The independent newspaper of Washington University in St. Louis since 1878 THURSDAY, MARCH 9, 2023
VOLUME 144, NO. 18
STUDENT UNION
Coverage into funding requests and policy changes. (News, pg 2)
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Men’s basketball concludes season at NCAA second round
Researchers publish article rebuking allegations of malpractice at Transgender Center AVI HOLZMAN JULIA ROBBINS SENIOR NEWS EDITOR EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
From the opening minutes, the Bears NCAA second-round game against the Vikings wasn’t easy. North Park opened the scoring with a quick three after rebounding WashU’s first attack of the game. But after that first initial bucket, the game went from zero to 100 in a second. In one of the most interesting defensive playing styles of basketball, the Vikings brought a zone full-court press on WashU, retaining a defensive style throughout much of the game, especially in the final three minutes. The intense pressure of their full-court press prevented the WashU offensive engine from starting, and in the process, greatly increased the tempo of the game that played to their advantage through forced turnovers — 21 turnovers in the
A Washington University professor and UCLA researcher co-authored an article highlighting the importance of gender-affirming care for transgender youth as the University continues to investigate allegations of malpractice at the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, Feb. 24. Jeremy Goldbach, a Professor in Sexual Health and Education at Washington University, and Shannon Dunlap, a researcher at the University of California Los Angeles, published their article titled “Trans Kids Need Access to Evidence-Based Care” on the website of the Clark-Fox Policy Institute, which is part of the Brown School of Social Work. They wrote their article in response to an opinion piece by Jamie Reed, a former case worker at the Center, called “I thought I was saving trans kids. Now I’m blowing the whistle,” in which Reed alleged malpractice at the Center, called for a moratorium on the Center’s services, and voiced general opposition to the gender-affirming healthcare for transgender minors that the Center provides. Her opinion piece led the Attorney General of Missouri, Andrew Bailey, and the office of Missouri Senator Josh Hawley to start investigations into the clinic. The University is also conducting an internal review of practices at the Center. These claims and subsequent investigations generated blowback from researchers and supporters of gender-affirming healthcare. In their article, and in follow-up conversations with Student Life, Goldbach and Dunlap outlined their arguments against Reed’s article, and warned of the “myths” they argue are apparent in Reed’s writing. Neither Goldbach nor Dunlap have a direct relationship with the Center, but they have over two decades of cumulative clinical and research experience related to transgender and queer youth. Goldbach said they wanted to publish an article that provided context and research into the
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CLARA RICHARDS | STUDENT LIFE
Sophomore Drake Kindsvater puts points on the board for WashU in the March 4 second-round game against North Park University.
CLARA RICHARDS HUSSEIN AMURI MANAGING EDITOR JUNIOR SPORTS EDITOR The gym was crowded, the lights were on, and the bleachers were shaking all game over the stomps of students yelling “Defense! Defense!” But in one of the most electric and competitive games the Francis Gymnasium has seen in the past 12 months, the No. 18 Washington University men’s basketball team lost to No. 19 North Park University in an agonizing and excoriating 72-69 defeat. “When the ball stops bouncing for the season, you’re never quite prepared for it,” head coach Pat Juckem said. “It’s pretty raw, still. Painful, and a lot of credit to North Park. They’re a tough basketball team, and a tough group of young men. I’m just washed over with pride from ... our group of young men.” With the loss, the Bears concluded the season with a record of 20-7 and officially exited the 2023 NCAA Men’s Division III basketball tournament. The Bears were led by graduate student
Charlie Jacob who finished with a team-high of 15 points and four rebounds. Sophomore Hayden Doyle helped himself to 13 points, dropped six assists, and grabbed five rebounds. First-years Yogi Oliff and Will Grudzinski shined on the biggest stage of college basketball as they each finished with 11 points respectively. “I’ll tell you what — you can’t find a better group of guys out there,” senior Kevin Davet said. “I’ve had an absolute blast at this for years, more fun than I’ve had in my whole life. It’s not because of basketball, but that’s because of the team that we have.”
