Protesters demand a $15 minimum wage and better working conditions
If students cannot rely on their university to pay them a living wage and provide good working conditions, what do they do? This is the question many student workers are asking themselves at Ohio State. While tuition, housing, food, and transportation costs continue to rise, wages for student workers employed by Ohio State remain stagnant. It is apparent to them that it is time to fight back.
On Friday January 21st, in collaboration with student workers, Students for a Democratic Society at Ohio State (SDSOSU) and Young Democratic Socialists at Ohio State (YDSOSU) held a protest to raise demands towards the university that student workers desperately need. They included a $15 an hour minimum wage, free parking for student workers, paid sick leave, holiday pay, more frequent and higher raises, and higher work hour limits for international and DACA (a federal program to protect immigrant youth from deportation) students.
The main theme of the demonstration was the fight for a $15 minimum wage. According to a pamphlet the SDS distributed “most student workers are paid anywhere from $9.30/hr (as of 2022) to $12/hr, with the majority being at or below $10/hr”. Furthermore, it says “during 2020-2021… OSU had an exceptionally strong financial year with an increase in its gains to $2.961 billion”. It is extremely clear that OSU has enough money for the demands. Not only that, but there is no way that they do not realize that students are struggling to live on their starvation wages.
One student worker and organizer that I talked to was Jacob Messman. I asked him what a $15 minimum wage would mean for him. He said that “I’d be able to support myself regardless of whether I choose to live on-campus or off-campus… I’d be able to pay bills, buy groceries, rely less on my inadequate university meal plan, spend more money on myself… I can’t do that with $9.30 an hour”.
Further, Messman also responded to university spokesperson Ben Johnson’s recent statement seen in an article in the Columbus Dispatch by Sheridan Hendrix that “the university offers competitive salaries and benefits to retain and support our critical student employees, and we value their contributions to our campus life and land grant mission”.
Messman said he’s tired of hearing that script. “Of course that’s their response. They have no interest in paying their students a living wage…to call their wages and benefits competitive is ludicrous”.
One key aspect that often gets missed in this discourse is that most student workers not only cannot afford to live on these wages, but they are also simultaneously going deep into debt to pay for their education.
The last time the federal minimum wage was increased was in 2009, ($7.25/hr). According to the OSU website, in the academic year 2009-2010, “typical undergraduate resident fees for Columbus Campus students [was $18,695.]” It is now 2022 and these costs look quite different. This year the website says an incoming first-year student under the same circumstances can expect to pay $25,288. That is about a 35% increase in cost. Since then, the minimum wage in Ohio has only increased from $7.30 an hour to $9.30 an hour.
According to the MIT Living Wage Calculator, someone working full time and living by themselves in Franklin County needs to earn at least $14.12 an hour to make a living wage. Most student workers are part-time simply because they do not have time as students to work full-time. How can students expect to get by on poverty wages as a student, while racking up thousands of dollars in debt?
Something must change; students are increasingly finding it harder and harder to get by. It is not sustainable to rely on the state or the federal government to raise the minimum wage. The university must act if they want students to feel comfortable while going to school. Enough is enough; it is time for the university to set a $15 minimum wage and meet all the demands of the protesters.
This article was originally published in the Columbus Free Press and cross published with permission.
As you may already know, this past Tuesday, 1/4/22, the Ohio State University President, Kristina M. Johnson, sent out an email detailing the university’s COVID-19 policies going into Spring Semester of 2022. This email and its contents regarding these “policies” provide no genuine action plan on how to safely tackle getting an education amidst a worsening pandemic, and ultimately serve as a gesture at best.
This screenshot from the CDC’s data tracker represents the “dramatic increase in COVID infections” that President Johnson alluded to in the beginning of her email. As can be seen, the entirety of the United States is experiencing a high rate of transmission and positive testing. This rate is the highest since the pandemic began.
To be more specific and relevant to our situation, Ohio’s rate of transmission is following a similar trend.
According to the New York Times’ COVID tracker, shown above for ease, it can be seen that Ohio is also currently experiencing the highest rate of transmission and positive testing since the pandemic began.(1)
And in this infographic, we can see even more so the intensity of the Omicron surge, as Ohio is now placing 8th in the nation for highest daily average of COVID cases.(2)
As we know, the new variant, Omicron, is highly contagious. It can be blamed for the majority of the intense spread that is currently ravaging the United States. In this infographic from the CDC’s Data Tracker, the Omicron variant is making up about 93.7% of cases in what they call “Region 5,” which includes Ohio. To put that into a larger perspective, over the entirety of the United States, the Omicron variant makes up about 95.4% of cases.(3)
Now that we have an idea of the type of risk that we are facing as people residing in the US, and especially Ohio, let’s take a look at President Johnson’s email and focus on the university’s policies and their shortcomings.
