The GW
HATCHET
January 13, 2025 Vol. 121 Iss. 16
AN INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER • SERVING THE GW COMMUNITY SINCE 1904 • ONLINE AT GWHATCHET.COM
For students from New Orleans, a New Year’s Day shadowed by violence RYAN J. KARLIN
CONTRIBUTING NEWS EDITOR
ARWEN CLEMANS | ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR Office of Conflict Education & Student Accountability Director Christy Anthony at a Faculty Senate meeting Friday
Faculty senators urge officials to enlist professors for disciplinary panels as participation wanes HANNAH MARR NEWS EDITOR
JENNA LEE
ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
Faculty senators Friday unanimously extended temporary changes made to the Code of Academic Integrity last year and pressed officials to be more active in finding and recruiting professors to sit on student disciplinary panels. The Faculty Senate Educational Policy and Technology Committee co-chair Sarah Wagner and Office of Conflict Education & Student Accountability Director Christy Anthony proposed prolonging last year’s temporary reduction in the number of people required at student conduct panels and the elimination of the rule that panels must convene for proposed sanctions less severe than suspension. Faculty senators supported the extension and encouraged Provost Chris Bracey to recruit more faculty for the panels to address a backlog in student disciplinary cases. Students who challenge academic integrity violations are required to attend a student conduct panel
which includes one student and one faculty member selected from a pool of trained members, unless they receive a warning. Before last year’s panel reduction, a full panel consisted of two faculty and three students. Last year, Anthony said artificial intelligence misuse, which is typically categorized as a cheating violation under the code, has contributed to the rise in cases because faculty are checking for AI use and reporting more students. Cynthia Core, a faculty senator and a professor of speech, language and hearing sciences, suggested that the University should mandate serving on the panels as part of faculty member’s service requirements. She said she has served on panels previously and filed a recent grievance that took three semesters to resolve due to the lack of faculty serving on the panels. “It was excruciating to me, to the students, it diminished their experience at the University,” Core said. “It created bitterness among the student group toward our faculty.” Phil Wirtz, a faculty senator and a professor of decision sciences and psychological and brain sci-
ences, said he’s heard from his colleagues that there’s a “general misunderstanding” among faculty members that the University is in need of professors to sit on the conduct panels. Don Parsons, a faculty senator and a professor of economics, said some faculty may not like being obligated to serve on panels and suggested the University should instead identify incentives like monetary encouragement to persuade faculty to sit on the panels. “As labor economists suggest, look the other way, look for incentives,” Parsons said. “If you’ve talked to deans and there are deans that don’t care about encouraging people to do that in salary or otherwise, then you talk to the provost and have him talk to the dean about incentive set-ups.” Anthony — whose appearance on Friday marked her return from a leave of absence during the fall when she took a leadership position for the Semester at Sea program — said at the meeting that she has a “few concerns” with mandating faculty service because professors in the past have reneged on past promises to sit on the panels, which
complicates scheduling. She said faculty participation is also challenging because the panels typically take about two hours and the University prohibits adjunct faculty members from serving on the panels, shrinking the pool of eligible faculty. In response to a question from Wirtz, University President Ellen Granberg said the University is working with Universal Health Services — which owns GW Hospital and has partnered with the District to open a medical care facility in Southwest D.C. — to renegotiate the University’s 2021 agreement with UHS regarding the number of physicians the University will provide to the hospital. The University pledged in the original negotiation to staff the Cedar Hill Regional Medical Center GW Health with 160 Medical Faculty Associates physicians. The MFA is a group of physicians and faculty from the School of Medicine and Health Science and GW Hospital and has faced continuous financial losses in recent years, rounding out FY2024 with a deficit of more than $107 million. See FACULTY Page 5
As she arrived home after a night of celebration on New Orleans’ bustling Bourbon Street, sophomore Ana Claire Hanley looked at her phone to see that a deadly attack had occurred right where she had been ringing in the new year with her friends just moments before. At 3:15 a.m. on New Year’s Day, a man intentionally drove a rented pickup truck into a crowd of pedestrians on the street — a popular destination in the city’s French Quarter — killing 14 people and injuring dozens more. The FBI is investigating the attack as an “act of terrorism” after finding an ISIS flag in the attacker’s truck, but the Islamic State has not taken responsibility for the attack as of Sunday. Hanley, a political science student from the city’s uptown, said she had walked out of the French Quarter minutes before and was heading home when she heard of an accident that occurred on Bourbon Street through news articles and text messages. Having worked in the French Quarter years ago and understanding that the area could be “hectic” due to its high crime rate, Hanley said she initially assumed a drunk driver caused the accident. “No one really knew the magnitude of what was going on in the moment,” Hanley said. When she read news reports and heard the mayor speak about the incident, Hanley said she started “piecing everything together” regarding what had occurred
on Bourbon Street. About five hours after the truck collision, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell said the city had experienced a “terrorist attack” and asked for prayers for those who had been killed. The suspect was killed in a shootout with local police shortly after the collision. “It was just really shocking, there’s no other way to describe it,” Hanley said. Hanley said in the days that followed, she learned the suspect had reportedly placed an IED — which did not detonate — in a fried chicken restaurant that she had entered that night. The FBI said on Jan. 3 that the suspect intended to detonate two IEDs he hid on Bourbon Street with a transmitter found in his truck. “I was standing in one of the shops that they found an IED in, which was pretty jarring,” she said. Hanley said she was “disappointed” in city officials’ handling of the attack because she felt they “prioritized” the Sugar Bowl — a college football playoff game — over citizens’ safety. Federal, state and local officials postponed the game from Jan. 1 to Jan. 2 as locals remained uncertain and panicked about the safety of Bourbon Street and the French Quarter after the truck collision, she said. “They were more concerned about packing a Superdome full of people than like the 15 people and their families that just lost their lives, or the livelihood of all the people that were going and wanted to go experience New Orleans,” Hanley said. See STUDENTS Page 5
COURTESY OF PEDRO SZEKELY UNDER CREATIVE COMMONS Pedestrians walk down Bourbon Street in New Orleans in 2018.
