2025–26 academic year, with its overall cost of attendance surpassing $96,000 — a price tag that tops the median household income in the United States.

“I don’t think we should assume that it’s the admissions criteria that is preventing more representation. I think it’s literally the cost,” Warikoo said.

Selective universities like Tufts have historically struggled to attract students in the middle-income range, Warikoo

explained. Since these students are not always eligible for full financial aid, they are often more inclined to attend universities where tuition is less expensive.

“I think [the Tufts Tuition Pact] will make an impact, particularly on middle-income families — which you want, because you don’t want to have a university that has … students from very high incomes, and students from very low incomes and nothing in between,” Warikoo said.

For students like junior Tiara Anastacio, one of the coordinators for the Tufts College Access and Mentorship Initiative, the Tufts Tuition Pact represents an important step in making Tufts more accessible to a greater diversity of students. The initiative works with students from underrepresented backgrounds in the Boston area, helping them navigate the college process and learn about the scholarships and financial aid available to them.

“I’m very happy that now the incoming [first-years] and future generations of students

have this pact. I do think it relieves a lot of the financial burden that is placed upon them,” Anastacio said. “A lot of times we do have students coming on a tour of Tufts, and we have conversations about, ‘What is the Tufts financial aid package? … What is the cost of Tufts?’ ... Now, we can include [the Tufts Tuition Pact].”

Anastacio emphasized that the Tufts Tuition Pact does not equate to ‘free college.’

Under the Tufts Tuition Pact, students whose family income is less than $60,000 will receive a financial aid package with no student loans. For families earning between $60,000 and $150,000, Tufts will cover additional expenses from student life on a sliding scale based on demonstrated financial need.

“I think there’s a misconception that tuition is all we pay for. And that’s not true,” Anastacio said. “While covering the tuition is great, it doesn’t cover everything, so I feel like it’s important to also educate students that there’s also room and board … and

the health and wellness fee,” Anastacio said.

With the Tufts admissions team in the middle of recruitment season for its incoming first-year class, Duck said that news of the Tufts Tuition Pact has already begun to spread among prospective students.

“Everywhere we go, whether right here in metro Boston, or while visiting schools in Texas or South Carolina, families are telling us that they have heard about the Tufts Tuition Pact – and that it has contributed to their interest in Tufts. We will continue to promote the Pact during our in-person and virtual recruitment events this fall,” Duck wrote.

In Anastacio’s view, while the Tufts Tuition Pact signals progress in making Tufts admissions more equitable, much work remains to be done.

“It has taken Tufts years for this to happen. … This is not where it ends,” she said. “Accessibility in higher education [is] a lifelong process, and hopefully we can work towards more accessibility in higher education overall.”

Medford protests ICE, plans to organize rally again Saturday

PROTEST continued from the front

“I feel like their situation is very unfair. It has made my family feel really, really unsafe. It has made my life worse, and has put me into a very bad mood, and I am unable to do things that I used to be able to do before without being scared,” she said.

Tali, a protester, explained how the demonstration drew inspiration from tactics used in Chicago and Detroit. They

explained that they participated to show their solidarity with immigrant communities.

“[Our goal is] to let it be known to all of the immigrants who are afraid to leave their homes right now, who are afraid to go to work … that there are people who are standing in solidarity with them,” they said.

They also explained that the Hyatt Place’s complicity in housing ICE agents is only a small part of the larger movement that this protest is serving.

“In all honesty, the Hyatt Hotel is the least important part of this equation,” they said.

“The most important part of a demonstration is the people for whom it empowers.”

The protest ended at 10 p.m. Protesters then walked down Riverside Avenue and placed their signs down at Riverside Plaza.

Although McQueen said that ICE agents were staying at the hotel, the Medford Hyatt Place claimed to have no knowledge if

that was the case.

The hotel also claimed to have received multiple noise complaints from the protest.

Protester Hersch Rothmell still believes the protests are overall successes.

“They’re successful in bringing people out, giving them optimism and hope that we can really make a real, material change in the war on immigrants,” he said.

A follow up protest is scheduled for Saturday.

SAMANTHA POKORNY / THE TUFTS DAILY

Bendetson Hall is pictured on April 10, 2024.

Estelle Anderson Senior News Editor

Tufts community responds to death of Charlie Kirk

Amaani Jetley Senior News Editor

The Sept. 10 assassination of Charlie Kirk, a 31-yearold right-wing activist and co-founder of Turning Point USA, has led to shock across Tufts’ campus, along with reconsiderations of political discourse within the university.

Junior Charley Ota, the president of Tufts Republicans, explained contrasting reactions within the club to the killing.

“We were, as a club, pretty shocked by the event. It was like a mixed reaction. Some were more like, okay, we’ve got to unite. Some were just kind of a little bit angry about what’s happening,” Ota commented.

Sophomore David Seaton, the president of Tufts Democrats, spoke about the urgency of condemning political violence, no matter how opposed the political views.

“I was trying to do everything I could to condemn what [Kirk] had to say, but I don’t believe he should have been silenced, and I don’t believe that the political violence is an acceptable way of silencing anyone,” Seaton said.

Seaton also communicated fears that President Donald Trump’s administration is using Kirk’s assassination as a means to target Democrats.

“For Trump to come out the day after the shooting and say

that this is something that the left has to bear the consequences of is such a telltale sign that he’s gonna use this as an excuse to crack down on left-wing political beliefs,” Seaton said.

Seaton further spoke about the importance of reaching across the aisle to engage in open discourse following a potentially divisive event.

“In this moment, there’s so much animus on both sides,” he said. “I want to make sure that this community, this Tufts community, is a campus that makes it clear to the country that young people across the board stand for having discussions about our disagreements, not resolving those disagreements with violence.”

Ota echoed Seaton’s statements about interaction across the political spectrum.

“I think it’s really important to have that interaction, because you need to learn that there’s humanity on the other side,” Ota said.

Ota stated that the hate speech he has seen on media platforms runs counter to Christian values.

“I do believe that the people who are calling for violence and war, many of them call themselves Christians, and I don’t understand how you can call for violence against the enemy if you’re a Christian, because the basis of Christian thought is, in my view, that you pray for your enemies,” Ota said.

However, Ota added that he still believes that Republicans should be firm in their beliefs.

“One of the mantras of Turning Point USA was, ‘If you disagree with me, come to the front of the line,’” Ota said. “But [Kirk] wouldn’t give way to their beliefs. He would stand firm in his beliefs. And in the past, I’ve definitely given way to my beliefs. So I want to also make a point of not necessarily backing down, but having conversation.”

Deborah Schildkraut, a professor of political science, explained that while political violence may seem to be at an all time high, Kirk’s assasination reflects a larger pattern.

“For most Americans alive today, it feels like [political violence] is suddenly happening faster and more often,” Schildkraut said. “It’s easy to either forget, or many Americans don’t know, that there have been lots of episodes of political violence in this country.”

Jessica Byrnes, senior communications manager at the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life, spoke on awareness in how people engage politically despite differences of opinion, specifically from the perspective of security.

“We’re thinking really deeply about how we can stay true to our mission and the importance of civic engagement, and emphasizing that everyone has a new voice and an important

perspective to share,” Byrnes said. “While also realizing that there are a lot of people who are not in a position [to] feel that they can safely share that opinion or perspective.”

Yolanda Smith, chief of the Tufts University Police Department, wrote to the Daily about her team’s commitment to maintaining a safe campus.

“We do not disclose our security arrangements for public safety reasons,” Smith wrote. “However, I can assure our community that we deploy the personnel and resources needed to keep our campuses safe and secure. But campus safety is everyone’s responsibility, so we do encourage and

ask our community members to be vigilant, remain aware, and notify us if they have [seen] something that causes concern.”

Dayna Cunningham, dean of Tisch College, wrote to the Daily about how challenges within the current political climate can inspire growth.

