Tuesday, January 17, 2023 I Vol. 119 Iss. 16
INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER • SERVING THE GW COMMUNITY SINCE 1904
WWW.GWHATCHET.COM
What’s inside Opinions
The editorial board reacts to the appointment of Ellen Granberg as GW’s first female president. Page 6
Culture
Take note of these performing arts shows to add to your calendar this spring. Page 7
Faculty say they are ‘optimistic’ about Granberg’s presidency as promising sign of shared governance
Sports
Get to know James Bishop, the senior guard leading GW as the Colonials vie for the A-10 Championship. Page 8
GW failed to act against alleged antisemitism: complaint CAITLIN KITSON
ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
ocrats being for it,” Norton said in an interview. “But you can’t get statehood without moving it every single year, and that’s why I’m going to move it this year, despite the fact that we have a Republican House.” Norton said to rally support for D.C. statehood legislation, she will work with the Senate to prevent new “radical” Republican representatives from blocking or repealing bills concerning the District’s voting representation.
A Jewish and pro-Israel advocacy organization filed a Title VI complaint Thursday with the Department of Education alleging that a professor was antisemitic toward Jewish and Israeli students in a graduate-level psychology course during the fall semester. StandWithUs filed the complaint with the Office for Civil Rights, alleging Lara Sheehi, an assistant professor of clinical psychology, created a “hostile environment” for Jewish and Israeli students within her Diversity I course, part of GW’s Professional Psychology Program. The complaint alleges faculty and administrators “retaliated” with “disciplinary proceedings” against students who raised concerns about hostile conduct from Sheehi throughout the fall and a guest speaker and course materials that addressed the Israel-Palestine conflict. The complaint alleges that the University violated Title VI, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin in any “educational program or activity” that receives federal funds like GW. “Jewish students informed the University about the harassment and discrimination they were experiencing,” the complaint alleges. “George Washington, however, failed to take prompt and effective steps to end the harassment and eliminate the hostile environment.” The complaint calls on the University to null the “disciplinary proceedings” against the students who raised concerns and provide them with an alternative method of receiving course credit “out of Sherri’s orbit and influence.” The complaint also urges GW to investigate the discrimination allegations, institute mandatory bias and sensitivity training and use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism to identify discrimination claims. Sheehi, who has worked at GW since 2016, also taught a section of the Third Year Psychotherapy course in the Professional Psychology Program during the fall semester, according to the University’s schedule of classes. Sheehi is not scheduled to teach any classes this spring, according to the schedule of classes. Sheehi did not return a request for comment. Interim University President Mark Wrighton issued a statement to the GW community Friday saying a “third party” will investigate the claims, but he did not comment on the details of the allegations. “I want to be clear that we reaffirm that the George Washington University strongly condemns antisemitism and hatred, discrimination and bias in all forms,” Wrighton said in the statement. “We remain committed to fostering a welcoming and inclusive environment where all feel safe and free of harassment, hostility or marginalization.” University spokesperson Julia Metjian declined to comment on Sheehi’s employment status. She also declined to comment on StandWithUs’ allegation that students who complained about Sheehi were subjected to “disciplinary proceedings” or what the third-party investigation of the complaint’s claims will entail. Metjian deferred to Wrighton’s public statement in response to The Hatchet’s questions. Progressive organizations, like Jewish Voice for Peace, have criticized StandWithUs for its reported ties to the Israel government through its work with the government’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the country’s marketing materials. “They are allegations and reflect the advocacy group’s perspective,” officials said in a now-expired Instagram story posted Thursday on GW’s official account. “The University will respond to OCR regarding any complaint it may receive from OCR.” The complaint states that after a student said she was from Israel on the first day of the fall semester when Sheehi asked students in the course to share where they were from, Sheehi responded by saying, “It’s not your fault you were born in Israel.” The complaint alleges that students continued to experience discriminatory actions at the Professional Psychology Program’s speaker event in September featuring a presentation from Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, the chair of law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. During the presentation, Shalhoub-Kevorkian said Israel uses its humanitarian aid to distract from its “oppressive power,” a statement that students believed played into antisemitic stereotypes of Jewish people “using money for nefarious purposes,” according to the complaint.
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LILY SPEREDELOZZI | ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR More than 10 professors said Granberg’s experience in higher education administration gives her the skills to create a strategic plan that unites the GW community and promotes shared governance.
