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(05/14/18 2:37am)
Graduation is stressful. Graduates have a million things to remember, from booking hotels for our families to making dinner reservations, picking up our caps and gowns and checking that we’ve met all our academic requirements. In the insanity of our last few months at the University, it’s often easier not to question the way things have been done before or the way things are being done this year. But when it comes to the issue of selling off extra graduation tickets, we owe it to ourselves and our University to question what has been done in the past. No one who has criticized elitism at the University or cared at all about making these Grounds more equitable and accessible should feel comfortable charging money for graduation tickets. If you are fortunate enough to have extra graduation tickets, please give them away, and give a fellow student the gift of having an extra loved one watch them wear the honors of Honor.
(04/12/18 4:42am)
The University never forgets April 13. Each year, the University commemorates Jefferson’s birthday with ceremonies, celebrations and other traditions to recognize and re-evaluate its founder’s legacy. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with commemorating Thomas Jefferson and his work at the University, the indomitable consistency of our Founder’s Day celebrations should prompt us this year to consider other days worthy of the same dependable collective action.
(02/26/18 2:47am)
Luca Guadagnino’s “Call Me by Your Name” has been called “a film to rush to, and to then savor every minute of.” Nominated for three Golden Globes and four Academy Awards, the movie follows 17-year-old Elio Perlman (Timotheé Chalamet) over the course of his breathtaking and surreal summer romance with Oliver (Armie Hammer), his father’s graduate student assistant. Though “Call Me by Your Name” has been praised for its queer narrative, the film fails in its attempt at queer representation by casting straight actors as its two LGBTQ protagonists. Such a casting decision cannot be relegated to the realm of “artistic choice” or accepted as inherently benign. Rather, such choices are detrimental to queer actors struggling in a discriminatory industry and lose important opportunities to validate the queer experience.
(01/29/18 8:08pm)
There were many memorable moments at the 2018 Golden Globes, but Oprah Winfrey’s acceptance of the Cecil B. DeMille Award stood out most of all. At a time when our national discourse is too often demoralizing, Winfrey offered a glimpse of rhetorical compassion and inspiration as she accepted a lifetime achievement award. Contrary to the dominant political commentary following the speech, however, she did not demonstrate the makings of our next president. No matter how tempting it is for Democrats to run “beloved” celebrities against Donald Trump in 2020, we must reject celebrity presidential candidates now and always. The presidency demands political experience, and any “outsider” president erodes the dignity and efficacy of our nation’s highest office.
(12/05/17 5:03am)
Last week, Cavalier Daily columnist Thomas Ferguson argued for the elimination of safe spaces at the University. Safe spaces, Ferguson argued, threaten our First Amendment right to free speech and hinder academic discourse at universities. One must hope that this appalling contortion of safe space theory comes from ignorance alone, rather than a willful decision to politicize students’ security. Whatever the intent, Ferguson earns partisan points with his article while threatening the safety of queer and minority students, as well as the survivors of trauma. Safe spaces have nothing to do with free speech and everything to do with protecting students from personal attacks and abuse.
(11/15/17 5:06am)
Trump’s America feels like a brave new world. For too long, American politics has been characterized by hyper-partisanship — the Pew Research Center found that ideological divisions between Republicans and Democrats reached record levels under the Obama administration. Since the election of President Donald Trump, those divisions have grown even wider and even more appalling to those wishing to engage in meaningful and respectful political discourse. Although Americans in general have trouble talking to each other, students at the University do not. Literary and debating organizations on Grounds do the important work of bringing together disparate ideological communities and hosting respectful, productive political dialogues. Students should engage with organizations like the Jefferson, Washington and Roosevelt Societies to embrace ideological diversity and practice constructive debate.
(10/31/17 2:56am)
The Fraternal Organization Agreement, or FOA, claims to value education. Each year, fraternal organizations in the Inter-Fraternity Council, Inter-Sorority Council, Multicultural Greek Council and National Pan-Hellenic Council commit to an FOA legal document to formalize their relationship with the University. Critical to this agreement is the requirement that fraternal organizations attend six educational programs over the course of the year, learning about anything from sexual assault education to personal health and nutrition. Currently, however, there is no process by which fraternal organizations may be held accountable for engaging thoughtfully and respectfully with these educational programs. If the Office of the Dean of Students and Fraternity and Sorority Life genuinely values education, it will allow educators to evaluate fraternal organizations’ conduct and offer course credit accordingly.
(10/26/17 4:22am)
The language of political correctness remains a critical component of minority advocacy efforts. Incorporating empathy and understanding for the politically marginalized into our language –– as political correctness aims to do –– demonstrates concern for the comfort of others. Conservatives’ all-too-frequent attacks on political correctness should not lead liberals to abandon their appreciation for linguistic nuance. Instead, we should first acknowledge the true intentions of political correctness with the goal of diminishing its overly politicized status. Moreover, liberals should interpret attacks on political correctness as indicators of the need for education. There is no excuse for those who are willfully politically incorrect. Not all Americans, however, have access to multicultural education. Those who mean well and still make linguistic mistakes should be met with empathy in their own right rather than judgement.
(10/17/17 3:12am)
The University has long needed a more engaged network of allies for its minority and marginalized communities. Last year, more allies should have attended the Queer Student Union’s February march to support transgender rights. More allies should have written messages of support on the Eliminate the Hate campaign’s “Love Speech” walls, and this year, more allies should attend the UndocuAlly Trainings hosted by DREAMers on Grounds. The fact that white supremacists returned to Charlottesville on Oct. 7 only makes this need more obvious. No, we shouldn’t be surprised at the presence of hateful ideologies in our community. But that hatred’s growing confidence should prompt every student to commit more seriously to the pursuit of justice at the University and in Charlottesville, especially if they’ve considered themselves allies before.
(10/10/17 3:31am)
There is much to criticize about the Concert for Charlottesville. Last Sunday, the activist organization Solidarity Cville came out with a strong condemnation of the weekend’s unity concert in response to the acts of terror committed by white supremacists on Aug. 11 and 12. Declaring “No Unity Without Justice,” they called for a greater focus on rejecting white supremacy and questioned the leadership of individuals like University President Teresa Sullivan and Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer. Many of these important criticisms, however, were driven by an implicit suggestion that students can only respond to Aug. 11 and 12 with direct action. We should have nothing but respect for those who put their bodies on the line to resist systemic oppression. But we must never stop respecting other forms of resistance as well.
(09/26/17 3:17am)
Criticizing identity politics is in vogue. Conservatives might concede that identity politics is well-intentioned, but they argue that it’s also critically misguided –– ignoring class and isolating Americans who feel forgotten by a nation careening toward a cosmopolitan future. Identity politics brought us President Donald Trump, they’d argue. Identity politics brought us Brexit, too, and brought white supremacists fuming to the University’s doorstep.