A couple of years ago, on Valentine’s Day, I gifted Rumeysa this little book that lists 50 reasons why she’s my best friend. Now when I think about it, I find that I have more than 50 things that I like about Rümeysa. So, here is the story of our friendship during times of hardship and ease…
We stand in solidarity with the current student body at Tufts, and other alumni, in condemning the lack of due process in the detainment of Tufts graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk. The rise of authoritarian attitudes in recent months has manifested in troubling ways, including attacks on the integrity of government institutions, outrageous threats to the sovereignty of other nations and the inhumane deportation and detainment of immigrants living in the United States to foreign prisons without judicial oversight.
These are dark times in our community, our city, our state, our nation and our world. Wars rage across the globe, economic uncertainty looms and our basic freedoms are under assault.
It is now several days following the arrest, and the statements received from the university to date concern its lack of “pre-knowledge” of ICE’s actions, its support for Muslim students and campus resources for international students. What we have not heard — and what we hope to hear — is an unequivocal public statement by Tufts leadership affirming its absolute commitment to protecting academic freedom, a free press and the First Amendment.
Dear Tufts unions, as we know, President Donald Trump’s administration’s horrific attacks on immigrants and its repression of the antiwar movement have only escalated in the wake of the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil at Columbia University. After being abducted near her home by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers on Tuesday, Tufts graduate student and member of Service Employees International Union Local 509 Rümeysa Öztürk has been locked in a Louisiana ICE detention facility and is threatened with deportation.
On Tuesday, masked federal agents in an unmarked vehicle abducted Tufts doctorate student Rümeysa Öztürk off the street in Somerville. She was transported to a detention center in Louisiana, despite a court order ruling that she be kept in Massachusetts. This incident not only presents a grave physical danger to Tufts students but also a chilling effect on free speech as a whole. The Tufts administration must take action to mitigate the impacts of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s activities targeting Boston to ensure the security of both U.S. citizens and international students.
We write as alumni of Tufts University and members of the Class of 1989, urging the Tufts administration, faculty and students to be steadfast in demanding the immediate release of Tufts graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk. History has shown us that authoritarian regimes target academics first, fearing ...
The Western world has a widespread culture of apathy which allows for a callous separation from global events. This apathy is facilitated through a variety of methods, including a lack of proximity to those in faraway countries and a feeling of being overwhelmed by personal issues that ...
On Feb. 7, the Dailypublished an op-ed titled “Perverting protest into profit,” written by Ryan Rizvi. Rizvi argues that Tufts’“punitive” disciplinary structure limits critical thinking and allows Tufts to control the student body. His argument for challenging authority is sound. However,the argument that it is okay to disobey laws set by shared moral standards not only has no validity but increasingly sows division and conflict. The op-edsympathizes with kindergarten students who “are put in the timeout corner, only to return when they are embarrassed enough to have learned their lesson.” What would your average kindergarten class be like if there were no rules and no timeouts?
In light of recent actions taken by the federal government to arrest undocumented immigrants, drumming up fear across the nation, The Tufts Daily’s Ethics & Inclusion Committee is issuing an open letter to Tufts and the local communities of Medford and Somerville to reaffirm and clarify our journalistic ethics and practices as it relates to documentation status.
In the Daily’s Thursday article, “Medford passes Welcoming City Ordinance,” Medford City Councilor Justin Tseng praises the city’s euphemistically-named Welcoming City Ordinance. In the councilor’s own words, “This is essentially sanctuary city legislation.” His ...
Our working conditions are our students’ learning conditions. Unfortunately, there are significant salary and workload challenges that make it increasingly difficult to deliver on Tufts’ mission of providing transformative experiences. In our bargaining sessions with the administration that started in April 2024, we have repeatedly stressed the need for livable salaries and fair, equitable workloads so that we can continue to provide an exceptional education for our students.
Dear readers, Welcome back to another semester on the Hill! My name is Arghya Thallapragada, and I am the Editor in Chief of The Tufts Daily for the spring 2025 semester. I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce you to the Daily and tell you about our intentions for reporting this semester.
I am one of those people who believe trains are good, and more trains are better. However, as much as my heart cheers the Daily’s recent article (The Green Line should be extended — again), a Green Line extension to West Medford would be a challenging and expensive project that is unlikely to occur before current Tufts students visit their grandchildren on campus.
In response to recent news attention to the Tufts University Department of Political Science and in order to clear up any confusion, the faculty in this department unanimously issues the following statement: We have never had any ideological litmus tests for helping students get internship opportunities. ...
Despite legal troubles and persistent personal scandals, former President Donald Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris at the ballot box —and it wasn’t as close as the polls had projected. Ultimately, Trump won the national popular vote — the first Republican to do so since 2004 — and secured a commanding Electoral College victory. The avalanche of op-eds and post-mortems explaining Trump’s victory will no doubt continue to circulate in the months ahead. These well-informed perspectives should not obscure the fundamentals of the 2024 election. While we cannot put ourselves in the mind of every Trump voter to explain his victory, here is what we do know: Voters’ perceptions of the state of the economy and the direction of the country tilted this race in Trump’s favor from the onset.
The Office of the Provost and Senior Vice President announced in an email to students on Friday afternoon that Tufts is exploring the option of a university-wide “Statement of Neutrality,” in which the university will attempt to distance itself from “taking positions on geopolitical or social matters.” Such an action would reflect poorly on the university, its administration, its alumni and the students. It demonstrates the worst tendencies of current-day institutions and should be opposed and scrapped for the following reasons.
Mere weeks before the 2024 election, several major newspapers, including The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, have announced that they will not be endorsing a presidential candidate this cycle. This flies in the face of tradition for both of these widely read publications and was met with consternation and resignations from their own organizations.
This year has seen images of slaughter in Gaza amass, and, yet, the public’s interest thereof has seemingly only waned. And not for a lack of published material. It seems that in spite of the deaths of over 41,000 Palestinian people; in spite of the mounting Lebanese civilian casualties; in spite of the numerous crimes against humanity that the Israeli state has committed, photographic documentation has done little to inculpate the American government and citizens at large. Depictions of senseless slaughter, to which our eyes should otherwise gravitate toward and of which should warrant political action, have been cast to the social wayside as byproducts of a region that, in American eyes, only knows death and strife.
Delivering an opinion requires a certain awareness of how that opinion will land with its audience. This is to say, when someone delivers an opinion in a public forum, it is accompanied by a rhetorical goal. We are an opinionated student body, and the Daily provides a wonderful forum ...
Op-ed submissions are an integral part of our connection with you, our readers. As such, we would like to clarify our guidelines for submitting op-eds and what you can expect from the process.
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