In this excerpt, President Johnson writes, “[t]he university will continue to monitor the situation as it evolves and will update protocols as information becomes available.” There is information currentlyavailable to help “update protocols.”
According to a study informed by both the CDC and American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists’ (ACGIH) Pandemic Response Task Force, and provided by the Wall Street Journal, cloth masks worn by both an uninfected and infected individual will still allow transmission of the highly contagious Omicron variant within 27 minutes.4 A single, in-person class at the Ohio State University lasts at least 55 minutes. With cloth masks, in an indoor setting, transmission is essentially guaranteed. President Johnson provided no mention of requiring N95, KN95, or the various other masks of this quality, in classrooms or on campus. Since N95 masks are left to medical workers, KN95 masks are the next best option. However, these masks are in high demand, and prices are rising quickly. As of writing this letter, a single KN95 mask costs $2, a box of 5 is, at the lower end of the pricing spectrum, $15, and a box of 10 costs upwards of $25 dollars.5 Students will most likely not be able to afford to purchase these genuinely protective masks, and therefore the spread will continue uncontrollably as classes proceed in person.
This is not to mention the situation beyond the classrooms, and in the dorms.
According to this excerpt of President Johnson’s university COVID policies guideline, students who test positive upon arrival, and in general, cannot be in the dorms, and must find housing on their own: “[s]pace is not guaranteed.” Therefore students who test positive, or students who were even in contact with someone who tested positive, must go to a local hotel and pay for their entire stay with their own assets, however few or many those may be. The university is not offering any discounted rates or compensation for the stay. Taking a glance at the hotel list provided on the Safe and Healthy Buckeyes website,6 the Marriott in Worthington charges upwards of $89/night per single person room, and the Marriott in Dublin charges upwards of $149/night for their single person rooms. The Holiday Inn Express Suites OSU runs for upwards of $123/night, Hyatt Place OSU for upwards of $114/night, Staybridge Suites OSU for upwards of $109/night, and Springhill Suites for upwards of $129/night. These rates can all be found on each of their websites. What this email does not cover is that these places may not even have spaces available. There are about 60k+ students on the main campus. The Holiday Inn Express Suites OSU has only two single rooms available at the moment. What will happen once in-person lectures begin?
During both semesters of 2020, President Drake offered housing and meal plan refunds to freshmen and sophomores to allow them to live off campus due to the pandemic. This semester, if students want to defer from living on campus due to the rapid rate of COVID transmission, they must pay approximately $3500 for “violating the contract” as can be observed in this response a student received from University Housing.
Additionally, during those previous semesters there were designated spaces purchased for the housing of infected and exposed students, which were offered at no cost to them. The availability of those spaces helped ensure the safety of our community. The university’s expectations for each infected or exposed person to manage their quarantine and isolation housing on their own, as well as pay for it on their own, is ignorant atbest. This move will put the community at even higher risk because many, even most, students will not be able to find a place to quarantine with prices of $100+ pernight. This policy fails to mention how meals will be handled as well.
There is a federal fund consisting of millions of dollars, called the “Together as Buckeyes Emergency Fund” that students can apply for due to financial hardship as a direct result of the pandemic. However, this resource was not mentioned nor provided in the email, when its presence in the section regarding isolation and quarantine housing would have been important.
Ultimately, it is clear through President Johnson’s email that neither she, nor the rest of the university’s administration, care about the health and safety of their students. This email and the “policies” included offer no protection nor genuine concern about human lives, and ultimately serve as a strawman and a gesture to save face. Money is, and has always been, the number one priority to the heads of tOSU’s administration.
If this is truly not the case, and you, President Johnson, would like to show us all that we matter more than the money you would be making off our suffering, then it is in your best interest to meet the following demands.
Ohio State must fully cover lodging for students who test positive or who are exposed to someone who has tested positive. This is possible, as evidenced by it already having been done. This is necessary whether it comes in the form of providing isolation/quarantine housing on campus, or paying for the costs of hotel fees.
Ohio State must also provide coverage for any other costs associated with such isolation and quarantine, such as meal costs.
Ohio State must make a commitment to properly socially distancing ALL in-person classes and officially recommending and providing proper, protective PPE.
Ohio State must authorize all university courses to utilize hybrid or online modes of instruction. This will allow the delivery to be up to the professors, and will help limit the spread of COVID-19.
Ohio State must require students, staff, and faculty who live off campus, but spend a significant amount of time on campus, to test weekly.
Ohio State must enforce the testing mandate and hold students accountable. In the past, students could completely ignore the “mandatory” testing and would not receive any consequences for putting others at risk.