“Today, and not for the first time in our nation’s history, we are experiencing real challenges to our democracy—extreme polarization, misinformation, and even political violence. We need events and discussions to bring us together and to foster curiosity and connection. Even when they are challenging,” Cunningham wrote.

Tufts custodial workers allege mistreatment by C&W following layoffs

Employees shared that they were never told if or when they would be able to return to work. Additionally, the layoff letters they received made it difficult for them to collect unemployment because they purportedly read like termination letters.

Along with Coleta, the employees also expressed frustration with their union, 32BJ Service Employees International Union, which they say is not fighting on their behalf nor communicating with the workers.

“The union hasn’t even shown its face for us up to this day. The union representative is on [the company’s] side, not ours, since she says what they’re doing is correct. But we know our rights, and we know that what they’re doing isn’t right,” one worker said.

Workers raised serious concerns about their positions being posted on the company’s job board in Curtis Hall after they were laid off, despite being told that the positions had been eliminated. Moreover, some workers alleged that new hires, including potential family members of supervisors above Marci, had been given the positions despite a lack of seniority and experience.

One worker who was laid off claims that the people sent to

Boston were told to keep quiet and would be placed back in Medford/Somerville once the layoff tensions settled.

“I think maybe they laid us off just so they wouldn’t have to give us benefits, pay us vacation [time], or to not have more people with more years [with C&W],” one worker claimed.

“We have rights, we pay union dues, we have endured labor exploitation, we have families to support, children, and we have endured all of this to keep our jobs,” one worker said. “They fire us without compensation, they fire us with nothing, they simply send us home and hire new people.”

Workers described Coleta’s firing as an “injustice,” saying she had always been a strong defender of her employees and one of the few supervisors to speak out against wrongful actions taken by C&W.

“I think they got rid of her to prevent us from being reinstated in our jobs, because she knows exactly the rights of each person and she knows exactly how the university works,” the worker said.

Coleta has since taken another position at Northeastern University.

Tufts declined to comment on the matter, and the Daily has yet to establish communication with C&W.

NATALIE BROWNSELL / THE TUFTS DAILY Barnum Hall is pictured above.

C&W continued from the front

SEOHYUN SHIM / THE TUFTS DAILY

A C&W Services van, parked outside Curtis Hall, is pictured.

COURTESY MARCI COLETA

Marci Coleta is pictured.

ARTS & POP CULTURE

‘The Hills of California’ is a tortured and beautiful dream

Spring LaRose Assistant Arts Editor

Content Warning: This article mentions sexual violence.

A play is isolated from reality, forever fixed in its own little pocket of space and time. “The Hills of California” is distinctly aware of this fact, presenting the house the story unfolds in as both a sanctuary and a prison, where dreams are expressed and reminisced on but never able to come to fruition.

“The Hills of California” is the newest play from Tony Awardwinning writer Jez Butterworth. The play debuted in the West End and on Broadway in 2024. It is now being staged at The Huntington, directed by Loretta Greco. The story is set in a guesthouse in Blackpool, England, and alternates between a day in August 1976 and a day in May 1955. It focuses on the dynamics between the four singing Webb sisters and their mother.

The first character we are introduced to is 32-year-old Jillian Webb (Karen Killeen), the youngest of the Webb sisters, in 1976, as she descends the stairs of the guesthouse into the main parlor and lights a cigarette. Killeen’s mannerisms are flighty and youthful, conveying the arrested development of both Jillian and the guesthouse she lives in. Upstairs lies the Webb sisters’ dying mother, Veronica (Allison Jean White), who remains unseen and unheard by the audience in her critical state. We then meet the middle sisters: optimistic, spirited Ruby (Aimee Doherty) and bold, temperamental Gloria

(Amanda Kristin Nichols). The Webb sisters have gathered at the guesthouse because their mother is on her deathbed, but it is uncertain if Joan (Allison Jean White), the estranged eldest sister, will ever come. Joan is in California — a fact that Ruby romanticizes and Gloria laments.

The set rotates when the story jumps backward in time to 1955, revealing another area of the guesthouse in which the Webb sisters grew up — this time a kitchen parlor. In both the 1976 and 1955 sets, staircases go to places the audience cannot see, reminding us of the fact that we are as trapped in the nostalgia as the characters are. “The Hills of California” is a play that is very concerned with comings and goings, and so the stairs are a crucial part and symbol of its narrative.

The 1955 scenes — showing the Webb family in a hopeful, prelapsarian state — have a coziness to them that is absent from the 1976 scenes. We see the sisters as energetic tweens and teens and Veronica as a vibrant, fiercely protective maternal presence. Young Jillian (Nicole Mulready), Young Ruby (Chloé Kolbenheyer) and Young Gloria (Meghan Carey) gather around the table, eager to please their mother. Young Joan (Kate Fitzgerald), meanwhile, is something of a rebel.

The music used in “The Hills of California” is one of its most distinctive features. Veronica coaches and manages her girls as a harmonic ensemble in the swinging, boogie-woogie style

of the Andrews Sisters, who were most prominent during the early 1940s. The Webb family idolizes the Andrews Sisters’ talent and rise to fame. Veronica uses them as a blueprint for the dreams she has for her daughters, wishing for their future through the lens of a romanticized past.

In Act 2, the plot picks up from its rather slow pace, building on Act 1. In 1955, American music producer and talent scout Luther St. John (Lewis D. Wheeler) is brought in to see the girls perform. Instead of giving all the girls a shot at stardom, Luther only sees “it” in Joan. She takes him upstairs so that he can hear her sing alone — a situation with sexual implications. In a chilling moment, we hear Joan stop in the middle of a line

What creatives can learn from kintsugi

Lea Epstein Contributing Writer

In our dining halls, plates are merely vessels of utility. Students stack them high with DewickMacPhie Dining Center fries or Fresh at Carmichael Dining Center pancakes, slam them down on plastic trays beside their friends, and later let them rattle down a conveyor belt to be stripped of ketchup stains and congealed maple syrup residue by custodial staff. For those living off

campus, Amazon boxes and Target bags deliver inexpensive, replaceable dishware, valued for durability.

Beauty here is an afterthought, or not a thought at all — a convenience that disappears into the dishwasher before a 9 a.m. class.

But in other contexts, a plate is not simply a tool. It is an art form.

A plate can serve as an object that embodies history, philosophical ideals and, most importantly, the notion that mistakes are allowed to belong. This is where kintsugi enters.

The Japanese practice involves the mending of broken pottery with lacquer dusted with precious metals such as gold or silver. The flaws within the plate are precisely where the beauty lies. The word kintsugi is a combination of two parts:金 ‘金,’ meaning ‘gold,’ and ‘継ぎ,’ meaning ‘to join’ or ‘repair.’ Thus, kintsugi translates to ‘golden repair’ or ‘golden joinery.’ The flaws in the art are what distinguish kintsugi from an ordinary plate. The fracture is not a flaw: It is the very source of value. Not just an art form, kintsugi is also a philosophy. Plates are sometimes intentionally broken, welcoming gold veins to run through the ruptures. Perfection is not the goal. Wholeness is. And wholeness often requires imperfection to shine through.

Music offers similar lessons. In jazz, Louis Armstrong’s 1926 recording of “Heebie Jeebies” enormously influenced scat singing when Armstrong dropped his lyric sheet and filled the silence with nonsense syllables. His ‘mistake’ became a defining creative moment,

while singing a Nat King Cole song. The silence is deafening. At this moment, the story fully loses its innocence. We soon learn that Joan was raped and impregnated in this encounter, fled to California because of it and never came back home again.

The return of adult Joan to the house in 1976 is the show’s most dramatic sequence, shrouded in fog, colorful lights and The Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” blasting from the jukebox in the parlor. The adult Joan is something of a mythic figure in the play, so to see her now with her groovy dress and breezy American accent is jarring. Her sisters’ reactions to her arrival are, of course, mixed.

