The GW
HATCHET
November 11, 2024 Vol. 121 Iss. 13
AN INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER • SERVING THE GW COMMUNITY SINCE 1904 • ONLINE AT GWHATCHET.COM
KAIDEN J. YU | ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR An attendee at Kamala Harris’s concession speech on Wednesday turns her head away.
JORDAN TOVIN | ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR Members of GW College Republicans march toward the White House on election night.
TRUMP’S RETURN IGNITES GRIEF, ELATION Students weigh future of democracy, economy in Trump’s second term FIONA BORK
SENIOR STAFF WRITER
RORY QUEALY NEWS EDITOR
Less than 12 hours after polls closed on Election Day, news outlets began declaring Donald Trump the nation’s 47th president. Blocks away from the White House, some GW students celebrated the Republican Party’s victory while many others grappled with their disappointment and fear of Trump winning a second term in the Oval Office. More than 20 students said they were surprised by the former president’s sweeping victory, with some hoping his economic policies will lower costs and others worrying he will threaten democracy, citizens’ financial stability and reproductive rights. Trump centered his campaign on immigration and the economy, agenda items that appeared to resonate with the majority of Americans as the former president secured a victory in the electoral college and the popular vote, breaking down the “blue wall” and winning all seven battleground states. First-year Max Schwartzman watched the election results late Tuesday night at the GW College Republicans watch party in the University Student Center Amphitheater, which he said was full of “excitement” all night. “It was just so electric,” Schwartzman said.
When Trump clinched the election early Wednesday morning, Schwartzman said GW Republicans celebrated with a late-night march to the White House and then to the National Mall, during which they wore Trump hats and carried signs. Schwartzman said he expects Trump will lower prices that have climbed during President Joe Biden’s term, when the country faced a peak inflation rate of 9.1 percent in 2022 that settled to 2.4 percent in September. Junior Victoria Carlson, the GWCR’s chairwoman, said the watch party lasted until 4 a.m. and reached a 50-person peak, adding that people became more “rowdy” when Sen. Deb Fischer (R-NE) won a third term in the Senate, securing a Republican majority in the upper chamber. Carlson said she is hopeful Trump’s presidency will lower costs for Americans and tighten up the borders to minimize drug trafficking and crime. “One of the big questions that he would ask around his whole campaign is ‘Do you feel like you’re better off today than four years ago?’” Carlson said. “And a lot of people for them, the answer is no, and those are the people that ended up voting for Trump.” The energy at GW College Democrats’ simultaneous watch party in the student center Tuesday night started hopeful, with the
roughly 150-person crowd buzzing with anticipation for a potential Kamala Harris presidency, according to GW Democrats Chief of Staff Logan Olszewski. But between 11 p.m. and midnight, attendees began to “see the writing on the wall” and disappointment swept through the room when news outlets began projecting Trump’s victory, Olszewski said. Olszewski said he’s worried that Trump could threaten democracy by putting political appointees in bureaucratic positions who serve his personal interests instead of those outlined in the U.S. Constitution. Junior Emily-Anne Santiago, the programming director for GW College Democrats from Florida, said Trump’s second win against a female candidate shows that the nation doesn’t believe a woman should be in power. She said she was disappointed in the Latino voter turnout for Trump — as he received about 45 percent of Latino votes, a 13 percent increase from 2020 — adding that the voting bloc chose the prospect of economic gain over the risk of deportation. “Yeah, your eggs might be cheaper, but at what cost? If your family members are being deported, if your friends are being deported,” Santiago said. “I always say jokingly, but who knows, that he would sell Puerto Rico for a donut. You know what I mean? He doesn’t care about us. Truly.”
Scenes from a dark election night outside the White House JACKSON LANZER STAFF WRITER
NICK PERKINS CULTURE EDITOR
As the hour passed from 11 p.m. to midnight on Election Day, the White House was dark. The massive black metal gates and wooden platform for the media obscured any sight of light from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. as it was becoming clear that former President Donald Trump would be elected as the 47th president. Outside, a handful of supporters of the former president and a trio of people supporting his losing opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, exchanged barbs with each other as the stars shone through the dark more than the District’s light pollution tends to allow. The words between the dueling supporters degraded into personal insults, from attacks on their appearances to racial and homophobic slurs hurled by both sides. But perhaps this was to be expected, given the vicious barbs the major political leaders threw at each other all election cycle. An impromptu protest that felt more like a YouTube comment section was almost a natural step from the present-day political arena. At 1:24 a.m., just as news outlets called Pennsylvania for Trump, a man with a “Harris-Walz” sign and a megaphone and a group of Trump supporters wearing
MAGA hats erupted into an arguing match over the night’s results. The latter cheered as they heard about the Pennsylvania results, proudly declaring they were Puerto Ricans for Trump. “Kill yourself, kill yourself,” the Harris supporter responded to their hooting and hollering over his megaphone. “Shut your gay *ss up,” one of the Trump supporters yelled back. Derek Torstenson, the Harris supporter with the megaphone, said he came to D.C. from Colorado Springs, Colorado, where he works as a server, to tell Trump supporters he wouldn’t stand for them taking away his rights. Torstenson said the method by which he took that stand was yelling anything and everything over his megaphone. “I’m here to yell, scream, anything, profanity,” he said, seemingly not considering if berating his opponents as bigots contradicted Vice President Harris’ campaign slogan of “A New Way Forward.” Torstenson is a frequent protester in D.C. and has a history of altercations with conservative activists and law enforcement. In 2021, Torstenson — or at least a man with the same first and last name — was charged for assaulting a police officer in D.C. during a demonstration, and in 2023, Torstenson called for counterprotests against an anti-abortion student group
