Op Eds

Rios-Galindo ’25: The Housing Lottery is in shambles. It demonstrates deeper problems within ResLife

By Angelina Rios-Galindo | April 27

Each spring, just after midterms, many Brown students enter perhaps the most stressful season of the year: housing selection. What should be a time of excitement in anticipation of the academic year to come is annually soiled by an inequitable cache of options, problematic power and resource dynamics ...

Artis ’22: The fight for a Green New Deal — people vs. fossil fuels

By Zanagee Artis | April 26

In July 2017, I co-founded Zero Hour, a global, youth-led climate justice organization mobilizing for a livable planet while working to dismantle the systems of oppression at the root of the climate crisis: colonialism, capitalism, racism and patriarchy. In the summer before my first semester at ...

Thio ’22: Moving on from COVID-19 shouldn’t mean doing nothing

By Ethan Thio | April 24

We are tired of COVID-19. Surveys suggest the majority of the United States thinks we need to move on, and many moved on a while ago. I’m tired, too — it’s been a long two years. When experts say almost everyone will get the virus, it can be easy to wonder why one should bother avoiding COVID-19 ...

Nyman ’23: With increasing temperatures, we should start preparing for a rise in climate anxiety

By Brooke Nyman | April 7

It’s almost impossible to tune into the news these days without being forced to reckon with humanity’s role in perpetuating the climate crisis. Believe me, I don’t like hearing about my undeniable personal contribution to the degradation of our planet any more than the next person — ...

Agvanian ’25: Don’t just blame Putin for the Russian invasion

By Artem Agvanian | March 22

As I walked the streets of my hometown of Mariupol, Ukraine this summer, I saw a poem painted on a wall. Part of it went like this: “Now every one of us has an empty piece of luggage in hand / In that luggage there are ashes gathered in the crosshairs.” Now, as Russian forces bombard the city ...

Dill ’24: Brown needs to better accommodate students with chronic illnesses

By Delaney Dill | March 11

Living with chronic illness is no easy task, but living with chronic illness in college sometimes feels impossible. Last year, I learned that my medications meant to treat my illness were not working. I relapsed. While I am no longer in clinical remission, I am on a new medication that has the potential ...

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Opinions

Orr: Remembering the lost social justice legacy of Charles C. Diggs, Jr.

By Marion Orr | February 18

The civil rights movement transformed the United States. While there were many reasons for its success, nothing was more important than the rise of strong African American leaders who displayed great courage in confronting injustice and righting past wrongs. They publicized racial inequities and ...

Opinions

Sender ’25: What ancient Angkor teaches us about building modern cities

By Gabriel Sender | February 2

Engineers around the world all face the same fundamental challenge: How do we protect flood-prone cities from the rising tide of climate change? Since the 1970s, climate change has caused weather-related disasters to become five times more common and seven times more damaging. What is particularly ...

Opinions

Drake ’24: Brown needs to oppose Koch influence, starting with the PPE Proposal

By Ethan Drake | January 28

Every year, the network of donors convened by billionaire industrialist Charles Koch spends millions of dollars on universities, think tanks, policy groups and politicians to promote a worldview that is anti-science and anti-democratic. Between 1997 and 2018, Koch Family Foundations have spent nearly ...

Opinions

Papendorp and Sindhu: GLO members demand workplace democracy

By Carin Papendorp | December 3

As members of our graduate union, we were proud to agree to a contract with the University on issues that matter to graduate students, such as wages, parental benefits and a grievance procedure. We have also continually done our best to respect and honor the words of our contractually binding agreements ...

Opinions

Simon '25: Sustainable fashion is a class issue

By Alissa Simon | November 17

Fast fashion is wasteful beyond belief. Its models of constant production in many ways represent the very worst of the industry, and slowly but surely, these brands are falling out of favor. I’ve watched it happen in my own closet.

Opinions

Barboza: Brown’s commitment to dining employees and dining services on campus

By George Barboza | October 22

In the weeks since Brown returned to more traditional operations for fall 2021, a news story,

Opinions

Rauschenbach ’23: Brown must respect BDS workers

By Matt Rauschenbach | October 8

Long lines might be the hallmark of the student dining experience at Brown. But these lines are a symptom of a deeper crisis: the shocking conditions facing our dining hall workers. ...

Opinions

Bayard ’24: The GOP’s heart is no longer orderly nor conservative

By Augustus Bayard | September 20

In his 1968 book “Miami and the Siege of Chicago,” novelist-slash-journalist Norman Mailer offered the following characterization of the rank-and-file Nixon supporters he saw at that year’s Republican National Convention in Miami: A “principal of a small town high school, local lawyer, retired ...

STEM

Gumus GS: When PhD dreams turn into nightmares: bad mentoring edition

By Selahaddin Gumus | September 17

Nightmares surrounding STEM PhDs are plentiful — classic examples are the student who spends 14 hours a day in the lab, the coworker who sabotages others’ experiments and the newly graduated student who stares down the barrel of two consecutive postdoctoral positions because they are unprepared ...

Opinions

Gupta ’22: IAPA and the old three-concentration system can and should coexist

By Deepak Gupta | September 13

“Do you pronounce it I-A-P-A or I-APA?” This conversation with my fellow International Relations concentrators was a lighthearted way of passing the time. But questioning IAPA’s pronunciation illustrated how the Watson Institute had transformed over the past year. In April 2019, the Watson Institute ...

Opinions

Marcus ’82: Three tips for 18-year-old me

By David L. Marcus | September 10

Driving on I-95 in the late summer, I feel something tugging me back to College Hill. As I stroll past University Hall, the Rock and the Ratty, I get wistful. Why didn’t I make the most of those undergrad years? What if I knew then what I know now?

Opinions

Dardashti: Rosh Hashanah’s promise tells us, ‘you’ve got this.’

By Rabbi Michelle Dardashti | September 8

Elijah is my favorite biblical prophet; he’s got fire and he’s got pain — like all of us. When his fears threaten to snuff out his fire, he runs away — like we sometimes do. God finds him hiding in a cave and, quite literally, calls him out (if you’ve got God hang-ups or anthropomorphism isn’t ...

Opinions

Palestine Solidarity Caucus: Brown can no longer be ‘progressive except for Palestine’

By Palestine Solidarity Caucus | August 3

On May 15, the Palestine Solidarity Caucus first shared Brown Community’s Letter of Solidarity with the Palestinian liberation struggle, which condemns the May 2021 escalations in Israeli state and settler-mob violence against Palestinians across historic Palestine. In that period, Israel forcibly ...

Opinions

Simon ’25: Why Olympism isn’t curing us this time

By Alissa Simon | August 3

The world is on fire, but it’s time to turn on the Olympics again. As our oceans rise and the spread of the Delta variant further exposes deep and defining geopolitical divisions, surfers, track stars and skateboarders from around the world have gathered in Tokyo. Like clockwork, we suspend judgement ...