The arguments that ensue — coming to terms with the gravity of Joan’s trauma and the

imminence of their mother’s death — are tearful, screaming and potent. Tragically, Joan is unable to go upstairs to see their mother. When she attempts to, she encounters her younger self going downstairs and is paralyzed by her past — just as the entirety of the play is.

The show ends with the adult Webb sisters singing “Dream a Little Dream of Me” together (the song that Veronica suggested Joan sing for Luther), but then their voices drop out. Young Joan’s voice rings out alone before again getting cut off mid-lyric. The audience is left to sit with a family severed by death, with dreams stuck in time. Despite all the tragedy, there is something warm and welcoming about “The Hills of California,” where a song is a place you can live.

inaugurating a whole style of improvisation that blurred the line between voice and instrument.

The danger for creatives lies in mistaking genre or trend for gold itself, rather than recognizing the gold that often lives in the cracks. When we adhere ourselves too tightly to a particular style, we risk sanding down the fractures that might have revealed our truest voice. Perfection conceals. Imperfection discloses.

When we try to mold our artistic tendencies (art, style, music) into a genre that is digestible to the masses, we imply that our mistakes and forms of individuality must still fit into a box. Trends and ‘digestible’ genres can smooth over ruptures in favor of the familiar, polishing away irregularities to make art more palatable, more marketable, more viral. Yet when everyone follows the same ‘aesthetic formula,’ the art form risks collapsing under its own predictability. The plate remains intact, perhaps, but it is indistinguishable from all the others in the cupboard.

This is the paradox at the heart of kintsugi: Something must be broken for repair to reveal its worth. For the artist, the equivalent break might be abandoning genre, defying popular but unspoken orthodoxy or refusing to mimic the glossy surfaces of trend-driven art. It may feel dangerous, even reputation-threatening. But, to cling to unbroken surfaces is to deny the possibility of metamorphosis.

What we can learn, then, is not merely to acquiesce to imperfection but how to seek it and possibly cultivate it. Not recklessly, not as gimmick, but as philosophy. To embrace rupture is to acknowledge that the fractures are what separate art from product and the artist from the craftsman of convention.

Perfection might make something whole, but only imperfection can make it golden.

Kintsugi dares us to ask: What if the very cracks, our failures, our divergences, our resistances, are the art? What if the fractures in our work are not embarrassments to be buffed out but the very places where gold can live?

COURTESY LIZA VOLL

“The Hills of California” actors Mike Masters, Nicole Mulready, Meghan Carey and Chloé Kolbenheyer are pictured.

After 3 years, the Indigenous Center

is not just surviving, but thriving

When senior Vanessa John toured Tufts in the spring of her last year of high school, she was met with the very beginnings of the university’s newest affinity space: the Indigenous Center. The center, which had been approved in fall 2021 and opened during spring 2022, promised to be a welcoming, open space for both Indigenous students and anyone else who wanted to learn about Indigeneity. However, back then, the center still had a long way to go.

“The IC in the spring [of 2022] was clearly newly established,” John wrote in an email to the Daily.

However, by the fall, the center was well into the process of becoming the warm, homey space that its frequenters have come to know and love, with John writing that the space had become “filled with Indigenous-made art, textiles and other cultural representations and most importantly, people.”

In the three years since, the center has become the hub for workshops, community building and events centering Tufts’ Indigenous community. The students who were first-years during the center’s inaugural year are now seniors. As the center continues to evolve, the students who helped shape the center into what it is today reflect on its accomplishments and what they hope is to come.

Both John and senior Sam Jonas have played integral roles in the center’s success. As Indigenous Center interns and previous co-chairs of the student-run club, the Indigenous Students’ Organization at Tufts, John and Jonas have been at the helm of organizing many of the center’s and club’s events. One of the most notable is the Indigenous Peoples’ Day event that takes place annually in mid-October, which welcomes Indigenous vendors, caterers and performers to Tufts for a campus-wide celebration of Indigenous culture. Last year’s event was the biggest yet.

“It can’t be understated how important [last year’s event] was and how big it was,” John said. “When I was a [first-year] … the budget was a lot less. We had one or two performers and then I think [one] caterer.”

John later added in a statement to the Daily that the limited budget in the early years of the event was due to “institutional obstacles [the club] faced in receiving funding.” In contrast, last year’s Indigenous Peoples’ Day event hosted several performers, two caterers and over 20 vendors, a reflection on how much the event has grown.

In addition to supporting Indigenous businesses outside of Tufts, the event also gives students the opportunity to participate.

Junior Pono Merryman has been a vendor at the event for the last two years, selling items they have crocheted.

“[The Indigenous Peoples’ Day event] is a huge achievement because it’s not a very big group putting on such a big event, so being able to foster that community and have all the contacts outside the school … the celebration has just gotten bigger and bigger,” Merryman said.

For Jonas, this connection between the Indigenous community at Tufts and the rest of the student body has been a highlight of the Indigenous Center.

“We’ve received some really amazing feedback about how it’s grown and how people have come and learned so much, and so that’s really felt meaningful to me,” Jonas said.

In fall 2024, the center hosted the IndigiBaddie Mixer, an event open to all Indigenous college students in the Boston area.

Participating schools included MIT, Harvard, University of Massachusetts Boston, Wellesley and Brown.

“It was a big turnout, the Indigenous Center was completely filled, and that was one of the first times I’ve met a lot of the Indigenous students in Boston,” John said. “Say somebody from our nation or tribe isn’t at Tufts, well, maybe there’s somebody at Harvard who shares that kind of history and that kind of identity … and it was really only facilitated by having the physical space of the Indigenous Center.”

Courtney Mann, a junior and intern at the center, also noted the importance of Indigenous students having a physical space on campus that they can call their own.

“It’s just such an amazing opportunity that we have a community here and that we can expand through New England and invite our brothers and sisters over. That’s the highlight of the IC for me,” she said.

Having a dedicated space on campus also allows students to express their culture and foster community in ways that would not have been possible otherwise. This includes the student mixer, but also projects such as the center’s garden that was started last spring, which allows students to utilize and tend to medicinal herbs, vegetables and other plants.

At its core, the Indigenous Center serves as a space for students to study, talk or simply visit at any time.

“I won’t go [to the center] for a while, and then I’ll go back into my routine and I’ll go frequently for a bit,” Merryman said. “If I sit in the common area, I know probably at some point somebody’s going to come in that I know and we’ll talk. … The environment is really comfortable.”

This year, the center has six student interns, in addition to Indigenous Center Director Vernon Miller and Program Administrator Victor M. Aguilar. The team is slightly smaller than in past years, which is likely in part due to the seeming decline in Indigenous students attending the university. This decline comes as a series of federal decisions have led to a widespread scale-back in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives and the promotion of students of color at higher-level institutions.

Among these decisions is the Supreme Court’s ban on affirmative action in June 2023, which barred universities from considering race as a factor in admissions decisions. Tufts admitted 95 Indigenous students to the Class of 2027, the last class before the ban on race-conscious admissions, which made up roughly 3% of the overall admitted class. The Class of 2028 saw only 22 Indigenous admitted students,

or roughly 0.6% of the admitted class. Data for the Class of 2029 is not currently available.

“For Indigenous people who are already a very underrepresented community on college campuses, that is a huge difference,” John said. “When we are represented in demographics, we often don’t get a percentage. We get a number because our percentage is so low in comparison to other communities.”

In addition to the end of affirmative action, President Donald Trump’s administration’s strikedowns of DEI initiatives have also hit affinity spaces at universities hard. In February, the Department of Education issued guidance that prohibited colleges from conducting race-based programming or activities. While this letter was vacated by a federal judge in August, citing it as unconstitutional and unlawful, its content pushed many schools and universities nationwide to scrub away or rebrand DEI efforts to avoid funding cuts.

