Democracy doesn’t mean oppression is gone. Democracy isn’t justice. Democracies still experience many of the same systemic issues as authoritarian states; in fact, most are built on it. Few, if any, democracies were founded in an equitable fashion. Few are truly equitable today.
The quality of education a student has access to depends largely on their location and socioeconomic background; thus, admissions processes can often serve to institutionalize privilege and reinforce class structures. And even when schools try to take this inequity into account, families with higher incomes often have greater access to the “soft skills” valued in the college process. Having the means to pay for expensive niche sports, private college counselors and other extracurricular pursuits amount to other ways one student can have an unfair advantage over another.
The Senate has always been and will always be a body that wildly overrepresents the interests of white, rural voters who skew more conservative. Despite this fact, Sen. Manchin believes Republican senators have a right to unilaterally obstruct Senate business. Democrats won control of the White House, the U.S. House and the Senate in just four years — for the first time since 1932 — and Manchin still will not relieve McConnell of his veto power.
When the three-year window of the test-optional policy elapses, the university will have a critical decision to make: Tufts can either bring back its standardized testing requirement, making future generations go through the same process that current Tufts students endured, or it can repeat the process used to admit the Class of 2025, which saw the most diverse applicant pool in the university’s history.
My advice to the Class of 2025 is this: Do not let the incline and distance stop you from spending time with friends. Responsibly take advantage of every in-person moment, even if it means traipsing the Hill. Relish the sense of belonging the Hill bestows upon you. As the maxim goes, I must practice what I preach. Let me grab my room key and a mask and get going. I’ll be down there in 10.
Despite the very real effects of this crisis, the internet was flooded with memes about the Ever Given. I saw a meme about the situation before I saw a headline, even though I receive New York Times notifications. When the ship was freed, the internet cried out for them to “put it back.” So why did the internet react with such delight to a giant container ship stuck in a canal in Egypt?
One way for professors to support overwhelmed students is to create their own wellness days. Though some professors already took this commendable step ahead of Tufts’ “spring break,” these instances were the exceptions, not the norm. If similar gestures became more common, students would have room to breathe during a semester that has offered little.
Perhaps these efforts put forth by Republican state legislatures will not limit Democratic turnout — though their redistricting efforts will certainly reward Republicans with more seats in the House. Yet the principle driving these bills must be feared. Democracies require tolerance for the opposition. This has clearly died. What is holding U.S. democracy on its last leg is forbearance.
At the core of this weaponized model of vaccine diplomacy lies the national anxieties that made up the core of "America first" and that now pervade vaccine policy, shaping the issue into a matter of national security and foreign policy. For an America scarred internally and scorned internationally, the vaccine was a path toward renewed security and power.
The Colombian military has long felt animosity toward Colombian non-governmental organizations, which they associate with leftist groups, and believes that human rights NGOs weaponize media and technology to unfairly scapegoat the military for the two-sided civil war. This mutual animosity has led to decades of human rights violations, as both groups vilify the other and justify violence against the opposite party.
The cost of these examinations is not the only barrier to higher education for minority students; the structure of the test also poses difficulties. The current SAT may appear vastly different, yet it remains inherently the same as the original test that was invented almost 80 years ago as an adaptation of the IQ test. The first rendition of this examination was overtly racist in practice, and sought to bolster a discriminatory college admissions system that aimed to keep minority students out of prestigious institutions through carefully worded questions and unfair structure.
Some may argue that everyone will get vaccinated eventually or that pandemic restrictions have endured for too long, but one truth remains: These justifications exacerbate harmful public health and socioeconomic disparities. Those with access to the internet, a community with a medical presence and the time to search for vaccine appointments are benefitting from an inequitable system.
Tufts has made the decision to conduct an entirely virtual Senior Week and an entirely virtual university-wide commencement on May 23. While these decisions are obviously understandable, the university’s decision to end COVID-19 surveillance testing and remove seniors from on-campus housing over a week before the May 23 commencement date is not. There are three main reasons that this decision is inequitable, reckless and poses a threat to our host communities.
Last week, the White House unveiled the American Jobs Plan, a $2.3 trillion stimulus package meant to bolster America’s infrastructure, manufacturing sector and R&D and workforce development programs. It’s an ambitious framework and it’s more than necessary, but President Joe Biden’s main challenge is selling it to fellow Democrats.
One common struggle, among the myriad that RAs have faced this year, has been social isolation. In the fall, RAs were unique among students on campus in that they were typically considered "cohorts of one" rather than members of larger residential cohorts like most students; the end of the cohort system before the spring semester, however, did not spell the end of the social toll that comes with being an RA during a pandemic.
While a humanitarian approach to conflict-resolution is an idealist’s ending to mass atrocity, massive political shifts, such as this coup, provide more likely ends to the crisis. Transitional justice and reconciliation will be complicated in Myanmar, but, for now, the junta-led military coup proves imperative, as it provides a unifying factor for ethnic groups. The strongholds of diverse ethnic groups protest against a common enemy: Min Aung Hlaing.
Thus began the Belt and Road Initiative, Xi’s major infrastructure project to reroute global trade through China in the hopes of becoming the world’s new superpower. In this project, China provides loans to fund the creation of new infrastructure — deep water ports, high-speed rail systems, bridges, highways, pipelines and fiber-optic networks — in countries throughout the Global South. The project spans three continents and touches over 60% of the world’s population.
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