GW could face intensified federal scrutiny in Trump’s second term: experts GIANNA JAKUBOWSKI REPORTER
GW’s location in the heart of D.C. could subject the University to heightened scrutiny from Presidentelect Donald Trump as he enters his second term vowing to repress proPalestinian protests and diversity initiatives on college campuses, experts said. Trump has proposed several education policy changes, including cracking down on pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campus, eliminating President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness programs, reversing diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at the federal level and dismantling the Department of Education. Higher education policy experts said given GW’s location blocks from the White House, the University could face heightened levels of federal scrutiny, although there’s a slim chance the Republican-controlled executive and legislative branch will approve extensive changes to higher education. University spokesperson Shannon McClendon said officials will continue to collaborate with partners across higher education over the next four years to ensure the University is accessible and offers opportunities for prospective students. She declined to say whether GW plans to retain or bring on outside consultants during Trump’s second term to navigate potential higher education policy changes. Officials hired a lobbying firm last May after the House of Representatives Oversight Committee called on D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and Metropolitan Police Department Chief Pamela Smith to testify about reports that they denied GW’s requests to clear the pro-Palestinian encampment in University Yard last spring.
University President Ellen Granberg said in September that officials hired the firm to ensure they didn’t create a “bigger issue” because the University doesn’t have sufficient connections to manage a “situation” between lawmakers and administration. McClendon said the University monitors the “federal regulatory landscape” and will continue to assess potential policy changes that would impact the University. She said GW will provide resources to support “impacted members” of the GW community. “Our proximity in the heart of the nation’s capital provides the University a unique level of access to leaders as well as the opportunity to continue to demonstrate the vital role of higher education institutions,” McClendon said. John Aubrey Douglass, a senior research fellow of public policy and higher education at the University of California, Berkeley, said Trump’s current agenda and threats for universities like GW are “opaque.” He said Trump has presented some policies that could have a large impact on students and faculty, but others are “less worrisome” in terms of policy and money. “It seems that the verbal attacks and threats we have seen thus far from Trump and Vance on universities as leftist, elite bastions will continue as it appears to work for them politically,” Douglass said in an email. Here’s how some of Trump’s proposed education policies could impact the University:
Pro-Palestinian protests
GW became a lightning rod for congressional scrutiny over the University’s handling of proPalestinian protests on campus, its proximity to the White House and
LEXI CRITCHETT | ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR President-elect Donald Trump applauds as the crowd cheers for him at the Republican National Convention in July.
Congress appearing to draw the attention of Republican leaders. Trump said he plans to crack down on pro-Palestinian demonstrations on all university campuses in his next term, potentially using his office to push federal investigations onto protesters and deport protesters, which some free speech and civil rights groups say would limit free speech and censor students. As president, Trump has the federal authority to direct the Department of Justice to investigate protests that involve violations of federal law or national security concerns. However, he does not have the authority to directly regu-
late protests or speech on private university campuses, as they are not subject to the same public institution standards under the First Amendment. The University faced pressure from House Republicans to clear the pro-Palestinian encampment last spring and arrest student protesters after six Republican House Oversight Committee members visited U-Yard and called on Bowser and Smith to testify about their handling of campus protests. In October, the House’s Committee on Education and Workforce released a report criticizing GW and 10 other schools for an alleged “stunning
lack of accountability” for students who trespassed, damaged property, violated University policies and exhibited alleged antisemitism. Ben Cecil — a senior education policy adviser at Third Way, a national center-left think tank — said because GW is in the “backyard of the White House,” the University must consider the “competing interests” between the University and Trump administration and pledge to protect free speech on campus while also trying not to be a “target of ire” from the White House or Congress. See ADMINISTRATION Page 5