Editorials

Opinions from the Voice’s official editorial board.

Editorials

Fair Trade, fair choice

In the past five years, coffee prices have plummeted 70 percent, plunging 25 million Third World coffee farmers into poverty. Small farmers, unable to transport their own coffee, are forced to pay exorbitant amounts to middlemen. As a result, farmers who should be receiving a fair “living wage” of $1.

By the October 10, 2002

Editorials

Time to ask and tell

On Oct. 4, more than 100 students and faculty members at the Georgetown University Law Center gathered to protest the presence of Judge Advocacy Group representatives at the annual Government Interview Week. The demonstrators argued that the presence of the group, which discriminates against homosexuals in the form of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, violates University anti-discrimination policy.

By the October 10, 2002

Editorials

Voting rights for all

Mayor Anthony Williams said at a news conference last Monday that United States citizenship should not be the standard for voting in municipal elections in Washington, D.C. He hopes to enfranchise all taxpaying residents of the District of Columbia. In 1991, Takoma Park, Maryland became the first municipality to allow immigrants to vote in local elections.

By the October 10, 2002

Editorials

There are disabled Hoyas, too

Most Georgetown students are not at the mercy of broken elevators, sullied ramps, unmarked paths or complex directions when going to classes, dorms or the cafeteria. Physically disabled students shouldn’t be either, but the University’s record of providing adequate accessibility for mobility impaired students is mixed, if not dismal.

By the October 3, 2002

Editorials

MPD: Only half right

This past weekend, an estimated 2,000 demonstrators descended on Washington, D.C. to protest the scheduled meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. In the weeks leading up to the protests, Washingtonians voiced their concerns about the safety and security of their city, citing rioting at previous gatherings in Seattle, Milan and here in the District.

By the October 3, 2002

Editorials

A stink in New Jersey

On Monday, Senator Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.) announced that he would no longer seek re-election to his senate seat. He was formally denigrated by a bipartisan Senate ethics committee this summer for accepting illegal gifts and contributions in his 1996 election campaign.

By the October 3, 2002

Editorials

CSJ: Keep students in mind

In the spring of 2001, Kathleen Maas-Weigert was named director of Georgetown’s newly founded Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching and Service. The Office of Volunteer and Public Service, which operates the majority of the University’s service programs, was placed under this new expansion.

By the September 26, 2002

Editorials

Funny how these policies turn up

Think that picture of a swimsuit-clad woman on your neighbor’s door is offensive? If you live in a University dorm, he has to take it down. Or so you might infer from the University’s Residence Hall policy, which according to Vice President for Student Affairs Juan Gonzalez, says, “The exterior doors of dorm rooms are considered communal space ? Material that is insulting or grossly offensive to other students that share or live in the same space is not permitted.

By the September 26, 2002

Editorials

Leave the McDonald’s alone

This weekend, an estimated 20,000 activists will descend upon the Washington area to demonstrate against meetings of the IMF and the World Bank. Like other protests in the last few years, these will be loosely organized gatherings of protesters ranging from union workers to anarchists.

By the September 26, 2002

Editorials

Let’s get it online

The promise is as familiar as that of a milkshake machine at New South. For years Georgetown University Student Association candidates have been plastering the walls of our dorms with the pledge to create mandatory University-wide online syllabi for classes.

By the September 19, 2002

Editorials

Oops, they did it again

Ah, election season, when voters’ fancies once again decide the fate of the free world. Or, alternatively, when unusable machines and untrained poll workers threaten to wipe out 250 years of democratic progress, as was the case in the most recent Florida primaries.

By the September 19, 2002

Editorials

Do unto others …

On a January night in 1998, top-level Georgian diplomat Gueorgui Makharadze slammed his Ford Taurus into a line of cars waiting at a stoplight on Connecticut Avenue just blocks from Dupont Circle, killing a 16-year-old Maryland girl. Makharadze, who was driving drunk, initially claimed diplomatic immunity from arrest.

By the September 19, 2002

Editorials

It’s a campus, not a prison

In a misguided attempt to make campus safer, the University has attempted to increase security by implementing a 24-hour lock down policy at all dorms. This means that students’ GOCards only allow them access to the building in which they live. Last year’s policy stated that students with a valid Georgetown ID could enter any dorm between 8:30 a.

By the September 12, 2002

Editorials

DPS, spread your wings

The D.C. City Council is scheduled to vote next week on a bill that would allow extended cooperation between campus police and the Washington Metropolitan Police force. The bill would potentially allow the Department of Public Safety to extend its patrol to areas outside of campus that are heavily populated by students, such as Burleith and West Georgetown.

By the September 12, 2002

Editorials

Unfriendly borders

Exactly one year after the attacks of Sept. 11, the federal government has inaugurated a new, more stringent system for screening immigrants at some ports of entry to the United States. Immigration agents must now fingerprint and photograph foreigners who fit certain criteria for potential terrorist activity, criteria that the Justice Department refuses to disclose.

By the September 12, 2002

Editorials

Where are we GOing?

The promise of the Georgetown One Card was enough to make all Georgetown students salivate. Finally, there would no longer be a need to carry a separate laundry card, printing card and ID card, to get a stick-on barcode to check out books from the library, and to use a University ID number, which happened to be most people’s social security number, for Munch Money purchases.

By the September 5, 2002

Editorials

Wanted: police protection

On Sept. 25, thousands of protesters are expected to flock to the District to protest the latest round of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings. In the past the city has responded admirably, providing enough police officers to create a safe environment without being threatening or constricting.

By the September 5, 2002

Editorials

This joke is played out

Poverty and homelessness are a major problem in the District. According to the D.C.-area non-profit group Help the Homeless, as of 1999 almost one-fifth of the city’s population lived in poverty. Nearly one-quarter of the city’s renters could not afford a one-bedroom apartment.

By the September 5, 2002

Editorials

A poor first impression

It’s 7 p.m. You’re meeting your friends for dinner and you need cash for a cab. You go to Leavey to use the Georgetown University Alumni and Student Federal Credit Union’s Automated Teller Machine, but it is down. You run to New South, but that ATM is not working either.

By the August 29, 2002

Editorials

Deputizing the media

At the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, a bomb exploded, killing one and injuring more than 100. A hero was quickly made?a security guard who quickly led people away from the suspicious backpack containing the bomb, preventing further injury and death, was hailed and interviewed on several television networks.

By the August 29, 2002