The editorial board is the official opinion of The Georgetown Voice. The editorial board operates independently of the Voice’s newsroom and the General Board. The board’s editorials reflect the majority opinion of the editorial board’s members, who are listed on the masthead.
At the start of each academic year, The Georgetown Voice’s Editorial Board writes a letter to incoming students introducing our campus’s history and the role they play in shaping its future. Now, at the end of this year, we write to you, incoming President Eduardo Peñalver, to outline this institution’s current misalignment with its mission, and to ask you to better adhere to its stated values, Ad majorem Dei gloriam (for the greater glory of God).
Over the past several weeks, Pope Leo XIV has provided clear leadership to Catholic institutions on applying Jesus’s principles of solidarity with oppressed peoples. The Pope has repeatedly expressed fundamental ideals of Catholic teachings which oppose “the imperialist occupation of the world,” whose violence “until now has been the law,” clashing with President Donald Trump’s war-waging in the Mideast. As a Catholic university, we should follow the Pope’s lead, adopting tangible policies which display care for our community and the greater world.
First, there is a clear bias towards wealthy applicants at this university, whether with legacy admissions policies or alleged illegal tuition inflation. A 2017 study found 74% of Georgetown students come from the top 20% of America’s wealth bracket, and only 3.1% come from the bottom 20%. Admitted students from non-wealthy backgrounds are immediately faced with inadequate financial aid that prohibits them from ever joining us on the Hilltop. Instead of investing in the foundation of the university—its workers, faculty, and students—our money is wasted on unpopular generative AI, seven-figure executive salaries, and runaway expansion. While low-income students go unsupported, it seems to be less about what Georgetown can afford but what it chooses to prioritize. President Peñalver, your administration can change this, and we call on you to end legacy admissions, expand efforts to increase the diversity of our campus, and concentrate more funds on the allocation of financial aid.
While administration has faltered, its students, in line with the Jesuit value of “People for Others,” have recognized our university’s exploitation of labor. Over the past year, the Georgetown Coalition for Workers’ Rights mobilized behind our cherished Georgetown University Transportation Shuttle (GUTS) drivers. At the behest of Interim President Robert Groves and the Board of Directors, Chief Operating Officer David Green attempted to outsource long-time GUTS employees to a third-party contractor, which would cause our drivers to lose their benefits, such as free tuition for their children. To demand that the administration protect the drivers, students occupied Healy Hall outside of the President’s office. While the drivers will retain their status as university employees, the university has fallen short of guaranteeing that future GUTS drivers will be employed directly. We call on you, President Peñalver, to provide the GUTS drivers the basic dignity of this guarantee.
This labor fight did not begin last year. In 2005, students went on a hunger strike that resulted in the implementation of the Just Employment Policy, meant to ensure a living wage and worker protections. Still, that policy and the resolutions of the Advisory Committee on Business Practices have been ignored by the administration when convenient. Some of our workers make barely more than D.C.’s minimum wage, far from a living wage. The standards of labor on this campus must be strengthened, in line with the Catholic belief in the dignity of work. Pope Leo emphasized that the priority of work dynamics should “neither be capital, nor the laws of the market, nor profit, but the person, the family, and their well-being.” In this spirit, we call on you, President Peñalver, to ensure a permanent commitment to paying all workers in Georgetown’s community—from custodial staff to adjunct professors and everyone in between—a living wage.
President Peñalver, you have your own history in demanding better from university administrators. As a Cornell student in 1994, following your occupation of a University building to confront the lack of administrative support for Latino students, you stated, “So much shit happens at this University, I think I could have a rally every day until the year 2016.” Thirty-two years later, we find this statement rings true at Georgetown.
But despite your previous sentiments, your decision to lock all Seattle University campus buildings amid a 2024 demonstration in solidarity with Palestine exhibits a mistrust of student activists.
Georgetown, like many universities across the country, was deservedly called out for its complicity in the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza by the apartheid state of Israel. In response to community protests and activism, interim President Groves took just 31 minutes before rejecting a student divestment referendum that received 67.9% support. This was coupled with a new and repressive ‘Speech and Expression policy’ which bans masks and amplified noise at protests. In this light, we call on you, President Peñalver, to agree to students’ demands to divest our money from genocide and implement a speech and expression policy guided by students.
You recently argued that your current campus of Seattle University should have a philosophy of “institutional modesty.” In your view, this compels a university to take sides only when “necessary to operate in a manner consistent with their institutional values.” Exploitation of workers and students, as well as genocide, is inarguably inconsistent with our stated institutional values. As you rightly identified in a statement to the Seattle University community, fixing these issues demands concrete actions over “performativity.” In claiming to adhere to the Jesuit values of “Faith that Does Justice,” “Care for our Common Home,” and “People for Others,” we take on a commitment to the well-being of all humans. We write this letter to you so you can hear the concerns of students who feel ignored by the present administration. However, beyond simply hearing us, we urge you to utilize your power to deliver.