While we as students do not have the economic means to put pressure on you financially, and hit you where it hurts, we believe that if you ignore our demands that the financial losses will occur naturally. These demands are not optional, they are required. If you want to continue the semester and see it to its full term, you will meet these demands. If you do not, you will face the consequences of your own hubris and greed. People will get sick by the masses. They will be unable to fulfill the expectations for their classes. Grades will drop dramatically. People will most likely find it to be easier to withdraw from the semester than to continue to struggle and damage their GPAs. Once it gets bad enough, your final and best option will be to shut down the school. You will have to issue refunds, like you had when this pandemic first began. This is your final warning. If you decide to ignore these demands, you will have to look into the eyes of your students and admit your defeat. Meeting these demands is in your best interest.
On Thursday, October 28th, Student Solidarity at The Ohio State University announced a new mutual aid effort on their Instagram. The goal of the effort is to help OSU students and community members in a myriad of ways, including providing access to free food, textbooks, or tutoring; providing money for rent, medicine, or tuition; giving rides to help people access needs; and more. This comes after a history of Student Solidarity and Students for a Democratic Society members coming together to raise thousands for Hunter Mattin, a former member of Student Solidarity who was unjustly arrested at a Black Lives Matter protest last April.
According to the announcement, students and community members should DM the Student Solidarity Instagram to make requests. Aaron Reilman, Treasurer of Student Solidarity, shared that this process will be more streamlined soon, which will allow for further anonymity for those requesting aid and make it possible for those without Instagram accounts to request aid.
Sierra Haurani, a general body member of Student Solidarity, explained that this project is inspired by other college’s mutual aid initiatives, particularly Barnard College’s @barnardmutualaid. Haurani said “I watched Barnard Mutual Aid go from 100 to 1.2K followers… I feel like [that growth] will be easier somewhere like OSU where the student body isn’t [very small].”
Student Solidarity has launched a Cash App account to fund this new initiative. You can find and donate to this account on the app by searching for $OSUStudentSolidarity. All money given will go directly into helping the OSU community.
How Squid Game exposes the backwardness of capitalism
The main character, Seong Gi-Hun, participates in Squid Game. Image Credit: https://slate.com/culture/2021/10/squid-game-voice-actor-greg-chun-dubbing-gi-hun-into-english
Within our society it seems as if we always talk about the successful and the wealthy people in capitalism. Far and few they actually come; what about everyone else? Why do we find it okay to talk about those who become rich in capitalism but never want or find it necessary to mention the vast majority who are not so lucky? The new Korean TV series, Squid Game, highlights those who suffer the most in our overtly wretched society.
Most of the time when working class people run out of money, they are forced to take out loans or skip payments in order to survive. Whether it be for medical expenses, rent, or even having the nerve to go and seek a higher education. It is not a secret that many of those in the working class have to go into debt if they want to make it through life or try and better their circumstances. In the show, Squid Game, the rich prey on those who are most in debt and persuade them to sacrifice their lives by playing various games in order to wipe their debt and escape misery. Most of the players participating are working class individuals who have families and real struggles in their everyday lives.
One player, Ali, is an immigrant to South Korea from Pakistan. He brought his wife and kid to the capitalist nation seeking a better opportunity at having a decent life. Capitalism is ever-expanding and uses at-will-employment as one of its key mechanisms of employing workers. Immigrants are critical aspects of capitalism since companies can fire employees whenever they want and always need new workers to replace old ones. In essence, workers are dispensable cogs in a machine. Not to mention, another fundamental characteristic of capitalism is the exploitation of workers’ value of their labor. Thus, many in the working class will go to any extreme so they can better their situation since they are never able to actually “reap what they sow.” In the case of immigrants, people are willing to take a substantial risk and leave their homeland for better opportunities. In the show, Ali works at a Korean factory where his boss withholds payments to him, thus driving him to partake in the Squid Game. This highlights how immigrants’ labor is used against them for only capitalists’ gain.
Capitalism drains the life out of people due to the demand for infinite growth. In a system where greed for money and capital is the main motivating factor, it is no coincidence that the worst is brought out of people. Capitalism is a backwards system that can best be described by the phrase “dog eat dog”. In the system of capitalism, inequality is necessary for it to be successful. Therefore, if you are lucky enough to have money and resources you will succeed; if not, you will inevitably suffer. Human beings are driven to vulnerable and powerless positions such as homelessness or starvation because of lack of resources. When people are put in these conditions, they are forced to ignore their moral compass and will do anything to take back their resources or power.
