Opinion

Opinion

CONNOLLY: Affordable apprehensions

By John Connolly | October 10, 2013

According to a statement released by the University, “Provisions of the federal Affordable Care Act are projected to add $7.3 million to the cost of the University health plan in 2014 alone.” A $7.3 million addition to health care costs is nothing to sneeze at, and the figure will surely rise in time. Harsh cutbacks follow this rise in costs — cutbacks that intimately affect the lives of University employees. For instance, this August, the University announced its intention to cut health care coverage to spouses already covered by their own employee plans.

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Opinion

Political animals, political email-ers

By Managing Board | October 10, 2013

The University of Wisconsin at La Crosse has issued an apology for an email a professor sent to students last week that blamed the government shutdown on the “Republican/tea party controlled House of Representatives.” Rachel Slocum, assistant professor of geography, sent the email to all of her students in an online class.

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Opinion

MINOT: Doubling the standard

By Jordan Minot | October 10, 2013

The lack of a public response to the Guides incident from the administration, the Guide Service and this newspaper is reprehensible. Hazing should be unacceptable regardless of who perpetrates it and we should not shy away from holding some institutions accountable for the sake of tradition or discomfort.

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Opinion

Make rape a single-sanction offense

By Managing Board | October 10, 2013

Ultimately we must modify the legal codes that pit due process against Title IX to the detriment of student sexual-assault survivors. But even in the context of a flawed system, we can work to improve the lives of students affected by sexual violence, and prevent other attacks.

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Opinion

BOGUE: The price of innocence

By Russell Bogue | October 9, 2013

The free flow of information is a beautiful concept when applied to the news or to theories and ideas; it is something altogether more sinister when someone’s professional reputation is at play.

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Opinion

MENENDEZ: A story of survival

By Sandra Menendez | October 9, 2013

But when I was 16 and in high school and wore floor-length butterfly skirts, I believed that anyone who could possibly even have the slightest afterthought of dating me was a miracle from God. When he came along, I was just getting over the emotional impact of being told by another male classmate that I looked like a horse at the homecoming dance. We were snacking on pretzels in a parking lot and I said yes.

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Opinion

KAPLAN: Ending violence starts here

By Claire Kaplan | October 9, 2013

Ten years ago, the University community was shaken by the murder of one of our students, a fourth-year woman only weeks from graduation. She had worked so hard to complete her college education, and had her whole life ahead of her, and dreamed of becoming a lawyer. Who killed her? The man who professed to love her. Think you know the name of this student? Guess again.

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Opinion

BENTALL & CELELLO: Remembering the details

By Nia Bentall and Alison Celello | October 9, 2013

It’s ordering way too many Campus Cookies and crying over how good they are. She laughs, at long last. She also eats for the first time that day. You knew she couldn’t resist warm cookies. You had a plan.

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Opinion

EDWARDS: A team effort

By Margaret Edwards | October 9, 2013

As a community, we tend to want to ask a person who reveals that they were assaulted: “What happened?” We want to know if they said no, or whether the people involved were drinking, and whether the “victim” fought back — as if the answers to these questions determine whether the trauma has occurred or not. Regardless of whether it will stand up in a court of law, if someone calls it trauma, the best thing you can do is to assume that that is how the person experienced it, and support them in seeking help.

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Opinion

LAUGHON: Fact check

By Kathryn Laughon | October 9, 2013

Everyone has a preconceived notion of what sexual assault looks like, but almost everyone is probably wrong. In reality, most of these assaults — over 80 percent — will occur where someone lives. The vast majority will be perpetrated by someone the victim knows. It might be a date, but more often, it will be a friend of a friend, a classmate or someone else the victim knows. Alcohol will be probably be involved.

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Opinion

MENEZES: Think, speak, love: even when they tell you not to

By Matt Menezes | October 9, 2013

The twin messages of “you should want sex!” and “don’t you go having sex!” are too much for anyone to bear, and create a toxic environment where we don’t know what to expect, often drowning our uncertainty in alcohol before diving in. We live in a society that is sexually traumatizing down to its very language, so how are we supposed to talk in an open, healthy way about sex, much less sexual trauma?

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Opinion

ERAMO: The University’s role

By Nicole Eramo | October 9, 2013

With student victims, we have four paramount concerns: safety, emotional and physical health, academic support and reporting options. In terms of safety, we want to know: Does the victim feel safe in her residence? Is she concerned that she may be targeted again?

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Opinion

RENDA: Sexual violence and the law: what you need to know

By Emily Renda | October 9, 2013

As much as I want and believe that rape should be a single-sanction offense, it is legally untenable and impossible given the state of American justice today, which involves part of our very Constitution. To make rape a single-sanction offense involves either raising the standard of proof to a level that violates Title IX or sacrificing the viability of countless cases by mirroring the justice system, which only successfully prosecutes 4 percent of rapes every year (most of which, I will add, are stranger rapes with DNA evidence).

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Opinion

Public intellectuals

By Managing Board | October 8, 2013

The University placed 25th overall in the rankings the center posted online. Of the five disciplines the center surveyed, our faculty members supposedly wield the most influence in sociology (eighth) and politics (18th) and least in anthropology (64th).

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Opinion

YAHANDA: Going to their heads

By Alex Yahanda | October 8, 2013

Even if it would have caused problems for its business, the NFL should not have tried to jeopardize important neurological findings.

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Opinion

WHISNANT: Shutting it out

By Gray Whisnant | October 8, 2013

As the nation and student body are faced with the gravity of these dual threats being used by the Republican Party to extract otherwise unattainable policy concessions, the situation raises a puzzling question: Where does this situation leave the University’s student activist?

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Opinion

Wooing a new dean

By Managing Board | October 8, 2013

Woo took on the deanship in a time of upheaval. So will her successor. The next dean of the College must be able to keep a clear head in a turbulent environment.

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Opinion

BERNSTEIN: Board of beneficiaries

By Dani Bernstein | October 7, 2013

Of course, there is no way to fully prove that there is a link between a Board member’s campaign contributions and his or her appointment to the Board, and any politically savvy governor would deny that such a relationship exists (as McDonnell has via his spokespeople). But even if these positions were not used for patronage, there is still little sense in leaving these appointments to the governor.

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Opinion

KELLY: Like a prayer

By Conor Kelly | October 7, 2013

So here we are, faced with the admittedly awkward situation of a majority of the members of the Supreme Court, shortly after attending the Red Mass, hearing arguments in a case about government entanglement with religion.

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Opinion

KNAYSI: Being kind to your mind

By George Knaysi | October 7, 2013

But even if we accept these micro obsessions for certain types of diet and exercise as consistent with good medical standards (they aren’t), our student culture of health and wellness is lacking, for a simple reason: it consistently (and often intentionally) disregards the importance of mental health.