Although the Indigenous Center has maintained its mission of amplifying Indigenous voices and creating a safe space for Indigenous students during this time, John has noticed a shift at the center following these rollbacks.

“Of course I’ve noticed a change [at the center]. I noticed a change [in] that people can’t express themselves the way that they could have. And of course, it’s an ongoing history from being Indigenous in the [United States]. It is something that has taken a lot of resilience and resistance because there has been so much discrimination and hate towards my community,” she said. “It’s not something that comes out of left field, because the American political scene is so fickle with who it decides … is okay to live in the [United States].”

However, the nation’s fraught political moment has not deterred students from continuing the mission and programming of the center.

“We’re not going to change any of the ways we advocate for things, [or] any of the ways that we frame things,” Jonas said.

The Indigenous Center is looking towards an ambitious semester, with a plan of putting on at least two events each month. This includes the Indigenous Peoples’ Day event, which will be held on Oct. 12, but also events such as collage vision board making on Friday and Fruity Paint Night on Monday, an event organized by Jonas for students to paint while enjoying fruit with Tajin and chamoy.

Jonas maintains the importance of having the center on campus, especially at an institution that has not historically centered Indigenous communities.

“It’s tradition for the Indigenous seniors to leave their handprint on the walls of the IC. And when I was a [first-year], there weren’t too many handprints on the walls because it was a new center. But now I go in there and it’s tripled,” she said. “These institutional spaces weren’t built with Indigenous communities in mind. They weren’t built with the intention of having Indigenous students succeeding. So it’s super meaningful for me.”

Jonas hopes that when she returns to the center in the years to come, it will have continued to serve as a space for Indigenous students to find community and solace in.

“I want to come back to visit the Indigenous Center in 10 years, and I want to see the walls full of more of those handprints of Indigenous students who have graduated,” she said.

Olivia Bye

Assistant Features Editor

KATRINA AQUILINO / THE TUFTS DAILY

The Indigenous Center, located on 112 Packard Ave., is pictured on Feb. 22.

Mentoring at risk: Tufts programs that work with children face funding cuts

early literacy programs for very young children in underserved communities.”

It’s a Friday on the Tufts Reservoir Quad, and among the bustle of students finishing up their classes before the weekend, you hear the squeals of excited kids. You look to the right, and there’s a capture the flag game going on between local Somerville children and Tufts student volunteers.

Dozens of Tufts student organizations volunteer directly with children in nearby communities, acting as mentors. While some of these clubs receive support directly through Tufts’ Leonard Carmichael Society, many are also connected to larger national nonprofits that run programs all over the country. Due to funding cuts and philanthropic changes, these organizations are struggling to stay afloat, leaving Medford and Somerville children lacking vital services and harming valuable mentor-mentee relationships.

Jumpstart, a national organization that ran a work-study opportunity for Tufts students through Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life, was completely cut from Tufts at the end of last semester as a result of funding issues. Jumpstart matches members with preschools in low-income neighborhoods to support teachers, run activities and assist in literacy programs. In late spring, students at Tufts and other universities were informed that the program would not continue into the fall.

“I was pretty disappointed,” Jason Streit, a junior who worked in the program, said. “The idea behind cutting these funds is to make the government or the country more efficient overall. But [this is] taking away

Since 1996, Jumpstart has received a total of $150 million in federal support. In the last fiscal year, half of Jumpstart’s $18 million annual budget came from AmeriCorps. With this money, the organization employed 2,300 college students, served almost 22,000 children and ran 65 sites.

President Donald Trump’s administration slashed roughly 40% of AmeriCorps funding as a part of a goal to reduce wasteful government spending.

The decision forced 32,000 people around the country to stop their work in disaster recovery, education, environment and health. Jumpstart was among the nonprofits impacted.

Starting in fall 2025, Jumpstart will cut just about half of its sites, which unfortunately included the Tufts chapter.

These funding cuts impact Medford/Somerville preschoolers by removing key programs that aimed to support preschool staff through increasing the teacher-to-student ratio.

Additionally, it limits the workstudy options for Tufts students like Streit, who is studying clinical psychology and child study and human development.

“It definitely felt like I was making an impact,” Streit said.

“It was just like a pleasure working with [the kids], and you could tell, just after the first couple of sessions, they were very excited to see us when we came in. Just to see the smile on their faces and the positive impact that we could make in their personal and academic lives.”

Other nationally connected groups that work with local children haven’t been cancelled, but still feel the impacts of funding cuts. Directing

through Recreation, Education, Adventure and Mentoring is another student group connected to a larger nonprofit. Through DREAM, Tufts students mentor children who live in Clarendon Hill, an affordable housing community in Somerville.

“It’s so easy to be in this bubble at Tufts … but just a 15-minute walk away is this whole community of people living in subsidized housing,” sophomore Janessa White, co-chair of DREAM, said. “On the other side, I think it’s easy for people living in Somerville, who are not involved at Tufts, to just be in their own bubble and think it’s an us vs. them and … that’s not the way that it has to be. I think DREAM closes that gap.”

DREAM also gets a large amount of funding through AmeriCorps. This summer, Camp DREAM did not run for Somerville children, leaving many families without another affordable alternative. White fears more impacts may be on the horizon.

“Every email we get … [has] an asterisk saying, ‘Subject to change pending government decisions,’ which is new,” White said. “Our supervisor has definitely talked to us about being cognizant and trying to rely on Tufts more, just in case.”

Project Sunshine is another Tufts student group that is also connected to a national organization that focuses on support, advocacy and fundraising for pediatric patients. The student group holds fundraising activities and packages activity kits.

“It’s a huge global organization and hearing the impact that our one little club can have on such a huge amount of people is [my favorite part],” sophomore Reese Nason, treasurer of Project Sunshine, said.

This semester, Project Sunshine also introduced a volunteer program at Massachusetts General Hospital, where Tufts students will be working one-on-one with patients. Project Sunshine at Tufts originally hoped to start the program in the spring but faced difficulties in sorting out logistics due to employment and funding cuts at the hospital. The student group also saw the impacts of funding cuts through their parent organization.

“We are not able to package activity kits this semester because they are only sending us one per year … usually they did two,” Nason said. ”[The funding cuts] definitely impacted healthcare as a whole.”

For children in Medford and Somerville, having a college-aged mentor provides guidance, encouragement and access to resources that promote positive life choices. The Mass Mentoring Partnership reports that 85% of young people with a mentor say this key relationship helped with issues related to their education.

Youth who have mentors are more likely to hold leadership positions and volunteer regularly in their communities, as mentors are able to form close bonds with their mentees.

“We talk about the fun stuff, like a boyfriend, but also, I try to be there for [my mentee] when family issues might come up,” White said. “I think she knows that I’m here to talk about these things with her, and I hope she feels comfortable to go to me as a resource for help if she needs.”

The trend of funding and philanthropy cuts around the country has minimized these benefits and impacts bonds that have been forming sometimes for over a year. The 2024 Massachusetts State Budget had

a 16.7% cut in the Mentoring Matching Grant. This impacts various youth-focused national and state programs, including DREAM and Girls Inc. of Boston and Lynn, Mass., which also has a chapter at Tufts.

“I did grow up with mentors … and that was always big to me,” White said. “Coming to Tufts, I knew that I was in a position to be a role model. … That’s where I found DREAM.”

The slashed funding threatens the future of these programs and limits opportunities for Tufts students to get involved in the host communities. These experiences are beneficial because many of them may be planning to go into fields in education or medicine. Local children lose vital resources, and Tufts students miss out on civic service, career experience and a purposeful relationship with youth in the community.

“[The kids are] in preschool — they’re so young that I don’t think they would understand why we’re not there anymore. I think that they would feel the impact because … [of] how excited they are when the Jumpstart students [would] come in,” Streit said.