In Squid Game, one character in particular that shows off the dark side of humanity under capitalism is Jang Deok-Su. Introduced as a gangster in gambling debt to other gangsters, he is the contestant that will fabricate and kill his way to victory. While most everyone else is okay with just playing the games to figure out who wins. No matter how someone dies, whether it be in an actual game or while they are sleeping, their death adds to the total amount of prize money. When this was discovered by the contestants, Jang led a night-time riot, to murder as many people as possible. The portrayal of his character in the show can be a direct analogy of real-life struggles under capitalism. It should be common knowledge that the number-one cause of crime is poverty. When people have nothing and can’t get anything without violence that is exactly what they will resort to.
As capitalism emerged out of feudalism it brought the patriarchal nuclear family along with it. The type of family we see today grew out of the invention of private property and private wealth. As Friedrich Engels put it in Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, “The first class opposition that appears in history coincides with the development of the antagonism between man and woman in monogamous marriage, and the first class oppression coincides with that of the female sex by the male”. As men were able to subjugate women, they married to pass on their private property and wealth to their sons. Thus, the nuclear family materialized. This family type we can observe is one where there is no extended family just parents and children. The nuclear family under capitalism is one of the basic units of society that helps to uphold the system. Capitalism has turned family life into one of consumption where money can easily make or break a family.
In Squid Game, this family dynamic is demonstrated a couple of times. The main character, Seong Gi-Hun, has multiple family issues when it comes to money. His mother is a type 2 diabetic who struggles to pay her medical bills and Seong has no way to support her financially. At one point she desperately needs medical attention but decides not to get any as her only choices were either paying medical bills or paying rent. Seong also has a gambling problem and has blown a lot of money away. He also accrued multiple loans that he simply will never be able to pay back. The issue of debt weighs heavily on him and his family. It was the main driver behind his divorce. Not to mention the fact he cannot even afford a birthday present for his daughter. Unfortunately, under capitalism everything is relegated to a money-relation, even the family.
One of the most startling comparisons that can be made from Squid Game is how similar it resembles the military. Especially in the United States, the military is used to target poor and BIPOC students. Our military recruits 24/7 in high schools, on college campuses, and especially through television and internet advertising. When they do this, they offer incentives like free college, sign-on bonuses, or room and board. Ultimately, they offer a way out for many struggling kids. Their targets are not the rich kids who have their life set; their targets those who have it the worst. It is literally a system of blood for money. We have our young kill and loot in other nations for the rich’s benefit and the poor’s demise. In Squid Game it is no different, they recruit the poor and desperate to play a bloody game for the rich’s entertainment at the poor’s expense (except for one extraordinarily lucky winner).
The biggest show of the year has reminded the world of the evil system we live under. While it is bloody and hard to watch at times, it is an accurate critique of capitalism and its consequences. Whether it be relegating the family to mere money and property relations, forcing people to immigrate hoping to live a better life, bringing the worst out in human beings, or forcing us to become hired assassins, our system is wretched and must be overthrown and replaced with something focused on the needs of us all.
References:
Hwang, Dong-Hyuk. (2021). Squid Game. Season One. Television Series.
Engels, Friedrich. (1884). The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.
Tarrare’s story starts in 1772 in Lyon, France where he was born to his humble parents. Like all growing boys, he had a growing appetite. Like all growing boys, he noticed changes in his body. By age 17 he was 100 pounds, putridly sweaty, with thin lips, bloodshot eyes, and a large gaping maw that would make a Boa Constrictor jealous. His stomach, when empty, could wrap around his waist like a self-deployable belt (how handy!). Although, he didn’t like to leave his stomach empty for long. As a child, he would eat his own body weight in beef, until it got to the point that Tarrare was gobbling up ¼ of a cow daily. How is that for an after-school snack?
Needless to say, Tarrare was an incredible medical oddity often overlooked by French history. To this day, it is unclear what medical affliction could’ve caused his uncontrollable hunger. It is theorized that an extreme form of hyperthyroidism could’ve been at play. This disease occurs when the thyroid gland located in the neck is overactive, producing too much thyroxine hormone. This drastically raises the body’s metabolism, making those affected eat more without losing weight, as well as show puffy eyes and excessive sweating.
Whatever was wrong with their son, Tarrare’s parents didn’t know. As Tarrare and his costly meals grew, his parents simply couldn’t keep up with the financial demands. Teenage Tarrrare was disowned and left to find his own next meal. He quickly fell in with some questionable characters. Despite their controversial lifestyle, this troop of sex workers and thieves was his new family. He would perform on the streets, showing off how powerful gluttony can really be. He would eat inanimate items, like stones and corks. He’d move up to tricks like devouring entire bags of apples and even live animals. The crowd couldn’t take their eyes off the disturbing spectacle. This was their first mistake, as the troop of thieves previously mentioned would swoop in to start pickpocketing the enamored crowd.
