Mount Holyoke News AN INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER SINCE 1917 FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2021
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Mount Holyoke commits to land acknowledgment, repatriation BY HOPE FRANCES SIMPSON ’24 STAFF WRITER
Content warning: this article discusses anti-Indigenous violence. Beginning this semester, a land acknowledgment recognizing the Indigenous nations which once occupied the land currently owned by Mount Holyoke College must be given before every public event at Mount Holyoke. As the College takes steps to repair its relationship to Indigenous communities both on and off campus, the institution’s history of anti-Indigenous acts has resurfaced. Earlier this month, the College repatriated Indigenous remains that had previously been in their possession. As the College reckons with this and other past violences this National Indigenous Heritage Month, some members of the Mount Holyoke community are calling for further action and accountability.
Land Acknowledgment
According to Kijua Sanders-McMurtry, vice president of equity and inclusion, the idea for a required land acknowledgment started in 2019. The Indigenous Cultural Student Association, an unofficial student organization, met with President Sonya Stephens, as well as Sanders-McMurtry and Lenora Riley, who were working for the president’s office at the time. The group presented a list of concerns, including a request for support for the Zowie Banteah Center and more Indigenous scholar speaking events. The land acknowledgment was a key topic they brought to Stephens’ attention. Regarding the land acknowledgment, Juliette Gagnon Strong Heart ’24, assistant for the Zowie Banteah Cultural Center, said, “It was a simple joy for me, because I was like, ‘oh my god that’s the first time I think I’ve ever seen someone want to do that, or even recognize that, that’s important.’”
“[The group] saw that as something they felt very strongly we should be doing and we had a dialogue,” Sanders-McMurtry said. “It was beautiful.” According to Sanders-McMurtry, the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion worked with Indigenous scholars to further discuss land acknowledgment. They spoke with educator and activist Claudia Fox Tree, who works with the Massachusetts Center for Native American Awareness. Fox Tree did two teaching sessions with the College cabinet, according to Sanders-McMurtry: one on implicit bias around Indigenous people and another on understanding Native monuments, history and legacy. Sanders-McMurty pointed out that in North America, there is a lack of education around Indigenous terminology, tribes and traditions. Therefore, it was important that the College include things like proper pronunciation within the land acknowledgment. Gagnon Strong Heart emphasized the importance of learning the specifics of different Indigenous identities and not treating all nations as one homogenised group. “Using native terms that we use to define ourselves is very important. Also I think it just brings somebody’s identity up further than just saying Indigenous people or Native American. I think that’s a step towards dismantling common stereotypes about Indigenous people that are totally untrue,” she said. Sanders-McMurtry also emphasised the importance of the land acknowledgment from an educational stance. “We’re just trying to make sure that everywhere it should live, it will live. None of our work is meant to be punitive, but there is an accountability process to all of our work,” she said. In addition, Sanders-McMurtry emphasized that the land acknowl-
Everything Was Already Loved: Critical Conceptions of Land in the K-12 Curriculum.” It will be a virtual event and open to the public. On Nov. 30 at 7 p.m., Larry Spotted Crow Mann of the Nipmuc Nation is giving a talk called “We Are Still Here, We Are the Story and We Are the Land: Honoring the Past, Present and Future of the Indigenous People of Western Massachusetts.” During this event, the College also plans to officially announce the repatriation of the Indigenous remains, accordinging to Sanders-McMurtry. The locations for both of these speaking events are still to be announced.
National Indigenous Heritage Month
Photo by Tzav Harrel ’24 At senate on Nov. 10, Kim Kindred FP ’24 read Mount Holyoke’s official land acknowledgment.
edgment is just the first step and that the College still has a lot of work to do.
Repatriation
Last month, on Oct. 16, human remains of an Indigenous person that had been in Mount Holyoke’s possession were repatriated. According to Sanders-McMurtry the remains were claimed by the Stockbridge-Munsee community, located in the Stockbridge area of Western Massachusetts. In 1990, the U.S. government passed the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, requiring all Indigenous remains in the possession of museums and other institutions to be repatriated back to Indigenous nations and organizations. Despite this, more than 116,000 remains have yet to be repatriated. As The New York Times reported in August, the Biden administration has recently made regulatory changes to the law to close loopholes and streamline the process of repatriation. The College’s decision to participate in repatriation came after
these adjustments. Gagnon Strong Heart emphasised that burials are sacred. According to her, exhuming remains and putting artifacts in museums without tribal consent is “an encroachment on the preservation of the piece that was in that space for a purpose.” Gagnon Strong Heart appreciated that the College repatriated the remains. “My assumption is when people don’t know the importance or how sacred something is they don’t know what to do with it,” she said. She stressed the importance of focusing on solutions, rather than blame. “Blaming someone about something doesn’t change the fact that [these items are] still in a museum,” she said. The College plans to have more Indigenous scholars speak at campus events. Within the month of November, there will be two different speakers. On Nov. 15, Dr. Leilani Sabzalian of the Aliituq people will be speaking at 7 p.m. Her talk is titled, “Nothing Was Ever Discovered,
The Zowie Banteah center will be moved to another location, to be determined, while improvements on the space are made. Gagnon Strong Heart said she hopes to make the Zowie Banteah Center a place where Indigenous students can form a community, but also where non-Indigenous students can educate themselves. She has noticed that non-Indigenous students are often uncomfortable discussing Indigeneity. “It’s important to talk about these things so that we can kind of get rid of that and be more comfortable talking about these issues, so that we can actually put things like land acknowledgment to work,” Gagnon Strong Heart said. While November is National Indigenous Heritage Month, Sanders-McMurtry said the importance of the College’s connection to Indigenous history needs to be incorporated into the school’s traditions alongside Mountain Day, Founder’s Day and other annual events at the College. Students with questions and concerns regarding the College’s plans for National Indigenous Heritage Month can contact the DEI office.
Student raises concerns over possible false positive COVID-19 tests of receiving academic accommodations during their quarantine period. According to an email that Durand shared with the Mount Holyoke News, they received correspondence from their academic dean stating that they had contacted all of Durand’s professors and would grant them access to course notes upon request for any courses that were staffed by a note-taker. “I emailed her back that day and I said I would love to have the notes for the classes. Some of my classes were online. Some of [my professors] barely had contact with me,” Durand said. Despite their written request, Durand said that they did not gain access to the notes for their course until after they had returned to campus from quarantine.
COVID-19 safety
Photo courtesy of Tate Durand ’23 Durand recieved a negative rapid test despite getting a postive PCR result test from the College.
BY MARIAM KEITA ’24 MANAGING EDITOR OF WEB
Oct. 23 started as a regular day for Tate Durand ’23. They woke up, attended a friend’s birthday breakfast, then returned to their on-campus residence for a nap. However, when they rose to several missed calls from the health services center, they immediately had a strong suspicion that they had tested positive for COVID-19. According to Durand, when they returned the missed calls, they were told that, due to the fact that they live in close proximity to the College, they were offered the chance to pack their belongings and quarantine at home. Alternatively, they could choose to stay in Mount Holyoke’s designated student isolation housing. “I chose not to go because my friend had an awful experience with them. So I didn’t want to stay on campus just in case I did have symptoms at some point,” Durand said. Instead, Durand, who lives in Connecticut, packed up their things and drove themselves home.
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“My parents didn’t answer the phone for a good 30 minutes while I was packing my bags frantically and sobbing,” Durand said.
Contract tracing
Upon arriving in Connecticut, Durand recalled receiving a phone call from the College’s contract tracing team asking them to list and spell the names of those with whom they had been in recent contact. However, Durand later heard from a friend whom they had named that no one from the contract tracing team reached out to the close contacts for at least five days after they received their positive test results. “The thing that most agitated me about [the College’s COVID-19 protocol] was contact tracing,” Durand said. “I feel like this is important for the general college community to know because it was so fucked up. Excuse my language, but they contact-traced me on Saturday night and no one was contacted until after one of my friends personally went to the Health Center and was like ‘Why have we not been contacted?’” Additionally, Durand described their frustration with the process
FEATURES: Highlighting study spots
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Durand is no stranger to the threat of COVID-19. Last school year, Durand chose to take a gap year from Mount Holyoke. The junior, who was originally in the class of 2022, spent their time working what they called “odd jobs,” including childcare roles where children were not required to mask, and managing a Dunkin’ Donuts, which was considered frontline work at the beginning of the pandemic. Despite the high risk nature of their work, Durand never once tested positive for COVID-19. “It shocked me because I was working one-on-one with kids who were never vaccinated, with no masks on. I was working face-toface, like food service work. And also at one point my entire family got it and I was living in the same house as them and I didn’’t get it. I did not get it until being back on campus and I was very shocked by the fact that I did not get it but I was regularly testing during those times [before returning to campus],” Durand said. Outside of working, Durand spent much of their time in the house in a tight bubble with their family. They would also get tested for COVID-19 regularly to help mitigate the risk of bringing the virus home to their family. “We were very in the house until
we were vaccinated,” Durand said. “I didn’t want to come back with it and give it to my mom because she’s heavily immunocompromised. After … my whole family was [vaccinated], it was more so for my own safety of like, knowing if I was spreading [COVID-19], because I was especially nervous about that.”
Testing program
Earlier this semester, Durand was a close contact to a friend who contracted symptomatic COVID-19, paired with their own experiences upon testing positive for the virus in October, Durand also lost confidence in the College’s asymptomatic testing program. “I’m less comfortable with their testing policy because I know now that part of their testing policy is after you test positive, you don’t have to test positive for another three months, basically,” Durand said. According to Durand, they were told by the College’s Health Center that those who test positive are asked not to participate in the testing program for a full 90 days after their first positive test due to the potential for testing positive again even after the contagion period has passed. “That, I think, is the part about their testing policy that scares me the most. There’s no confirmation of if it was a true positive. There’s not a second chance of making sure,” Durand said. “I didn’t have any symptoms at all. Like not even a cough or a sniffle or a fever. [That was] when I started to get kind of skeptical of it.” After going home to self-isolate, Durand decided to get tested independently. When they tested again, the results of their rapid COVID-19 test came back negative. “I decided to take a PCR. [After] the rapid test I was like ‘Oh, my viral load might just be low,’ but then my friends also were like ‘You should take a PCR if you have no symptoms at all’, and so I did independently go and take a PCR,” Durand said. When the results of their independent PCR test also came back negative, Durand began to doubt whether or not they were truly infected with the virus.
