Voices

Voices is the Op-Ed and personal essay section of The Georgetown Voice. It features the real narratives of diverse students from nearly every corner on campus, seeking to tell some of the incredibly important and yet oft-unheard stories that affect life in and out of Georgetown.

Voices

The merit to rethinking meritocracy, and why we need to change ‘elite’ admissions

The conversation around meritocratic admissions that dominates elite institutions promotes an us-versus-them mentality that drives a wedge between minority groups.

By March 18, 2022

Voices

The power of paint—graffiti and its pursuit of justice

Graffiti is an expression of hope, a demand for justice, and a representation of community solidarity.

By March 18, 2022

Voices

Georgetown is abandoning its student leaders

Georgetown, flush with lackluster resources, is knowingly relying on an under-supported, undertrained, and largely unpaid crop of student leaders to create a basic system of community care.

By March 5, 2022

Voices

I pledge allegiance as a stan: Breaking down Twitter subculture

Just like any other subculture, Stan Twitter has its rules and conventions; allegiances and local personalities; and, most of all, dangers and downsides.

By March 4, 2022

Voices

How I navigate achievement anxiety, and how you can too

Affixing our worth to achievement is no way to live—our love for ourselves shouldn’t be conditional on societal views of what makes us valuable.

By February 19, 2022

Voices

A letter to my hometown: Racial justice in Minneapolis still has a long way to go

This uncritical attribution of the nationwide increase in crime to the protests of that summer, without regard for other potential contributing factors, is a disservice to the Black Lives Matter movement and racial justice efforts more generally.

By February 18, 2022

Voices

Sorry, Not Sorry: How apologies are ruining us

We apologize for our sensitivity in expressing our emotions. We apologize for having needs. We punctuate our words with apologies, thinking nothing of it, and unknowingly face the consequences.

By February 15, 2022

Voices

Club applications suck. Let’s finally end them.

Structural exclusivity is often a greater enticement for students to partake in selective clubs. Students buy into the heuristic that an application implies a desirable club experience—suddenly membership is understood to be lucrative.

By February 5, 2022

Voices

Georgetown needs to provide sexual assault support for student-run clubs

Without measures to help students foster welcoming club environments, instances of sexual assault, such as the one within my club’s, will continue to occur, and insufficient support will continue to fail students and their clubs.

By February 5, 2022

Voices

To the casting directors of Euphoria and other teen shows—grow up

The trend of casting adults to play teens is more than merely annoying—it has the potential for significant harm.

By February 4, 2022

On Being Green

COP26: Humanity’s chance for redemption

The COP26 goals included global commitments to reach global net zero emissions by 2050, adapt to protect communities and natural habitats, and mobilize climate finance in order to reach net zero. Total engagement is absolutely necessary for combating climate change, and we must commit to being a united front in order to preserve our future. 

By January 24, 2022

Alumni Speak

22 months into the pandemic, healthcare worker burnout is real

From a moral standpoint, medical burnout is about the conditions under which healthcare staff works—and the resulting impacts on their lives. Long hours, conflicting demands between hospital executives and frontline healthcare workers, and more can make an already stressful job even more difficult.

By January 23, 2022

Voices

So we can return to campus. Now what?

If Georgetown students are to return to campus on Jan. 11 safely, here's what we believe needs to be implemented by the university and the student body.

By and January 2, 2022

Voices

The holidays aren’t always happy. That’s okay, too.

I won’t wish you the happiest of New Year’s. But I will wish you a restful and peaceful one. Have whatever kind of New Year you need. 

By December 31, 2021

Voices

Why online liberty must be preserved

Despite the toxicity of social media, a free internet is now indispensable to free discourse—and by extension, a free society.

By December 4, 2021

Voices

Georgetown needs to better embody cura personalis with potential applicants

No matter the context around applicants’ dropping grades and heightened absences, with no chance for a student to explain their circumstances, those numbers alone can be enough for colleges to toss aside someone’s application—especially schools as selective as Georgetown.

By December 3, 2021

Voices

It’s time we embrACE asexuality in our education system

While the same lack of resources that I’ve faced in researching my own sexuality will make it hard to create a full curriculum for asexuality, that doesn’t mean it can’t be done. This curriculum must explore the fact that asexuality is a spectrum with no set level of sexual attraction experienced by every ace person.

By November 19, 2021

Voices

Georgetown’s dining infrastructure fails to justify the high cost of the mandatory meal plan

It is clear that the university has not given Hoya Hospitality the infrastructure to feed approximately three quarters of the undergraduate student body, and the administration should thus free upperclassmen of the meal plan requirements.

By November 19, 2021

Voices

Dear YA authors, I want my femininity back

The truth is, the traits these characters lacked, the ones treated as impediments to success, were exactly the ones associated with traditional femininity: emotionality, vulnerability, and empathy.

By November 19, 2021

Voices

What the pandemic should have taught us about attendance policies

As we continue to navigate in-person education during the pandemic, we must realize that a “return to normal” cannot mean a return to inaccessible, ableist structures.

By October 28, 2021