A U.S. District Court judge yesterday considered arguments in a hearing regarding a lawsuit filed by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) against SeaWorld. The complaint seems pretty routine, until one learns that five of the suit's plaintiffs are orcas — also known as killer whales.
It is no longer 1968, and the struggles people of color have had to face in generations past are no longer the ones faced by their children and grandchildren. In fact, the latter have discovered that there are giants in the land of promise. Though they have stepped into a place flowing with milk and honey, the struggle is far from over. Speaking prophetically, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. envisioned a time when "a true revolution of values [would] soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies." In that poignant speech delivered a year before his assassination, however, one of his most insightful remarks seems to have gotten lost amid a growing cloud of self-praise and shortsightedness.
As any college student understands, the Greek scene is an important part of campus social life, whether you are a brother or sister pledged to a chapter or simply a visitor when the weekend rolls around. Life at Tufts, with 10 fraternities and three sororities on campus, is no exception. Greek life is hardly the center of most Jumbos' social lives, but it still plays a significant role, so it should be as accessible as possible to everyone on campus interested in pledging.
Let me preface this column by saying this: I am a senior. This means that, as we edge closer and closer to graduation, I need to find better hiding places. I'm spending most of my time evading the inevitable Question. Total strangers want to know my Plans for the Future before they even know my name.
In October of 2010 during my junior year at Tufts, I was sexually assaulted on campus by a student from a different university. Too ashamed to burden my friends with the immediate aftermath, I turned to Tufts' counseling center and Health Services for some much-needed support. Thankfully, it also happened to be sexual assault awareness month at Tufts, and there were weekly events that allowed me to connect with other women on campus with similar experiences. I remember wordlessly sitting in the cold with an enraged yet loving friend. I remember attending a concert, lighting a candle on the Tisch roof, decorating a T-shirt, all in honor of victims of sexual assault. I remember waking up every morning wishing it was all just a very bad dream. Although I was physically present at these events, the me on the inside was not nearly ready to fully accept what had happened. For several months, I harbored such a fearful hatred toward men that I could not even begin a real journey toward recovery from rape.
The Nevada caucuses came to a close on Saturday with a clear winner. Mitt Romney won the state by a sizable margin, obtaining about 15,000 votes so far with 89 percent of precincts reporting at the time of publication. Last month, Rick Santorum took away 13 delegates from the Iowa caucuses, beating Romney by a narrow margin of 34 votes. Last Saturday, Romney came out on top again in the Florida primary with 46.4 percent of the vote, earning 50 delegates.
When Viola Davis received an Academy Award nomination for her leading performance in "The Help" (2011), she achieved a feat that only one other black woman had before her. She received the second Oscar nomination of her career. The other woman to have done so is Whoopi Goldberg, who won an Oscar for her performance as Oda Mae Brown in "Ghost" (1990).
Of all the despicable swine of the sports world, fair weather fans are, perhaps, the most callous. For those unfamiliar with this term, a fair weather fan is someone who has little interest in following sports or supporting a specific team, until said team begins to triumph. Take, for example, sports stars who don Yankees caps in postgame interviews — of which there are many. Though these stars often are not from New York, nor do they play for New York teams, there is something en vogue about wearing the gear of the world's most successful franchise.
The Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation has contributed over $2 billion toward breast cancer research and awareness over the last 30 years. Some of this money has gone to Planned Parenthood, which provides reproductive health and breast cancer screening services to women all across the country. During the last two years alone, the Komen Foundation has contributed more than $1 million to Planned Parenthood. But two days ago, the Komen Foundation infuriated women's health advocates when it announced that it was pulling its support of the organization.
Tonight, students from Tufts and other area schools will protest against rape culture. You can join us by taking the free SMFA shuttle from Aidekman at 5:30 p.m. Here's why you should consider going:
With the November election inching closer, the Republicans and Democrats are calling all the faithful to prepare for battle. For months, the country has spectated as Republican candidates fought one another like gladiators in a coliseum, uniting only to attack President Obama. The primary process has shown that the rhetoric and plans of the GOP are going to be based on the partisan revanchism typical of our politics. Meanwhile, the Democrats have only begun to lob their anti-Republican attacks. Unfortunately, instead of serving the national interest, these party allegiances have come to hinder progress and stamp out innovation.
To say that good journalism can't exist without good fact checking is such a self-explanatory argument that it requires no elaboration. Facts are the building blocks for news stories, the points of contention in op-eds, and, ultimately, the reason you bothered to pick up this newspaper in the first place.
A week before Thanksgiving, Tufts was visited by a strange, mysterious occurrence: Reports claiming sightings of a clownfish creature on campus abounded. Facebook statuses discussed the clownfish's crashing of different classes — throwing popcorn into a lecture hall in one instance, stirring a pot of goldfish in another, reciting "French" poetry in yet another. Questions were raised about the clownfish: Who is he? A Tufts student? (Maybe.) Someone with too much free time on his hands? (Not exactly.) A really weird person? (Oh, most definitely.) More importantly, why was he literally running around campus (specifically into classes and out of them) engaging in random shenanigans? Recently, we caught up with him, a Mr. Eric Sinski of the Class of 2012, and in an exclusive interview, he laid to rest our most pressing questions.
Two points of pride for Tufts have always been our liberality and the diversity of our student body. As students of Tufts, we are thankful for the communities around us that challenge us to grow. Tufts has always been a place where we have felt the freedom to express ourselves, the freedom to agree and disagree with others and the freedom to live out our religion on campus without being discriminated against for our beliefs.
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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