Thankfully, as the keg ban lift demonstrates, Georgetown’s administration seems to have finally embraced Georgetown Day as a celebration of, for, and by the campus community. The allowance will make students feel safer and more comfortable staying on the Hilltop to party, and as such, will send an important signal to students they will be left free to enjoy their annual day of revelry as they please.

However, the Georgetown University Student Association resolution, which called on Olson to lift the keg ban, also requested that the University monitor and regulate Georgetown Day daytime socializing in the same manner as weekend socializing, including noise allowances and monitoring by Georgetown officials. So far, administrators have declined to implement this part of GUSA’s resolution.

As policy currently stands, Georgetown Day parties will presumably be regulated much in the same way as social events on any other Friday afternoon. Not only does this protocol fail to reflect the reality of Georgetown Day, it may even detract from the success of the keg ban lift. Indeed, this inadequate policy could counterproductively encourage students to be more furtive with their alcohol consumption and to choose to throw parties off- instead of on-campus, further straining already contentious town-gown relations.

Students still remember the uncertainty surrounding last year’s Georgetown Day, when administrators told students as early as March that there was a lack of interest in planning the event. In reality, the University deliberately failed to solicit applications to join the Planning Committee as it had done in years past. As a result, students still mistrust the University’s handling of Georgetown Day, which plays into their incentives to hold parties off- rather than on-campus. With the perceived strictness surrounding Georgetown Day, students may also feel more uneasy about calling for emergency help in the case of alcohol poisoning.

Olson can announce via a student-wide email that, for enforcement purposes, Georgetown Day will be treated like a Saturday night, allaying student fears about hosting parties on campus. To ensure a safe and enjoyable Georgetown Day, we urge him to fully embrace Hoya tradition by doing so immediately.

The post University should fully embrace Gtown Day appeared first on The Georgetown Voice.

Congress’s failure to come to an agreement on March 1 on the across-the-board spending cuts is a devastating symbol and reminder of the impotence of the legislative branch in the current political climate. It is merely another piece of data in what has become a debilitating trend of political paralysis.

If Congress could not come together on an issue of such grave importance, it is unreasonable to expect them to enact any piece of legislation, no matter how small, that actually benefits the American people. Even the Violence Against Women Act, an annual bill that has traditionally enjoyed strong bipartisan support, was put through the wringer under the flimsiest of  pretenses.

Time after time, Congress has disappointed. Despite the strong public support behind expanded background checks for gun sales—up to 90 percent according to some polls—the Senate stubbornly drew party lines earlier this month and voted against an amendment that would serve as a compromise.

The job description was apparently unclear to members of Congress. Their purpose is not to further the polarizing priorities of each political party, but to craft laws that will serve to aid their fellow Americans.

While Democrats and Republicans have come together on immigration reform, it is only one issue in a culture that where petty jabs count more than even the most basic legislation. It is now standard procedure in the Senate to filibuster, which requires a two-thirds majority vote to pass the smallest of amendments. This is the same number of votes needed to pass a Constitutional Amendment. Each bill now requires the same number of votes as the Thirteenth Amendment—and that’s only in the Senate.

What Congress does not seem to understand is that it is as vulnerable to the electorate as we are to its childishness. When a legislator uses public safety as a political bargaining chip, she should lose her job. When a legislator makes financial aid for disadvantaged college students a hostage for brownie points within his party, he should lose his job.

While President Obama recently proposed a Fiscal Year 2014 budget that would add $150 million to Federal Work-Study spending, it is still contingent on Congress passing it—and as it has become painfully clear, to expect members of Congress to serve the people who elected them and the students who depend on them is optimistic.

The post Congressional spending cuts threaten Hoyas appeared first on The Georgetown Voice.

Perhaps as a result of increased pressure to be the first to break a story, augmented by the digital nature of contemporary journalism, many media sources were quick to publish irrelevant and ultimately untruthful speculations about the event.

