The GW
HATCHET
November 17, 2025 Vol. 122 Iss. 14
AN INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER • SERVING THE GW COMMUNITY SINCE 1904 • ONLINE AT GWHATCHET.COM
Students warn stalled DEI initiatives, downplayed messaging signal rollback ELIJAH EDWARDS
ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
Students say GW’s subtle rollback of several diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives since President Donald Trump launched a national crackdown on campus DEI, coupled with officials omitting diversity terminology in messaging, indicates the University is yielding to federal pressure. As Trump moves to strip federal dollars from universities with DEI programs, signing executive orders and opening investigations nationwide, students say GW’s reluctance to champion its own initiatives signals the University is buckling under federal pressure and retreating from their oncetouted commitments. In recent months, GW has paused or scaled back several diversity initiatives — halting the search for the Office of Diversity, Equity and Community Engagement’s top post, shuttering the law school’s DEI website and twice postponing the University’s annual diversity summit — actions students said officials are attempting to downplay by removing diversity language from marketing materials
and softening public messaging around DEI. Darianny Bautista, the Student Government Association’s director for student advocacy, said she’s noticed officials are less willing to explicitly promote DEI initiatives in advertisements and on-campus events, even if they privately express support for the goal of bringing diverse perspectives and backgrounds to the University community. Bautista said officials’ reluctance to promote DEI became clear earlier this year when communications officials wanted to remove a line in a “Revolutionary Tales” video identifying her as the SGA Senate’s first DEI director, a position she held last year because it would be “bad for marketing.” She said she strongly resisted the request, and officials ultimately kept the line in the video. “I fought, even when they were putting out that short documentary about me, to make sure that every single part of who I am, especially on this campus, was being properly put out,” Bautista said. A University spokesperson declined to comment on whether GW’s marketing team has been
GRA[HIC BY AN NGO
directed by officials to avoid referencing DEI in their materials. The spokesperson said the Uni-
versity aims to ensure its marketing represents the entire student body and accurately reflects com-
Faculty Senate replaces Executive Committee chair, fills three committee seats after turmoil
munity experiences. See OFFICIALS Page 5
ARJUN SRINIVAS
Student groups rebuke RFK Jr.’s controversial policies ahead of GW talk
GIANNA JAKUBOWSKI
RYAN SAENZ
ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
The Faculty Senate unanimously elected a new Executive Committee chair Friday, after the former chair resigned last month at the request of several committee members. The Faculty Senate elected Guillermo Orti to serve as FSEC chair for the remainder of the academic year after former Chair and Columbian College of Arts & Sciences Representative Katrin Schultheiss resigned last month at the request of six committee representatives. The Faculty Senate also unanimously elected Orti as the CCAS representative to the FSEC, along with Tarek El-Ghazawi as the School of Engineering & Applied Sciences representative and David Mendelowitz as the School of Medicine & Health Sciences representative — a move that followed the disappearance of the previous SEAS and SMHS representatives from the senate’s website after last month’s meeting. A heated debate at last month’s meeting over the FSEC’s request that Schultheiss step down as chair revealed that six of nine committee representatives asked her to resign instead of proceeding with an alleged threat to hold a vote of no confidence. The three FSEC members who opposed calls for Schultheiss’ resignation criticized the other members’ request and prompted faculty senator Jamie Cohen-Cole to draft a resolution to remove all FSEC members from their positions, though the motion never reached a vote after the meeting lost quorum.
In the days since Turning Point USA Foggy Bottom and the GW College Republicans announced that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will speak at GW on Monday, several student groups have denounced the appearance as contrary to GW’s values. Turning Point Foggy Bottom and GW College Republicans on Thursday night announced that they’re hosting a fireside chat with Kennedy at Lisner Auditorium on Monday — a move that triggered a flurry of statements from partisan and non-partisan organizations condemning Kennedy’s stance on vaccines, abortion and other health policies in the hours and days after the two groups announced the event. Organizations like GW College Democrats, GW Democracy Matters and the Disabled Students Collective called on students to sign a petition launched by the DSC Friday morning, asking officials to bar Kennedy from speaking on campus, and some are helping plan the Democracy Matters’ protest outside the event. The petition has garnered 399 signatures as of Sunday. Zoe Zimmerman, vice president of the DSC, said
CONTRIBUTING NEWS EDITOR
See FACULTY Page 4
KAIDEN J. YU | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER The Faculty Senate’s new Executive Committee Chair Guillermo Orti at Friday’s meeting.