He moved on to perform as a side show for a snake oil salesman. He would devour any items offered by the stunned bystanders. As his stomach swelled up like a balloon, so did the crowds. This drew quite an audience to peddle to. Eventually, Tarrare would head off to start his own solo act.
During one of these solo acts in 1788, Tarrare finally had his first run in with the medical field. Something got caught in his digestive track. You probably don’t need a medical professionals’ input to know that isn’t good. Onlookers rushed him to the local hospital, where a hardy dosage of laxatives fixed the problem. Apparently, humans have always been great with laxatives. Our primordial ancestors basically crawled out of the mud and immediately got to work on expelling feces. Fun fact, cholera was treated with laxatives in the past. This is quite ironic, because the bacterial disease’s main symptom and cause of death is the dehydration from extreme cases of diarrhea. It was an inadequate treatment to say the least.
But for Tarrare, it did just the trick and he fully recovered. He even offered to eat the doctor’s pocket watch. The doctor responded that if Tarrare did eat his watch, he would simply use his scalpel to retrieve it.
There was a change on the horizon. Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity were at the front of everyone’s minds, and these ideas were revolutionary. The French revolution began in 1789 and Tarrare wanted to serve his patriotic duty. During his military service, it wasn’t the guns, death, and destruction that got to him. The biggest hurdle for Tarrare to overcome was the measly food rations assigned to the soldiers. He would do favors and hard jobs for the other soldiers in exchange for their rations. He scavenged for scraps and even started eating garbage. In an attempt to relieve his clear pain and fatigue, Tarrare was assigned quadruple rations. Still, this didn’t stop him from eating all the poultices from the medical supplies.
Finally, he was transferred to the hospital at Soultz with the diagnosis of extreme exhaustion. Although, this decision was probably made less for Tarrare’s health and more for the benefit of all the other military workers. They were probably pretty tired of dealing with him and his putrid sweats. If Tarrare was trash thrown out by the French military, he was gold to the surgeons now in charge of his care. Dr. Courville and Pierre-Francois Percy, the surgeon-in-chief, were his primary caretakers. The entire medical team was fascinated with Tarrare’s condition and had convinced themselves that there was great scientific growth to be found from it.
The doctors let him loose on a meal set for 15 laborers, and Tarrare ate the entire spread which included; two large meat pies, four gallons of milk, and finished with plates of grease and salt for dessert. Afterwards, he immediately fell asleep. This piqued the doctors’ curiosity. So, they took the only natural next step; they gave him a live cat. Tarrare ate the live cat. The doctors continued to offer him other live animals. He ate lizards, snakes, and puppies. He even swallowed an eel whole. Someone better call PETA! Apparently, Tarrare’s favorite animal snack was snake.
These doctors, despite not accomplishing any healing and appearing more like boys daring each other at a sleepover, are the reason why Tarrare’s story can be told in such detail. That is why this article is focused on Tarrare the French spy and not someone like Charles Domerz a Polish turncoat soldier who displayed similar symptoms. They took diligent notes in the name of science, preserving Tarrare’s legacy for future generations to marvel and puzzle over.
That being said, after seeing the terrible feats this sick man could accomplish, Dr. Courville immediately turned his attention on how to use Tarrare for war. To prove Dr. Courville’s hypothesis they had a meeting in the war room, surrounded by esteemed generals. Tarrare was handed a box. After he ate it successfully, he was rewarded 30 pounds of raw bull parts, which was also eaten. Then I guess all the generals waited awkwardly for a while wondering why they were wasting their time on a sideshow attraction. But eventually, the box was produced out of Tarrare’s other end, still containing a legible note! Dr. Courville argued that this talent could be used to sneak classified information across enemy lines undetected. (I, personally, would’ve just had him eat all the guns.)
That is how Tarrare became an official spy of the Army of Rhine. A spy who could eat anything. Everyone had been thoroughly convinced of Tarrare’s practical abilities, but there was one issue. He had a short temper, a brash personality, and by all accounts wasn’t considered smart. Either way, Tarrare was assigned a mission. Late in the night he crossed into Prussian boarders dressed as a German peasant. There is no record of exactly what Tarrare said, but I imagine it was something like, “Oui oui, I am German. Where are your baguettes?” Because he couldn’t speak a word of German and was immediately captured. (I said he was The Spy Who Ate Everything, not that he was a particularly good spy.)