For example, an unrelated fire in Boston’s JFK library was reported as a third bomb on the same day as the Marathon. This was merely one of the many pieces of unverified and mistaken information to which the media subjected its followers. Eager to announce the progress of the story two days after the bombing, CNN wrongly announced an arrest and then was forced to retract their claim. The Associated Press and The Boston Globe made the same mistake. The New York Post exaggerated the event’s death toll. Most frighteningly, social media sites such as Reddit, 4Chan, and Twitter formed vigilante armies that hunted down innocents as suspects.

But beyond false facts, media coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing was also abused in order to push specific political agendas.

Chris Matthews of MSNBC began to publicly speculate that radical members of the Tea Party movement, motivated by anti-Tax Day sentiments, were behind the bombings. On the other side of the American political spectrum, conservative show host Sean Hannity felt compelled to use the bombing as an example of why unrestricted access to guns does little to stem violence. To immediately turn to the ineffectiveness of gun control, one of the most contentious political issues of our time, is to insensitively and unnecessarily politicize the Boston tragedy.

House Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) also managed to manipulate the bombing to justify his views on immigration policy. When it became news that the bombing suspects were immigrants, King preached caution about immigration reform in light of the bombing—he even went so far as to advise the public to be wary of the U.S.’s visa-waiver program for students, since the government cannot ensure appropriate background checks for each candidate from “who knows where.”

Clearly, media coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing has shown how the nation’s commercial media sources have lost sight of their supposed commitment to truthful information. Moreover, the event’s politicization has emphasized that certainly, it is not the place of journalists to immediately interpret facts in order to propagate a particular political strategy. At the very least, we ask journalists to take seriously their role in constructively and truthfully shaping our national discourse.

The post Media, politicians miss mark on Boston tragedy appeared first on The Georgetown Voice.

In the past, the District’s budget has been subject to veto by Congress, a body composed of representatives from other constituencies whose interests are often not aligned with those of D.C. residents and whose current capabilities hardly fall short of absolute dysfunction. A majority “Yes” vote on the referendum would finally put the city in charge of its approximately $5 billion annual tax revenue, ensuring the budget autonomy necessary to deal with issues unique to the District and its demography.

An autonomous budget would allow us to deal with problems that affect D.C. residents and as such, can only be effectively solved by D.C. residents. For example, D.C.’s  HIV rate of 2.7 percent is the highest in the country. Although the city has long recognized the epidemic and accordingly established HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention centers throughout the area, until 2009 the District was unable to address the problem at full capacity because Congress prohibited it from using its own funds to support needle exchange services. Not to mention continual congressional obstruction of access to reproductive care for the District’s low-income women. So long as we don’t control our own money, further obstruction is always possible.

Crucially, the District’s ability to make its own economic decisions would bring it closer to statehood, a struggle that has persisted for far too long. Although it has a larger population than Wyoming and Vermont and is the second fastest growing state or territory, the District of Columbia has no elected representation with full voting rights in the federal government. It is nothing less than a travesty that the 632,323 residents of the District are not full citizens in the eyes of the Constitution.

As D.C. residents, if only temporarily, Georgetown students must understand the importance of Tuesday’s referendum. A large show of support for Proposed Charter Amendment VIII would not only mean budget autonomy, the very least owed to the District by its government, but more importantly, it could also mean an end to the centuries-long tyranny of taxation without representation. In the spirit of democracy, Hoyas should vote “Yes” for budget autonomy this Tuesday.

The post Vote ‘Yes’ to free D.C.’s budget this Tuesday appeared first on The Georgetown Voice.

As of Wednesday evening, no one had been detained for the crime, so it is possible that the damage was caused by destructive alcohol-induced belligerence and not religious bigotry, as many on campus initially believed. From Fr. Kevin O’Brien, S.J.’s perspective, the damage to the crucifix appears accidental.