KAIDEN J. YU | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Faculty senators gathered at Friday’s Faculty Senate meeting.
MFA adds GW Hospital CEO to board in FY2024 restructuring: tax forms ARUSHI AGARWAL REPORTER
GIANNA JAKUBOWSKI ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
Medical Faculty Associates officials significantly changed the medical enterprise’s leadership structure in fiscal year 2024 by adding GW Hospital’s CEO to its Board of Trustees and eliminating a top MFA officer position, the institution’s tax filings from July 2023 through June 2024 show. The move to add GW Hospital’s CEO as an ex officio trustee to the MFA’s board in FY2024, along with eliminating a top officer position, expanding the eligibility WHAT’S
INSIDE
of physicians to become chair trustees and adding reports the board is required to review, came as officials were grappling with the institution’s highest annual loss since the University assumed control over the medical enterprise in 2018. The form also reveals MFA officials hired health care consulting firm BDC Advisors — which specializes in solving complex problems for medical enterprises — for the first time, paying them roughly $2 million between January 2023 and December 2023. The forms also show the MFA, a network of health care providers and faculty linked to GW’s medical school and hos-
NEWS Students report being more likely to engage in activism 300 days into President Donald Trump’s second term. Page 2
pital, lost more than $107 million in FY2024 and saw the enterprises’ loss total $344 million, though officials publicized that number last year in the University’s FY2024 consolidated financial statements. The move to add GW Hospital’s CEO to the MFA’s board of trustees predated officials’ last month announcement that they’d struck an initial deal with Universal Health Services, the owner and operator of GW Hospital, to co-fund the MFA as both parties continue to negotiate a final deal to end the University’s financial support of the medical enterprise. See MFA Page 5
the DSC spent the weekend coordinating with Democracy Matters and other organizations to protest the event, emphasizing that the groups are focusing on demonstrating rather than pushing for its cancellation as the DSC’s petition calls for. Zimmerman said the group has reached out to several GW faculty members for advice on how to protest the event effectively to avoid “administrative or outside retaliation” against students demonstrating. They also said officials at the Multicultural Student Services Center have offered their space on the fifth floor of the University Student Center for students to “decompress and process” during and after the event. “Our main concern is keeping all in assembly safe and informed, especially considering the undue response campus protestors have been met with from administration in the past few months, and this will include distributing protest rights guides the day of,” Zimmerman said. “We want to frame our protest not as attempting to cancel Kennedy’s event, which might be taken in bad faith as us attempting to suppress free speech, but instead using our own free speech to protest Kennedy’s presence on campus.”
GW, MFA dual trustees left one post amid governance shift, officials say HANNAH MARR MANAGING EDITOR
The two trustees who served on both the University and Medical Faculty Associates’ boards resigned from one board following the groups’ February decision to separate the two governing bodies, officials confirmed. The decision led thenGW Trustee Pam Lawrence to step down from the University’s board with less than four months left in her term to remain on the MFA’s board and Board of Trustees Vice Chair Mark Chichester to resign from the MFA’s board to retain his position on GW’s. Officials didn’t publi-
OPINIONS The Editorial Board argues it’s difficult to accept GW’s budget cuts on the promise of the University’s long-term stability. Page 4
ARWEN CLEMANS | SENIOR PHOTO EDITOR Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees Mark Chichester and Medical Faculty Associates Trustee Pamela Lawrence at a GW board meeting.
cize the move in February, only confirming the move in response to The Hatchet’s questions regarding Lawrence’s removal from the Board’s website before
CULTURE Meet the a cappella group offering GW students birthday serenades to the tune of Jeremih’s 2009 hit, “Birthday Sex.” Page 7
her term was up. Lawrence joined the Board in May 2021. Chichester has served on the board since 2013 according to his LinkedIn.
SPORTS Men’s basketball players describe their tattoos as a medium for self-expression amid the adversity they’ve faced. Page 8