Use the field below to perform an advanced search of The Justice archives. This will return articles, images, and multimedia relevant to your query.
And just like that, February is over, and we made it through the first month of the spring 2021 semester. We as a board wanted to pause, break from our usual style of editorial and take this opportunity to remind our fellow students that you are doing a fantastic job, even if it doesn’t feel like it right now.
Academic travel largely stopped with the pandemic, and new remote meeting formats have increased accessibility and opened opportunities for worldwide collaboration in ways that were once impossible. As travel and in-person events start to become options again, scholars are questioning if returning to pre-pandemic 'normalcy' is the best choice.
Brandeis community members gathered over Zoom on Friday, Feb. 19 to discuss the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol, white nationalism and white supremacy. “Let’s Talk About… White Supremacy” debuted as the Sociology department’s first anti-racism event of the semester. This discussion is part of a new series aimed at creating informal spaces outside of the classroom to talk about world events in an academic setting.
At the start of this congressional term, Sen. Tom Carper (D-De) introduced legislation S. 51, which would admit Washington, D.C. as the 51st state. A similar bill was first introduced in 2017 by D.C.’s delegate to Congress, Eleanor Holmes Norton, as well as in 2019. Making D.C. the 51st state should be a priority for the 117th Congress.
On Nov. 13, some attendees at a Brandeis-hosted panel on human rights violations in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China zoombombed my friend Rayhan Asat. As she began to tell the story of her brother, Ekpar Asat, who has been detained by the Chinese government for five years, despite never being charged with a crime, Rayhan’s voice was drowned out by the Chinese national anthem. Her screen was hijacked with annotations reading “bullshit” and “fake news.” That night, she had nightmares.
“Inheritance Games” begins with Avery Grambs, a high school student with a simple plan: keep her head down, stay out of trouble and get good enough grades to earn an actuarial science scholarship to the University of Connecticut. One day, her fortunes change when billionaire Tobias Hawthorne dies and leaves Avery nearly his entire estate — the only stipulation is that she has to move into his house, a riddle-filled mansion where the mostly disinherited Hawthorne family still lives. However, she has no idea who he is or why he would want to leave all his money to an apparent stranger. Questions quickly pile up: why did Tobias Hawthorne disinherit his family? Why choose Avery of all people? At the same time, buried family mysteries start working their way to the light, and Avery and the Hawthorne family must work together if they want answers.
The Baker-Polito administration announced changes to Massachusetts’ COVID-19 guidelines on Feb. 8. The changes were made following an overall decrease in the number of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in the state. In November, when the state implemented stricter guidelines to slow the spread of the virus, Massachusetts had a positive test average of approximately 5.94% for a data collection period of seven days. As of Feb. 18, the rate of weekly positive cases was 2.13% in Massachusetts and 1.18% in Waltham. The number of active cases, hospitalizations and deaths has also declined over the past weeks.
In light of the Nov. 10 release of the University’s Draft Anti-Racism Plan, the Justice’s editorial board will be reviewing and providing feedback on prominent sections. We hope that these forthcoming editorials will serve as a resource for students to provide feedback to the administration. We also recognize, however, that our editorial board is predominantly composed of white students, and we will work to ensure that we are not taking space or attention away from the voices of the BIPOC students who are most directly affected by racism on campus. In line with this goal, we have grounded our analysis of the appendices in the demands put forward by the Black Action Plan.
On Tuesday, Feb. 16, President Biden extended a ban on home foreclosures to June 30. Originally, Biden had extended the ban to March 31 via an executive order issued on his first day in office. According to the White House, one in five renters is behind on rent and just over 10 million homeowners are behind on mortgage payments. People of color face even greater hardship and are more likely to have deferred or missed payments, putting them at greater risk of eviction and foreclosure.
The Spring 2021 semester has continued with many restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic implemented in the Fall 2020 semester. As classes continue in both a remote or hybrid learning modality, this board is concerned with the lack of 10-minute breaks in some classes.
On Feb. 1, the Myanmar military, known as the Tatmadaw, deposed the democratically elected parliament and arrested a prominent leader of the majority party, Aung San Suu Kyi of the National League of Democracy. The Tatmadaw also declared a one year state of emergency and took control of Myanmar’s government.
The COVID-19 pandemic transformed the 2020-2021 academic year for college students. This semester, however, students in the Boston area have to contend with the winter weather's impact on mental health and well-being during the pandemic.
If you hand a cranky toddler a hammer, chances are they attempt a good hashing at whatever is in front of them. If you give a patterned fraudster unchecked executive authority, is it fair to say he will use that power to pardon his co-conspirators?
The pandemic brought Brandeis’ study abroad programs to a grinding halt last year, but students hoping to study abroad may have the opportunity to do so this coming summer and in the fall semester. The University has opened the application period for upcoming 2021 study abroad programming, but the constantly changing circumstances of the pandemic have led to much uncertainty.
As someone who enjoys watching and analyzing movies, some of my favorite films are those that dive into the darkest corners of the human psyche and explore some of the most challenging emotions a person can experience. However, at the end of a long week, I just want to sit back and enjoy watching a group of well-dressed young people in Regency-era England attending balls and falling in love. If you are also having a not-so-easy time with everything that's going on and want to watch a comfort movie, I present to you “Emma.”
As another semester on campus dominated by COVID-19-related restrictions kicks into gear, this board would like to offer an appraisal of some of the recent changes to dining on campus.
Recently an article was published by your team reflecting on the services provided by Escort Safety Service, specifically that of the Accessibility Transport van service that is offered. We, the current management team and the appropriate campus partners, came together to review the concerns raised in the article and the policies currently in place. We would like to use this platform to address some of the concerns raised in the article, as well as how we are looking forward to the future.
In an open letter to the Division of Science published in the Justice on August 27, 2020, a challenge was leveled against what was dubbed the “meritocratic extreme” in science education, arguing that its ethos has been used to rationalize outmoded, non-inclusive teaching practices and a generally unsupportive culture. The letter also argued that the Division’s failure to address this and to prioritize matters of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) has produced a litany of inequitable experiences for many of our underrepresented minority students (URM).
University President Ron Leibowitz presented the Lewis S. Rosenstiel award to biochemist Dr. Katalin Karikó, senior vice president of BioNTech RNA Pharmaceuticals, and Prof. Drew Weissman ’81, MA ’81, Ph.D. ’15, professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and director of Vaccine Research Infectious Diseases Division, for their discoveries in RNA therapeutics and vaccines. Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and Chief Medical Advisor in the Biden Administration, and Dr. Derrick Rossi, co-founder of Moderna, both gave addresses at the award ceremony, which took place on Feb. 8.
On Wednesday, Jan. 27, President Biden signed a series of executive orders addressing the climate crisis. These executive orders ranged from pausing federal oil leases to increasing the use of electric cars, with a specific goal of making the United States carbon neutral by 2050. Some have praised Biden for his ambitious policies in addressing the climate crisis, while others believe it is not ambitious enough. Over this century, the world is on track for a temperature rise of three degrees Celsius, making this coming decade critical for slowing carbon dioxide emissions. Another common critique of Biden’s climate plan is the potential economic impact it will have on middle-class families who depend on fossil fuel jobs for income. Is Biden’s 2050 goal too ambitious considering the years it will take to reverse the Trump-era policies on climate change, or not ambitious enough? What else should Biden do to fight climate change?