Nevertheless, accidental indifference in one of Georgetown’s sacred spaces can never be tolerated. In May 2012, the seniors of the women’s club volleyball team apologized for littering the steps of Dahlgren with condoms and alcohol. Though this act lacked any anti-religious zealotry, the volleyball team’s actions demonstrated complete disregard for the religious symbolism behind many of Georgetown’s locations.

Dahlgren is not the only sacred place on campus. The Jesuit cemeteries, Copley’s Muslim Prayer Room and St. Williams Chapel, Makóm in the Leavey Center, and McSherry Hall are all religious sites reflecting the religious pluralism that exists here at Georgetown. In this sense, vandalism at Dahlgren is much more than vandalism against the Catholic Church—on the contrary, it disrespects the campus-wide commitment and investment Georgetown makes to respect diversity of religious expression.

Georgetown has a long history of being a collegiate leader in fostering a vibrant interfaith community. Georgetown employs both a full-time rabbi and an imam on campus, staffs dormitories with chaplains-in-residence across the wide faith spectrum, and regularly organizes interfaith events, like Campus Ministry’s Hallelujah Shabbat and the Hindu Student Association’s Holi festival.

Keeping this identity in mind, we hope to see the intruder brought to justice and made to pay for the damages to the 120-year-old chapel. But more importantly, we hope this crime will be a reminder for students of the importance of paying due respect to religious buildings on campus, taking into consideration the personal significance they have to our peers.

Dahlgren is a Catholic space, but it is symbolic of our University’s inclusive emphasis on pluralism. If not of Georgetown’s particular religious affiliation, students should at least be conscious and respectful of our tolerant identity.

The post Dahlgren vandalism disrespects GU’s identity appeared first on The Georgetown Voice.

The decision follows months of protests by community members and advocates, who insist the Beauregard development project will displace longtime residents without providing them viable housing alternatives. Although current residents will receive one-time compensation between $2,300 and $3,100, opponents highlight that such measures disregard the human and community elements of forced displacement.

Proponents of redevelopment argue that the project will give life to the area, meeting increasing demand for high quality housing in the DMV and improving mass transit. Moreover, a richer and larger population and more business activity is expected to bring in hundreds of millions in tax revenue in the next  decades, encouraging the region’s economic growth.

While the project is clearly a valuable enterprise for Alexandria’s residents, the city council failed to negotiate an adequate deal for its residents who depend on the low-income housing available in Beauregard. Because developer JBG’s promise of $158.6 million worth of new community infrastructure—including parkland and a fire station—is one of the largest developer contributions ever made in the region, the mere 800 affordable units are seen as an act of charity on the part of JBG. However, considering the ever-decreasing amount of low-income housing options available within the Beltway and the 21 years the city is estimating it will take for all 800 units to be available, ensuring sufficient affordable housing is not supererogatory—it is imperative.

According to a recent study conducted by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, minimum-wage earners spending no more than 30 percent of income on housing need to work 114 hours per week, 52 weeks per year, in order to afford the 40th percentile of rents in Virginia, or $1,078. In D.C., minimum-wage earners need to work 18 more hours to afford an even higher rent of $1,412.

When three minimum-wage jobs are needed to afford a two-bedroom apartment in the District, something is broken in our housing system. Such tendencies are blamed on gentrification, the combined economic and political forces that, in seeking to renew and revive older areas of town, raise living prices in an area and push out lower-income residents who can no longer afford to live in more expensive communities.

If we want to build an equitable, diverse, and vibrant District, development should still occur, but it should be approached holistically. This requires that the interests of poorer residents, whose right to a dignified standard of living necessitates affordable housing and living wages, be as seriously considered as those of wealthier residents. As such, the city of Alexandria should require JBG to build more affordable housing more quickly, and not allow them to raise rents to the point where already marginalized low-income residents can no longer afford to live in their longtime communities.

The post Alexandria redevelopment unequal and unfair appeared first on The Georgetown Voice.

The decision was seen as a compromise between the GUSA SAWG and NSO coordinators. However, the issue of student safety is one that should never be open to compromise.