OPINION: Sustainability transparency
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“I tested negative two days after a positive and I was like what’s going on here?” Durand asked. Soon, they got back into contact with a staff member from Health Services to notify them of the negative test. While, according to Durand, the staff member was unable to answer their questions, they were able to speak with the Health Center’s department head. “The department had told me that I still had to stay for the duration of my quarantine at my house, even if I tested negative and that I would not have to test when I got back on campus. Even if I tested negative then because the viral load might have just been low at the time that I took my PCR test,” Durand said. Although they conceded that they may have actually had COVID-19, Durand expressed concerns about being removed from the College’s testing program — particularly if their viral load was so low that it failed to trigger a positive PCR test result a few days after their initial positive test. “I tested negative three days after [my first positive], I should be able to test [in the College’s testing program] again if I already tested negative from the same exact viral load that tested positive that day,” Durand said. Another concern that Durand raised was the potential for someone to receive a false positive through the College’s testing program, stop testing on campus, and then contract COVID-19 within the 90-day window that would then go undetected. “I also think that they should have it as a note on your file that you did test positive once before,” Durand said. “Some people might have heavy symptoms and have definitely had COVID[-19]. For cases like mine, where I had no symptoms and it could have very well been a false positive, they should be testing again after that first positive, because it could have been false.” Regardless of the College’s guidelines, Durand said that they still plan to continue testing themselves for COVID-19 weekly, outside of the College’s testing program.
SPORTS: GOTW: Rugby ends season
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. FEATURES Students share their favorite study spots around campus November 12, 2021
Mount Holyoke News
BY REBECCA GAGNON ’23 AND JESSE HAUSKNECHT-BROWN ’25 FEATURES EDITORS
Whether for a quiet slumber, an intense writing session or hours of studying, many students have favorite spots around campus to visit when they need to prepare for finals. Mount Holyoke News asked students via Instagram stories to share their ideal location for a study session — check out these spaces next time you need to knock out some homework.
Photo by Tzav Harrel ’24 Above, Angelina Silva-Pérez ’25 sits in an Adirondack chair with a warm beverage and a laptop on the grass in front of Abbey Memorial Chapel.
Photo by Declan Langton ’22 The Sociology lounge, located in Porter Hall, is one student’s go-to location for getting work done.
Photo by Emma Watkins ’23 The Stimson Room, located on the sixth floor of Williston Memorial Library, is a quiet, cozy spot for anyone looking to get lost in their schoolwork.
Photo by Jenny Yu ’24 The Whiting Alcove on floor six of Williston Memorial Library is designated a “very quiet” area.
Photo by Jenny Yu ’24 Tables outside Williston Memorial Library are a popular outdoor workspace.
Photo by Tzav Harrel ’24 Ja Moore ’25 sits in an Adirondack chair next to Mary Lyon’s grave.
Photo by Carmen Mickelson ’24 The Williston Memorial Library Atrium is another common gathering spot where students can study and chat. One student stated that they prefer to work there specifically at night.
Photo by Aditi Menon ’25 The Octagon Room in the Williston Memorial Library is several students’ favorite place to study. This seventh floor room is a draw for its distinctive shape and quiet atmosphere.
Photo by Carmen Mickelson ’24 The third floor of Blanchard Hall is a popular social space to study.
Smith College commits to eliminating undergraduate loans by fall 2022 BY KATIE GOSS ’23 BUSINESS MANAGER & NEWS EDITOR
President of Smith College Kathleen McCartney announced on Oct. 22 that, starting in the fall 2022 semester, Smith will replace loans for undergraduate financial aid packages with grants. This upcoming change will be in place for
all future students, as well as current first-years, sophomores and juniors. Additionally starting in the same semester, new undergraduate students may qualify for an additional $1,000 in their financial aid package, called a “one-time start-up grant,” if their family contribution is less than $7,000. This is estimated to apply to about 21 percent of students, according to the letter sent out by
McCartney to the College community. Seniors graduating in January or May of 2022 who receive need-based institutional grants can apply for a $2,000 “launch grant” to “help them with the costs of transitioning to life after college,” according to McCartney’s letter to the community. By eliminating these loans, the College is working towards their goal to make education available
to all students, regardless of their financial status. Additionally, the letter stated that because Black and Latine students, on average across the country, graduate college with more debt than their peers, this new initiative will work towards the College’s commitment to racial justice and equality. This decision is expected to help the College seek out the best students to enroll, regardless
of financial status or resources. It will also help future alums graduate with either no debt or greatly reduced debt. “I was the first in my family to attend college, and I know from my own experience that financial aid changes lives,” McCartney said in the letter. “Higher education should be a right, not a privilege.”
OPINION 3 Sustainability in MHC dining must be more transparent November 12, 2021
. Mount Holyoke News
BY WOODLIEF MCCABE ’23 STAFF WRITER
The amount of waste produced at Mount Holyoke is hard to miss. Trash cans overflow with disposable containers and utensils, and food scraps fill plastic tubs located where conveyor belts took dishes in previous years. The pandemic has made changes to dining practices necessary for ensuring the health and safety of the Mount Holyoke community. However, the information the student body receives about these practices is lacking. When it comes to issues like sustainability, transparency is crucial. Students need to know about our sustainability practices so we can not only properly participate in them, but also hold our institutions accountable about their commitments to sustainability and investments in green solutions. The Dining Services section of the Mount Holyoke website emphasizes sustainability. According to Rich Perna, executive director of Auxiliary Services, who oversees dining services, this site is “actively update[d].” If this is the case, it is disingenuous that — as of Nov. 11 — there is a paragraph describing the partnership with alumna Alison Rogers’ company USEFULL in the present tense, giving no indication that this program has not yet been implemented. Early in the semester, students were told that USEFULL
would be providing every student reusable take-out containers, but the College has yet to tell us why that hasn’t happened. Perna did not hesitate to explain the details of the discrepancy. According to Perna, ongoing pandemicrelated issues with the supply chain as well as limited resources at the overseas factory have stalled production and pushed back the date that we will receive the containers. The new goal is to have the containers on campus in January. Perna also noted that dining services are suffering from staff shortages. “If all the [USEFULL] products landed here today,” he said, “I don’t have the resources to wash them.” Perna stressed that it is more important to keep the staff from being overworked than to try to get all the dishes washed. Part of sustainability, for Perna, is preventing a health crisis amongst the staff, by not pushing them “to the max” the way food service jobs often do. He also explained how dining staff are encouraged to find uses for every part of their ingredients. When there is food waste, it is put into a dehydrator, where it becomes a coffee-grounds-like material which is picked up weekly by a composting company. Perna provided a wealth of helpful information to understand the complicated situation Mount Holyoke is in, but the conversation also revealed how much students don’t know. Students should know why
Photo by Lenox Johnson ’24 When compostable materials are put in regular trash, they end up in landfills rather than compost.
we never got any reusable containers, why we can’t use regular dishes even though Blanch is back to full capacity dining and what happens to the separated food scraps. The school needs honest descriptions of sustainability practices on their website, and clear explanations of the composting and recycling systems accessible to students. Mount Holyoke can do better with its composting efforts as well. Students should feel good about their school offering compostable materials for dining. However, successfully using sustainable materials isn’t enough. Compostable materials have to actually be composted, otherwise they just become trash. The process of composting is an aerobic process, meaning it requires oxygen. In order to be exposed to oxygen, organic materials are moved around as they decompose, and the decomposed materials can be used
as fertilizer for farming or for land reclamation. In landfills, waste is dumped, tightly packed and then covered in a layer of soil. Any compostable materials receive almost no oxygen and cannot decompose. Even if they did, landfills do not extract organic materials to be reused. Some alternative corn-based plastics are made of polylactic acid (PLA). The study, “Life-Cycle Assumptions of Landfilled Polylactic Acid Underpredict Methane Generation” by Max J. Krause and Timothy G. Townsend indicates that PLA may release methane, a greenhouse gas 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide when decomposing anaerobically in a landfill. The bottom line is that if compostable materials do not end up in the compost, they become trash. There are other issues around disposing compostable paper products and utensils. Some composting centers won’t accept them for a va-
riety of reasons, but USA Recycling, the company that picks up Mount Holyoke’s food waste, is not one such center. It takes only one click on the company’s webpage to see that they accept not just certified compostable products into their organics recycling program, but a wide variety of others, including waxed cardboard as well as coffee grounds and filters. It’s hard, then, to understand why these items are not sent out with the food scraps, especially given how full the half dozen trash cans on the way out of Blanch are. Being greener is clearly within Mount Holyoke’s grasp, and we have every reason to act on it. The energy shown through involvement on campus is a clear indication that the student body wants Mount Holyoke to be sustainable. The Climate Justice Coalition worked tirelessly to push for the College to divest from fossil fuels, and claimed a cautious victory in October when the College officially announced that it will be “moving with intention” to divest. The statement tries to emphasize how small the College’s investments are, and set the divestment time frame at ten years. Mount Holyoke seems to want to appear committed to campus sustainability, but is ambiguous when it comes to the actual work needed for large structural changes. We need full transparency and an effort by the school to uphold the commitment it seems so proud of.
