Opinion

Opinion

​WALLS: Don’t ask about criminal history

By Nora Walls | April 15, 2015

It is unsurprising that many fear allowing ex-convicts into our state employment system, but it is important to remember that not everyone who is arrested or imprisoned has committed crimes of an equal degree. Many people are imprisoned for non-violent crimes. Of course, this is not to say that any crime is excusable. Anyone who commits a crime ought to serve a fitting punishment, but the system in place often fails, handing out punishments that don’t necessarily fit the crime.

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Opinion

​SPINKS: We need accountability, not retractions

By Ashley Spinks | April 15, 2015

It is reprehensible that the Managing Board failed to hold itself to the same standards that it sets for its subordinates. It exercised its own judgement when deciding to run those articles, and the Managing Board needs to stand by its decision. The Cavalier Daily, as an editorially independent institution, had every right both to attempt satire and to publish jokes at others’ expense. The Managing Board actively exercised that right, and to retract the pieces post-hoc suggests that they did so wrongly, which undermines their individual and collective integrity.

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Opinion

​EVANS: I am not myself

By Will Evans | April 15, 2015

We humans are not confined to certain types; in fact, we hold a modest degree of agency over our personalities. This idea is crucial to understanding the generative process of self. If we can learn to take ownership over the different attitudes and behaviors we express, we can begin to consciously latch on to those characteristics that are more conducive to healthy, positive human interaction. Personality need not be a passive. For passivity only leads to complacency, which in turn, wears down the the social fabrics of community.

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Opinion

​Lack of transparency in BOV led to member quitting

By Managing Board | April 14, 2015

Keeping information in the hands of only a few Board members is problematic for obvious reasons. But if it was so egregious as to lead to the resignation of a prominent Board member, transparency within the Board must be an even worse problem than we anticipated previously.

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Opinion

​OLSON: In favor of the Franklin Project

By Jake Olson | April 14, 2015

Despite the difficulty of implementing such a program, I believe the Franklin Project makes a strong case for the benefits of expanding national service. The core issue the Franklin Project brings to attention is the uncomfortable thought that perhaps the expectations for service on the average American citizen are far too low. Perhaps it is right to remind us that the obligations and duties of citizenship extend beyond just paying your taxes.

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Opinion

​DEZOORT: Mind over money

By Gage DeZoort | April 14, 2015

Though the facts and figures point towards STEM fields, they actually only reflect a subset of what it is to be ‘useful.’ It is, then, not reasonable to generalize that STEM majors are useful and liberal arts majors are not. Here, it’s useful to consider the differences between hard skills and soft skills. Hard skills are easily quantified abilities and skillsets, demonstrated through applicable knowledge and abilities. Soft skills are more qualitative abilities, oftentimes involving personal traits and interpersonal skills.

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Opinion

​DOYLE: The rise of money in politics is corrupting America

By Bobby Doyle | April 14, 2015

The major problem when it comes to limiting money in politics is that it is considered speech since the Citizens United ruling. This ruling makes it very hard to pass any laws limiting political spending since free speech is a dearly held right for Americans. Arguments for free speech do have merit. In principle, no one should be able to tell an American citizen how to spend his money. Yet, when this spending encroaches on other freedoms, the government has a right to step in and protect the rights of the people at the expense of a few individuals.

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Opinion

​Don’t just focus on Sullivan

By Managing Board | April 13, 2015

The intense scrutiny of Sullivan — who has only been at the University since 2010 — begs an important question: where is that same scrutiny of other administrators who have been here much longer and whose impact is, in many ways, much more significant to the lives of students?

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Opinion

​PARTING SHOT: A promising future, with some regrets

By Joseph Liss | April 13, 2015

The Cavalier Daily has more than its share of problems. At its core, every person in the editing chain believes they are better writers, editors and reporters than those below them. To fully harness the paper’s talent, The Cavalier Daily must fight this culture and trade writing quality for writer motivation. But, throughout, I have valued the News section’s dedication to fair, unbiased coverage.

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Opinion

​PARTING SHOT: Why we do it

By Daniel Weltz | April 13, 2015

The opportunities, experiences, friendships and challenges The Cavalier Daily provided were irreplaceable, and shape both who I am today and who I strive to be tomorrow. I have learned to be more independent and self-assured, more ambitious and optimistic and more confident in my ability to handle responsibility. I have also realized that it is more important to love what you do than to love what it takes to do it.