While not every program has been shut down like Jumpstart, federal cuts are still impacting various areas of education and child care, with threats of more closures in the future. As Medford and Somerville school districts face the $106 million reduction in Massachusetts K-12 education funding, the local education system will be further burdened by the loss of some critical resources and support from Tufts student organizations. The meaningful connections between mentors and mentees may be at jeopardy, impacting both parties involved.

Katie Galligan Features Editor

STELLA JEONG / THE TUFTS DAILY

The West Somerville Neighborhood School playground is pictured on Saturday.

After over a year of debate over a neutrality policy, Tufts has adopted a position of “institutional pluralism,” involving a plot in which the word “neutrality” has been swapped out for “pluralism,” to make it seem like Tufts is actually doing something productive. Spoiler alert: they’re not.

In an email released on Sept. 3, University President Sunil Kumar declared that Tufts is not going to comment on political matters, except when it “[bears] directly upon the university’s core teaching, research, and service mission or its corporate responsibilities.” It’s an interesting choice in wording, because the “core teaching, research, and service mission” doesn’t appear to connect to a specific policy; the closest would be the university’s Mission and Vision statement, which is too vague to even directly address teaching, research and service, much less guide political and social commentary.

The new statement then goes on to instruct us on exactly how we’re supposed to interpret its meaning, saying that it “continues Tufts’ long-standing commitment to free speech, open inquiry, and academic freedom” and that “it implies neither neutrality nor indifference on the part of Tufts

OPINION

leadership, faculty, staff, or students.” I’m glad they spelled it out for us — why should students think critically about the outcome of this statement when we can instead be spoon-fed propaganda?

While I take issue with the policy, I’m sympathetic to the motivations: It’s true that not every organization needs to be taking a stance on every issue in today’s world. Oftentimes, that can crowd out important voices and even lead to the spread of misinformation. I’m glad Tufts seems to recognize this on some level, but the way they’ve handled this process indicates they’re less worried about properly navigating our complex political situation and more interested in crafting a carefully worded ‘get out of jail free’ card for any future sticky situation the university may find itself in.

This statement of plurality is a political statement unto itself. Does it actually represent a change in what statements the university will make? Are there previous statements the university has made that it regrets, that it doesn’t stand by? It seems more likely that the university is signaling a shift in its own political perspective, one that many colleges are making in the era of Trumpism. This neutrality — or plurality, as they like to call it — is a trojan horse for a

Nice try, Tufts

rightward shift. In a country increasingly moving towards farright authoritarianism, announcing a policy of silence seems suspiciously indicative that Tufts is willing to fall in line with this administration. In the same breath as this new policy, the university announced two new initiatives to help them carry it out. The more eye-catching of the two is the creation of the Center for Expanding Viewpoints in Higher Education, a center with an acronym so close to ‘ceviche’ it leads one to wonder why they didn’t add yet another nonsense jargon word to its title to complete the joke. I’ll start by saying what I do like about the center: I think it’s good for a college to ensure that numerous viewpoints are present in students’ conversations and learning. My issue begins, however, with the center’s assumption that creating a plurality of viewpoints means lending a microphone to a specific political ideology. Eitan Hersch, professor of political science and director of this new center, may claim that the center is “genuinely committed to expanding viewpoints, which means making sure we do have conservative voices on campus but other voices as well,” but it feels a little difficult to believe that conservative viewpoints won’t be the majority of their focus.

Not only does the head of this organization call himself a “right-leaning centrist,” the examples of topics it purports to research and discuss line up pretty well with key perspectives the conservative playbook seeks to promote. These examples of topics include pornography, climate change and gender identity, all of which are hot button issues which the Republican party rails against. Regarding climate change and gender identity, Hersch laments the “discounting” of those who go against the “dominant narrative.” Will this center, then, be putting resources towards research aimed at disproving climate change and disrespecting people’s gender identities? I find it hard to imagine that CEVIHE will be much more than an attempt to amplify Tufts’ conservative minority.

All of this makes me wonder: Are conservative voices really that silent on this campus? Even leafing through the pages of the Daily, you’re more than capable of finding conservative opinions. You can also find them in the Tufts Tribune, self-described as “where Tufts speaks freely,” which frequently publishes conservative perspectives. Conservative voices can be heard in CIVIC, a club devoted to promoting a diversity of viewpoints at Tufts.

There are, of course, both liberal and conservative students who don’t speak up about their opinions in fear of their peers’ disapproval. But characterizing this disapproval as suppression of speech overshadows an important nuance. Free speech is not something that is taken away because someone disagrees with you, because they might not be friends with you, because they may yell at you. It’s a freedom we exercise in spite of those challenges. In a day and age in which universities facilitate the arrest of their students and governments detain people off the street, where finding fault with Charlie Kirk is enough to get you fired, real protection of free speech is not giving a leg up to one side of the conversation. It is standing up against any institution that seeks to punish those who speak up with long-term physical, emotional or financial consequences. It is Tufts allowing itself to speak out against the real injustices that aim to silence us.

Ultimately, I agree with the university — we need to ensure that we have a diversity of viewpoints on our campus and that everyone feels safe to share their opinions. These statements and initiatives, however, are not that. They are nothing more than caving to the conservative tide in our increasingly authoritarian era.

Liam Chalfonte

Senior Staff Writer

NATALIE BROWNSELL / THE TUFTS DAILY

The home of Tufts’ Department of Political Science, Packard Hall, is pictured.

CROSSWORD

Late Night At The Daily

Dylan: “I used to get the Jumbo roll.”

Josh: “I knew you were going to say that.”

Dylan: “Why?”

Josh: “Because that was the worst one.”

MINI CROSSWORD

Paul Revere Shayna Levy

‘Paul Revere’ by Shayna Levy

Through Indigenous Eyes

A great (Native) American road trip

Sorsha Khitikian

Hello! Welcome back to another semester of “Through Indigenous Eyes.”

I realized that I never

introduced myself last semester: My name is Sorsha Khitikian, and I am a junior at Tufts. I am Yurok, a tribe on the Klamath River in Northern California, but I grew up away from my tribe’s reservation, making me an ‘urban Indian.’

I started this column last semester because I wanted to provide an Indigenous perspective on political topics that weren’t necessarily connected to Indigeneity and to highlight Indigenous connections that aren’t obvious to non-Native people. Indigenous perspectives are frequently left out of

conversations; at the Daily, Indigenous people are a small minority of staff members. Making my voice heard through this column felt like a way I could contribute to the conversation while simultaneously staying informed politically. Unfortunately, the semester did not go as planned.

Once President Donald Trump took office in January, his administration immediately began pushing executive orders that harmed Indigenous people. The administration made it a point to erase Indigenous people and their contributions to the United States by flagging our existence under ‘DEI.’ I wrote in my column about how Missing and Murdered Indigenous People data was erased from federal sites and how Indigenous place-names were stripped (specifically, Mount Denali was renamed Mount McKinley). What I didn’t get to write about was how Navajo Code-Talkers and their contributions to winning World War II were seemingly erased from U.S. military sites, or how

the ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ detention center was built without tribal consent on Indigenous stewarded lands. As the semester went on, I became increasingly angry at the state of the world. Not only that — I felt defeated. I kept reading the news to find how devastating Trump’s rhetoric and actions were for everyone, not just Indigenous people. When I finally flew back home in May, I was nearly certain I wouldn’t write this column again.

Back in Los Angeles, I immediately started packing for a cross-country road trip back to Tufts. My mom (who’s Indigenous too) and I really wanted to make this a trip of a lifetime. As avid national park and museum enjoyers, we traveled from the Grand Canyon all the way to Niagara Falls, before arriving back in Somerville.

Hitting the road in our rental car, my mom and I saw so many places I count myself lucky to have seen. What stuck out to me most, though, was how much Indigenous culture was woven into the landscape we passed. I

saw everything from Indigenous ruins to tacky ‘Indian’ stores that claimed they sold authentic Native goods. I went to some amazing (and not so amazing) museums. I got to talk with my mom about what we were seeing and think through how our Indigenous heritage manifests itself throughout the country. Of course, Trump’s policies impacted lots of our experience, which I will get into in future articles this semester. Most importantly, I became inspired by what I saw, and by the time two weeks passed, I had so many topics I wanted to write about.