He was searched and whipped but refused to reveal anything about his classified mission. There are two different accounts of the story from here. One says the officers became enraged when they finally retrieved the note from a not so fun digging adventure and discovered there wasn’t any classified information at all. Only a note revealing this was a test run of Tarrare’s capabilities. Another version states that after a 30 hour wait, Tarrare immediately re-ingested the box after it had revealed itself to his captors. Whatever the case, the Prussians weren’t happy. They held a mock execution, which is an oxymoron within itself. They took our hungry, sweaty hero onto the gallows with a noose around his neck. Then stood there for a second before removing the noose, giving Tarrare a beating and then sending him on his way.
After this expedition Tarrare returned to the doctors. He begged for them to find a cure for his unique disorder. He just wanted this never-ending hunger to stop. Finally, they started using actual medical treatments of the time to relieve Tarrare’s hunger. Opium, wine vinegar, and tobacco pills were all prescribed with no results. Next, Percy decided to feed Tarrare a ridiculous number of soft-boiled eggs to fully gage his appetite. This also failed, as Tarrare ate all the eggs prepared and was still hungry. It looked grim for Tarrare. Any attempted diet only made him more miserable, and he often went on the streets to eat trash and scraps from the butcher. Many doctors believed Tarrare simply had a mental disorder and should be admitted to an asylum, but Percy stood up for Tarrare and continued searching for a treatment.
However, it was incredibly difficult for Tarrare when he was placed on various diets, and he would stope to anything to try and stop his uncontrollable hunger. He was found drinking human blood collected from patients during bloodletting sessions. Later he was found in the hospital’s Morge, eating from the dead corpses. This all came to a head when a 14-month-old child went missing from the nursery. It was never proven that Tarrare ate the live child, but Percy could no longer defend Tarrare from all these accusations and he was chased from the hospital and dropped from the annals of history.
That is until he called for Percy while on his death bed in 1798. Tarrare was weak and bedridden, reaching out for any comfort from the man who had tried so hard to help him. Tarrare confides in Percy that he had eaten a golden fork two years before that had never expelled itself and was convinced this was the cause of his current state. Percy, on the other hand, recognized the late stages of tuberculosis taking hold. A month after calling on Percy, Tarrare died at the age of 26.
As in life, the doctors found him just as disgusting and fascinating in death. A team attempted an autopsy, searching for insight on Tarrare’s condition. He had an unusually wide mouth and gullet that revealed the inside cavity of the stomach when staring directly into his mouth. His stomach, gallbladder, and liver were all unusually oversized. (If that is truly what the organs were. Doctors of this time weren’t great at identifying organs. As it turns out Marry Shelly most likely had her husband’s liver, not his heart like most believes. ) The doctors didn’t get much further than this, because the cadaver was filled with foul pus. The golden fork was never retrieved.
Tarrare’s character rapidly shifts in the telling of his own life story. He was a man, sick and suffering like the average human couldn’t even imagine. Seeking anything to relive his never-ending hunger. Simply wanting relief from the torment of his own body. Yet, at times he seems like the furthest thing from human, like a monster sent to eat live animals, babies, and generally torment those trapped in his presence. But in the end, the real monster is the time that couldn’t accept him and the medical system that wouldn’t cure him.
The law only controls those that believe that the law is just. That the system the law upholds is meant for the protection of all and not the oppression of some. For most of recorded history, abortions have been a means of escape and self-determination, and have taken place on kitchen counters and back alleys, supported by midwives and complete strangers. It was a common practice felt to be “women’s issues”, unconcerned by men. It is only recently though that those capable of becoming pregnant have not found a sympathetic society to fall back upon when they wish to have autonomy over their bodies. These people now find crowds of strangers spewing visceral hatred over a common medical procedure. Just for reference, not all people who are capable of getting pregnant identify as a women, so I will use the term “people” as an overarching word to include them.
What happened? How did this transition from “women’s issues” to “everyone’s issues” happen?
Power-hungry white male doctors are what happened. Prior to the mid-1800s, abortion was legal and readily available in the US before around 4 or 5 months, or when a fetus begins moving. It was so common that it inspired its own euphemism, “taking the trade”.
By the 1840s, abortion was BOOMING, and this practice scared the boots off the American Medical Association, comprised almost entirely of upper-class white men, who saw the midwives and homeopaths who profited off of abortion as threats to maintaining power over the highly profitable medical trade. It was most defiantly not a coincidence that these midwives and homeopaths were mainly women and people of color, groups that had gained traction in recent movements. If these people were seen as credible medical resources, then they became threats to the power of the AMA. But by attacking a large portion of their profits, abortion, they become less of a threat and stay in the place deemed for them by society.