Public school sex education policy Voter disenfranchisement reflects states’ political ideologies undermines democracy BY ZORA LOTTON-BARKER ’25 STAFF WRITER & COPY EDITOR
Graphic by Anjali Rao-Herel ’22
BY KATE MURRAY ’22 STAFF WRITER
Sex education in American public schools has long been a topic of intense debate. Since the 1980s, it has been the site of moral and political battles over what kind of sex education should be taught to children in public schools, if it should be taught at all. Ideologically conservative parents, teachers and administrators often advocate for abstinence-only curricula while progressives tend to vouch for a more comprehensive, inclusive approach to sex education. The intensity of this debate has led to individual states passing their own sex education legislation, resulting in a lack of nationwide educational uniformity. According to Planned Parenthood, only 29 states mandate sex education in public schools, and of those states, only 15 require the information taught to be medically accurate. The extreme variation and polarized debate over sex education in the United States is indicative of a deeper ideological divide, and the legislation passed in individual states is a reflection of a central political message. Indiana and California, two states that are aggregately on opposite ends of the political spectrum, are prime examples of this phenomenon. At first glance, sex education in these states seems to be completely dissimilar. Indiana public schools are not required to teach sex education at all, and those that do are not obligated to provide medically accurate information or to discuss sexual orientation, gender identity or consent. Abstinence must be stressed as the expected standard, which demonstrates how the curriculum is steeped in conservative values. The idea that abstaining from sex is the only way to avoid sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted or out-of-wedlock pregnancy upholds conservative beliefs that emphasize the importance of monogamous relationships and purity. There is also no requirement to mention any form of
birth control, which is in alignment tion to what is omitted from these with the parts of conservative reli- pieces of legislation. In comparison gious doctrine that condemn the use to California, Indiana has fewer of contraceptives. While there is still things that they require curricula to room for diverse curriculum choices include. It’s possible that lawmakers in Indiana, the baseline requirement have been pressured to pass legislaof abstinence-based education sig- tion that mirrors the conservative nals that conservative values are re- policies of other social realms, such flected in state policy. as criminal justice and public health. On the flipside, California policy In other words, Indiana’s sex educaregarding sex education in public tion policy expresses uniformity in schools refutes the conservative policy. values upheld by For CaliforIndiana law. For nia, one can get According to Planned one, sex educaa real sense of Parenthood, only 29 states the state’s ideotion in California mandate sex education in cannot “promote logical stance by or teach relipublic schools, and of those examining what gious doctrine” they include states, only 15 require the and the curricula rather than exinformation taught to be must “provide include. For exformation about ample, there are medically accurate. the effectiveproposed initianess and safety tives to expand of all Food and Drug Administra- comprehensive sex education to rution (FDA) approved contraceptive ral and low-income communities in methods in preventing pregnancy, California. No such expansion efforts including, but not limited to, emer- are being undertaken in Indiana. gency contraception,” according Based on the legislation that has to Article 2 of the state’s Education successfully taken hold in California, Code. Additionally, California public it appears that progressive and inschools’ approach to sex education is clusive sex education is held in high much more comprehensive than leg- regard for many voters and lawmakislation in Indiana. Curricula must ers. In Indiana, it seems as though contain medically accurate informa- sex education is heavily deemphation that pertains to students of all sized, with the bulk of the content sexual orientations and gender iden- framed around abstinence. Indiana tities. Though California schools legislation does not prioritize eduare required to mention abstinence cating public school students about as an option, it is not the expected having safe sex the way California standard. In 2018, California public does — instead, it reflects an ideolschools introduced an option for ogy that would encourage teaching districts to offer training programs teenagers not to have sex at all. on sharing sexual content online as While it may seem an unlikely well as information on human traf- source, sex education curricula for ficking. If these issues are on Indi- public schools is a reliable indicator ana lawmakers’ radars, the fact that of a state’s general political ideology. they haven’t included it in their sex While education legislation is just education curricula shows either one manifestation of these moral that they don’t unilaterally believe and political leanings, it has the poit’s important or are being pressured tential to greatly impact policy in by their constituents to promote other areas on both a local and naconservative ideas. tional scale. If sex education is any In analyzing the sex education indicaton, these more covert policies protocols for both California and In- can have a big impact on the wider diana, it is informative to pay atten- cultural and political landscape.
Everyone deserves the opportunity to have a hand in deciding who makes the policies that affect them. Voter disenfranchisement should not be a tool wielded by governments to punish ex-convicts. Not only does disenfranchisement disincentivize incarcerated people who are coming out of prison because it reinforces the idea that they are not full citizens, but it aids the carceral punishment system by not allowing former prisoners to participate in democracy. The Sentencing Project estimates that 5.17 million people in the United States were disenfranchised due to a felony conviction as of October 2020. Even so, states continue to deny the right to vote to citizens with a felony conviction. According to the Sentencing Project, four states deny people the right to vote both in prison and parole, 16 states deny voting rights to those in prison, on parole, and on probation and 11 states will not let people vote who are post-sentence as well as prison, parole and probation. Only two states, Maine and Vermont, have no restrictions, and 17 states apply disenfranchisement to prisoners only. The Sentencing Project has compiled demographic statistics surrounding disenfranchised persons in the criminal justice system spanning from 1948 to 2020. When the data is broken down by race, it should be noted that Black people are more likely to be incarcerated than white people. The data by the Sentencing Project found that 16 African Americans of voting age are disenfranchised at a rate 3.7 times greater than that of non-African Americans, with over 6.2 percent of the adult African American population being unable to vote. Only 1.7 percent of the adult Non-African American population is disenfranchised. Their data also showed that over 2 percent of Latine adult Americans are barred from voting. It is clear that disparities in the groups of people who are most often incarcerated can be linked to disparities in political representation. Roughly one fourth of disenfranchised people are currently incarcerated, according to data from the Sentencing Project. An estimated 4 million people who have been released from prison are disenfranchised, 1.3 million of whom are Black. Disenfranchisement wasn’t created out of respect for the law — it was meant to destroy the power finally attained by newly freed enslaved people in the 19th century, as stated by the ACLU. During the Antebellum period, disenfranchisement was tied only to crimes believed to be disproportionately committed by Black people, according to the Global Policy Journal. The legacies of
Photo courtesy of Pixabay 16 states deny voting rights to incarcerated people, according to The Sentencing Project.
these practices are evidenced in the use of incarceration for minimal infractions or non-violent crimes like drug offenses. As The Sentencing Project observed, those affected by disenfranchisement are disproportionately minorities and low-income citizens, a voting group that trends democratic. The government should instill power in the people rather than politicians. It is vital to hold those in power accountable to the people that they serve: not just people without a criminal record, but all people. The foundational right to vote is not just about rewarding good citizenship, and it shouldn’t be given out as the government sees fit. Voting is an inherent right that shouldn’t be attached to any conditions other than citizenship. Proponents of felony disenfranchisement argue that felons must demonstrate respect for the law before gaining voting rights back, as reported by BallotPedia. The irony in that argument is that there is no system in place to allow for any sort of redemption. Citizens seeking clemency have already served their sentences and are trying their best to reintegrate into society. And yet the mere failure to pay court fines can be used to justify the permanent denial of their right to vote, according to the American Bar Association. This sort of injustice renders them second-class citizens in their own country. The current system of felony disenfranchisement might appear to some to be about preserving respect for the law, but this is simply not true. Felony disenfranchisement has nothing to do with the law and everything to do with politics. It is an excuse to deny voting rights, just like voter ID laws, literacy tests and poll taxes. When a person is incarcerated, they serve the punishment that lawmakers have deemed fit for their crime. But when they re-enter society, they should not have to continue to face punishment for a crime for which they have already faced retribution. It is impossible to fix problems within the criminal justice system if there is no way for those who have been incarcerated to advocate for reform through voting. If these pervasive issues are not solved, the future of our nation is in serious jeopardy.
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GLOBAL
November 12, 2021
. Mount Holyoke News
Demanding democracy: civil disobedience breaks out in Sudan BY AMELIA LUO ’23 GLOBAL EDITOR
Sudanese advocates for democracy launched two civil disobedience strikes on Nov. 7, 2021, according to CNN. The protests are advocating for the end of military government and the transition to civilian rule. The civil disobedience was deterred with tear gas and arrests in an attempt to discourage the demonstrators, as reported by Al-Jazeera. Attempting to interrupt the protests, the military coup has suspended internet access since Oct. 25. Phone connections are also constantly unstable within the Sudanese region. This interruption to internet access affected organizers’ ability to spread the word about the ongoing protest. The rally, however, was still carried out in several cities, including Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, as well as in Medani, Nyala and Atbara. Before and after the Oct. 25 coup, hundreds of thousands of people marched to demonstrate their objection against military rule. Desiring a full civilian-controlled government, the protestors rallied with the slogan “No negotiation, no partnership, no compromise,” according to CNN. The civil disobedience strike and other protests are a response to the
Photo courtesy of WikiMedia Commons In April 2019, soldiers guarded a military tank against protesters in Khartoum, capital of Sudan.
military coup in Sudan. On Oct. 25, the military leader of Sudan, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, came into power by arresting the current Prime Minister of Sudan, Abdalla Hamdok. The military also opened fire on civilian demonstrators, killing at least seven people and injuring more than 140, according to The New York Times. Before this military coup, the civilian and the military leaders of Sudan had been sharing power for
more than two years, right after the 2019 insurrection against Omar alBashir took place. Sohail Hashmi, chair of the international relations department of Mount Holyoke, commented, “Sudan’s military never relinquished power after they ousted Bashir, but [the] true civilian government seemed to be making headway. Now, we are probably going to see play out a familiar process: the military has declared it will be in power only temporarily. They will make
a show of ‘restoring’ democracy by promising elections, but when elections are ultimately held, they will be for show only and a former general will be ‘elected’ as the leader.” In April 2019, the Sudanese Professionals Association and other resistance groups launched protests against then-president Omar alBashir. Bashir is a dictator who has been charged with war crimes and genocide by the International Criminal Court, and wanted for years. Although initially promising to gradually transition the government power back to civilian rule, the military force broke the shared power scheme and declared its leadership. In a news conference, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan declared, “This is a new Sudan, we call on everybody to come together to develop and build the country,” The New York Times reported. Hashmi argued, “the military coup in Sudan may be remembered as the nail in the coffin of the ‘Arab Spring.’ Sudan was a latecomer to the Arab revolts. By the time popular pressure led the military to depose longtime dictator Omar alBashir in 2019, most Arab countries that had undergone uprisings during the Arab Spring had reverted to dictatorship.” Connecting the current situation in Sudan with recent
events in Sudan’s neighboring country, Tunisia, Hashmi suggested that “Sudan’s move toward democracy, along with Tunisia’s consolidation of electoral politics, were the two success stories. Tunisia’s democratic experiment was derailed by a military coup in July of this year. Now we have the coup in Sudan.” Kayla Olds ’23, an international relations major, commented on this issue. “I think the protests happening in Sudan are interesting because they demonstrate the power of the people. In 2019, the military was forced to share power with civilian leaders due to civilian resistance,” Olds said. “I hope that a similar shift of power occurs this time where the coup is stopped by the civilian leaders [who] gain full control of the military [and go] back to sharing power.” After an emergency session on Nov. 5, The United Nations Rights Panel declared that, in an attempt to pressure Sudan to restore civilian rule, it is sending an independent expert to Sudan to observe and report abuses. As reported by The New York Times, the Panel condemned the military takeover that happened on Oct. 25 and advocated for the immediate release of the Sudanese Prime Minister, who was under house arrest by the military.
