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(03/13/17 4:07am)
The intensity of sports culture in American high-schools sets the U.S. apart from most of its peers around the world. Amanda Ripley, writing for The Atlantic, notes the high opportunity cost of financing such time-intensive and expensive sports programs, particularly for high-schools where resources are scarce. Although Ripley makes valid points about the opportunity cost of sports, she fails to take into account the extensive benefits of sports culture for high-school students. The predominance of sports teams at high-schools has the power to build character, create social capital and increase academic success.
(02/21/17 5:16am)
The push for redistricting reform has come to a close for the 2017 session of the Virginia General Assembly. Three Republican sponsored reform bills, each of which passed through the Senate with bipartisan support, were killed in the House Elections Subcommittee this past Tuesday when the seven member committee voted — on party lines — to pass by the bill indefinitely. The fault lies with particular Republicans in the House and the Senate, who have taken an aggressive anti-reform stance in order to secure their own seats and the seats of other party members in the face of changing demographic and political landscapes in the Commonwealth.
(02/14/17 5:14am)
The House of Delegates Tuesday passed a curtailed version of the Virginia Broadband Deployment Act, a bill which would have originally restricted municipal broadband initiatives in places where limited internet access is already available. The bill, introduced by Del. Kathy Byron (R-Lynchburg), would have stifled local efforts to provide broadband access and the economic development that could come with it. Furthermore, Byron’s motivations are questionable at best and unconscionable at worst. She’s not serving rural communities — she’s serving big companies like Verizon, Comcast and CenturyLink, all of which have made hefty campaign contributions to Byron in the past.
(01/18/17 4:08am)
In a Nov. 30 letter, state Senate Majority Leader Tommy Norment formally requested that the Virginia State Crime Commission “undertake a study examining a future change to the Code of Virginia regarding criminal penalties related to possession of small amounts of marijuana.” Specifically, Norment asked the commission to look at the consequences of marijuana legalizations in other states, recent research about the effects of marijuana use and potential conflicts with federal law, among other things. While the commission does not have to perform the study, it should — a state-sponsored study of marijuana legalization, especially one requested by a Republican state senator, is the first step in creating smart, equitable marijuana policy for the Commonwealth.
(12/05/16 6:57am)
Last week, President-elect Donald Trump officially announced his choice for Secretary of Education: Betsy DeVos, a wealthy school-choice activist from Michigan. DeVos supports Trump’s proposed plan to aggressively expand charter schools and voucher programs. Though there are reasonable arguments to support increased school choice for kids in the nation’s worst schools, Trump’s plan is a dramatic overstep in the direction of vouchers, one that could have serious negative impacts on the public schools struggling the most.
(11/21/16 6:03am)
President-elect Donald Trump has announced few specifics about his policy plans for the next four years, but he has repeatedly promised to “end” Common Core, an initiative sponsored by the National Governor’s Association to create consistent standards of learning across states. Trump’s complaints are part of a larger national conversation about standards and standardized testing in public schools, one that spans partisan divide; while campaigning in New York, Bill Clinton said that Hillary Clinton "thinks the federal government requires too many tests for U.S. schoolchildren." Both Trump and the Clintons fail to acknowledge the real importance of standardized testing: it provides valuable statistics to ensure that traditionally underserved populations, like impoverished and minority students, receive quality educations.
(11/14/16 5:24am)
Last spring, I indulged myself by avoiding any classes that required numbers, calculations and problem solving. AP Calculus and Physics were the bane of my senior year of high school, and I was eager to focus on more literary interests. But as the semester wore on, I realized something was missing. I found myself in a variety of reading-based classes, drowning in books I had yet to open and burdened with a course load full of unanswerable questions, subjectivity and innumerable writing assignments. I had heard friends praise the introductory computer science classes here, so on a whim, I signed up for CS 1110. If this narrative sounds even vaguely familiar, perhaps you should, too. Especially for non-STEM majors, computer science is a worthwhile departure from classes you might otherwise take.
(11/07/16 5:05am)
The University’s recent decision to offer more open, gender-neutral housing suggests that — at least on an institutional level — the University is attempting to become more welcoming for transgender students. While institutional changes like these are crucial to ensuring all students can thrive at the University, they cannot be the entirety of the effort to make Grounds more diverse and inclusive. Social changes, led by students themselves, are another vital aspect of the effort. Although CIOs such as the Queer Student Union do great work to “provide a safe and supportive social space” for transgender students, individual students can and should do their part to make this space more inclusive.
(10/31/16 11:19am)
Halloween is a time to muse on all the ways the eerie and sinister can creep into our regularly mundane lives, and many gleefully turn to horror movies to provide that perfect combination of fright and excitement. The popularity of the horror genre is not inexplicable: Displeasure can be (and often is) entertaining. Such is the case for this year’s presidential election, and the psychological and thematic similarities between horror movies and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign are worth exploring.
(10/25/16 11:42am)
While the honor system is a perennial topic of debate and discussion, many students have little to no idea what the University Judiciary Committee is or does. This is not necessarily the students’ fault; students outside the UJC have almost no access to information about the circumstances surrounding each UJC trial or the trial panel’s verdict. I find the blind trust which students place in the UJC alarming and ultimately problematic: A judicial system should be monitored by those who fall under its power, not only by those who work within the system. The UJC should endeavor to become more transparent, so that students outside it may scrutinize and review their own disciplinary system.
(10/24/16 11:02am)
Oct. 21 marked the last day to register to vote in Virginia in one of the most polarizing elections in history — but for thousands of registered felons in Virginia, the day was nothing but a reminder of the rights they do not have. Gov. Terry McAuliffe restored the voting rights of more than 200,000 felons in an executive action in April, but the Virginia Supreme Court overturned his decision in July. Now, McAuliffe has begun the process of signing thousands of individual clemency orders, beginning with those who registered to vote in the time between his initial executive order in April and the court’s decision in July. Virginia is one of only four states which disenfranchises felons for life unless the governor directly grants clemency, and the roots of the felon disenfranchisement provision of Virginia’s constitution date back to the Jim Crow era of discrimination and racism. Restrictions on the civil and political rights of felons should be relaxed, but McAuliffe’s sweeping executive order was an overstep of his role as executive. Challenges to the law, even outdated and hateful ones, must come through constitutional channels, like civic protest, legislative reform, constitutional amendments and limited executive orders.
(10/12/16 11:22am)
A few days ago, I received an urgent text from a friend about the latest college ranking. “You’ll never guess how low U.Va. is,” he warned. The Wall Street Journal had ranked the University 56th overall. I scanned the entire list with dismay and felt the familiar heat of embarrassment rising into my face as I thought of what my friends at better-ranked schools would think when they saw the University’s ranking. I joked with a nearby friend about regretting my choice to come to the University, but there was a secret truth in the humor. After an hour of quiet panic and a phone conversation with my mom, my shame subsided, and all the reasons I chose the University over other schools came flooding back to me. Still, I marvel at the power of college rankings — a single bad ranking had made me seriously doubt my choice to attend the University.