Opinion

Letter from the Managing Board: Our semester at a glance

By The Managing Board | December 10

As our time on The Tufts Daily Managing Board comes to a close, we want to thank you for joining us for a semester of engaging reporting and nuanced conversation. Throughout the past six months, you’ve enabled us to thrive as a student publication and call attention to the stories that matter most.

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Editorial

Editorial: Letter to the Hill

By The Editorial Board | December 8

In a world of constant despair, it’s important to also notice the meaningful progress around us.

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Viewpoint

Are the Oscars really merit-based?

By Jachin Lam | December 8

As we await next year’s Oscars and nominees, I’ve been thinking about past winners — especially the 2023 awards season in which two actors, Ke Huy Quan and Brendan Fraser, made major Hollywood comebacks with Oscars in hand, and Michelle Yeoh became the first Asian woman to win Best Actress. The entire “Everything Everywhere All At Once” cast and crew swept that year’s award season, with much of their campaign gaining internet buzz due to the movie’s significance resonating with the Asian American community. One outlier in their success, however, was Jamie Lee Curtis’ first Oscar win, which many referred to as a ‘legacy Oscar.’ This prompted me to think more about how awards campaigns work — and whether some winners truly ‘deserve’ these so-called ‘legacy Oscars,’ or whether they should stop being handed out altogether.

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Column

Through Indigenous Eyes: Vanishing, Surviving

By Sorsha Khitikian | December 8

As my mom and I left Arkansas, we traveled north through Missouri and Illinois to Chicago, then east to Detroit and up through Canada to Niagara Falls. At all of these stops, we never really ran into anything that had obvious Indigenous ties. Once we crossed back into the United States, we still didn’t run into anything explicitly Indigenous. While this may be surprising to you, it was anything but surprising to me.

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Column

Forgotten Fronts: The Security Council must act to prevent further democratic collapse in Burma

By Alexander Degterev | December 8

With a private meeting on Myanmar of the Security Council looming on the horizon, the council must act to further support civilians and strengthen ASEAN-led peace efforts.

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Guest

Op-ed: Establishment Jewish institutions are betraying and weaponizing my religion

By Meirav Solomon | December 5

In sixth grade, my middle school scheduled its first dance for a Friday night during Sukkot. My family kept Shabbat and would spend the evening in our Sukkah, twin reasons why I couldn’t realize the quintessential teenage dream of swaying to top-40 beats in the cafeteria, chaperoned by history and Spanish teachers.

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Guest

Op-ed: Israel and Palestine at Tufts/Fletcher: Erasing inconvenient facts

By Joel Trachtman | December 5

On Monday, Nov. 17, I attended an event at The Fletcher School entitled “Israel and Palestine: Assessment and Community Dialogue.” For the first time in my 36 years as a professor at Tufts University and Fletcher, I felt unwelcome as a Jew.

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Viewpoint

A case against lazy AI use

By Keshav Srikant | December 3

This week, nearly one in 10 people across the world will use a tool that did not exist just a few short years ago — ChatGPT. According to a September 2025 working paper by economists and researchers at OpenAI, more than 700 million people actively use ChatGPT each week and that “for a new technology, the speed of global diffusion has no precedent.”

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Guest

Op-ed: Standing for Dialogue: Reflections on hosting Moumen Al-Natour

By Benjamin Handell | December 3

On Nov. 11, Tufts Friends of Israel, together with the Department of Political Science, hosted a conversation with Moumen Al-Natour, a Palestinian human rights activist who has spent years speaking out against Hamas. The Center for Peace Communications joined via Zoom to help translate and later share Al-Natour’s story with wider audiences.

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Opinion

Letter to the Editor: Regarding “Tufts' Asian American Center: More than just a building”

By Julie Mak | December 3

I was so glad to see an article reflecting on the history and many strong programs of the Asian American Center. But I was surprised that the piece didn’t mention Linell Yugawa, who led the AAC for more than three decades — spanning most of its history — and laid much of the groundwork for their programming and growth described before retiring in 2019.

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Column

Forgotten Fronts: How you can support mine action in Burma

By Alexander Degterev | December 3

Reading my rants about humanitarian crises around the world, the philanthropically minded among you may have thought to yourselves: How can I lend a helping hand to people thousands of miles away?