This semester, my column will be less focused on explicit political issues and will instead explore the different ways Indigenous people and Indigenous cultures are portrayed throughout the continental United States. Inspired by my road trip, I will show you how Indigenous life makes itself visible throughout our country, even when explicitly repressed by those in power. I’m excited to take you with me!

Reading for pleasure shouldn’t mean reading to get off

Originally published Sept. 22.

BookTok is difficult to describe. It is, in its earliest form, a forum that originated on TikTok for people to talk about books across social media. Now, though, BookTok has developed into the be-all and end-all of readership opinion. If a book is popular on BookTok, then it is virtually guaranteed to sell well; if BookTok doesn’t popularize it, then it’ll fade into the noise.

The power of BookTok has been well documented since its sizable growth during the COVID-19 pandemic. The canon recommended by BookTok is influential, with titles like “The Song of Achilles” by Madeline Miller and anything written by Taylor Jenkins Reed being deemed must-reads. Not only do readers opine on BookTok, they take their recommendations on what to purchase from the forum. Barnes & Noble now has entire ‘BookTok’ sections of their shelves to rake in consumer cash.

As with any time period in history, people like some books and dislike others. But now, BookTok has let this discourse play out on a much more public stage, with easy access to creating content and purchasing recommended books. I’m not immune to it: I bought and loved “The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue” because of BookTok. Even if you aren’t in tune with BookTok, though, it’s

relatively common knowledge that its most public and controversial conversations center around romance novels (about which I have the most criticism). Yes, those romance novels with covers that look like they were designed in Canva.

Modern-day romance books, predominantly written by women, have very definable traits. The main character is typically a white woman who has a male love interest. After a ‘meet-cute’ (first meeting), the two love interests experience a variety of tropes from ‘enemies to lovers’ character arcs to ‘we have to share a bed.’ Most notoriously, modern-day BookTokrecommended romance books include smut. A lot of smut.

Historically, the romance genre and erotica/smut genres have coexisted, but I believe the genres only start turning into their modern-day equivalents in two places. The modern romance style gets its beginnings in the 1800s, with authors like Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters popularizing romances from female perspectives. The modern smut novel has its beginning in the 20th century, with 1970s and ‘80s ‘bodice rippers’ popularizing abusive and dangerous relationships as sexy. These romance books, recognizable by just the cover, were always an erotica subgenre despite being less popular. However, BookTok has made smut mainstream.

What BookTok has done is allow for dangerous aspects of bodice rippers that romanticize abusive relationships, rape and misogyny to become normalized tropes alongside ‘golden retriever boyfriend’ or ‘enemies to lovers.’ This is extremely dangerous, especially as we know that the media we consume models behavior we emulate, whether on purpose or accidentally. While there haven’t been clear studies about the effects of smut on the brain, we do know the negative effects of visual porn, which we can (and should) extrapolate to apply to smut novels. Men and women both tend to see women as objects if exposed to porn at

an early age. Women who consume porn are also more likely to put themselves in dangerous sexual situations and allow more violent acts to happen to them. While smut has historically been considered tamer than porn, what we’re seeing with BookTok is a large community of people who imply that unhealthy relationships are desirable, which ultimately promotes and normalizes them. This is happening on a much larger scale than ever before, and that’s terrifying. I am not saying that romance or smut should be denounced as genres. I appreciate a romance every now and again, and while I don’t consume smut, I will never

condemn those who do enjoy it. What I do condemn, however, is consuming smut at this scale, glorifying abusive relationships and smut being the baseline expectation for newly published novels. Bottom line, BookTok users and creators are falling for consumerism. We are consuming problematic fictional men and conflating depicted abuse with romance tropes instead of recognizing and celebrating the nuances of love and romance. In turn, we are then telling publishers via our money to give us more of this, instead of giving us healthy relationships to model behavior off of. It’s time for BookTok to do better.

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Graphic by Elise Samson

Sorsha Khitikian Staff Writer

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Shelves labeled “#BookTok” are pictured at a Barnes & Noble.

SPORTS

Tufts, Wesleyan 22–20: A win by a slim margin

September after dark makes a football game feel bigger. The lights sharpen everything: edges of pads, breath in the air, the collective wince of a crowd when a return man gets the corner and the volume turns from murmur to, ‘Oh my god, go.’ Ellis Oval had all of that Saturday, and then some. Tufts defeated Wesleyan 22–20, a win stapled together with all the duct tape a football team keeps in the equipment trunk: defense, field position, special teams, grit, more special teams and, when it absolutely had to happen, one burst through daylight to slam the door.

Start with the night’s most unexpected hero: special teams. Tufts won the rock fight because they owned the liminal moments. There was senior kicker Vaughn Seelicke thumping a 41-yarder late in the third quarter and a 36-yarder in the fourth, 6 points that wound up being the difference in a 2-point game (math: still undefeated). There was sophomore linebacker Dazer van Leeuwen blasting through to get a hand on a punt and bat it out of the end zone for a safety. This play helped him secure the NESCAC Special Teams Player of the Week award. And there was sophomore wide receiver Keller Rogers, a kickoff return magnet with a turbo button, stacking 146 yards on four runbacks, including a 71-yard lightning bolt return into the endzone that immediately flipped the field after Wesleyan had tied it. Between the two plays, that’s 9 points of swing delivered by the phase of the game you forget about until it completely hijacks your game script.

The biggest roar arrived on a takeaway turned jailbreak the other way. Early in the third, sophomore defensive back Cameron Pineda read a throwback, jumped it and thundered 64 yards for six. Pick-sixes are plot twists; this one re-centered a game that had been

Road to the World Cup

Ticket prices, trade battles

The World Cup is less than a year away. In this column, I will review the most pressing challenges the tournament faces across all its venues in Canada, Mexico and the United States.

The $60 ticket that won’t stay $60

The first round of ticket sales for the World Cup began Sept. 10 with a special Visa presale available only to qualified Visa cardholders. The process starts with an application where buyers enter their information and preferred team, which then gets

trenchy and focused on field-positions, giving Tufts the lead it would never fully surrender.

Pineda finished with eight tackles (seven solo) and the highlight you circle from Saturday night, earning him the NESCAC’s Defensive Player of the Week award.

If you’re looking for fireworks on offense, you were watching the wrong game. Tufts gained 219 yards, produced nine first downs and still seemed composed. The Jumbos went 7-for-13 on third down conversions, kicked when it was wise and protected the ball. Wesleyan out-gained Tufts 261–219 yards and won the first-down count 16–9, but lost the phase that turned drives into points.

You wouldn’t frame the box score.

You’d absolutely keep the result.

Junior running back Christian Shapiro supplied the rhythm, then landed the final punch — 13 carries for net 65 yards and the first Tufts touchdown, a three-yard

approved and entered into a lottery. Winners get a slot to purchase tickets on Oct. 1. The catch?

Buyers won’t know which teams play in specific games since the tournament draw isn’t set until Dec. 5. Still, buyers can secure tickets to any World Cup match, including the final, so demand will be intense.

Ticket prices currently range from $60 for group-stage matches to $6,730 for the final. However, these prices may shift upward. FIFA will use variable pricing, which means adjusting costs to match demand in each country’s market. That $60 ticket could likely increase within minutes of going on sale. Price increases may also be expected through FIFA’s official resale platform.

New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has launched a petition to make ticket prices more accessible for New York City residents and to “host a World

second-quarter tie-maker. Later, with the clock blinking nervously, Shapiro slammed the door: thirdand-seven, under two minutes, he knifed 42 yards to the Wesleyan 10 and green-lit the victory formation. He’d been talking himself into that moment all night.

