Column: You listened, we noticed
Brittany Mendez, opinion editor
June 4, 2020
Hours after I published a column yesterday criticizing President Joseph E. Aoun’s initial statement in response to police brutality in America, he sent a second letter to the Northeastern community. The new statement provided concrete solutions and engagement opportunities for members of the commu...
Column: President Aoun, do better
Brittany Mendez, opinion editor
June 3, 2020
On June 1, Northeastern President Joseph E. Aoun released a statement in response to the rampant racism in our country, but he failed to address the root of the problem. Aoun’s letter was an empty, generic means of performative activism. For an institution that aims to be a “model for what our society can be,” I sinc...
Column: Consent matters, even if you’re a doctor
Maya Homan, opinion editor
February 27, 2020
Earlier this month, the New York Times published an article from researcher Emma Goldberg, who had uncovered a startling medical practice: Doctors in certain hospitals across the U.S. routinely perform pelvic exams on women who are undergoing surgery without any medical necessity and without asking f...
Column: Don’t judge the economy by Trump’s Tweets
Adrian Tolstoy, columnist
February 27, 2020
You have most likely heard President Donald Trump bragging about how well the economy has been doing under his leadership. Only recently Trump tweeted, “BEST USA ECONOMY IN HISTORY!” And sure, there has been a steady stock market rise, with constant record-breaking performances. It is fair to say that if ...
Column: Despite historic ‘Parasite’ Oscar win, the Academy remains biased against foreign films
Poon Singhatiraj, columnist
February 25, 2020
Bong Joon Ho’s cinematic masterpiece “Parasite” won Best Picture at the 92nd Academy Awards ceremony on Feb. 10, which marks the first movie not in the English language to win the coveted award. The film follows a poor family that plots to become employed by a wealthy family by posing as unrelate...
Column: Trump’s immigrant wealth test will harm US economy
Poon Singhatiraj, columnist
February 12, 2020
On Jan. 27, while the nation was distracted by the debacle of President Donald J. Trump’s impeachment trial, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to impose stricter, more draconian restrictions on immigrants looking to become permanent residents. The “public charge” immigration provisio...
Column: World War III memes dismiss the severity of war
Poon Singhatiraj, columnist
January 31, 2020
In the early hours of the morning Jan. 3, an American drone strike killed Qassim Suleimani, a prominent Iranian military general. Suleimani was head of the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Forces, a military unit that oversees Iran’s foreign operations. He was widely seen as one of the most powerful figure...
Column: Deportation of NU Student Undermines American Integrity
Maya Homan, Opinion Editor
January 30, 2020
On Sunday, Jan. 19, Northeastern economics student Mohammad Shahab Dehghani Hossein Abadi arrived at Logan International Airport in Boston to begin his spring semester. He was greeted instead by agents from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, or CBP, who detained him overnight and questioned him, despite the fact that he had obtained a valid F1 student visa prior to arriving in the United States. His lawy...
Column: Look at Sweden’s reality, not Bernie Sanders’ version
Adrian Tolstoy, columnist
January 24, 2020
You have most likely heard that the United States has a presidential election coming up this year. One of the most enthusiastic front-runners for the Democratic Party is Bernie Sanders. His political platform promises solutions to complex societal problems, and many of these proposals involve expandi...
Column: Northeastern must invest in its students’ health
Poon Singhatiraj, columnist
January 23, 2020
When a Northeastern student gets sick, it’s likely that one of the first things they will do is visit University Health and Counseling Services, or UHCS. That’s exactly what two of my friends did during one of the cold/flu outbreaks last October. First-years Elena Plumb and Madison Xagoraris bot...
Column: America should restructure its capitalism, not change it
Adrian Tolstoy, columnist
December 4, 2019
Many Americans feel as if the system is rigged against them. In fact, only 17 percent of the population trusts the U.S. government. What might be the reason for this distrust? Partially the unreasonably staggering inequality: while some people within one corporation struggle to make ends meet, people wor...
Column: Low U.S. election turnout rates demand reform
Poon Singhatiraj, columnist
November 20, 2019
As an American citizen who has lived most of his life abroad, I braced myself for a culture shock when moving back to the United States for college. I thought this shock would materialize in forgetting certain American mannerisms, slang or etiquette. I didn’t realize it would appear in the most bas...