The period between the beginning of school and Thanksgiving is known as the “red zone” because more sexual assaults occur during those first few weeks than at any other time in the school year. It is precisely because students are arriving in an unfamiliar setting, defining their boundaries, and experimenting with new things that it is crucial for new students to learn how to be safe as they start school.

Unsurprisingly, Georgetown’s numbers are consistent with the national averages of one in four women and one in 33 men falling victim to sexual assault while in school. According to the National Institute of Justice, victims know their attackers 90 percent of the time—in fact, sexual assault occurs in the context of a date almost half of the time. And tragically, here on Georgetown’s campus, the Department of Public Safety estimated that as many as 11 in 12 sexual assaults go unreported.

The changes being made in NSO are a step in the right direction, but as the numbers show, much more remains to be done. Sexual assault education should be incorporated into Orientation Advisor training, and a renewed focus needs to be placed on this kind of education during Resident Assistant training. New students rely on RAs and OAs for guidance, so it is only logical that mentors should be ready and able to give survivors the support and advice they need.

NSO coordinators should reconsider their priorities. We understand that the orientation schedule is already tightly packed, but few programs or events should be regarded as more important than a mandatory discussion of these issues. Without incorporating compulsory sexual assault education, we risk failing to make Georgetown a safe space for all students. NSO should be a fun, welcoming experience, but more importantly should thoroughly prepare students for the beginning of their years on the Hilltop.

In the future, NSO should not half-heartedly squeeze insufficient sexual assault prevention efforts into its schedule only after it is pushed for by student leaders. Rather, it should schedule a mandatory sexual assault workshop from the beginning of planning. No Hoya should enter the Georgetown community without understanding that there is no such thing as legitimate rape, that a girl is never “asking for it,” and that it’s not all harmless fun. Earnest prevention efforts require that these issues be taken seriously and discussed with new students as soon as possible.

The post NSO must require sexual assault education appeared first on The Georgetown Voice.

While these substantial changes constitute hard-won victories, certain provisions included in the gun control bills may do more harm than good. In direct response to last December’s Newtown shooting, the state proposals collectively seek to designate $40 million for schools to invest in security. Such efforts are in the same vein as those advocated by the National Rifle Association, which released a prescriptive report last week that recommended placing armed guards at every K-12 school.

As a strategy for school safety, increased security is inefficient at best, and toxic at worst. Already, one-third of American public schools employ armed guards, and arming the remaining public schools would cost an estimated $2.5 billion. While it is clear that that we cannot place a cost on safety, school studies point to a spurious correlation at best between increased police protection and decreased violence in schools.

On the contrary, it appears that armed guards actually negatively affect students—study after study reports that the presence of armed guards makes students feel powerless and even unsafe. In an environment where children and young adults spend nearly half of their time, student well-being is quickly being eroded by heightened security.

Studies merely serve to back the protests of students, who are taking it upon themselves to oppose the emphasis on punishment represented by increased school security. Here in the District, a group of students is using photography to document metal detectors, police pat-downs, and other school security measures intended to protect them. Armed with cameras to fight for their safety, the student photos evidence how their learning environments, like the estimated 10,000 other high schools across the nation with police on campus, have been transformed into quasi-prisons.

Instead of harsh law-and-order policies, schools should embrace restorative justice measures that focus on rehabilitation and cooperative security rather than bringing intimidation and potential police violence into the halls of our nation’s schools. The activist D.C. students and their “Homework Not Handcuffs” campaign, which advocates such measures, shows many students are ahead of the curve in terms of knowing how school discipline should work.

These brave students are rightly demanding a voice in the legislation that will not only shape their lives at school and beyond, but also the national discourse on violence, crime, and punishment. It is imperative that we fully consider the implications of all the provisions included in prospective gun control legislation, and refrain from unwisely expanding school security, lest our attempts to protect instead stifle our youth.