“On that last run, it was a run-play that we’ve been calling all game and to be honest didn’t have much success with,” Shapiro wrote afterward in an email to the Daily. “I was saying all game that if we keep getting these small, gritty yards, that the big one will eventually present itself. And it just so happened that it popped in a very crucial moment in the game.”

Junior quarterback Justin Keller’s legs were the glue, producing 58 yards on eight carries, while maintaining a tidy 12-of17 for 96 passing yards. Exactly the sort of night that allows your defense and specialists to be

Cup all New Yorkers can afford to enjoy.” His petition demands three changes: “No dynamic pricing,” “a cap on resale prices” and “15% of tickets set aside for local residents at a discount.”

These numbers underscore the massive global interest in the tournament. FIFA reported that over 4.5 million fans from 216 countries and territories applied during the 10-day Visa presale period. “The whole world wants to be part of the FIFA World Cup 26,” FIFA President Gianni Infantino said, calling it “the biggest, most inclusive and most exciting event ever seen.” With demand this high and only limited tickets available, FIFA’s variable pricing strategy becomes even more concerning for average fans hoping to attend. Trade wars threaten World Cup unity

On Sept. 18, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum met with

quarterback Matt Fitzsimons was the featured character: two 1-yard plunges, a short touchdown throw, 137 passing yards and designed keepers to stress the edges. wide reciever Donte Kelly found soft spots, running back Angelo LaRose ripped a chunk run, and the Cardinals owned time of possession by a few minutes. But trims killed them: a missed 43-yard field goal before halftime, a punt that became a safety and the two-point denial at the end. In a 2-point game, that’s a trilogy of regrets.

If you’re trying to sketch an early identity for Tufts, call it opportunistic composure. The Jumbos answered jolts with poise: Down 7–0 late in the first? Nine plays, Shapiro from three. Tied midway through the third? Rogers detonates a return, Seelicke bangs through points. Backed up late? Defense stacks downs, closes the door on the conversation. Nothing felt fluky. It felt practiced.

loud. When Keller kept on zone reads, linebackers flattened, safeties widened a half-step and those were the inches the offense needed. Not flashy, but effective.

About that defense: Bend, snap back, repeat. Tufts logged the game’s lone sack (senior defensive lineman senior Suleiman Abuaqel and junior linebacker Riley Yaker, a shared effort for minus-15) and kept making Wesleyan earn every yard. Junior linebacker Johnny Ferrelli matched Pineda with eight tackles, Yaker popped up at all the important collisions, and senior defensive back Nate Sousa kept getting paws on throws. The night’s neon arrow came with 1:57 left: Wesleyan scored to get within two, lined up for the tie, and Tufts detonated the twopoint, with Yaker and Ferrelli meeting it at the goal line.

Wesleyan had answers, just not enough of them. Wesleyan

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in Mexico City to discuss trade and tariffs. The meeting stems from President Donald Trump’s insistence on continuing trade barriers between the nations. Both Sheinbaum and Carney appear focused on strengthening their partnership to reduce dependence on Trump’s unpredictable policies. This political drama directly affects World Cup planning. Strained relationships between leaders threaten smooth cooperation between host nations.

According to The Washington Post, Trump’s trade policies are already causing economic damage in Canada. “Levies on steel, aluminum and autos are hitting those sectors hard and weighing on the economy, driving up unemployment, squeezing exports and shrinking economic growth,” Toronto-based correspondent Amanda Coletta

Trends to keep an eye on as the calendar turns: Tufts’ kick return game is a problem for opponents. Rogers’ average, 36.5 a pop, could force squibs and pooches, as teams look to avoid putting the ball into his hands. The secondary attacks the ball (see: Pineda), and the front has a pocket-wrecking gear when it needs a possession-changer. Most of all, the third-down math travels. 7-for13 is composure translated into chain movements.

And the closer from the closer: As he ripped through the second level on that 42-yarder, Shapiro said, “The emotions were definitely high, when I broke through the line of scrimmage, all I saw was the endzone. It took a lot out of me to not finish that run, but I knew if I got down the game was over, so sliding felt like the best option.”

That’s a veteran call that echoes this roster’s wiring, the kind you want traveling week to week.

wrote in The Post. Economic instability, precisely when these countries need stability to prepare for hosting the world’s biggest sporting event, is troubling. Even though the World Cup isn’t Canada and Mexico’s top priority, it represents a massive economic opportunity that requires a smooth regional partnership.

The stakes are enormous. FIFA projects the tournament will create 185,000 jobs in the United States alone, contribute billions to the country’s GDP and generate billions in revenue. With numbers like these, political squabbles between host nations could undermine what should be a celebration of international unity through soccer.

Antonia Toro is a sophomore who has yet to declare a major. Antonia can be reached at antonia. toro@tufts.edu.

Luke Fredericks Deputy Sports Editor

Antonia Toro

COURTESY TUFTS ATHLETICS

Tufts celebrates during their game against Wesleyan.

Keeping inner thoughts ‘private’

Writer

Last month, a spark was ignited within the scientific community as a team of researchers demonstrated a scientific method for decoding one’s inner thoughts. The team implanted microelectrode arrays in the brain tissues of four BrainGate2 patients who lost their ability to speak due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Each patient was then asked to perform various tasks, including responding to spontaneous questions, counting shapes and reading sentences, while the researchers collected electrical data from their brains to analyze their thoughts. This electrical data was then used to mechanically build an alternative communication channel.

Studies on building a bridge between the brain and the computer date back to the ’70s, when Jacques J. Vidal built the first brain-computer interface.

A brain-computer interface is a collection of metallic electrodes placed on top of or in the brain tissue, invasively, through surgery, or non-invasively, by directly sticking on top of the scalp, to observe and collect the electrical activity of the brain. As different regions hint at different tasks in the brain, with the use of machine learning algorithms, scientists can make sense of the electrical data collected from these devices and form large datasets to advance the accuracy of these readings.

Speech decoding and brain-computer interface studies offer potential new information that could inform our understanding of disorders and help develop assistive technology. Muscle disease and brain injuries often underlie speech disorders, due to the brain’s activation signal not being able to be effectively transmitted through the nerves or the muscles being unable to respond to this activation.

Scientists in this study targeted the motor cortex area of the brain — responsible for most of the muscle and speech tasks — to detect phonemic outputs, individual speech sounds a person produces when speaking and artificially classify these inputs as words. This study has discovered that the phonemic inputs gathered from the precentral gyrus of the motor cortex, in addition to attempted speech, show inner speech, albeit with a lower signal intensity.

At first, the researchers were skeptical as to whether they were truly detecting inner speech — the imagination or repetition of ideas in the brain without the intent to communicate externally. In order to confirm their findings, the researchers conducted a variety of further experiments. In these experiments, subjects were shown arrows pointing to different sides, then asked to remember the directions and draw them.

After being able to recognize a patient’s inner speech saying ‘right, left, etc.,’ researchers detected their muscle activities and compared the two sets of data to make sure what they’re reading isn’t just a muscle activation signal, but the patient narrating directions out loud in their brain. Additionally, scientists asked the patients to memorize the arrows visually, instead of verbally as ‘left, right, up, down,’ and received much higher accuracy for verbal reading than visual readings.

The study found that their systems could more accurately determine uninstructed inner thoughts — like a patient naturally counting the subjects without any further guidance — when compared to instructed thoughts (i.e., asking a patient to think of something or clear their mind).

From this, the researchers posit that spontaneous thinking of answers to specific

questions builds a much more independent clutter of ideas that cannot yet be accurately detected. Additionally, inner speech was not accurately detectable for some patients, which raises the question as to whether every human has a linguistic thinking process or if other modalities of thinking exist, such as visually-based thinking.

Following these findings, the researchers began to consider the privacy implications of this, and they began working on ways to protect the privacy of one’s inner mind. As researchers proved that no mechanical additions are necessary in order to detect someone’s inner thoughts, they developed two ideas on how they can prevent the brain-computer interface from mistakenly outputting a patient’s inner dialogues by confusing it with attempted speech.

