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(05/01/17 12:08am)
Now that it’s finals week, we’re on the brink of summertime. This is the time when celebrities reveal their summer reading lists — an annual opportunity for political figures, actors, writers or people from other echelons of fame to
exhibit their literary taste.
(04/24/17 12:51am)
When I first heard the term “dead week” as a first-semester freshman, I assumed that it referred to student sentiment during this fateful pre-finals period and alluded to students’ deathly appearances amid exam-related stress and end-of-
semester research papers.
(04/17/17 3:33pm)
The legal definition of disability is up for debate again after the Supreme Court found that Texas used outdated definitions of intellectual disability in a capital case.
(04/10/17 1:05am)
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently took Ivanka Trump and United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley to Broadway to learn some lessons about how to perform on international political stages.
(04/03/17 1:19am)
While Congress was locked up in debate over Speaker of the House Paul Ryan’s proposed American Health Care Act, the Washington, D.C., jail was jam-packed with demonstrators determined to protect Medicaid.
(03/27/17 12:25am)
Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa District 5, who is best known for his anti-immigrant statements, recently reintroduced legislation to declare English the official language of the United States. He has proposed this English Language Unity Act seven times without success, but this latest attempt resonates with President Trump’s fixation on monolingualism.
(03/20/17 1:36am)
The Great Barrier Reef allegedly died in October. The United States met its demise on Election Day and experienced an unexplained resurrection before a second wave of obituaries on Inauguration Day. The National Endowment for the Arts became this month’s subject of collective grieving.
(03/06/17 1:36am)
A newly discovered species of moth was recently christened “Neopalpa donaldtrumpi,” not only because the yellow scales that crown the moth’s head resemble Donald Trump’s characteristic hairstyle, but because
species naming has become a political statement.
(02/27/17 1:18am)
When I first saw a headline about #disabledandcute, my mind flashed to Otto the cat, an internet sensation diagnosed with a feline form of Down syndrome.
(02/20/17 2:25am)
A panel of researchers from the National Academy of Science and the National Academy of Medicine released a report last week indicating preliminary support for embryonic gene editing in cases of severe disease or
disability.
(02/13/17 2:22am)
Theater design has received renewed attention on Broadway lately. Rather than acoustics or aesthetics, however, ladies’ restrooms have become the latest architectural concern.
(02/06/17 2:06am)
While I was scrolling through my news feed this weekend, a rather improbable Playbill headline appeared: “You Will Be Watching Big Brother.” I, of course, carried out the logical procedure for dealing with news related to a fictional dystopian character: fact-checking.
(01/30/17 2:46am)
Last Monday’s Google Doodle featured disability rights activist Ed Roberts, who shook up the campus of University of California, Berkeley, in the early 1960s and led political initiatives on accessibility and independent living in California and beyond. Roberts was an excellent inspiration and example for how we should fight for disability rights.
(01/26/17 10:48pm)
The Slants, an Asian-American dance-rock band, recently released its new EP, “The Band Who Must Not Be Named.” The recording’s title, however, does not reference Harry Potter; rather, it makes an ironic gesture toward an ongoing controversy about trademark law.The United States Patent and Trademark Office denied the band’s application to trademark its name on the basis of a 70-year-old law prohibiting trademark recognition of “disparaging” names or symbols. The Slants, founded by Simon Tam, subsequently challenged the trademark office’s decision and claimed the law infringes on First Amendment rights. The case, Lee v. Tam, has since reached the Supreme Court, where the court’s decision could potentially set a precedent for other cases involving trademarks of slurs. In particular a ruling in favor of the Slants could potentially give legal backing to the Washington Redskins’ current suit for the reinstatement of its trademark. The Redskins’ trademark was rescinded in 2014 based on the same law that is now under scrutiny in the Slants’ case. Although two cases might seem equivalent under the letter of the law, the Editorial Board does not think they are identical in principle. Instead, the cases require additional context in interpreting the law because of the complexities of what constitutes an offensive name.As Tam has emphasized, the Slants’ name is an attempt to reclaim an ethnic slur as a symbol of Asian-American pride and identity. The Slants are not by any means the only group to reclaim an offensive epithet and recast it in a more positive context.A recent example is the “Crip the Vote” campaign. A group of disability rights activists started the movement to promote political participation within the disability community by re-appropriating the term “crip” as a sign of activism and empowerment. While it is uncertain what would happen if “Crip the Vote” tried to trademark its name, the law could hypothetically deny the trademark under this same standard. In more distant history the name “Yankee” was a derogatory term for Americans. It was first deployed first by the British in the colonial period and later by Confederate troops during the Civil War. However, today the term benignly identifies a baseball team and conveys a sense of American identity.Cases like these fundamentally question who gets to determine what is offensive. In part the trademark restriction only serves to reinforce slurs by not allowing them to fall out of use naturally or to acquire a less offensive meaning.Perhaps trademark law requires a more flexible standard, like the Miller test for determining obscenity, which requires a work to be “taken as a whole” and evaluated in the complete context of its creation. After all, the Slants’ name clearly does not intend to be offensive. For the Redskins, such intentions are less clear.Nevertheless, the Editorial Board believes the best option is simply to observe the First Amendment in trademark law. Just as free speech has the potential to be offensive, it also has the ability to oppose and critique offensive speech and even redefine its meaning.
(01/23/17 1:47am)
Betsy DeVos’ committee hearing was terrifying and not because of her suggestion that schools in Wyoming might need guns to fend off grizzlies. For students with disabilities the real threat has nothing to do with hypothetical bears; rather, it has to do with DeVos and the educational system.
(01/09/17 9:54pm)
Campus accessibility for people with physical disabilities is a widespread issue among universities that must be improved, especially on larger campuses like IU’s.
(12/11/16 10:43pm)
Sleep deprivation, as we are all aware, is an epidemic in colleges. The condition peaks during finals week and shows a trend of spontaneous recovery with the beginning of winter break.
(12/04/16 10:37pm)
The long-awaited “Hamilton” mixtape was released Friday, much to the delight of devoted Hamilfans, as the musical’s most avid followers are called.
(11/28/16 1:06am)
Amid concerns over the nomination of Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education, it’s time to review the predominance of state education
departments.
(11/13/16 9:47pm)
The grounding influence of history, which is my personal remedy for processing incomprehensible situations, ordinarily enables constructive remembrance and
perspective.