Monday, Feb. 26, 2024 I Vol. 120 Iss. 20
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INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER • SERVING THE GW COMMUNITY SINCE 1904
What’s inside Opinions
The editorial board argues that AI and academic integrity aren’t necessarily at odds. Page 6
INGLORIOUS REVOLUTION
Culture
Intramural basketball referees discuss getting dunked on by players. Page 7
Sports
Both swimming and diving teams took home conference championships. Page 8
SGA elections delayed to April after elections commission reform HANNAH MARR
ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
Head Coach Chris Caputo animatedly instructs his squad during a timeout.
FILE PHOTO BY KAIDEN YU | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Men’s basketball loses 10th straight, now last in A-10 BEN SPITALNY
CONTRIBUTING SPORTS EDITOR
MARGOT DIAMOND STAFF WRITER
On Jan. 15, optimism surrounding men’s basketball was at a high. The team had beaten rival George Mason 75-62, leading by double digits for most of the game to bring the team’s record to 14-3, 3-1 in the Atlantic 10, good for the team’s best start since the NIT-winning 2015-16 season. The Revolutionaries have not won a game since. The team (14-13, 3-11 A-10) lost this Saturday against Saint Louis (10-17, 3-11 A-10), marking their 10th-consecutive loss as they’ve tumbled down from the top five of the conference to last place in the A-10 over the past five weeks. “I’ve tried it all,” Head Coach Chris Caputo said following a Feb. 10 loss against Loyola Chicago, at that point their sixth-straight loss. “So I don’t know. I mean, when I say change, it’s like spinning a wheel. And we’ll just spin the wheel and figure out we’ve tried it all.” GW’s porous defense has been a disaster area for the team this season. The team ranks last in the A-10 in opponents’
points per game during conference play, allowing 85.1 per contest. That’s over 20 points more than 16th-ranked Dayton, whose conference-leading defense averages 63.6 points allowed. On the season, GW ranks 327th out of 351 in the NCAA in scoring defense with an opponents’ per-game average of 78.8. While much of this can be attributed to GW’s fast pace of play, listed as the 28th-highest tempo in the Kenpom ratings, GW’s inability to defend from 3-point territory has allowed shooters to hurt them from beyond the arc. Despite a down year, senior guard James Bishop IV is still etching his name in the GW record books. His seasonhigh 34 points against the Billikens pushed him over 2,000 points in his GW career, making him one of only three players to reach the mark. The Revs were able to make the game competitive late in the second half, with a late 10-1 run cutting the deficit to just 2 points. A layup from Bishop brought the score to 89-87 with just 48 seconds remaining. Sophomore guard Benny Schroder was able to respond to four straight Saint Louis free throws with 4 points of his own, but the Billikens’ success from the line late proved too much to overcome for the Revs. Saint Louis was 9-10 from the line with less than one minute
remaining. The Revs were without two key contributors in the loss against Saint Louis: redshirt freshman forward Darren Buchanan Jr. and redshirt freshman guard Garrett Johnson. Both players have flourished in their first year at GW, but have been in and out of the lineup recently due to injuries. Buchanan, in particular, has come into his own as the team’s second option behind Bishop, following behind him in points per game with 15.2 on 55.3 percent shooting, tying for first in rebounding average with 6.7 and averaging the second most assists per game with 2.2. Their absences have not only created gaps in the starting lineup but have thinned GW’s rotation. Against Saint Louis, Bishop and freshman guard Jacoi Hutchinson both played more than 37 minutes. The Revs’ losing streak marks the program’s longest since 2009, when the Karl Hobbs-coached squad dropped 11 straight. The team has four games left before heading to Brooklyn for the A-10 tournament. The Revs will welcome UMass (17-10, 8-7 A-10) for a matchup at the Smith Center on Tuesday at 7 p.m. An 81-67 loss at UMass marked the start of the Revs’ losing streak Jan. 20.
Cat-astrophe: Neighbors quarrel after resident takes beloved alley cat ERIKA FILTER NEWS EDITOR
SACHINI ADIKARI STAFF WRITER
A walk down I Street in historic Foggy Bottom used to result in an affectionate interaction with Kitty Snows, the alley cat who lives in the area. Normally, Kitty would present herself to be petted, nuzzling into an outstretched hand, or would flop into a lounging position on the sidewalk to soak up sun. Kitty Snows became a mini-celebrity of historic Foggy Bottom after she arrived in the neighborhood in 2021 as part of D.C.’s Blue Collar Cat program, which moves semi-feral cats into the city to help control the rat population. Admirers created an Instagram fan account for Kitty (the account is managed by a former Hatchet editor who lived in the area), and devotees to Kitty gave her food and water. But about two weeks ago, neighbors noticed that Kitty had disappeared. Fans desperate for answers put up posters seeking Kitty’s return and residents of the neighborhood spread awareness of the cat’s disappearance in emails and texts. Late last week, neighbors discovered Kitty had been taken. Local Barbara
SAGE RUSSELL | ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR Posters decrying the disappearance of Kitty Snows were posted throughout the historic Foggy Bottom neighborhood earlier this month.