LRC hosts World Teas and Candies event to celebrate Halloween
Photo courtesy of Amelia Luo ’23 Students partake in the Language Resource Center’s World Teas and Candies event on Halloween.
BY SOPHIE SOLOWAY ’23 GLOBAL EDITOR
Students and faculty gathered in Mount Holyoke’s Language Resource Center on Oct. 31 to connect over snacks from around the world as a part of the Center’s World Teas and Candies Event. In addition to celebrating various cultural experiences, the event marked the Center’s return to in-person programming since the start of the pandemic. Julia Beretsky ’23, student con-
sultant for the Language Resource Center at the College, reflected that, “What makes this event so special was that it was our first in-person event since the College went remote back in March 2020. It was great to see people interacting and having fun in person.” According to Annabelle Shea ’23, a student worker for the LRC, the event was Halloween-inspired, but served foods and drinks representative of many different regions and celebrations. “The event showcased international teas and candies, al-
lowing students to sample a variety of global treats — from Japanese mochi to Vietnamese coffee,” Shea said. While there were many foodcentered events at the College in celebration of Halloween — including the Trunk or Treat event and the ISOC Halloween event — this event specifically aimed to use these foods as a tool of cultural exchange. Beretsky said, “Food is an important part of every culture and I think this is a way for others to start learning about a new culture. I think events like this are important to promote an understanding of other cultures and to connect with those who identify as part of that culture.” In addition to food-sharing activities, the event included several activities in the same vein of cultural exchange. “Students were invited to make bookmarks using our custom-made LRC stickers and play a language Kahoot trivia game. By featuring an array of snacks and activities, we hoped to draw from Mount Holyoke’s language learning and international student communities,” Shea said. Beretsky noted that the Kahoot game in particular lent itself to learning about various cultures within a single event. “I think my favorite
moment from the event was running said. “Through our various events, the trivia game. I was the consul- we hope to introduce students to fortant who was emceeing the game. I eign language content and expand helped to make the trivia game and Mount Holyoke’s growing language while I made it there were a bunch of learning community. We feel excited new things I learned,” Beretsky said. about student participation in LRC “By loudly presenting questions and events and look forward to offering answers in a silly way, I think I was similar opportunities for language able to brighten up some peoples’ and culture acquisition in the near days and make future.” the LRC feel Ac c o r d i n g “MHC has a large interna- to Beretsky, welcoming and stutional student population relaxing, which dents interested is just one of my in engaging in ... with events like this, goals as a consulkinds of students can appreciate and these tant here.” activities should respect their fellow stuAs a comlook to the Lanmunity resource guage Resource dents’ experiences.” dedicated to upCenter for conlifting the multinued support - Julia Beretsky ’23 tilingual comand space. “Anymunity at Mount one at any time is Holyoke, LRC staff expressed that welcome to visit the LRC. We have these activities play an important many different ways to learn about role in their mission of promoting new cultures and languages — like inclusivity and celebrating diversity. the various Q&As held by student “MHC has a large international stu- language assistants multiple times dent population and I hope that, with a week, as well as weekly language events like this, students can appre- tables where students can talk with ciate and respect their fellow stu- fellow students and faculty memdents’ experiences,” Beretsky said. bers,” Beretsky said. “We love stuShea agreed with this sentiment. dent feedback so if there is anything “The LRC seeks to increase student you want to see, be sure to stop by awareness and interest in foreign and tell us or message us on Instalanguage and culture learning,” Shea gram @mtholyokelrc.”
Ethiopian government targets the TPLF; the UN aims to intervene COVID-19, TPLF organized their regional elections. Abiy responded by withholding government funds. With tensions already stretched Two years ago, Ethiopian Prime thin, Abiy’s order to mobilize naMinister Abiy Ahmed Ali was tional troops against the region on awarded the Nobel Prize for his ef- the claims of their alleged attack on forts in facilitating peace with long- a federal army base outside Tigray’s time political enemy Eritrea. Today, regional capital Mekelle was the last Ethiopia is the site of a civil war that straw, CNN reported. has, according to Bloomberg, killed Natalie Sabanadze, former amthousands of civilians and displaced bassador of the Georgian Mission about three million people, leading to the European Union and Cyrus to what the UN dubbed “the worst Vance visiting professor of internaexodus of refugees from Ethiopia tional relations, shared her opinions seen in two deregarding the cades.” conflict in Ethio“ The African Union is in Ac c o r d i n g pia. to Brookings, Sabanadze the best position to handle “Since November said that her this conflict and the UN and first reaction to 2020, the governEU should bring them to ment of Ethiopia hearing about has been at war the civil war was, the table.” with the politi“Again? … And cal leadership of how long until - Natalie Sabanadze the Tigray ethnic we do something minority — the about this?” Her Tigray People’s reaction referred Liberation Front (TPLF) — which to the opposing interests in the UN previously dominated the country’s Security Council that stalled any acleadership and has been at odds tions toward alleviating the conflict with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s in Ethiopia. policies.” According to Euronews, the U.S., Having ruled Ethiopia before Britain, Ireland, Estonia, France Abiy came to power, the TPLF re- and Norway planned to raise the ismained in opposition to Abiy’s pro- sue of Ethiopia’s expulsion of seven democratic reforms, such as the UN personnel “during a closed-door consolidation of the Ethiopian Peo- meeting of the 15-member body, but ple’s Revolutionary Front, originally diplomats say any strong action is composed of four parties, into a new unlikely as Russia and China have singular Prosperity Party, Brook- long made clear they believe the ings reported. This set off a period conflict is an internal affair for Ethiof provocative reciprocity between opia.” the government and the Tigray re“The UN actually developed gion. Ignoring the government’s Responsibility to Protect (R2P) [a postponement of elections due to global political commitment] to deal BY CYNTHIA AKANAGA ’25 STAFF WRITER
Photo courtesy of Flicker Above, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front celebrates their 40th anniversary. The TPLF opposes Abiy Ahmed Ali’s democratic policies and reforms.
with issues like [these],” Sabanadze explained, referencing the issue of sovereignty, especially as it is addressed in times of conflict. The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect defines R2P as “an international norm that seeks to ensure that the international community never again fails to halt the mass atrocity crimes of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.” Sabanadze further explained that it “rewrites the definition of sovereignty, that states have the [duty] to protect their citizens, not do whatever they want. And if they are not capable of protecting their citizens, the UN will step in to do that.” On Sept. 17, the Biden administration announced its plans to impose financial sanctions in Ethiopia
in response to the UN expulsions. However, Sabanadze doesn’t think they would be effective. “Financial sanctions work when you have an effective country that has something to lose,” she said. Lily Smith ’25, a student in a World Politics class, echoed Sabanadze’s concern, saying, “Putting further sanctions on the economy only worsens the state of people in Ethiopia and doesn’t really allow a lot of access to people who need help.” Smith and Sabanadze both acknowledged that passing intervention strategies through the UN is difficult, but Sabanadze argued that for the sake of international legitimacy, a resolution has to come through the UN and not from one of the world powers working on their own.
These ideas are reiterated in the Ethiopia Insight, in which writer Patrick Wright outlined four options to solve the conflict in Ethiopia for the same publication. In June 2021, one of these solutions was that “other actors could use force without either host state[’s] consent or a Security Council resolution.” Wright then stated that this option is “unpalatable because it is unclear who would intervene militarily in Ethiopia, to what ends and whether such an intervention would ameliorate the situation or simply add another layer of complexity to the war.” Sabanadze further added that “the African Union is in the best position to handle this conflict and the UN and EU should bring them to the table while deciding the best action to take in Ethiopia.”
SCIENCE & ENVIRONMENT COVID-19 booster shots to become widely Climate available for some United States residents Activist November 12, 2021
. Mount Holyoke News
Photo courtesy of the Berkshire Eagle The CDC and FDA recently endorsed the COVID-19 booster shot. Seniors and long-term care residents, among others, are eligible to get the vaccine.
BY HELEN GLOEGE ’23 STAFF WRITER
In mid-October, both the Centers for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration released statements on their websites that endorsed a booster shot for COVID-19 in certain populations. The CDC stated that people who are 65 years and older, as well as those who are over 18 years old and live in a long-term care setting, work or live in highrisk settings and/or have underlying medical conditions, are eligible to get the shot. Some states, such as Colorado, Kentucky and Michigan, are allowing anyone 18 or older to receive the booster shot. The CDC and FDA statements recommend waiting six months before getting the boosters for Moderna and Pfizer and two months before receiving the booster for Johnson & Johnson. The Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson or Janssen boosters are currently under an emergency use authorization, according to Yale Medicine. Within their statement, the FDA also tracked symptoms and booster effectiveness from participants who received a booster vaccine. In an article for 10 Boston News, Dr. Daniel Kuritzkes of Brigham and Women’s Hospital reported that the “side effects of the booster are exactly the same as the first and second shot.” Kuritzkes also noted that being exposed previously to a COVID-19 vaccine prepares the body to better handle the side effects of the booster shot. Booster vaccines have been approved to “keep the vaccines effective for longer,” according to the Massachusetts Government website.