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Viewpoint

Is spending a bag on a bag really worth it?

By Brooke Li | November 25

Step out onto the grounds of a college campus and there’s a high chance you’ll encounter at least one of these bags swinging off the shoulders of a student: the Goyard Saint Louis or the Longchamp Le Pliage. Hailing from Paris, France, these bags have become the latest microtrend that’s taken control of young adults.

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Viewpoint

Personalized pricing: The biggest scam that you’ve never heard of

By Monica Reilly | November 25

At this point, many of us are fairly desensitized to media surveillance. We accept cookies on websites without a second thought, and rarely, if ever, read the fine print on how companies can use our data. In fact, our information is already being sold to companies in order to curate personalized ads based on our search history and website usage. In a media landscape full of data exploitation, it can be easy to lump in personalized pricing as just another way that our information is being sold, one that will not impact our day-to-day lives. However, personalized pricing poses a uniquely serious threat to our online selves. 

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Viewpoint

It’s not just a Thanksgiving thing — we should practice gratitude year round

By Michaela Loughran | November 24

When there’s a holiday like Thanksgiving that is specifically dedicated to giving thanks, some might end up only explicitly doing so that one day out of the whole year. However, not commonly known to many people is the fact that the entire month of November is National Gratitude Month, giving us all an entire month to reflect on the positive aspects of our lives. It may sound a bit cliche to tell you to be more grateful, but I believe that a lot of people take the many blessings in their lives for granted.

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Column

Through Indigenous Eyes: Side by side

By Sorsha Khitikian | November 24

As my mom and I crossed out of the Southwest into Arkansas, we came face-to-face with Fort Smith. For those who don’t know, Fort Smith is widely considered the last stop on the Trail of Tears, a genocidal displacement of southeastern Indigenous people. At Fort Smith, Indigenous people were sent into what is now known as Oklahoma, which the U.S. government deemed “Indian” territory at the time. While I was nervous to explore this site, my Mom and I thought it was important to sit with the pain of this place.

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Editorial

Editorial: Generative AI can’t replace student journalism

By The Editorial Board | November 20

Since ChatGPT first made its splash entry into the market in November 2022, worries over the use of generative artificial intelligence and large language models have begun to surface. In recent semesters, we have seen faculty at Tufts begin to swap take-home papers for in-class exams in order to fairly test student understanding of course content and prevent cheating. In the Student Accessibility and Academic Resources Center, writing support staff have repeatedly been given new guidelines on how to deal with the use of generative AI in academic writing. Even within the Daily, we have received submissions that were suspected to be AI-generated and sourced using AI.

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Viewpoint

SNAP benefits went dark during the government shutdown — why should Tufts students care?

By Olivia Zambrano | November 20

Roughly 41.7 million people rely on assistance from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. When the government shut down on Oct. 1, the U.S. Department of Agriculture determined that maintaining SNAP benefits wasn’t a priority — leaving nearly 42 million individuals across the country unsure of where their next meal would come from.

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Guest

Op-ed: Somerville’s Question 3 undermines peace

By Justin Klekota | November 19

On November’s ballot, Somerville voters were asked whether the city should divest from companies doing business with Israel. While many voters saw it as a symbolic gesture, Question 3 remains extremely problematic. The measure’s main organizer, Somerville for Palestine, claims to stand for justice, but their rhetoric and continued agitation threaten Somerville’s unity.

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Guest

Why many American Jews are wary — and fearful — of Mamdani’s rise

By Tufts Friends of Israel | November 14

American Jews have long been considered one of the country’s most politically liberal groups, with over 70% identifying as Democrats according to the Pew Research Center from 2020.

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Guest

Op-ed: The cOUnteR-revolution: A restoration of the people’s forum in Medford

By Emily Carney | November 13

The ballot box in last week’s election symbolized the state of Medford — divided. The numbers depicted a city split into two primary voting blocs: Our Revolution Medford and the independents. Allied candidates tended to yield similar vote counts, indicative of bloc voting, while tight margins between groups and increased support for non-ORM candidates suggested a narrowing divide. For the independents, the gains were significant, but not enough to claim new seats. Not this time.

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