Arrington: What I Want to Be When I Grow Up
(09/23/21 8:05am)
“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
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“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
In the late hours on the first night of Sept. 1, the Supreme Court allowed Texas’s law banning abortion after six weeks of pregnancy to go into effect. The decision leaves the door open for further litigation, but in the meantime, the consequences have been disastrous. Abortion services have ground to a near-halt in Texas, depriving thousands of people of access to a vital form of healthcare. The decision was a legal travesty, best summed up by a line in Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s sharp dissent — “a majority of Justices have opted to bury their heads in the sand.”
For the first time in nearly eighteen months, Dartmouth has welcomed a majority of its undergraduate students back to campus and into classrooms. Many returning students have embraced this development as a welcome return to the Dartmouth of pre-pandemic times. Yet, for many others, this development represents a clear divergence from the Dartmouth experience they have had thus far. In-person classes, non-socially distanced dining halls and open-to-campus events hosted by Greek houses are entirely foreign to many students. For them, the Dartmouth experience they are familiar with is not the one they have encountered upon returning for the fall term.
Established in 2016 as part of College President Phil Hanlon’s Moving Dartmouth Forward initiative, the house communities were designed to revolutionize the social lives of students. A way to subvert the influence of Greek life, the advent of the six house communities brought a Harry Potter-esque promise of camaraderie and continuity to what some would consider an otherwise disjointed campus.
Last month, an Islamic State sponsored attack on the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan killed dozens of people — among them, 13 American soldiers. As my immigrant mother watched the coverage in horror, she said it brought back painful memories of the 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Beirut, which she had witnessed first-hand.
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, The Dartmouth made the necessary decision to suspend print production. Yet thanks to the tireless work of our incredible staff, who overcame distance and countless other hurdles presented by the pandemic, The Dartmouth’s daily coverage continued uninterrupted online as the paper pioneered a new digital-first strategy. By winter 2021, we were able to resume a revised print schedule, publishing a weekly edition of The Dartmouth every Friday morning.
This column is featured in the 2021 Freshman special issue.
This cartoon is featured in the 2021 Freshman special issue.
This cartoon is featured in the 2021 Freshman special issue.
This column is featured in the 2021 Freshman special issue.
This column is featured in the 2021 Freshman special issue.
This column is featured in the 2021 Freshman special issue.
As national and local concerns mount over contamination from perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances — a class of over 4,700 synthetic chemicals that are resistant to environmental degradation and are commonly referred to as PFAS, or “forever chemicals” — states are working to address the PFAS contamination found in soil, water, air, wildlife and humans with more comprehensive regulations and regard for environmental and human health. Indeed, in the absence of federal regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency and Congress regarding PFAS, states are taking the lead in addressing PFAS issues. However, the U.S. military — one of the largest PFAS polluters — is not beholden to state standards and can escape responsibility for their role due to lackluster federal standards. To hold the military responsible for its actions that damage both the environment and human health, states must subject the military to their respective PFAS regulations.
The steady rise in global temperatures significantly impacts the number, frequency and duration of natural disasters. In Haiti, the official death toll has risen to over 2,000 after a 7.2 magnitude earthquake hit the western part of the island last week, with rescue efforts stalled by a tropical storm that lashed the fragile island just days later. Although the evidence supporting the association of natural disasters with climate change has only increased in recent years, some still argue that the data doesn’t reflect the whole story.
A recently released report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has a loud, clear and harrowing message: Humans are “irrevocably” to blame for the greenhouse gas emissions that are causing rising seas, raging forest fires, devastating droughts, melting ice caps and intense heat waves worldwide. In addition, the report warns that greenhouse gases have become so pervasive that global temperatures will increase by 1.5 degrees Celsius in the next two decades. An increase of up to and over the 2 degrees Celsius mark is likely unless the United States and our global partners act fast to enact bold climate change prevention initiatives.
The American education system’s dismal underperformance compared with other wealthy and developed nations is well-established. More troubling than the disparity between the U.S. education system and those of other wealthy nations, however, are the vast disparities found between schools in the United States. There is tremendous variation in school quality — including academic and extracurricular offerings, college and career counseling and teaching effectiveness — across the United States. Moreover, the reason why this variation in quality exists is clear: vast discrepancies in funding. The American public school system needs reform — funding should be based on the number of students, not the wealth of their parents and school district.
Last week, the Hanover Selectboard voted to reinstate its indoor mask mandate, citing recent spikes in local COVID-19 cases as the Delta variant of the virus spreads nationally. The following day, Dartmouth announced that it would also reinstate indoor masking. These decisions seem decidedly unpopular among students, as evidenced by student sentiments seen in several pieces published in The Dartmouth last Friday.
Yesterday, Dartmouth announced that the College would be reinstating its indoor masking requirement in light of the Hanover Selectboard’s decision to renew its indoor masking policy on Aug. 4. Interim provost David Kotz and executive vice president Rick Mills also stated in a campus-wide email that the decision was made to “avoid future disruptions” and offer the community “the earliest possible return to normalcy.”
Summer term served as a test of Dartmouth’s ability to operate “normally” as the pandemic continues. It’s fair to say things have gone well so far: Until recently, cases have been few and far between even after most COVID-19 policies were rolled back in the last month. However, increasing case counts locally and the rapid spread of the Delta variant across the country have thrown a “normal” fall term into uncertainty. Just this week, Hanover reinstated its indoor mask mandate, and the College did the same yesterday. What should Dartmouth do to balance fears around COVID-19 with its long-promised return to normal operations? Should the College prioritize one over the other?
“This too shall pass.” So seems to be the logic of the institution: if you leave students in a constant state of limbo, they will forget what has already passed. But students see this and resist: calling on College President Phil Hanlon to resign, demanding compassionate mental health policies and stressing the need for an expansion of the housing supply. And as some students have noted in these opinion pages, this problem goes far, far deeper than the surface relief that changes in both administrative policies and personnel can provide. These problems are rooted in the historical, callous indifference of the College and the institution itself — its austere policies and the choices it makes — or refuses to make.