In order to further suppress the growing women’s rights movement, controlling access to abortion became tantamount. By labeling suffragists as baby-killers, their message became muddled in the fight towards women’s suffrage. Thus began the anti-abortion campaign in the United States. Attacks on abortion began not as concern for the lives of itty bitty babies, but as a strategic act to further control the spread movements across the US and to give more financial power to the white men that just needed more money and power.
Early abortion laws were primarily poison-control laws, which controlled substances that could bring on miscarriage, but they did not outlaw abortion. But by the late-1800s, almost every single state had outlawed abortion or attempted abortion. People who were accused of attempted abortion were forced to testify against their husband/lover and abortion provider in order to get medical care. Testify or die, what a fair legal system.
Laws are not followed by those that believe the law is wrong though, and many still came out in droves to assert control over their bodies. Despite being subjected to heavy fear and shame, people still navigated a heavily complex system of finding an abortion provider. A class divide now turned into a chasm. Upper-class, white people still dealt with the same laws as everyone else but were able to fly out of country/state for abortions, or got what was labeled as “therapeutic abortions”. These abortions were available as loopholes in 44 states, in which these women paid off two doctors who would say that she will kill herself or die if she carries to term, allowing her the opportunity to abort.
Life can suck for the poor in this capitalist society, and so those with a lower income (largely people of color) are left without the resources the wealthy hold in their hands. Still, they soldiered on. Unfortunately, these soldiers died on the battlefield of bodily autonomy in far greater numbers than their counterparts. From inserting a foreign object into the vagina and/or uteruses (hence the infamous coat hanger) to taking herbs that “brought on the menses” to good ‘ol fashioned throwing yourself down the stairs, the actions of these people created a far greater risk of infection and thus death.
This practice of performing self-managed and back-alley abortions occurred thousands of times per year prior to Roe, and still continue to this day. One might think that even though the pleas of many are seemingly incapable of piercing the hearts of lawmakers, that the continuous cycle of history might guide them in the right direction. As I write this, Roe is being prepared to be challenged in the supreme court, towns across Ohio are passing illegal laws outlawing abortion, and planned parenthood clinics are being shut down despite desperate need for them. A bunch of rich, white men want more power, so they outlaw abortion, and all of a sudden people in the 1830s are more progressive than those in 2021. History is a continuous spinning wheel, and no matter how much we move forward, we are still stuck in that continuous motion over and over again. It is building up something, a voting block, support, a movement, that prevents the wheel from moving forward and continuing the cycle that has plagued so many for so long.
President Johnson delivers her inaugural State of the University Address. Image credit: https://news.osu.edu/president-johnson-delivers-first-state-of-the-university-address/
“We can Reach for Excellence…”
On February 18th, 2021, President Kristina Johnson of the Ohio State University issued her first State of the University Address. In her address, she touted the university’s position in the nation as uniquely key to resolving the COVID-19 pandemic, systemic racism, economic injustice, and posited Ohio State as the arbiter of “opportunity.” She cited “complex issues” and claimed the university would solve them with complex solutions that meet the calling of our times. Later on in the address, she introduced a 4-point plan highlighting ‘excellence’ in Academic; Research and Creative Expression; Entrepreneurship and Partnership; and Service to Ohio, the nation, and the world. In her explanation of these four goals, she stressed the university would adapt and respond to the problems it faces in a decade with a plan to hire 300 new and diverse faculty members; equity in pay; faculty research and development; “corporate engagement” with companies like Honda, JPMorgan, and Chase for start-ups and spin-ups; and investment in STEM and the arts, as well as a commitment to anti-racism and equity in education. Her ambitious announcements were capped off with a heartwarming story of her grandfather contributing his life’s work to instructing African Americans and women in engineering who were prevented from obtaining an engineering education; he launched the “Casino Technical Night School” to grant them an engineering education that she said would change their lives for the better. Her grandfather, she said, is honored to this day by black leaders for his achievements. “We can reach for excellence,” Johnson concludes, “and we are well on our way.”
Listening to Dr. Kristina Johnson’s premiere State of the University Address, one can draw but a single conclusion: the Ohio State University is on the up-and-up. There are buckets of cash from magnanimous donors to dump into brand-new buildings and administrative positions, optimistic plans to introduce a “debt-free” bachelor’s degree, and countless oblique references to anti-racism and other social justice buzzwords. But is such a roseate picture the most realistic one?
One can hardly fault Johnson for wishing to portray her first semester with the university as a resounding success, and there are some achievements worthy of commendation. And yet, the address is also afflicted by an incredibly narrow vision, one which portrays the university’s problems as simple and resolvable with a few new programs here & there and a kind word or two. Unfortunately, many of the ills which face the university are not so easily solved and not so easily explained away. As university leaders trumpet new investments in lavish new buildings and attention-grabbing corporate partnerships, students — particularly low-income students and those of color — experience a decidedly different reality, one featuring indefensibly low pay, a markedly higher propensity to face penalties for violations compared to their more-privileged counterparts, and a consistently superficial or dismissive response to concerns about racism and discrimination on campus (a recent viral tweet exemplified this unbecoming tendency).
