Plan A Hoyas, the controversial group that is lobbying Georgetown University to provide contraception and sexual education to students and allow more dialogue about related topics, held a rally for their cause today in Red Square where members of their group told stories of how they had been affected by Georgetown’s restrictive policies.

Afterward, they marched to President John DeGioia’s office to deliver to him a petition with dozens of signatures from students who supported their cause, a tape recorder on which students had recorded their stories of being frustrated by University policies, including the story of a student who had called into the University Hospital after being raped, and a response to the February 24 letter they received from Vice President for Student Affairs Todd Olson in response to their demands, or, “a response to his non-response.”

After being stopped by University employees on their way to the office, they gave the material to his Chief of Staff Erik Smulson in the foyer of the second floor of Healy Hall.

About two dozen students led the rally in Red Square, with some holding signs, like “Let’s make the 1st Amendment a Legacy.” A student in a dress shirt and tie who wore the moniker “Georgetown” on a piece of paper went around the half-circle of protesters putting tape over their mouths as what one rally leader, Julia Shindel (COL ‘10), called “pretty clear symbolism.”

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H*yas for Choice and United Feminists’ announcement that they were undertaking a joint campaign to pressure Georgetown into changing its reproductive rights policies has upset or confounded a number of students.

Now, members of several Catholic groups on campus have responded with a letter to President John DeGioia in support of the University’s current policies, in which they aim to refute the arguments made by HFC and UF that a Jesuit University can and should provide contraceptives, comprehensive sexual education in its medical facilities, and allow for greater dialogue about related topics.

“The students who are currently advocating this ‘Plan A’ campaign fail to understand our identity; they use terms such as ‘Catholic,’ ‘Jesuit,’ and ‘cura personalis’ without a basic understanding of their significance. Although perhaps not grounded in a willful ignorance, their argument nonetheless demonstrates a thorough and pervasive hostility for Georgetown as a Catholic institution rooted in the rich tradition of the Society of Jesus,” the letter states.

Here’s the full letter, which was sent to Vox by Georgetown Academy Editor David Gregory (COL ‘10):

Dear President DeGioia,

It has come to our attention that United Feminists and H*yas for Choice have recently submitted an open letter to your office and the University community at large. We are writing in response in order to point out the errors within their campaign and thought process. We do this not to over-dramatize this issue – which has resurfaced on a regular basis over the past two decades – or to belittle the University’s competency with regards to handling this campaign. We simply write to support our beloved University’s ideals and identity, which inhere within every facet of Georgetown’s operations and campus life.

The students who are currently advocating this “Plan A” campaign fail to understand our identity; they use terms such as “Catholic,” “Jesuit,” and “cura personalis” without a basic understanding of their significance. Although perhaps not grounded in a willful ignorance, their argument nonetheless demonstrates a thorough and pervasive hostility for Georgetown as a Catholic institution rooted in the rich tradition of the Society of Jesus. They advocate for “dialogue,” yet fail to engage in true dialogue given their ignorance of Catholic Social Teaching; there can be no dialogue without preliminary understanding, only empty accusations.

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H*yas for Choice and United Feminists have partnered up in a new campaign that’s demanding substantial change in Georgetown’s reproductive rights policies. The latter being a University-recognized group, the new movement has the potential to endanger UF’s funding and legitimacy.

Through the campaign, called “Plan A: Hoyas for Reproductive Justice,” the coalition is making demands for access to material benefits, like contraceptives on campus and rape kits at the Georgetown University Hospital, greater free speech allowances for groups like H*yas for Choice, and “comprehensive health education.”

“These are really rational demands broadly supported by the Georgetown community,” Marion Cory (COL ‘10), a board member of United Feminists, told Vox. “It boils down to basic rights, student safety, and student needs.”

Acknowledging that their campaign must adapt to the fact that its advocacy will take place on a Catholic campus, Cory explained that she felt confident their efforts could be successful because their demands were in fact in keeping with Jesuit ideals.

“We don’t see [this campaign] as overcoming Jesuit values, we see it more as asking for Georgetown to consider these issues in their true form, not just the narrows lens it uses now.” she said. “There are a lot of pieces to this issue, like social justice and providing for the health and safety of all people equally.”

She pointed to an open letter the two groups have already written to President John DeGioia on their coalitions’ blog, which she said used a lot of the University’s own language to speak to their demands:

“Issues related to reproductive justice disproportionately affect the lives of people in historically marginalized communities, such as women, people of color, and the economically disadvantaged– the very communities for which Georgetown professes to advocate.

“In addition, the approach Georgetown has taken with regard to discourse around these same issues has been anything but dialogue-promoting. Rather than allow students to openly engage with and discuss issues of choice, sexual health, and contraception, which undeniably shape the society we inhabit, university policies stifle and even prohibit this important exchange of ideas.”