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Opinion

​MINK: Moving beyond tenure

By Alex Mink | April 13, 2015

Another reason tenure has failed is the perverse incentives it provides. The tenure system in the United States consists of a probationary period of around five years, during which a prospective candidate’s research, teaching and service are evaluated. At the end of this period, a committee of tenured faculty vote on whether to recommend this person for tenure. If this person succeeds, he is given a job that is almost guaranteed for life. If he fails to receive tenure, he is often terminated. This all or nothing system couples tremendous pressure early in a person’s career with very little incentive following his acquisition of tenure, leading to stagnation in in the education system.

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Opinion

​BROOM: Pushing the envelope

By Christopher Broom | April 13, 2015

It doesn’t seem to me that if the management of a publication decides, on its own, to pull stories that aren’t meant to be factual in the first place that there is any free press issue to worry about. The same is true about free speech. The Managing Board decided to pull the pieces and apologize after they heard from enough others that what they published was, in fact, offensive because they didn’t want to be offensive and hoped apologizing would make that clear and help heal the wounds they’d caused.

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Opinion

LETTER: University students live on

By Sons and Daughters of Liberty | April 13, 2015

We, the students of the University of Virginia, are the living. We are the blood that runs through the iron pipes of the University. We the picturesque, we the hideous, the marginalized, the spoiled, the idealistic, the good-hearted. We. When you walk through our Grounds, past each painful fissure that has blossomed forth like so many angry scars, remember.

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Opinion

Limit non-tenure track faculty

By Managing Board | April 10, 2015

This year, the University further shifted toward hiring non-tenure track professors (“non-tenure track” is the University’s term for “adjunct”). Information released under the Freedom of Information Act shows that in the 2012-13 academic year, there were 151 non-tenure track teaching faculty, whereas in the 2014-15 year there have been 270. This compares to the roughly 860 tenure-track professors for both academic years.

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Opinion

​HARRINGTON: Make execution look like what it is

By Elaine Harrington | April 10, 2015

When discussing the ethics of capital punishment, I find it necessary to discriminate between the ethics of choosing to give someone the death penalty and the ethics of how the execution is carried out. Fogel implies he disagrees with the death penalty. As do I. Yet one can still seek to have an inherently immoral act to be carried out in a more ethical way.

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Opinion

​RUDGLEY: Rand Paul and the future of the GOP

By Ben Rudgley | April 10, 2015

Paul, more than any other candidate, has tried to reach out to disaffected voting blocs that when they do vote, vote blue, like African-Americans and college-age voters. His bold ideas, like scaling back surveillance programs or criminal justice reform, represent a departure from establishment Republicans who appear intent on adding to their party’s litany of failures and embarrassments (that range from George W. Bush’s costly, disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to Todd Akin’s cringe-inducing comments on rape and pregnancy).

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Opinion

​Aramark proves unethical once again

By Managing Board | April 9, 2015

The University’s contract with Aramark is a business, and not ethical, contract. And in the world of business transactions, there will often be trade-offs between low-cost solutions and efficiency and the moral character of a company. In Aramark’s case, however, the trade-offs are simply not worth it.

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Opinion

​EDEL: In praise of the thesis

By Brennan Edel | April 9, 2015

Writing a thesis is the sort of résumé padding that I can get behind. Besides the fact that spending fourth year writing 40 or more pages of deep academic discourse is not something that one does merely on a whim, writing a thesis confers, in addition to the honors, a deeper and more pointed understanding of the major than only coursework can provide. Spending months researching, writing and finally producing a unique thesis about one single topic instills and inspires the sort of hard work and creativity that is truly distinctive.

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Opinion

​GORMAN: Religious freedom isn’t a license to discriminate

By Ryan Gorman | April 9, 2015

Substantial controversy has been raised over Indiana’s recently passed Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which — in essence — openly allows businesses to discriminate against potential customers by citing their right to the “free exercise of religion.” This piece of legislation has caused serious uproar across the nation; pundits, celebrities and politicians alike have denounced the inhumane precedent the RFRA has established and called for its repeal.

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Opinion

​DIVEST UMW: Divestment sit-ins are on the forefront of a new social movement

By Caroline Bray , Jake Turner , Sarah Kinzer and Colleen Cosgriff | April 9, 2015

The voices of these student bodies were stifled by their Boards through secrecy, literal barriers of locked and guarded doors and apathy. At this point the students, who are the most important stakeholders of our universities, have no real influence on major decisions made by their governing bodies. Divestment and affordable education are just two campaigns facing the same roadblocks of indifference and rejection that have been repeatedly experienced.