Firstly, they built a ‘motor-intent’ dimension for their decoding algorithm to bypass inner thought. Secondly, they locked inner thought readings with a hard-to-unwantedly-imagine

password so that the algorithm only starts decoding when the patient unlocks the feature. For their second implementation, scientists used the password “chittychittybangbang” and reached 98.75% accuracy in detecting the keyword in one of their patients’ trials.

Following the release of this study, the public has been divided in its reactions — with some people expressing excitement and others expressing fear. Some people are concerned that this study represents the opening of a Pandora’s box in terms of the technology’s potential.

However, many study participants with speech disabilities expressed a contrasting perspective on the matter: excitement, as this development could help develop assistive communication devices using the brain-computer interface. Some expressed that this type of technology has the potential to increase the speed and comfort of communication for them, as attempting to speak is much harder than imagining for them. It is promising that this technology

can outline the human brain’s thinking process, which can, in the future, be utilized to build stronger computer architectures that can function as fast and capably as the brain.

It should be noted, nonetheless, that this study has only been tested with four native English speakers. There is yet no study showing whether or not these algorithms can be successful for other languages or even for other patients, as the training datasets for these experiments are limited in the number of patients and languages. While this paper highlights neuroprivacy through technology, legal aspects should also be considered on whether or not new neuroprivacy laws should be constituted.

This study will likely influence future research on unconscious human thinking and thinking processes, where scientists can also study the visual or sensory representations of thought in the brain. Hopefully, these advancements will become accessible and mobile for those struggling with communication disorders.

Warzones see flares of GBS, conditions exacerbated by famine and poor public health

syndrome, with several fatal cases underscoring its severity. These historical contexts suggest that the combined stresses of war, including malnutrition, crowded living conditions and poor sanitation, consistently create fertile ground for GuillainBarré syndrome outbreaks.

Today, the reappearance of the syndrome in Gaza serves as yet another reminder that such outbreaks are not incidental but a direct consequence of war’s devastation, where medical vulnerability is amplified by the very conditions of conflict, and the burden falls most heavily on already suffering civilian populations.

Due to its complex, poorly understood triggers, GuillainBarré syndrome has no simple

cure. The immune system mistakenly attacks peripheral nerves, but the exact cause, timing and severity differ widely across patients. As a result, no universal ‘fix’ exists; however, established therapies can dramatically reduce severity and improve recovery. Intravenous immunoglobulin treatment works by infusing concentrated antibodies into the affected patient’s bloodstream. Plasmapheresis, another treatment for the syndrome, filters out immune molecules responsible for symptoms by circulating the patient’s blood in a machine that exchanges the plasma for a substitute solution. These treatments are most effective when started early. They reduce the risk of severe paralysis and respiratory failure, shorten hospital stays and lower mortality rates.

In Gaza, however, treatments are largely unavailable or severely limited. “Intravenous immunoglobulin … the (Gaza) Ministry of Health’s first-line treatment for GBS, and plasmapheresis filters remain out of stock, leaving no treatment options available for suspected GBS cases,” the WHO said.

Waleed Ghalibeh’s story mirrors the plight of other patients in Gaza, showing how a sudden onset of Guillain-Barré syndrome can devastate families already enduring immense hardship. Ghalibeh’s condition began with a sudden onset of symptoms, including the loss of his ability to speak and swallow, followed by difficulty blinking. Despite receiving intensive care for 17 days, he remains unable to speak, eat or breathe independently, relying on a feeding

tube and mechanical ventilation. His mother expressed a deep desire for him to regain his previous abilities once more.

“The thing that I wish for the most, and I truly want to see it in front of my eyes, is for my son [to] talk, breathe, eat, drink, love life, pray and walk on his feet like before. This is what I really wish for the most, for me to see him healthy like before,” she said.

The surge of Guillain-Barré syndrome in Gaza is not simply the appearance of a rare neurological illness but the predictable consequence of collapsing public health foundations. The destruction of WASH infrastructure forces families to consume unsafe water, while overcrowded shelters heighten the spread of infectious diseases.

Malnutrition and compromised immunity leave individuals less able to fight even routine illnesses, turning otherwise manageable infections into life-threatening conditions. At the same time, restricted access to healthcare, shortages of essential treatments and limited diagnostic capacity mean that patients like Ghalibeh are left without lifesaving treatments. His story reveals how quickly a fragile health system can unravel when these risk factors converge. Ultimately, the surge of Guillain-Barré in Gaza demonstrates how war dismantles the foundations of a healthcare system, transforming preventable illnesses into crises and leaving entire populations vulnerable to the compounding toll of conflict.

Hande Naz Kavas Contributing

GRAPHIC BY EMILY O’HEARN

GBS continued from the back

SCIENCE

Guillain-Barré syndrome explained: The rare paralytic disease surging in Gaza

then to difficulty ambulating. In severe cases, the syndrome can lead to total paralysis.

Amid the near-total Israeli blockade, those in Gaza are facing a new threat to their lives — paralytic diseases. According to Nasser Hospital’s head of pediatrics, Dr. Ahmed Al-Farra, “Before the war, we used to see one case of Guillain-Barré syndrome yearly, but in the last three months, we have already diagnosed nearly 100 cases. We are seeing an outbreak of acute flaccid paralysis as a result … Patients are fatigued, unable to stand or sit. Then, as the paralysis increases, it affects patients’ respiratory muscles and can lead to respiratory failure. This can, in some cases, result in cardiac arrest.”

Guillain-Barré syndrome is a rare neurological condition in which the body’s immune system attacks peripheral nerves, impairing the myelin sheath or nerve axons, which carry signals between the brain, spinal cord and limbs. Initial symptoms usually present as random, unexplained sensations, like tingling in the hands and feet. These symptoms can then progress to tingling in the legs and back,

The American Brain Foundation states, “Other symptoms can include issues with eye movement and vision, difficulty swallowing or speaking, coordination problems, abnormal heart rate or blood pressure, and digestive or bladder control problems.”

The timeline of this syndrome’s progression can vary, with symptoms usually developing over days to weeks. In most cases, patients are at their weakest two to three weeks after the initial onset of symptoms, but full recovery often takes several months or more; some patients are left with lasting weakness or disability.

So what’s driving the surge in cases in Gaza? Multiple overlapping factors appear to be contributing to the outbreak, namely poor WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) conditions, as well as malnutrition. With airstrikes having destroyed water and sanitation networks, Gazans are left with no choice but to use wastewater for drinking, cooking and washing. Further, lack of

reliable food and nutrition weakens immune defenses, making severe infections — which can trigger the syndrome — more likely. “Given the water sanitation and health situation … the conditions are ripe for any infection,” World Health Organization spokesperson Christian Lindmeier said. Guillain-Barré has a history of surfacing in wartime settings, underscoring the relationship between armed conflict, the consequential degradation of living conditions and

the emergence of acute paralytic illnesses. The first well-documented description of what we now call Guillain-Barré syndrome occurred during World War I in 1916, when French neurologists Georges Guillain and Jean-Alexandre Barré, as well as physiologist André Strohl, described two soldiers in the French Sixth Army who developed acute progressive motor weakness, loss of tendon reflexes and elevated cerebrospinal fluid protein despite a normal cell

count. Reports of similar cases, often referred to earlier as Landry’s paralysis, had existed since the 19th century, but it was the context of war that crystallized the syndrome as a distinct neurological disorder. During World War II, American and British military physicians documented numerous cases of acute paralytic neuropathy, many of which were later recognized as Guillain-Barré

In Photos: Men’s soccer downs Hamilton

VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

An immunofluorescence image of myelinated A-fibers and unmyelinated C-fibers in sciatic nerve of rat is pictured.

Photos By: Amelia Vander May

Aria Chawla Contributing Writer