After the jump, the full letter and what this may mean for UF’s Access to University Benefits.

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President John DeGioia has sent an e-mail message to Georgetown faculty and students regarding Georgetown University’s four day closure due to the blizzard. In it, he thanks students and staff who maintained Georgetown through several blizzards and speaks to efforts to make up for lost days of class.

“Most especially, I would like to thank the members of our facilities, housekeeping and food service staffs, who have shown remarkable dedication in the face of serious inconvenience, discomfort and logistical challenges,” he wrote. “Many staff members have stayed on campus overnight and worked around the clock to make this possible, and we all owe them a tremendous debt of gratitude.”

DeGioia continues, “I want you all to know that we are doing everything we can to get classes started again …. This will require some flexibility and patience from each of us as we develop creative solutions for this gap in our schedule and continue on with our academic work and other important projects.” You can read the full letter after the jump.

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The Georgetown Heckler isn’t out of the woods yet. Following a letter from Vice President for Student Affairs Todd Olson, and two campus-wide e-mails—one from University President John DeGioia and one from Provost James O’Donnell—the Georgetown University Faculty Senate has issued some excoriating words of its own about the December incident involving Heckler articles that some students found offensive.

On Friday, January 22, the Senate passed the following resolution:

We, the Georgetown University Faculty Senate, within the framework of respect for the right to free expression, as determined by the law, and to academic freedom, as determined by the Georgetown community, unequivocally condemn the abuse of such rights. We declare it our common view that the December 12th Georgetown Heckler article, “The Hoya holds annual cross lighting ceremony in Dahlgren quad,” was such an abuse because of its use of egregiously hurtful visual and verbal images that emphasized hate and dehumanization.

We urge President DeGioia and the rest of the University community to join us in condemning this abuse and in reaffirming Georgetown’s commitment to the Cura Personalis, with its “individualized attention to the needs of the other” and its “distinct respect for his or her unique circumstances and concerns.” (Georgetown University Mission & Ministry Statement) In violating those principles, this article was an affront to our entire community, particularly its African-American members, who were the specific targets of its bigotry. Claims of innocent intent do not lessen the impact of these racist images, which rub salt in wounds still fresh in the minds of many Americans, of all races.

We further condemn the unconscionable assault on common decency made by the inclusion of a fully identified child in this article. No possible intent can justify such a disgraceful debasement of our common discourse. We urge the author and editors to apologize to President DeGioia and his family for this outrage.

The offending article is still available on the Heckler’s website here.

Reporting by Will Sommer

Image from the Georgetown Heckler blog

The lame titular genitalia joke was supposed to grab your attention. Did it work?

Georgetown is still compiling all the information about how its finances performed in the last fiscal quarter, but some preliminary statistics are available. In the last financial quarter (which ended in December) the University’s endowment saw modest growth and ran a better-than budgeted operating deficit, albeit still in the millions, for the entire fiscal year 2009.

While Harvard and Princeton’s much larger endowments both saw losses of 30 percent each and Yale’s lost 25 percent (those figures being from their fiscal quarters ending in June), Georgetown’s grew by 8 percent last quarter, according to University Spokesperson Andy Pino, and was about $957 million as of December. In a Friday speech before the Faculty Senate, President John DeGioia waxed enthusiastic about the growth and Georgetown’s use of its endowment:

“I have joked that I never thought I would be extolling the virtues of tuition dependency, but with an endowment of approximately $1 billion before the global financial crisis, the impact for Georgetown is not commensurate with our peers. Harvard funds 35% of its operating costs from its endowment …Yale funds 44%…Princeton funds 52%–while we fund only 6% of our operating costs from our endowment. Our endowment had a return of 8% … which brings it back to $957 million as of December.”

Georgetown ran an operating deficit of $12.5 million for the whole fiscal year 2009, which was better than it budgeted for. However, Pino wrote in an e-mail, “In FY10, the effects of the recession are materializing, and we expect that number to be larger. We are working to ensure we can continue to operate and carry out our mission at the highest level.”

Photo from Flickr user AMagill used under a Creative Commons license.

On Friday afternoon, Georgetown University President John DeGioia sat down with student reporters from the Voice and The Hoya to answer a range of questions about Georgetown, including the Ten Year Plan, the goals of the school’s $1.5 billion Capital Campaign, the progress of the Diversity Working Groups, and football.

Below is a full transcript of DeGioia’s interview, painstakingly transcribed by the Voice’s Cole Stangler, our man at the meeting.

The highlights? In response to The Hoya’s April Fools’ Issue and the recent Heckler incident, Vice President for Student Affairs Todd Olson’s office is going to conduct a “satire and civility” workshop.