Rohde took her into her home in the Watergate complex last month, alleging in conversations with The Hatchet that the neighbors tasked with caring for Kitty through the Blue Collar program had underfed her and neglected to treat her scabbing nose. Neighbors said they had kept Kitty up to date on vaccinations, fed her and took her to veterinary appointments for a nose condition, adding that they hope to see her return to the neighborhood. Rohde said she and her dog walker took Kitty to her veterinarian after noticing scabbing on her nose for several months, resulting in a $300 bill. She said the veterinarian told her Kitty could not return to the streets.
“She had no water, she had no food,” Rohde said. “Without my dog walker, she would not be alive.” Rohde said she is considering filing animal cruelty charges against the locals tasked with caring for Kitty, who she thinks violated the terms of her adoption. “They’re very, very aggressive in saying how wrong we are, and I just wish they would’ve spent a tenth of the time taking care of this poor little cat,” Rohde said. Blue Collar program participants must “provide daily food and clean water, shelter, and basic health care throughout the animal’s lifetime,” according to the Humane Rescue Alliance’s website. The Humane Rescue Alliance did
not immediately return a request for comment. Community members said Kitty is well taken care of by neighbors. Will Crane, a member of the Foggy Bottom Association, said he took Kitty to the vet in August, and the veterinarian said Kitty’s nose condition was a result of seasonal allergies, which resolved itself in the fall. He added that she is friendly with passersby and neighbors, who have reported Kitty attending fraternity parties in the area. “No joke, she’ll hang out at a frat party for a little bit, and like there’s 100 people in there, and she’ll just take off when she wants to,” Crane said. “She has a cat house, she has shelter, many people feed her, but she’s a working cat.” Kitty has a hutch on I Street near 25th Street, which another Blue Collar cat, Sylvester, also uses. Crane said Kitty is still semi-feral and someone like Rohde looking for a personal pet should adopt instead. “The cat is happy outside, the cat is healthy outside and the cat is very well protected and has several houses that she goes to,” Crane said. See RESIDENTS Page 3
When students were faced with an opportunity last year to reform the Joint Elections Commission, they voted to terminate the body as it was known for more than 30 years. The referendum, approved by 59 percent of voters in April, aimed to expand the JEC’s independence from the Student Government Association by requesting the SGA pen a bill revising the body’s bylaws. But what the SGA seemingly didn’t realize is that the referendum completely eliminated the commission from GW’s student government. On Feb. 5, the SGA passed a revision to reimplement the JEC and split the reformed body — a group of eight students who administer the SGA elections — into three governing branches: one to oversee the entirety of the JEC, one to implement rules and regulations and one to adjudicate disputes. The new structure will work to expand due process for candidates because, in previous years, the JEC was tasked with both passing rules about the election and enforcing them, which allegedly violated candidates’ rights to be protected from government interference. But delays to reorganizing the commission will push the scheduling of the upcoming SGA elections into April for the second year in a row, JEC members suspect. At least five people involved in the creation of the JEC’s new
bylaws said the SGA’s Office of Senate Legal Counsel was unaware of the need to reform the bylaws until former JEC Counsel Adam Galland brought it to the office’s attention in December, months after the referendum’s passing. Michael Ubis, who was confirmed in July as the JEC’s vice commissioner, said the constitutional amendment on the referendum last year moved the JEC from being a “fourth branch of government” to an independent regulatory agency under the executive branch. “Because it removed the JEC section part of the Constitution, the JEC was abolished and had to be reestablished,” Ubis said. Ubis said the restructuring halted regular operations of the JEC, leading to delays in scheduling the SGA election, which is supposed to be held at the end of March per JEC bylaws but will now be held in April. Ubis said these delays present repercussions for the JEC’s ability to function during election season because the body “probably” would have set election dates had the JEC continued this year under past bylaws. Last year, the JEC asked the senate to extend the March election deadline to new dates of April 5 and April 6 due to delays in appointing JEC commissioners. After barring three candidates from the ballot because of issues verifying candidates’ signatures about a month later, the JEC pushed back the election again to the next week of April 13 and April 14.
Cherished English professor, British romanticism scholar dies at 40 FIONA RILEY
ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
Daniel DeWispelare, a tenured associate professor of English, died late last month after teaching at GW for 12 years. He was 40. DeWispelare joined the English department in 2012, where he taught courses in British romanticism, literary and critical theory and the history of the English language. His colleagues and students remember him as a compassionate, brilliant and endlessly curious scholar who brought his passion for literature and travel to the classroom. “Right now we all feel like we can’t function without him,” said Robert McRuer, a pro-
fessor of English who helped the department hire DeWispelare. “We will band together and figure it out, but the loss feels that profound. He was an indispensable part of the community.” DeWispelare was born in Lakewood, Colorado, on July 15, 1983. He graduated summa cum laude from the University of Colorado at Boulder with a bachelor’s degree in English and history in 2005 and went on to earn a master’s and doctorate degree in comparative literature from the University of Pennsylvania in 2007 and 2011. He then taught at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey, for a year before coming to GW. See FACULTY Page 5
COURTESY OF ROBERT MCRUER Daniel DeWispelare, a tenured associate professor of English, smiles from a Phillips Hall office.