Both the FDA and the CDC have authorized the concept of mixing and matching COVID-19 boosters, meaning that no matter what initial shot a person received, they can receive any of the brands of shots for their booster shot. According to an article published in Nature, the research around mixing and matching has mainly come from countries that halted the use of AstraZeneca due to concerns around side effects, wherein people received another type of shot for the second in their series, generally Pfizer or Moderna. Nature also cited a study, authored by Peter Nordström, an epidemiologist at Umeå University in Sweden, and others. The study found that people in Sweden who received “mixed vaccinations were 68 percent less likely to develop a symptomatic infection” compared to unvaccinated people, while “people who received 2 doses of AstraZeneca were 50 percent less likely to do so.” A similar conclusion was drawn from a study conducted in Denmark about mixing and matching vaccines, the data being comparable due Sweden and Denmark having similar national health and vaccination registries. Another study published in Nature by Thierry Walzer and his coauthors found that infection rates in the mixand-match group of AstraZeneca and Pfizer were “half of the original group that had two Pfizer doses.” According to the Wall Street Journal, the data that the CDC and the FDA used to support mixing and matching vaccines came from a National Institutes of Health study that tested combinations of Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson. The study has not been yet peer-
reviewed. In the article, Vanderbilt University Medical Center Professor of Pediatrics Kathryn Edwards said that, regardless of the vaccine you get, “it’s going to boost your immune response.” The NIH study ranked combinations of different vaccines and vaccine boosters by looking at the antibody levels they produced in the period of “15 to 29 days after a booster.” This study has been used to justify the mixing and matching of COVID-19 vaccine boosters. The results can be read in a multitude of ways. NPR reported that the aim of the study wasn’t “to compare one booster to another” but instead to examine people’s immune responses to different shots. In the same article, Dr. John Beigel of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases expressed “worry over the interpretation of our data.” New information about the booster shots is coming out at a very rapid rate, which makes it “incredibly confusing for the public,” according to Monica Gandhi, a professor of medicine at the University of San Francisco quoted in the Washington Post. While there are restrictions and recommendations for who can get a booster shot, students on campus and people in their circles have begun accessing them. In the case of Samantha Pittman ’23, getting a booster shot was important due to her job teaching children who may not yet be eligible to get the vaccine. An anonymous sophomore, who has a mood disorder, will be receiving the vaccine booster shot when it opens up to individuals with mood disorders, which, according to
Healthline, occurred on Oct. 14. Other students, like Zoë Hellman ’23, have multiple family members who have received the booster shot. Both Pittman and the anonymous student received or have plans to receive the same brand of shot as their prior doses, as did Hellman’s family members. Hellman’s family experienced “just the classic symptoms” after their booster shots, with no additional side effects. Pittman had “anticipated there being boosters” for COVID-19 due to its similarities with the flu, which has a recommended yearly shot. The anonymous student also expected boosters, as “shots are going to wear off eventually.” They even anticipated that COVID-19 boosters “would be needed earlier” than they were. Pittman and Hellman weren’t surprised the College wasn’t providing a clinic to administer booster shots to their students. “[We are] not at the stage for a school-wide booster,” Hellman said. Adding, because of the increased access to vaccines in the United States right now, she assumed that “the school wouldn’t have to do another clinic” as they did in the spring of 2021 for students and staff on campus. Pittman agreed that it is “early for the school to actually be doing things” due to the boosters only being recommended for certain groups at this point. “When it opens to [everyone] 18-plus, Mount Holyoke should be doing a booster clinic,” as not everyone will be able to access vaccines off campus, Pittman said. Cheryl Flynn from the Health Center reported that the Center doesn’t have COVID-19 vaccines due to the “responsibilities that go with being the recipient of it.” She added that it is “only recently that primary care places would get the vaccines themselves.” Generally, the Health Center has worked with third-party providers, such as pharmacies and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, in order to offer COVID-19 vaccines on campus. At this point, the Health Center staff are not officially referring students to “any particular sites” for receiving their booster shot. Flynn and the Massachusetts Government’s website both recommend VaxFinder as a helpful tool to find COVID-19 vaccines. The Massachusetts Government website also provides an eligibility checker for anyone who may be unsure if they qualify for the booster shot at this point in time.
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Spotlight: Elizabeth Wathuti BY HELEN GLOEGE ’23 STAFF WRITER
Elizabeth Wathuti is a 26-yearold climate activist from Kenya. She is the founder of the Green Generation Initiative, which aims to plant fruit trees and focuses on “implementing environmental projects and activities with young people for a sustainable future,” as stated on their website. The site claims they have grown over 30,000 trees. This success has been completed in collaboration with Kenyan middle and high schools, and the website attributes the trees’ 98 percent survival rate to the students’ involvement in keeping them alive. According to an article Wathuti wrote in the Queen’s Commonwealth Trust, one of her inspirations is the Nobel Prize-winning founder of the Green Belt Movement, Wangari Maathai. The Green Belt Movement, according to their website, has “planted over 51 million trees in Kenya” and aims to “promote environmental conservation” and “build climate resilience and empower communities.” Wathuti is the recipient of the Wangari Maathai Scholarship award, which catapulted her into prominence in the field of African environmental conservation. Wathuti has gained internet recognition recently, and has been reported as going viral by Stylist after a speech she gave at the World Leaders Summit Opening Ceremony for the COP26. The COP26 website reported that the conference aim to bring together world leaders to discuss and commit to actions to combat climate change. Within the speech, Wathuti described the climate change-related conditions she and others are experiencing in Kenya. She brought the conversation to the broader impacts on Sub-Saharan Africa, noting that while the region has produced fewer emissions, the people living there are facing more severe effects of climate change earlier then developed countries. Wathuti ended the speech with a call to action to resolving climate change, saying to world leaders, “I believe in our ability to do what is right, if we let ourselves feel it in our hearts.”
OPINION: Chevron evades legal consequences for major oil spill in Ecuador
Photo courtesy of Flickr Chevron targeted former attorney Steven Donziger after he exposed the company’s malpractice.
BY SIONA AHUJA ’24 STAFF WRITER
Editor’s note: the opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of the Mount Holyoke News. “Contempt of court” took on a whole new meaning for a human rights lawyer who led a threedecade-long fight against the gas giant Chevron. Former attorney Steven Donziger shed light on the company’s control of the American courts, but ended up being disbarred, being subjected to more than 800 days of pretrial house arrest and serving a sentence of six months of federal prison time, which began on Oct. 27. Donziger was the lead attorney representing 30,000 plaintiffs in a legal battle against Chevron (then called Texaco) for dumping excessive amounts of oil onto Indigenous land and water in Ec-
uador from the 1970s to the 1990s. According to the Yale MacMillan Center, the spill led to an epidemic of cancer and other related health problems to the extent that it was dubbed the “Amazon Chernobyl.” To avoid a jury trial, Chevron convinced the legal parties involved to move the case to Ecuadorian courts, where the judge ruled in favor of Donziger. By 2011, the corporation owed the Indigenous people of Ecuador an historic $9.5 billion in reparations, according to a Reuters article. For Donziger, this victory was short-lived, for he soon became the victim of a smear campaign and was countersued by the company. In an interview for Jacobin Magazine, Donziger commented that Chevron was “using sixty law firms and two thousand lawyers” to discredit him. The company went as far as creating a web-publication, The Amazon Post, with slogans that would be better suited to a middle school student government poster
that seem to portray Donziger as a fraudulent moneymaker such as ‘Confessions of a Fraud’ and ‘Chevron Foe Surrenders.’” The fabricated evidence of Donziger’s involvement in racketeering, extortion, wire fraud and witness tampering came from a corrupt Ecuadorian judge, Alberto Guerra, who in 2015 admitted to changing his story multiple times, according to an article in The Intercept. The Southern District of New York court pronounced Donziger guilty of fraud, and his refusal to present his computer and phone for inspection put him at risk of a criminal contempt charge. He was sentenced to an indefinite period of house arrest, making Donziger the “only lawyer in the U.S. ever held in confinement, pretrial, on a contempt charge,” according to a Law360 editorial. Halting Donziger’s career and confining him for an extended period of time is a violation of his human rights. A Reuters article showed that five international jurists concluded Donziger’s house arrest to be a gross violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. What may have seemed a win for the Ecuadorians quickly dissolved when Chevron failed to comply with the ruling and, in a 2007 press release, threatened the victims with a “lifetime of appellate and collateral litigation.” To not even pay a dollar to the Indigenous peoples of Ecuador is an egregious violation of human decency and an obvious evasion of the law. When you are a multi-billion-dollar corporation whose pockets run so deep that it can overturn every international legal case that comes in its way, the law translates
into a matter of convenience. The biases of the judges and prosecutors involved against Donziger come from their personal ties to Chevron. An Activist Post article reported that Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of the Southern District of New York had investment holdings in Chevron, and failed to disclose this before steering the case in the corporation’s favor. Moreover, he handpicked private prosecutors from Seward & Kissel LLP to represent the United States government. This law firm had directly represented Chevron in a litigation as recently as 2018. “It’s basically Judge Kaplan who’s my judge, jury and prosecutor. That’s never happened before, and it’s very dangerous and violates the rule of law. No country does it that way,” Donziger said in an interview with Jacobin Magazine in May 2021. U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska further sentenced Donziger to a maximum of six months in prison. According to Jacobin Magazine, she has historically made “dubious rulings” in favor of companies like S&P Global and Coca-Cola, and has served on the board of the Federalist Society — a pro-corporate entity to which Chevron is a major donor. Jacobin reported that Preska also exploited the pandemic-induced Zoom trials by prohibiting public access and scrutiny to the Donziger trial. Chevron has managed to seep into the judicial framework and overturn a fair ruling to avoid paying damages. But the case of Ecuador is only the most publicized story of Chevron’s misdeeds. According to a new report published by environmental anthropologist Dr. Nan Greer, Chevron has 70 outstanding
cases in 31 countries, with 13 of them being in the U.S. alone. On the day of Donziger’s commitment to a federal prison in Connecticut, Greer, aided by individuals from Greenpeace and Amazon Watch among others, published a 100-page independent report that underlined the environmental degradation caused by Chevron globally, especially in Indigenous lands. Titled “Chevron’s Global Destruction: Ecocide, Genocide and Corruption,” the report revealed Chevron’s pending dues in the countries it has plundered for oil. Only 0.006 percent of the fines, $286 million, have been paid, while $50.5 billion is pending. Moreover, Chevron filed legal charges against “virtually every claim made against it for crimes of pollution, corruption, tax evasion and human rights violations.” “[The report] says horrible things about large companies, multinational companies,” Greer said in an interview for Mongabay. “It says that they can completely walk around international laws, national laws, the laws of their domicile.” Donziger’s legal battle is a testament to the steady corporatization of American legal institutions, and the worldwide corruption that ensues from it. There is a dearth of whistleblowers and human rights advocates who have the ability to shake Big Oil from its imperialistic bedrock and expose them to the masses. However, while the one percent is in control of the courts, environmental martyrs like Donziger will remain exactly that — martyrs — and not heroes.