The University has raised $580 million so far in its Capital Campaign. Georgetown’s science center will cost $98 million to complete and its target date for completion is Fall 2012.

Voice: How do you view our relationship right now with the neighborhood? I know a lot of students seem to be frustrated about the extent to which the University has entertained neighborhood input with some aspects of the Ten Year Plan—like rerouting the GUTS bus through the Canal Street entrance. How would you respond to students who feel that the University has made concessions to residents that harm University life?

DeGioia: Well, it’s always a very difficult balancing act to try to recognize and understand the needs of the community with what it will take for us to be able to be successful in our mission. And so the work of the master plan is generally ongoing on all the time. It’s not like it’s something that we begin in the months leading up to the need to have it approved.

It’s truly a ten-year effort. We’re always at it and we’re always engaged with our neighbors in trying to understand their needs and their concerns. At the same time, we frustrate them. If a neighborhood were sitting here, they’d be using the same language. So we’re always trying to get the right balance. I believe what you’re seeing right now are a range of ideas and proposals that have been on the table that we are considering in one form or another, but it very much is a work in progress.

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Heckler Editor Jack Stuef (COL ‘10) speaking at a forum in December

In an e-mail to the Georgetown community that reflected on Martin Luther King Day, University President John DeGioia made his first remarks in response to the December Georgetown Heckler issue, which many students thought inappropriately satirized race. He also said that he and Provost James O’Donnell have also approved the suggestions of the Admissions and Recruitment Working Group, and that they will take the steps necessary to implement the suggestions.

“Mocking the history of oppression of others is not funny, does not build community, and does not reflect well on those who engage in it,” he wrote in response to the one of the Heckler’s articles. “We often cannot know how our words or deeds can hurt one another – how such an act can bring back into another’s consciousness an experience of a previous injustice or indignity.”

DeGioia also called the response to the Heckler incident ” responsible, respectful, and fitting for an academic community that is committed to the free exchange of ideas.”

The Admissions and Recruitment Working Group presented a draft of their proposals in late November, which it is not necessarily identical to the suggestions that DeGioia and O’Donnell have approved. That draft included suggestions to build a more diverse student body, such as:

• Prominently advertising the 1,789 new scholarships that Georgetown will be adding to encourage need-blind admissions over the next five years to potential students.
• Looking into strategies that will increase the likelihood that an accepted student from an underrepresented group will attend Georgetown
• Increasing the diversity of Blue and Gray tour guides and their knowledge of diversity issues and clubs on campus.
• Including imagery on Georgetown’s redesigned website that highlights campus diversity.
• Including a required essay prompt that invites students to discuss how their background or life experience would enrich Georgetown on applications.

The full text of DeGioia’s e-mail, after the jump.

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It all adds up!

Who knew that Georgetown’s administrators, professors, and graduates had so much power and influence?

Vox has been following VaticanAssassins.Org, a Jesuit conspiracy theory website, with great amusement for a while now. The website’s editor, Eric John Phelps, is a noted “black pope” conspiracy theorist who holds that a cabal of diabolical American Jesuits control U.S. foreign policy at the direction of Jesuits in Rome—including Jesuits at Georgetown.

So to finish out the year, here are the site’s Top 10 Conspiracy Theories about Georgetown from 2009.

(10) The Georgetown Jesuit Edmund A. Walsh established Columbus Day in 1934, and the Knights of Columbus, Freemasons, and Skull and Bonesmen then began to control the United States.

(9)  The Council of Foreign Relations is ruled by Jesuit influence and Georgetown University affiliations.

(8)  President John DeGioia and Professor John Gannon create Department of Homeland (“Romeland”) Security

(7)  “911 Demolition” carried out by Georgetown University Professor George Tenet and the CIA on the Archbishop of New York’s orders.

(6)  Georgetown Jesuit research fellow Thomas Reese promotes the Pope’s “alien, Roman Catholic, Latino/Mexican invasion.”

The top 5 stories after the jump…

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Makin’ bank

The Chronicle of Higher Education recently released its database of executive compensation at colleges and universities for the 2007-08 school year and Georgetown’s own John DeGioia isn’t doing too poorly for himself.

With a total compensation of $642,582 (that’s $607,939 in pay and 34,643 in benefits), DeGioia was the 63rd highest paid private university president in the country in 2007-08, according to the Chronicle’s data.  That salary was a $50,965 upgrade from what he received during the 2006-07 school year.

But DeGioia was outdone in the District by the president of American University, Cornelius Kerwin, who was the fifth highest paid private university president with $1,419,339 in total compensation.  The real record-holder, though, was George Washington University’s former president, Stephen J. Trachtenberg.  With a total compensation of $3.7 million, Trachtenberg was the high paid current or former university president by a margin of $2 million.

Photo by Lexie Herman.