The post Gun control bills founder on student security appeared first on The Georgetown Voice.

Of the many sticking points in the immigration debate, one of the first is surely border security. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), part of the bipartisan “Gang of Eight” senators working on reform, has said any deal will have to include increased border security. However, it’s unclear where more agents and more money would go, or what good these would do.

President Barack Obama has already stepped up enforcement of illegal immigration laws, deporting more people in his first term than President George W. Bush ever did, and committing more law enforcement to the border than ever before. While the flow of undocumented immigration from Mexico is the lowest it’s been in decades, border crossing fatalities have not decreased at nearly the same rate. In such a complicated issue, one thing is clear: More enforcement can’t solve the immigration crisis.

But an issue more important for the roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country today is how long and arduous that much vaunted “path to citizenship” will be. Most critically, any deal that Democrats agree to should make legal status in the U.S. a certainty for those who pursue it. No undocumented immigrants should be subjected to the legal limbo of their current status after this reform is passed.

Moreover, the waiting period for legal residence should be short, and should take into account how long immigrants have already been in the U.S. Fines and back taxes cannot become a barrier for legal status, and deportations must cease for those pursuing residence. If the price for legal status is too steep, millions of immigrants will not be able to attain it, and our nation will be left with the same problem it faces today.

Above all, symbolism remains the greatest threat to humane, comprehensive reform. Conservatives will do whatever they can to water down a deal, making it nearly impossible for undocumented immigrants to acquire citizenship, while claiming the electorally significant achievement of being partners in reform. It is up to the concerned public and progressive legislators to refuse to pass a bill that does not include an accessible path to citizenship and a relaxation of deportations. If we do not, it may be years before we can legislate the issue again.

The post An inhumane immigration deal is no deal at all appeared first on The Georgetown Voice.

If approved by a majority of voting adjunct professors, the union will bargain on behalf of adjunct faculty in order to ensure much needed job security protections, work benefits, higher salaries, and opportunities for professional development for part-time and non-tenure track faculty members.

Adjunct professors, who contribute mightily to the intellectual life of any modern American university, receive a relative pittance of a salary with little to no benefits. Adjunct pay ranges from as little as $1,000 to $8,000 per 3-credit course. The national average salary of a full-time adjunct is roughly $21,000—an undeniably low working-class income for white-collar professionals with graduate degrees.

Georgetown rests on the upper end of this bracket, paying its adjunct faculty roughly $6,000 per course. However, the fact remains that the University allots a mere 2 percent of its budget to its adjuncts, even though they make up roughly 48 percent of Georgetown’s faculty.

The marginalization of adjunct faculty also harms them professionally. Due to low salaries and lack of job security—and oftentimes, the added burden of crushing student debt—adjuncts often split their energies between multiple universities and day jobs. These various demands constrain adjuncts from developing professionally through traditionally academic pursuits like research.

The shift of university cost structures from  scholarship to flashy facilities and bigger administrations is a nationwide phenomenon, as brand-conscious universities attempt to boost rankings in order to compete for students and funds. Unfortunately, this has resulted in a system that takes emphasis away from the quality of academic life of students and professors.

Indeed, students also pay the price for subpar adjunct conditions. For example, without offices, adjuncts do not have an adequate space to hold office hours which are invaluable to fostering student-professor relationships. Income insecurity and the stress of juggling multiple jobs also negatively impacts adjuncts’ abilities to address the needs of students.

The upcoming election is a chance for adjuncts to push back against the supply-and-demand principles that have compromised the integrity of academia. While it is encouraging that the University administration has pledged neutrality in the process, in correct observance of its Just Employment Policy, the Georgetown community needs to take a more active role in support of its adjunct faculty. Even though only adjunc   ts can actually vote, the student body has a particular responsibility to present a united front in support of those professors who have devoted so much of their time and energy to our education. After all, we only stand to gain.

The post Adjunct unionization efforts deserve support appeared first on The Georgetown Voice.