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ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
November 12, 2021
. Mount Holyoke News
80 years later, ‘Citizen Kane’ retains public interest
Graphic by Laura Hinojosa ’23
BY TARA MONASTESSE ’25 STAFF WRITER
80 years ago, a bizarre event occurred in Hollywood: a major Hollywood studio gave complete creative freedom to Orson Welles, a young man directing his first feature film, allowing him complete dominion over nearly every aspect of its production. The brainchild of that freedom is Orson Welles’ 1941 American drama film, “Citizen Kane.” In a landmark contract with RKO Pictures, one of the biggest film studios in the United States at the time, Welles received a 25 percent cut of the film’s profits in addition to full control over production. Welles would go on to receive an Academy Award nomination in 1942 for Best Actor for his role in the film as the titular character, Charles Foster Kane. Though 80 years have passed since the film’s release, “Citizen Kane” has managed to stay relevant in modern discussion for both its cinematic innovation and social commentary. The film is a character study
chronicling the rise and fall of Kane, a public figure who wedges himself into several industries — including politics, journalism and show business, to name a few — as he builds a grand empire of wealth and status. In order to craft a complete portrait of Kane after his death, reporter Jerry Thompson (William Alland) interviews figures from Kane’s past. Through these interviews, the audience navigates Kane’s checkered history and reputation. All the sources Thompson hears from have drastically different accounts of Kane, and their varying answers lead to an element of unreliability critical to the film’s presentation. “‘Citizen Kane’ is a milestone in the history of cinema for good reason,” Professor of Fine Arts on the Alumnae Foundation Paul Staiti said. Describing “Citizen Kane” as a “big jolt to the system” of Hollywood movies released at the time, Staiti highlighted the story’s ambiguity as a crucial aspect of the film, stating, “With the collaboration of Herman Mankiewicz, Welles developed a radical screenplay … the biography of Kane is unreliable and knowledge
is perpetually in doubt.” In the film, Kane is the subject of constant international media attention. Whether praising his virtues or denouncing his moral decay, the nation’s public constantly speculates about Kane’s death and identity; when his affair with Susan Alexander (Dorothy Comingore), a rising opera singer, is made public, his budding political career finds its end. In one dramatic scene, Kane walks through the halls of his enormous estate and the viewer sees endless reflections of Kane in a set of mirrors. Just as infinite interpretations of Kane exist in the hearts of all who knew him, the true Kane lost somewhere in the middle. “It makes you think what someone means in somebody else’s eyes,” Francesca Marie ’22, a film, media and theater major, said. “We are all different in somebody else’s story. We have nothing when we are born, and we leave having nothing. What matters are the impressions we leave on each other. Kane didn’t leave a great impression on most people.” Welles made no secret of the fact that Kane’s character was meant to directly criticize several notorious public figures — most directly, newspaper tycoon and failed politician William Randolph Hearst. However, the film’s political commentary has outlived both Hearst and Welles, with modern reporters like Jeremy W. Peters from The New York Times and James Owen from the Columbia Daily Tribune drawing comparisons between Kane and figures such as former U.S. President Donald Trump or media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, respectively. Emily Dickinson Professor of Film Studies Robin Blaetz said she first saw the film as a graduate student at New York University. “It was a radical film for its time and continues to be interesting for its technical experimentation and the fact that it was directed by a
Parquet Courts performs songs from ‘Sympathy for Life’ at venue in Holyoke BY LUCY OSTER ’23 STAFF WRITER
The stage at Gateway City Arts in Holyoke was littered with instruments last Friday night as members of the crowd waited for American rock band Parquet Courts to perform. Parquet Courts was the lead act of the night, following an energetic performance by the indie-rock band Public Practice. During their set, Public Practice played several songs from their debut full-length album, “Gentle Grip.” Parquet Courts, accompanied by Public Practice, are on tour to promote their recently released seventh album, “Sympathy for Life,” which came out on Oct. 22. Though both bands are based in New York City, Parquet Courts has a history with Massachusetts, as bassist Sean Yeaton is from the state. While on stage, he joked about visiting Herrell’s, a well-beloved ice cream store in Northampton. Though it would be easy to attribute the sold-out venue to the band’s regional connection, the music and the thrill of live performance was more than enough to carry the show. “We are conductors of sound, heat and energy,” the band sings on the opening track of their 2018 album, “Wide Awake!” The performance on Friday only proved that point. The music was loud and made for an exciting show, with members of the crowd even moving up to the stage to mosh multiple times. At one point, a concert-goer briefly crowdsurfed. The show’s setlist was dominated with tracks from “Sympathy for Life,” the band’s most recent album. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Andrew Brown, one of Parquet Courts’ two frontmen, discussed the musical influence behind the album. “I got really into dance music and realized in those environments, the music is the thing that connects everybody … That was massively inspiring,” Brown said. This dance music influence is evident in the song “Application/Apparatus,” in which a disco-esque beat gradually gets louder and louder. The music seemed to energize the audience at Gateway City Arts, but members of the crowd grew noticeably more excited when the band
Photos by Lucy Oster ’23 Parquet Courts performed at Gateway City Arts last Friday, Nov. 5. The show’s set focused on songs from the band’s new album, “Sympathy for Life,” which was released on Oct. 22, 2021.
played songs from “Wide Awake,” such as the joyful rock “Freebird II.” Perhaps some audience members were just more familiar with songs from the previous album than the album that came out less than a month ago. Karen Muller, a concert attendee who has written about music for the Boston Globe and WBUR, revealed that she loved “Sympathy for Life” and had listened to it a “few times already” that night. A lyrical motif within “Sympathy for Life” is a vase of flowers, which is pictured on the album cover. To reflect this motif, there were two vases of flowers on the crowded stage behind lead vocalist Andrew Savage. When the band performed their new song, the lyrically minimalist “Plant Life,” Savage grabbed some of the flowers and threw them into the crowd. The flowers were visible in the crowd for the rest of the show, some audience members tri-
umphantly holding them up as they danced. “Sympathy for Life” was largely written and recorded before the pandemic, but seems custom-made for a post-lockdown world, as it emphasizes dance, music and community. On “Zoom Out,” a song about putting life and its daily problems into perspective, the band sings about appreciating the smaller things in life: “We got dancing / We got screaming / We got laughin’ / And we got feelin.’” During the show, the band bantered between playing songs, with Yeaton even joking about buying Gateway City Arts. The energy was high and very positive. Just as Parquet Courts intended, the concert did indeed have dancing, laughing and feeling. Savage seemed to appreciate the crowd’s participation, saying, “Thanks for moving your bodies, these songs were specifically designed for it.”
24-year-old at a turning point in film history,” Blaetz said. Over time, the film’s place in Blaetz’s film studies curriculum has evolved, with Blaetz seeking to go beyond what she described as, “unthinkingly perpetuating the canon.” “Film professors have been teaching this film — and others in the canon, which is largely white and male — continuously, which has the effect of making people talk about it,” Blaetz continued. “While I still teach parts of it while discussing narration in film, the film that I show during that week is either ‘Mustang’ (2015), the first film of a young Turkish woman, Deniz Gamze Erguven, or Sally Potter’s ‘Orlando’ (1992).” “Citizen Kane” has taken on a
legacy as vast and multifaceted as that of its titular character. The story of its creation is itself a part of modern pop culture, with the 2020 film “Mank” chronicling the efforts of Herman J. Mankiewicz to co-write the screenplay for “Citizen Kane.” Just like “Citizen Kane,” “Mank” received a Best Actor nomination — unlike Welles, though, Gary Oldman received the award for his titular role. The story of “Citizen Kane” has survived the transition to the 21st century and will likely remain relevant as critics and political theorists alike continue to parse the tragic story of Charles Foster Kane and the philosophies embodied in his downfall.