at Citrus College, to which the president of the group threatened “I’ll send the proudboys after U.” Torstenson continued his mission on election night, yelling at the Trump supporters — who said they were first-generation immigrants — to go back to their country of birth. The MAGA group stayed outside Lafayette Square, across from the White House, and a member who declined to provide his name said they were there for one reason. “Trump,” he said. The supporter said he wanted Trump to win every single state in the country because he believes he will create more jobs. “We need jobs,” he said. “People who work hard, who are here. They need jobs.” At 1:25 a.m., a group of five Christian activists marched past the White House, chanting Jesus’ name. One carried a lightup cross twice his height, while another hauled a nonilluminated cross. Another member of the fivesome wore a flashing cross chain and held a sign meant to look like an iPhone screen, reading “Jesus Calling,” another carrying a MAGAesque flag in the style of a Trump campaign sign that read “JESUS: Make America Godly Again.” After 10 minutes, the cross disappeared around the corner of the White House. See PROTESTERS Page 7
Officials deliver update on MFA finances to Faculty Senate in private session HANNAH MARR NEWS EDITOR
TYLER IGLESIAS
ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
Faculty senators went into a closed-door session Friday to hear a report on the financial status of the Medical Faculty Associates, a group that owes more than $250 million to GW. Faculty Senate Operations Coordinator Liz Carlson told the senate via email a day before the meeting that she moved Chief Financial Officer Bruno Fernandes’ MFA report to the top of the agenda after discussions with him, the senate’s Fiscal Planning & Budgeting Committee Chair Susan Kulp and Executive Committee Chair Ilana Feldman. In a second, unsigned email sent less than two hours before the meeting’s scheduled start time, the senate office said the meeting would begin in executive session, meaning all nonsenate and nonadministrative attendees would not be admitted. Dean of Students Colette Coleman, Vice Provost for Enrollment and Student Success Jay Goff, Vice President for Safety and Operations Baxter Goodly and Executive Director of Media Relations Shannon McClendon were among the officials that left the meeting after senators went into executive session. The email told attendees to expect 45 minutes for the closed-door portion of the meeting, but the executive session lasted roughly an hour and a half.
University spokesperson Julia Metjian said a faculty senator made a motion for executive session, which was voted and approved by the senate. She said executive sessions are usually held when there is a need for a “closed or confidential discussion” with administrators and faculty senators. Metjian said the MFA has been working to reduce its budget deficits, but persistent losses point to “deep and systemic challenges.” She said Bill Elliott, the MFA’s new CEO, is working to address the MFA’s issues “comprehensively” as they aim to build a “sustainable clinical practice” that supports both the District’s health and wellbeing and provides a training setting for GW’s medical students. “While external factors have played a role, internal structure and operations are also contributing factors,” Metjian said in an email. The financial status of the MFA — a group of physicians and faculty from the School of Medicine & Health Sciences and GW Hospital that owes more than $250 million to GW — has been a source of frequent conflict between officials and faculty senators as faculty have long pressured the University to evaluate the MFA’s financial losses and their potential effects on GW’s “underfunded areas.” Fernandes typically delivers the MFA’s fiscal year update at the Faculty Senate’s October meeting. In last year’s report, he said the MFA wouldn’t pay back its $200 million debt to the University by the end
of FY2024 and projected it would instead lose between $30 to $50 million this fiscal year, walking back GW’s profit projections for the second year in a row. Senators moved into executive session in February to discuss the MFA’s Q2 financial report at Feldman’s suggestion. At the time, Jennifer Brinkerhoff, a faculty senator, asked Feldman about the status of filling in faculty not in the senate about the MFA’s finances. After the MFA granted GW full governing power over the enterprise in 2018, the organization lost more than $43 million in FY2020 and another $49 million the next year. The nonprofit group of doctors, nurses and health care staff used to break even, sometimes exceeding expenses by millions. Officials initially attributed the enterprise’s losses on the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and have maintained that they can revive the organization’s financial viability, despite former MFA leaders’ comments that the enterprise should be financially stable by now. After the senate ended executive session Friday, University President Ellen Granberg said the third-party firm that officials hired last month to investigate GW Police Department’s training protocols and safety and compliance measures taken by the department during the arming process are “on campus,” and “engaging in interviews.” Officials hired the third-party firm after former GWPD officers in late September reported gun safety
RAPHAEL KELLNER | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Chief Financial Officer Bruno Fernandes at a November Faculty Senate meeting.
violations, insufficient firearms training and a poor working environment that led to high turnover within the department in the past year, but officials declined to say which firm they hired. Granberg said officials “widened the scope” of the firm’s investigation, adding that officials expect a final report at the end of 2024 or the beginning of 2025. She did not specify why officials widened the scope of the investigation or what the third party is now additionally investigating but confirmed the investigation is not determining if officials should unarm the force. Granberg also said officials intend to distribute a report to the community once the third party completes the investigation. She
said she’s not aware of any conversations with the Board of Trustees — who approved the department’s arming in 2023 — about potentially unarming the force. “I am not aware right now of conversations within the trustees about this, I think everybody’s awaiting the results of what we’re looking at now,” Granberg said. Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs Rumana Riffat also delivered her annual salary equity review progress report, which identified schools with potential faculty salary outliers that officials need to adjust to make more equitable. She said the Columbian College of Arts & Sciences saw the largest number of outliers, with 24 and said officials made 16 adjustments.