CAITLIN KITSON
ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
Faculty are “optimistic” about the selection of Ellen Granberg as GW’s 19th president, a conclusion to the presidential search process that they said signals a commitment from the Board of Trustees to shared governance. Officials named Granberg, who serves as the provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at the Rochester Institute of Technology, as the next University president Wednesday following a monthslong presidential search conducted by a 17-member Presidential Search Committee with five faculty members. More than 10 professors said Granberg’s experience in higher education administration gives her the skills to create a strategic plan that
unites the GW community and promotes shared governance between the Board, administrators and faculty. Kim Roddis, a professor of environmental and civil engineering, said Granberg’s decadeslong work in higher education administration demonstrates that she will be able to lead GW’s future strategic planning. Prior to joining Rochester Institute of Technology in 2018, Granberg served as a faculty member, department chair, associate provost for faculty affairs and senior associate provost at Clemson University over the course of two decades, according to her LinkedIn. GW has lacked a strategic plan since November 2020, when officials labeled former University President Thomas LeBlanc’s five-
year plan as “obsolete” due to the COVID-19 pandemic. LeBlanc’s plan, which included an enrollment strategy to increase the number of students majoring in STEM fields by 30 percent and cut undergraduate enrollment by 20 percent, drew backlash from faculty members who said the plan lacked input from the GW community. “She did a major effort in strategic planning at Clemson and then also some at RIT,” she said. “So she understands the importance of doing it in an inclusive way, that strategic plans are living documents and that we have to keep updating them with how things change.” Roddis said Granberg’s undergraduate degree in history from the University of California, Davis and her research on the inter-
section of sociology and health care show that she can navigate and bolster GW’s diverse academic offerings. Officials announced a set of academic priorities, including academic medicine, equity and social justice, data science and sustainability and climate change in September in the absence of a strategic plan. Some faculty senators said the priorities and investments in the academic medical enterprise demonstrated a continued lack of support from the administration for humanities fields. “I just feel that she’s somebody that understands the breadth of GW, so I am looking forward to being able to have the diverse parts, all of our little GW quirks that add to our strengths, so we can be the best GW we can be,” she said. “Instead
of trying to mimic some other university, we’re going to be the best for us.” Roddis, who also served as the chair of the Faculty Consultative Committee – a committee of faculty members who advised trustees on the presidential search process, said the search displayed shared governance between faculty, trustees and administrators. She said the Board selected four faculty members from the committee to serve on the Presidential Search Committee after the Faculty Consultative Committee requested they pick at least one of their members. “The Board reached out, and basically, by picking members off the FCC, they were giving faculty a voice,” she said. See GRANBERG Page 3
Norton, advocates renew D.C. statehood push despite Congressional GOP opposition CADE MCALLISTER REPORTER
MOKSHA AKIL REPORTER
Facing legislation from a new Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives that may impose on D.C.’s crawl toward statehood, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton and local advocates are gearing up to ride growing national support through a long fight for state recognition. Norton, a Democrat and the District’s nonvoting representative in the House, introduced the Washington, D.C. Admission Act for the third time last Monday before the newly instated members of the chamber – a bill that would grant the District full voting representation in Congress. Norton said despite the growing political division in Congress that has limited vital bipartisan support, she will work with senators to safeguard D.C.’s voting rights amid mounting legislative threats to D.C.’s self-governance from the House GOP. The bill would admit D.C. as a new state named Washington, Douglass Commonwealth, granting citizens full federal voting representation in Congress and local selfgovernance while shrinking the federal district land to the U.S. Capitol, the White House, the Supreme Court, the “principal federal monuments” and the National Mall. The District has no voting members in the House or Senate, and Con-
COURTESY OF ELIJAH MEARS “You can’t get statehood without Republicans and Democrats being for it,” Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton said in an interview. “But you can’t get statehood without moving it every single year, and that’s why I’m going to move it this year, despite the fact that we have a Republican House.”
gress can also block any bills proposed by the D.C. Council under the D.C. Home Rule Act – a bill passed in 1973 granting D.C. citizens the right to vote in presidential elections, a city council and a mayor. Under Democratic control, the House voted to declare D.C. a state for the first time in its history in June 2020 and again in April 2022, a docket that Norton said proves the bill’s momentum toward the Democratic Senate floor. Norton said despite the “record” 165 original cosponsors sup-
porting her bill upon introduction, with six more as of Sunday, she has “no doubt” the bill will be stalled in the House this session, where Republican representatives hold a nineseat majority. She said securing co-sponsors and introducing the legislation a third time despite its probable inability to pass the House pushes the statehood fight forward, citing increased national attention from social media about the movement. “You can’t get statehood without Republicans and Dem-