‘My Name’ tells a dark tale of revenge
Graphic by Sofía Savid ’24
under Mu-Jin and his goons to enter the South Korean police force. Thus, a cat and mouse chase to find the identity of the killer is set. Han provides a stellar perforAfter the viral success of the Korean thriller series “Squid mance in the role of Ji-Woo. The Game,” Netflix dropped another character’s versatility and physishow in the same genre on Oct. 15 cal agility make for a demanding called “My Name,” a dark and grit- role, but Han delivers consistently ty revenge drama that strives to nonetheless. In highly emotional keep viewers on the edge of their story beats, such as scenes regardseats. Riddled with suspense and ing the death of Ji-Woo’s father, packed with powerful performanc- and cold-blooded drama scenes es, “My Name” has a compelling as her character navigates obstaplot filled with enough carnage cles on her way to revenge, Han and secrets for thriller enthusiasts establishes command over the role. In one specific scene, Ji-Woo to walk away feeling satisfied. mercilessly The show beats Mu-Jin’s follows Yoon “My Name” has a compel- best goons as a Ji-Woo (Han ling plot filled with enough part of her iniSo-Hee), a high tiation into the school student carnage and secrets for gang. While who enlists thriller enthusiasts to walk she does so, it South Korea’s away feeling satisfied. is abundantly top crime boss, clear that she Choi Mu-Jin (Park Hee-Soon), to help her un- is strongly motivated to carry on earth the truth about her father’s to find her father’s killer. She sucunderworld connections and cessfully portrays Ji-Woo’s inner avenge his recent murder. The conflict of trusting the mafia or series then details Ji-Woo’s path the police and, through her perforto joining the police department’s mance, subtly obscures whether narcotics division as a mole for Ji-Woo should know the truth that Mu-Jin. As Ji-Woo enters into the is disguised by several people in police force and maintains con- her life, and if she should trust the nections with leading figures in information presented to her from the police agency, she also tries both sides. Han excels in action to hide her true identity from her scenes, too — in one specific scene, work partner, detective Jeon Pil- she captures Ji-Woo’s physical prowess as she fights more than Do (Ahn Bo-Hyun). “My Name” succeeds in sus- 10 goons at once while raiding an taining both a dark theme of re- illegal gambling hotspot. Han is venge and bloodshed and a fast able to express Ji-Woo’s multifacpace, creating an air of mystery for eted character while maintaining what’s about to come next. From chemistry with Pil-do, even as the first episode, the audience is their relationship is tested due to given enough information about her false identity. Director Kim Jin-Min uses the characters and the plot of the show, all while maintaining sus- darker color schemes, relating pense over the main question that to the dark themes displayed motivates Ji-Woo’s actions — who within the show. The setting also really killed her father? This mys- reflects the show’s intensity, as tery creates a thrilling plot, which the audience is exposed to the keeps viewers guessing about the grittier, crime-ridden parts of Buculprit behind the murder. Hav- san, South Korea. Whether the ing witnessed her father’s murder scenes are set in illegal gambling first hand and learning that a mys- spots, abandoned streets or Muterious hooded killer carried out Jin’s desolate yet heavily guarded her father’s murder, Ji-Woo takes mansion, Kim skillfully brings out it upon herself to hunt them down. the tension and darkness of “My She searches through the crime Name.” “My Name” is a suspenseful riddled alleys of Busan, putting herself in danger. Ultimately, she thriller and Netflix’s hidden gem asks for help from Choi Mu-Jin, of October. Full of conviction, conwho was supposedly her father’s flict and apprehension, viewers partner in crime. Afterwards, the are in for a treat if they watch this audience follows Ji-Woo training revenge drama. BY ANIKA SINGH ’24 STAFF WRITER & WEB EDITOR
November 12, 2021
SPORTS & NEWS
. Mount Holyoke News
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Game of the Week: Swimming and Diving International Handball Federation updates women’s defeats UNE; Rugby ends their season dress code, effective in 2022 BY VICTORIA FAULKNER ’25 STAFF WRITER
Swimming and Diving Mount Holyoke College Swimming and Diving’s second competition of the season sent their swimmers to the University of New England, where they overtook the Nor’easters in a 151-91 victory on Nov. 6. In the 1000-yard freestyle, Eliza Williams ’24 won with a final time of 11:45.27 minutes, earning nine points in that tier. Williams additionally took another victory in the 500-yard freestyle with a final time of 5:47.84 minutes, securing another nine points from that section. Regarding the away meet, Williams said, “We all haven’t competed in a real meet for such a long time due to COVID[-19] so it’s great to be back in the high energy, positive environment that a meet and this team brings.” In the 100-yard backstroke, the Lyons placed second, third and fourth. Adji Diouf ’24 took second with a team-best time of 1:06.85 minutes, followed by Anais Magner ’23, who placed third with a recorded 1:07.94. Diouf said she felt “pretty good” about her race. “Our team has been working hard at practice and I think that our recent performances have shown that. I hope that we can continue to improve and bring out our best throughout the season,” Diouf said. Evelyn Bushway ’24 placed first in the 200-yard breaststroke, with a time of 2:45.78. Bushway also took home a victory in the 200 individual medley. Bushway is looking forward to having a “real season.” “On top of that, I am looking forward to seeing how far all of us can push each other and test those limits we place on ourselves,” she said. Megan Schneider ’25 claimed first in the 50 freestyle, coming in at 26.51 seconds. Diouf placed first in the 100 freestyle with a time of 59.22
seconds, immediately proceeded by Schneider at 59.63. The Lyons furthered their winning streak as Hannah Heierhoff ’25 won the 100-yard butterfly at 1:06.04, immediately followed by Lauren Madsen ’25, who finished at 1:12.11 for third. Heierhoff also won the 200yard butterfly event with a time of 2:25.72. “Overall, I’m very pleased with my performance yesterday,” Heierhoff said. “This was my first scored meet and I really enjoyed the atmosphere. I’m especially happy with my 200 fly.” Following this win, Swimming and Diving will host their first home meet of the season on Saturday, Nov. 13 against Westfield State University. “In regards to the upcoming home meet, … I personally am really excited to have my friends and other people there to cheer us on from the stands while in our home pool for the first time this season,” Bushway said. “It is so much fun to compete for this team and I am looking forward to having the chance to compete at the home opener.”
Rugby With a morning kickoff, Mount Holyoke College Club Rugby played their final game of the season against Smith College, losing at home 17-31 on Nov. 8. For many players on the team, it was their first rugby game of this size and tier. In rugby, tiers are indicative of both team and school size, as well as overall team placement in league rankings and prestige. Though rugby is traditionally played as a group of 15 against another group of 15, referred to as 15s, scrumhall and treasurer Faye Winer ’22 highlighted that “due to COVID-19, [we] played a lot of teams that didn’t have enough players for full 15s matches.” Having not played 15s before, Winer noted, “Our new players really got to shine, made incredible tackles and incredible runs, and I’m so
BY EMILY TARINELLI ’25 STAFF WRITER
Photo courtesy of Erin Schrama ’23 Hannah Heierhoff ’25 competes in butterfly.
proud of them for playing so well for their first 15s match ever and against Smith, of all teams.” Winer also reflected on the season and mentioned the Smith match as a critical one for the team. “The match against Smith yesterday was better than we could’ve hoped, and we’ve grown so much this season. We really were able to play our best game yet even though Smith is two tiers above us,” they said. “The game was great,” forward Nora Carrier ’23 stated. “We really held our own against a much more experienced team — Mount Holyoke is in tier [three] of our league while Smith is in tier [one]. There were a lot of highlights [in the Nov. 6 game] like successful scrums and great communication from our team.” “Saturday’s game felt like an exceptional finale of our season,” Captain Sean Fabrega ’23 said. “The whole team played super well again[st] Smith, much better than anyone was expecting and I’m so proud of my team … I would say this season I saw exceptional improvements in skill and athleticism on the pitch by ever[y] member of our team.” Though Rugby’s fall season ended Saturday, the team intends to have one postseason game with Wellesley College. Rugby will resume season play in the spring.
Photo by Imaane Patel ’24 On the morning of Nov. 8, Rugby played their final game of the season, competing on their home turf against Smith College. The team lost 17-31.
Female handball players are no longer required to wear bikini bottoms and sports bras in competition, according to a rule the International Handball Federation changed on Oct. 3. As reported by the New York Times, the rule originally stated that female athletes must wear bikini bottoms “with a close fit and cut on an upward angle toward the top of the leg,” with sides that could not measure more than four inches. The change came after a global outcry regarding the sexualization of women in sports. According to The New York Times, in July 2021, the European Handball Federation fined the Norwegian women’s handball team 1,500 euros — or roughly $1,740 — for protesting the rule by competing in shorts instead of bikini bottoms. NPR reported that the players told the EHF the rule was “degrading to women” and that the bikini bottoms were not practical in a sport that required dynamic movement on sandy ground. Norway’s team captain, Katinka Haltvik, described the impracticality of the IHF uniform ruling in an interview with Vogue Scandinavia in August. “I have played for eight years in panties, and you have to spend extra time on preparation, like having small enough underwear underneath, shaving and taking care of wounds from sand rubbing that need treatment,” she said. “And of course, there are girls who don’t want to play because of it.” Haltvik went on to describe her increased discomfort with the dress code this year, noting that she had given birth to her first child and that her body didn’t look the same as it had before. She also recognized that she “shouldn’t have to think about that.” “It’s the sport and the performance that should be in focus, not what we’re wearing,” she said. The Norwegian team’s protest garnered support from across the world. Valerie Nicolas, the goalkeeper of the French women’s handball team, echoed Haltvik’s sentiment in a statement provided by the Miami Herald. “We have lost players due to the suits. The players tell me they are uncomfortable, feel naked and watched. It is a sport with a lot of movement and you are hindered by the bikini. There is also discomfort associated with menstruation and
not least religion,” Nicolas said. After the Norwegian team was fined, pop singer Pink tweeted that she was proud of the athletes for protesting the dress code and offered to pay the fine to the EHF. However, after charging the team, the EHF announced its commitment to uplifting women in sports, and donated the fine paid by Pink to an organization that supports women and girls in athletics. “We are very much aware of the attention the topic has received … and while changes cannot happen overnight, we are fully committed that something good comes out of this situation right now,” EHF President Michael Wiederer said in an EHF statement. The EHF also wrote that while the organization was committed to bringing about gender equality in the sport, only the IHF could change the uniform requirement. In addition to capturing the support of the singer and other teams, the sports ministers of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland and Finland sent a joint letter to the IHF encouraging an update to the dress code. The Guardian reported that Norwegian Prime Minister Abid Raja called the rule “completely ridiculous” and that several European women’s sports groups demanded the resignation of the IHF and EHF presidents. A petition organized by Australian activist Talitha Stone and backed by Collective Shout, an organization dedicated to advocating for gender equality, garnered 61,000 signatures favoring a change to the rule. “I hope this is the beginning of the end of sexism and objectification of women and girls in sport. And that in [the] future all women and girls will be free to participate in sport without fear of wardrobe malfunctions and sexual harassment,” Stone said in a Facebook post. Now, the IHF’s updated rules specify that female athletes may wear “a body fit tank top, short tight pants and eventual accessories.” The uniform requirements are still not the same between men and women — women’s shorts must be tightfitting, while men’s shorts cannot be “too baggy.” NBC News reported that Norwegian Handball Federation President Kåre Geir Lio said that the players told him they competed better in tight shorts and were happy with the IHF update. The updated rule will take effect starting on Jan. 1, 2022.
Commuter students disadvantaged by inactive dining credit card terminals BY GILLIAN PETRARCA ’23 STAFF WRITER
“The College has removed the credit card terminals out of an abundance of caution while possible security issues are resolved by the provider,” Alex Wirth-Cauchon, CIO and executive director of Library, Information and Technology Services wrote in an email to the College Community. On Oct. 28, Wirth-Cauchon sent an all-campus email stating that credit card terminals have been temporarily removed from the Dining Commons and the Frances Perk
Cafe. This has inconvenienced many students without a meal plan, such as Frances Perkins Scholars and commuter students. Wirth-Cauchon stated in an email to the Mount Holyoke News that LITS monitors various information security communities within higher education and beyond. They found security concerns on similar devices that were behaving in unexpected ways when verifying credit card information. Kylie Gellatly FP ’23 said that the credit card terminals being unavailable has changed her dining experience in Blanchard. As a com-
muter student without a dining plan, she normally buys five swipes from Blanchard at a time using her debit card. While the credit card terminals are out of service, Wirth-Cauchon stated that students can pay for food and beverages using their OneCard. In the all-campus email, he provided a link for students to upload funds to their OneCard using credit or debit cards. Wirth-Cauchon also pointed out that there are two automatic deposit machines, one in Blanchard on the ground floor and one in the lobby of the Central Services Complex, where students can upload money to their OneCard using cash.