Friday, March 3 first round against Coe Head coach Pat Juckem had gone by the strategy of winning by committee since November. “We’re pretty egalitarian,” Juckem explained. “Different guys, different nights — that’s the strength of this group.” Some days, it was sophomore Drake Kindsvater with the steal and crowd-raising dunk. Other times, it was the fadeaway shots from Doyle that were unstoppable. On Friday night, in
front of a rowdy fieldhouse, it was big man Davet whose presence under the net circumvented Coe College’s defensive efforts. He scored a career-high 20 points in the Bears’ 69-48 opening-round win over Coe. “Getting deep seals was working well, something where I didn’t have to do a dribble or make a move,” Davet said. “And working off our guards — getting into action and getting them open —usually helps me as well.” Through the first 10 minutes, the game stayed even, with the group shooting 36% from beyond the arc in the first half. Juckem re-affirmed the team’s defense at halftime, emphasizing the ability of the group to get to the third and fourth touches. The group headed into the second quarter shooting with unbreakable confidence, landing four out of eight threes and limiting Coe to 21 points in the second. The underclassmen duo of Kindsvater and Doyle supported with double-digit scoring efforts with Kindsvater racking up 10 rebounds. “Even though there may be some young [players] chronologically or academically,
they’re kind of grizzled veterans at this point,” Juckem said. “It’s an accumulation of what they’ve learned along the way.”
Saturday, March 4 second round against North Park
Laura Levitt gives lecture on ‘Objects that Remain’ JOEL SWIRNOFF
CONTRIBUTING WRITER Laura Levitt, author and professor of Religion, Jewish Studies, and Gender at Temple University, spoke about her book “The Objects That Remain” in a lecture hosted by the Danforth Center on Religion and Politics on March 6. Levitt has written several books on Jewish studies and feminism, and has taught at Temple since 1992. There, she has chaired the Religion Department, and currently chairs the Committee on Sexual Misconduct for the Association for Jewish Studies. Around 40 people attended the lecture in Washington University’s
Umrath Lounge where Levitt explained why she wrote her most recent book, “The Objects That Remain.” She described the connections she found between the preservatory work done for objects involved in the Holocaust and objects in custody of the criminal justice system. Levitt also provided a basic understanding of what these objects offer people today and how they should be treated. “Objects that remain in places like the Holocaust Museum or in police storage and the stories that surround them enable us to do justice,” she said. “Once ordinary objects now enable a form of intimacy and companionship, a different kind of reckoning through holding and telling stories and
sharing them with others.” Levitt emphasized the importance of caring for objects involved in traumatic and violent experiences by saying they “help us reconstruct lives after trauma and loss.” She began considering the importance of these items after reading the works of Maggie Nelson, a writer, and Edmund De Waal, a potter and author. Levitt said that Nelson and De Waal’s work had a significant impact on her. “They were writing in a way that made sense to me,” she said. “I use my reading of [their] works to tell my own story.” According to Levitt, Nelson’s book Jane: A Murder, a collection of poems written to Nelson’s aunt
who was murdered before she was born, catalyzed this realization; in Nelson’s aunt’s case, multiple objects from the night of the murder were brought to court as evidence. “I found that shocking and strange, and I had not thought about my own clothes and bedding that were taken by the police as evidence,” she said, regarding her experience with police after she was raped by an intruder into her home. Although the objects involved in Levitt’s rape were lost, she understood that their existence brought out the importance of caring for objects that remain, whether they are related to trauma or not. “Only by attending to my own, abiding love for things and the terrible legacy of my own lost
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evidence could I begin to appreciate what it meant to have choices to be able to decide what to do with our possessions.” As she was reading Nelson and De Waal’s work, Levitt found contrasts between the amount of care given to objects by the criminal justice system and those working to preserve Holocaust-related objects. To Levitt, Holocaust preservation work was a “sacred labor.” “Objects cannot survive without human attention,” she continued. She accompanied these words with pictures of how objects involved in the Holocaust are handled, emphasizing the use of climatecontrolled rooms and gloves. In
SEE LEVITT, PAGE 5