Sophia DuRose

I know how tough these times can be. I also know the power of generosity. The world is too ugly right now to not be kind and generous when we can be. 

I urge everyone to think about what kind of harm they’re doing to their peers when they record them on Zoom, and what kind of harm this does to the safe space of education more generally.

It shouldn’t be uncommon to know your neighbors, and it shouldn’t be uncommon to extend kindness to everyone in your community. 

Online learning comes with side effects, as does every classroom.

We are all complicit in allowing systemic racism to remain alive if we do not do the necessary, dirty work of calling out microaggressions, dismantling harmful generalizations, and ridding our personal conversations of stereotypes. 

If I were to write an opinion article without providing links to articles written by Black authors about the murder of George Floyd and the subsequent protests, I would be failing at my attempt to recognize my white privilege. 

A masculinity that looks toward countries led by women around the globe who manage to have civil press conferences and provide correct information during this crisis is necessary.

Even though there are massive problems in the world right now, small ones still hurt. And if anything good could come out of any of this, it should be a greater sense of urgency to be empathetic and kind.

Penn should be doing the right thing without student intervention, and that means not laying off 140 hard workers in the middle of a global crisis. 

Penn has over a 14 billion dollar endowment. If a killer pandemic isn’t the perfect time to use some of it, I don’t know when is.