the johns hopkins
News-Letter Published since 1896 by the students of johns hoPkins university www.jhunewsletter.com
VOLUME CXXV ISSUE I
OCtObEr 13, 2022
EXTRA! EXTRA! WE’RE BACK IN PRINT!
COURTESY OF will kiRk
The News-Letter staff are excited to bring print newspapers back to campus for the first time since March 2020.
Powwow celebrates Faculty members voice their positions on the JHPD Indigenous People’s Day By AASHI MENDPARA News & Features Editor
By CATHY WANG For The News-Letter
OCT. 12 — The University hosted its fourth annual Indigenous People’s Day Pow Wow on Oct. 10. Tribes from Washington, D.C., Maryland, Virginia and Delaware gathered on Keyser Quad to commemorate Indigenous culture with intertribal music, dances and food. President of Indigenous Students at Hopkins (ISH) and member of the Mi’kmaq Nation Hayden Fox expowwows in an interview with The News-Letter. “[A] powwow is a big celebration where people come
together and share our dances and songs, from traditional dancing to grass dancing to smoke dancing,” he said. “A big part of it is paying homage to our ancestors and continuing to express our culture.” In an interview with The News-Letter, Director for Diversity and Inclusion Joseph Colon described the Powwow as an important step towards the school’s commitment to acknowledging marginalized and oppressed Indigenous communities. He emphasized the narrative shift from celebrating Columbus Day to treating Indigenous perspectives as the focal point. POWWOW, PAGE A3
Students present research based on the American Prison Writing Archive By LONDON CRADDOCK For The News-Letter
OCT. 11 — The Program in Racism, Immigration, and Citizenship hosted a panel discussion titled “Living in Prison: Insights from the American Prison Writing Archive” on Oct. 6. The event discussed the research of three Hopkins undergraduates based on the American Prison Writing Archive, a digital collection of over 3,300 essays by incarcerated people. Doran Larson, the founder of the archive and a professor of literature and creative writing at Hamilton College, opened the event by explaining how the archive originated with a creative writing course he taught inside Attica Correctional Facility for 10 years. The experience taught him the value of giving incarcerated people a means of expressing themselves. “[Incarcerated people are] living... years inside this institution, which is a daily passion play of what happens
when the state can lay hands on citizens with no accountability,” he said. “What I discovered is if you just help people learn to write clearly about what they’re experiencing inside, they will produce documents that will be important for the world outside.” The experience of teaching the course inspired Larson to put an ad in prison-support newsletters calling for essay submissions. He received so many submissions that after publishing some in a book collection, he decided to create the American Prison Writing Archive so that more people could read about and understand the experiences of incarcerated people. “The experience of reading this work simply is transformative,” he said. “If you ask anyone to read 15 essays from 15 states, from the moment they start that process they will have a new...and more granulated sense of how the criminal and legal system works.” PRISON, PAGE A3
NEWS & FEATURES A1
VOICES A5
OCT. 11 — The University’s plans for the Johns Hopkins Police Department (JHPD) have sparked discourse among members of the Hopkins community — including faculty members. Following the recent developments with the JHPD, The News-Letter interviewed University faculty to discuss their views on the JHPD’s impacts on the Hopkins community. As the University continues forward with the implementation of the Johns Hopkins Police Department (JHPD), many faculty, students and community members have spoken about the armed private police force. In an interview with The News-Letter, Peter Armitage, physics and astronomy professor, shared his beliefs on the best plan for the University. “[JHPD is] not good for University and Baltimore, and that’s the considered opinion of the faculty Senate on this matter,” he said. “The best path forward would be to abandon it.” Similar to Armitage, Professor Emeritus Toby Ditz emphasized that the University should renounce its plan to create an armed police department and instead develop other preventative measures in an email to The News-Letter. “It is not too late,” she wrote. “It should focus in-
VOICES PAGE A5
OPINIONS A6
stead on upgrading the training of its already large, unarmed security force and on approaches to public safety other than policing.” Professor of Classics Shane Butler highlighted that the University should listen to the concerns of Black community members in an email to The NewsLetter.
“[JHPD is] not good for faculty, students, staff, the University and Baltimore.” — PETER ARMITAGE, PRofEssoR
“A good start would be [for the University] to start listening to Black students and faculty who, alas, often to be the objects of unwarranted attention from the police,“ he wrote. On Sept. 13, KSAS Faculty Senate unanimously passed a resolution stating their opposition to the proposed armed force, urging other way moving forward. In an email sent out to KSAS Faculty, the Senate explained that while they support the public safety initiatives that have been developed under Vice President of Public Safety Branville Bard
Editors in Chief Molly Gahagen and Michelle
Jr., they oppose the implementation of the JHPD. “Members of the Senate reached their decision to vote for this resolution via meetings with [Vice President] Bard, soliciting faculty opinions through public meetings and virtual town halls, studying the issue very carefully and — importantly — many one-on-one meetings with their colleagues,” they wrote. According to Armitage, who is the Chair of KSAS Faculty Senate, the Senate started as a forum for faculty to build their collective judgment through debate and conversation. He stated that the Senate had many conversations within the group and with other faculty members. While a few colleagues spoke in favor of the JHPD, the overwhelming message from faculty members was in opposition. Butler, who also serves as a KSAS Faculty Senate Member, spoke on how evidence and data informed the Senate’s decision. “Some faculty have been skeptics of the proposed force from the start; others have become doubtful over time,” he wrote. “But the general rule that I’ve observed is that, when thinking people dig into the details and the data... they come to the conclusion that this just isn’t a good idea.” The email to the KSAS Faculty outlined previous instances when faculty members raised their concerns about the private police force.
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In 2019, the Homewood Faculty Assembly unanimously passed a resolution against the future JHPD. Faculty across schools also signed a letter to the Board of Trustees in January 2020. In the summer of 2020, a petition opposing the proposed force garnered more than 6000 signatures. Armitage voted for the Senate resolution for many reasons, notably after speaking with other faculty members who are people of color. “It was put to me very nicely by another colleague who said that since moving to Baltimore, he had at various points felt like there were problems with public safety,” he said. “Even if he might feel a bit safer by knowing that there was a [JHPD], he couldn’t justify his marginal feeling of feeling safer for knowing that he was putting colleagues and students who would feel much, much, much less safe.” Ditz asserted that the Senate’s resolution speaks to her own personal beliefs concerning the JHPD. “As a member of the [Hopkins] faculty for 36 years before retiring in 2018, and now a Professor Emeritus, the KSAS Senate resolution expresses my views perfectly,” she wrote. “The creation of an armed [police department] would be deeply harmful for campus life, the University’s already damaged relations with its black neighbors, and the city of Baltimore.”
Witness Theater group performs a series of plays at Arellano Theater.
paper’s transition back to print.
LEISURE B1
ARTS B2
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY B5
SPORTS B7