“As a commuter student, I don’t normally use my OneCard for money. [It’s] just for building access,” Gellatly said. “We can upload money to it, but that’s kind of the trouble I am in now, it is not very clear how to do that. The whole thing is very inaccessible and tailored to residential students.” For Zo Brown ’22, a commuter student, the card terminals being out of use brings up a larger problem that they have with dining facilities. “[Dining as a commuter student] is really isolating, to be frank … I wish they would give us the option of having a certain number of social
swipes to sit down with friends while they eat meals,” Brown said. Wirth-Cauchon concluded that LITS is currently working with the vendor of the terminals and the LITS security team to assess options for either reinstalling the devices or replacing them. “We are working as quickly as possible but will take the time necessary to ensure the security of the College network and of community members’ credit card information. Ideally, we hope to have the readers back in operation within a week, but some of that timing is out of our control,” Wirth-Cauchon said.
Senate discusses November break testing, menstrual products in residence halls BY KATIE GOSS ’23 BUSINESS MANAGER & NEWS EDITOR
Before Senate started on Tuesday, Nov. 9, senators were asked to sit with their commission groups so they could work together towards the end of the meeting. Kim Kindred FP ’24, the senator for the Western Equestrian Team, read the land acknowledgement before the meeting began with updates from the EBoard. EJ Jankovic ’23, the chair of halls, updated senators on a few requests made in previous meetings. There will now be gluten free dessert options available at the Dining Commons classics station by request. Additionally, lawn care and facilities work will begin at 9:00 a.m. when possible, instead of the previous time of 8:00 a.m. Students who currently live in
Merrill House will be receiving an email regarding the situation for housing for next semester. In light of the new policy allowing Mount Holyoke students to swipe into all residential dorms, between certain hours, Louise Olivier ’23, the senator for Merrill House, expressed concern for students living at Merrill House not having access to all residential halls beyond those hours. She stated that if any of those students missed the last bus back, they have no access to any other dorm at that time, and have nowhere to sleep. Some updates about the Testing Center were also announced, particularly about the week of Thanksgiving. There will be only one test required during the holiday week, during Monday, Nov. 22, or Tuesday, Nov. 23, with normal testing resuming the following week. There is also a form that students can fill out
if they plan to miss a test, in order to inform the testing center of their absence. However, the form is not mandatory. Senate then entered the open floor portion of the evening, in order to allow senators to make comments, voice concerns, ask questions or inform others of events happening. Peregrine Conroy-Baarsch ’23, senator for the Class Board of 2023, reminded everyone about the RingPops and Roses event for juniors, taking place on Saturday, Nov. 13, in the Blanchard Great Room. The senator for Active Minds informed everyone that because counseling services is currently experiencing a high demand for appointments, the center will switch to an open-access support system on Nov. 24. This is to ensure that all students have a chance to use these services during the final few weeks of the semester. Although the sched-
ule will be cleared, the E-Board emphasized that people with existing appointments can still go, just without an official appointment, and that resources are not being taken away. Shira Sadeh ’25, senator for south Creighton, brought up the discussion surrounding free menstrual products being placed in bathrooms across campus. Nina Brothers ’24, senator for Glee Club, said that as a member of the Planned Parenthood Generative Action group, the group works to put free products in bathrooms around campus, and they are working on that in the near future. Additionally, she informed senators that PPGA has a free menstrual product order form that allows students to fill out the form for what they need, and have the products delivered to their mailbox in Auxiliary Services with no charge and no “strings attached.” Following the open floor portion,
senators turned to their commission groups and got to work. Each group was tasked with creating a petition, or an idea for a petition, having to do with the goal their group is trying to achieve. Jankovic reminded senators that their petition goals must be achievable, and gave a few examples of non-achievable and achievable goals. Kijua Sanders-McMurtry, vice president for equity and inclusion and chief diversity officer, will be at the next senate meeting to discuss a survey that will be sent out to all students soon. It will not be an official town hall, but an “informal preview” to what a town hall will look like with faculty, staff and administration. Senate closed with a reminder that there will be no meeting on Nov. 23, as it is the week of Thanksgiving, and that the last senate meeting of the semester will be held on Nov. 30.
8
COMMUNITY
November 12, 2021
e HOROSCOPES e
BY DAVID NEJEZCHLEBA ’22 & MAGGIE DONOVAN ’23 COPY EDITOR & HOROSCOPE WRITER | LAYOUT EDITOR & HOROSCOPE WRITER
March 21 – April 19
Nov. 22 – Dec. 21
July 23 – Aug. 22
Putting the keys in the ignition is the easiest part, but if you’re hesitating around the gas pedal, don’t fret. Just remember: it’s not the fastest who always come out on top, but those who are careful and diligent.
April 20 – May 20
Things have been fast-paced and hectic this week, Taurus. Your energy has been so devoted to completing the tasks in front of you that you
Oil and water don’t mix, but they can still coexist quite nicely. You may find yourself unable to mesh with someone in ways you would usually find easy, but that might just mean you need to take a different approach. Don’t just stick yourselves in a metaphorical cruet.
You’re nervous to jump off the board, not because the water will be cold, but because the idea of falling can be daunting. But it is fall, after all, sultry Sagittarius, so don’t be afraid to take the plunge.
Aug. 23 – Sept. 22
When you’re home after a long day at the beach, sand is always in the most inconvenient places — just like those little tensions with that person. It’s time to clear the air and have that difficult conversation.
They call you boring, but they don’t know that dark, juicy secret you’ve been hiding. Play your cards right, and you’ll have the upper hand right
May 21 – June 20
Your inner tension is bubbling to the surface, and those close to you are starting to notice. Rather than letting your passions take hold of you, dear Gemini, consider healthier routes of self-expression and release — like journaling! And taking a break from the internet!.
It’s your season, baby, and we know you’ve been eagerly waiting to pounce. Make sure all your ducks are in a row first, dear Scorpio. Clear out your inbox, clean your water bottle, wash your sheets. It’s go time.
Mount Holyoke News Mount Holyoke News is an independent student newspaper written by and for Mount Holyoke College students since 1917.
Executive Board Editor-in-Chief Declan Langton ’22
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Editorial Board
Arts & Entertainment Rose Cohen ’22 & Emma Watkins ’23
Opinion
Tasnia Mowla ’23, Jahnavi Pradeep ’23 & Ladin Akcacioglu ’24
Books
Cat Barbour ’24 & Ella Jacob ’24
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Amelia Luo ’23 & Sophie Soloway ’23
Sports
Gigi Picard ’22
Features
Rebecca Gagnon ’23 & Jesse HausknechtBrown ’25
Science & Environmental
Catelyn
Jan. 20 – Feb. 18
Hot sauce on pancakes may sound like a hard no, but have you given it a try? When the unexpected makes itself known, don’t be too hasty in slamming the door — take a bite.
Oct. 23 – Nov. 21
June 21 – July 22
News
Dec. 22 – Jan. 19
Sept. 23 – Oct. 22
You know the feeling of being rushed. You’re used to it, in fact. Scorpio season invites you to sit back and take it all in. Now that you can take your time, enjoy it and treasure it.
You’ve matured a lot in the past week, Cancer, and we, for two, are proud of you. You deserve to indulge in some other-worldly delights — think space-patterned merchandise, a sci-fi movie night and bubble baths.
Ella White ’22 & Katie Goss ’23
. Mount Holyoke News
Fitzgerald ’23 & Kuswaha ’24
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Abby Wester ’22, Anika Singh ’24 & Zoe Tang ’24
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Feb. 19 – March 20
You’ve been feeling like a little fish in a really, really big pond, sweet Pisces. Consider sabotage as the answer to your success. Happy hijinks!
Letter to the Editor: Mount Holyoke College must implement open educational resources On Thursday, Sept. 16, MassPIRG (Public Interest Research Groups) Campus Action at Mount Holyoke College tabled in the lobby of Blanchard Hall to gauge the campus culture surrounding the high prices of textbooks. MassPIRG Campus Action is the Massachusetts division of the Student PIRGs, a non-partisan student advocacy and training program empowering students to enact change on issues of importance to them. To advance their affordable textbooks campaign, Mount Holyoke volunteers asked students to write down the price they paid for textbooks during the fall semester. The collection of sticky notes were then arranged on a thermometer cutout displaying disparate prices. Within minutes, the thermometer was no longer visible beneath the sticky notes as the prices paid by individual students climbed to $800 for some. The high cost of textbooks, a direct result of educational publishers’ monopoly over the textbook industry, is far from a new issue, but is one that has plagued higher education in the United States for years. Fortunately, there is a conceptually simple answer to this problem, open educational resources, known as OERs. While OER programs are often enacted and see success at public universities and community colleges, they tend to be overlooked at small, prestigious liberal arts colleges like Mount Holyoke College under the baseless assumption that the cost of textbooks isn’t a legitimate concern for students. However, MassPIRG
Campus Action has proved that the cost of textbooks places an unnecessary financial burden on Mount Holyoke students and is therefore a critically important issue on campus. While some professors advocate for the usage of open educational resources by providing students with free online versions of textbooks and PDFs, there is no campus-wide initiative surrounding OER and a college policy of this kind is long overdue. Urging the college to adopt a comprehensive plan of action to implement open educational resources first involves convincing professors of the magnitude of the textbook crisis. Professors have the power to send a message to the administration that they support OERs by refusing to teach courses that require books students have to pay for and instead looking for alternative, affordable textbook options. Increasing visibility concerning outrageous textbook prices begins with students. MassPIRG Campus Action is working to mobilize students to represent the campus opinion on the urgency of OERs. Despite the current lack of an OER initiative on campus, there’s hope that through student advocacy, increasing public awareness of open educational resources and gradual shifts in individual classes to public domain textbooks, the campus will eventually adopt practices embracing the myriad benefits of open educational resources in the near future. - Juliet Porter ’24