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T h e I n d e p e n d e n t S t u d e n t N e w s p a p e r o f B r a n d e is U n i v e r sit y S i n c e 1 9 4 9 Volume LXXV, Number 19
Tuesday, April 4, 2023
New ramp to be added to counseling center ’25 advocated for funding for the new ramp, but her goals to address disability concerns won’t stop there. By SOPHIA STEWART JUSTICE STAFF WRITER
Students with disabilities cannot currently access the Brandeis Counseling Center because there is no American Disability Act-compliant accessible ramp. Instead of accessing the BCC Mailman House, Brandeis students with disabilities have the option to visit the counseling center in a multi-purpose room in the library accessible by elevator or via telehealth. On Wednesday, March 5 the Student Union passed a resolution condemning Brandeis’ accessibility policies with the leadership of Student Union Director of Accessibility Hana Klempnauer Miller ’25. Miller’s objective was to gain funding from the Community Emergency and Enhancement Fund for a new accessible ramp at the BCC. “Historically, the BCC has faced a lot of challenges and has a significant
amount of work to do when it comes to rebuilding student trust, but I believe that this is a first step to moving forward. I have been working closely with the students who are leading the interview process for a new BCC director and improved policy reforms, and accessibility has been at the heart of all of these conversations,” Miller said in a March 31 interview with the Justice. Director of Student Accessibility Support Cara Streit and Miller believe that students with disabilities should not face obstacles to mental health care, and they decided to apply for funding to make changes to the disability care policies at Brandeis, according to a March 31 interview with the Justice. Miller also said that students with disabilities were struggling after the bus crash in November and could not walk up the stairs to the BCC due to their impairment. “Individuals with disabilities have reported a higher incidence of mental health struggles, and as someone with a disability who has struggled with their mental health, I can say from a first-person perspective that it is essential we make these resources accessible and welcoming to all members of our community,”
Waltham, Mass.
CLIMATE CONFERENCE
ACCESSIBILITY
■ Hana Klempnauer Miller
Waltham, Mass.
OWEN CHAN/the Justice
LECTURE: Bill McKibben gives the keynote speech at the Beginning to End the Climate Crisis conference on March 30.
Beginning to End the Climate Crisis DCL fails to fulfill housing conference tackles climate change See RAMP, 5 ☛
HOUSING
■ The event, hosted by
accommodations ■ Students with disabilities
wrote a petition to advocate for their previously promised housing accommodations. By SOPHIA DE LISI
JUSTICE EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
On March 30, shortly after assigning students with their selection numbers, the Department of Community Living released housing options for students who applied for housing accommodations for the upcoming academic year. However, numerous students have reported that their housing offers have not been suitable in terms of the DCL-approved accommodations. Additionally, many juniors and seniors were not offered housing accommodations because their randomly-assigned housing numbers were too high. In response, two students from the Disabled Students’ Network created a letter template for students to sign and send to DCL to advocate for impacted students. Due to the initiative’s strong support, the plan evolved into a petition that has been signed by 182 students, 19 alumni, and 26 relatives, as of press time. The petition specifically cites
DCL’s lack of transparency with students in need of accommodations. According to the petition, DCL has prevented “disabled students from making the proper arrangements to seek off-campus housing alternatives” and prevented them from “forming and/or joining housing groups in the general selection process” because they did not expect to have to make plans in the instance that DCL would refuse previously promised accommodations. Furthermore, the petition stresses that this refusal threatens students’ right to equal access to education, creates possible academic and medical issues, and has the potential to cause homelessness. DCL’s accommodations page specifies the general process for getting accommodations approved. However, they direct students to the Student Accessibility Support housing accommodations page for further details regarding the request process. Bryn Zilch ’24, who is helping run a student-led investigation of DCL through a Discord server to discern why some students’ accommodations were rejected, elaborated on the issue in an April 3 interview with the Justice. “DSN and all of the other people
See ACCOMMODATIONS, 5 ☛
the Center for German and European Studies, featured a variety of speakers, panels, and a book launch. By HEDY YANG
JUSTICE STAFF WRITER
On Thursday, March 30, the Center for German and European Studies hosted its Beginning to End the Climate Crisis conference in honor of its 25th anniversary and in coordination with Brandeis’ Year of Climate Action in Sherman Function Hall. The full-day conference included keynote speeches, panel discussions, and an interview with the authors of “Beginning to End the Climate Crisis: A History of Our Future.” The event kicked off with a vegan luncheon and remarks from Prof. Sabine von Mering (GER), Dean of Arts and Sciences Dorothy Hodgson, and Consul General of Germany to the New England States Dr. Sonja Kreibich, among others. Following the luncheon and opening remarks, Simon Richter, professor of German and Dutch culture at the University of Pennsylvania, gave the first keynote address. Richter considers himself a “climate emergency gadfly” at Penn, where he hopes to motivate
‘Global Thrift’
‘MILF Manor’
TLC's series “MILF Manor” fails to break away from reality show tropes.
Interviewees discuss their finds at Moody St.’s “Global Thrift.”
By JEN CRYSTAL
By AUTUMN BELLAN
Photo courtesy of AUTUMN BELLAN
FEATURES 6
people and institutions to take unprecedented action, such as incorporating the climate emergency as a starting point for all forms of education, to mitigate the climate crisis. Richter’s keynote speech was followed by a panel on climate justice, which featured climate photographer Barbara Dombrowski, Prof. Prakash Kashwan (ENVS), and social and political organizer Tonny Nowshin. Dombrowski shared a series of somber photos from her projects “Tropic Ice” and “Quo Vadis, Europe?” which illustrate the effects of climate change on communities around the world. “Tropic Ice” focused on indigenous communities living in climate “tipping points” on five continents, while “Quo Vadis, Europe?” analyzed the “human-nature relationship crisis” of the Anthropocene through images of devastation in Europe resulting from floods, open-pit mining, and more. Dombrowski explained that through her photography, she hopes to highlight that “man-made climate change is a massive threat not only to nature and ecosystems and biodiversity, but above all to people themselves.” Dombrowski’s work is currently on display in Goldfarb Library. In his remarks, Prof. Kashwan discussed the idea of ecological justice in the age of the climate crisis. He critiqued the rise of “junk
Photo courtesy of CREATIVE COMMONS
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carbon offset markets” that were widely popularized after COP13, criticized the global climate change summit held by the United Nations in 2007 and he suggested that poor countries are susceptible to land grabs by rich Western nations seeking to carry out their goals of carbon neutrality. “This essentially asks us to … really think about these things in a more holistic way, and not just what we are doing here in terms of recycling, driving electric vehicles, and so forth,” he stated. Nowshin attributed capitalism as a root cause of the climate crisis and advocated for the concept of degrowth as a solution. Degrowth seeks to prioritize “social and ecological welfare over production and consumption” and further suggests that capitalist economies’ focus on growth measurements like gross domestic product do not reflect people’s wellbeing and have consistently failed in the past. Following the climate justice panel, attendees heard from authors Luisa Neubauer and Alex Repenning on their book “Beginning to End the Climate Crisis: A History of Our Future.” The discussion celebrated von Mering’s English translation of the book and its launch in the United States. Neubauer reflected on the process of writing the book and the niche she sought to fill with it, suggesting that most literature about
Sustainability clothing swap By SOPHIA DE LISI
Brandeis Title IX violations By RANI BALAKRISHNA
ARTS 14
Men’s tennis photostory By CECI XILEI CHEN AND ANNA MARTIN
COPYRIGHT 2023 FREE AT BRANDEIS.
See B2ECC 5 ☛
NEWS 3 FORUM 9 SPORTS 11