The result of these inequities is staggering and inhumane; as underprivileged students face barriers to their achievement and success, the university rewards mediocrity and the status quo. Always quick to dismiss actual progress in economic and social spheres, Ohio State fails on its promise to “deliver opportunity to everyone in the state of Ohio.” Even as President Johnson hails the university’s foundations as a land-grant state institution, the university refuses to comment on the school’s ongoing lack of transparency in funding sources, empiric abuse of administrative power against marginalized communities, sexual abuse, and much more. The goal of any “profit-based” (Ohio State is listed as a non-profit, but their donors and shareholders get rich off of the university) organization under capitalism is to garner as much cash with as little redistribution as possible; Ohio State has never been the exception to that rule.
While most students are merely a statistic to a university as large as Ohio State, BIPOC and LGBTQ+ students represent the bottom of the barrel when it comes to material investment and advancement.
To that end, its aspirations for corporate sponsorship and lavish infrastructure investments come at a great cost: the students and faculty who risked everything to get here lack the protection and investment to secure their futures. While most students are merely a statistic to a university as large as Ohio State, BIPOC and LGBTQ+ students represent the bottom of the barrel when it comes to material investment and advancement. Scholarships are named in honor of minority pioneers in their respective careers and occupations, but the changes necessary to foment true intersectional equity are always absent. In the end, contrary to the fundamental profit motives that drive the actions of OSU and its affiliates, we all know the true reason why: profit above all else. Seeking ways to transform campus policing, ending starvation wages in university positions, preventing various forms of abuse, and ensuring every student is treated with respect, dignity, and provided with the needs to succeed are all apparently unachievable at the same time. Means-testing and austerity all contribute to the attempts at subverting activists, breaking up protests, and subjecting student workers to unsafe conditions and unacceptably low wages. The university, under its current model, would be unable to sustain itself. No longer would it be able to purchase new plots of land for business partnerships and hospital additions. No longer would the Columbus Police Department and their partners in the University Police be able to overpolice the student body. No longer would investors like JPMorgan and Chase, Nike, and Honda be willing to operate as investors and donors. To the university, this would mean almost certain bankruptcy and calamity. To those of us who can see through the guise of benevolence and benign platitudes, we simply ask, “where do we start to end this cycle of abuse?”
Listening but not Hearing
The university is understandably fond of making gestures to serving students, but it has also displayed a pattern of truly considering students’ concerns only when they do not necessitate a sacrifice on the part of administrators or privileged interests. The university might be said to listen to students’ concerns without hearing them.
The school’s repeated resistance to calls to disassociate from the Columbus Police Department is a critical example. The community watched with horror as protestors — including Joyce Beatty, a sitting member of the United States Congress — were treated like animals, doused with pepper-spray, and physically threatened during summer protests. In response to a chorus of concerned students and community members questioning the wisdom of continuing to lavish millions of school funds each year on an association with the body, administrators’ response might be compared to that of a young child, covering his ears and singing “la la la, I can’t hear you.” Disassociating from the CPD is not some fringe proposal; even the OSU Student Government has tendered a recommendation for the step, and SG is not, as a rule, a hotbed of wide-eyed radicalism. But these calls have elicited what end?
This indifference — nay, hostility — towards student activism when it strays from their narrowly defined parameters of acceptability extends to the shameful treatment of concerned citizens during the battle over the university’s plans to open a fracked gas plant on campus. The proposal invited a number of legitimate questions: Why not redouble investment in renewable energy instead? What are going to be the long-term ecological implications? How will the project’s benefits (and costs) be distributed? What about potential health effects? The university’s response to these questions was a fusion of indifference and hostility.
The university might be said to listen to students’ concerns without hearing them.
When students at a community hearing hosted by PUCO (the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio) began raising legitimate concerns about potential conflicts of interest of some of the actors involved in the plan, they were abruptly cut off. Although the event was not hosted by OSU, its connection to the school was certainly unflattering. This treatment might be seen as an allegory to the wider issue of student activism: concerned constituents are cut off, ignored, or listened to and then summarily dismissed. “I’m sorry you feel that way”-style responses are enjoying a renaissance when they ought to be relegated to status as a Ghost of Responsibility-Evading Excuses Past.
And this condescension extends even to seemingly trivial actions like the school’s decision to suspend the program by which students receive free COTA fares. The e-mail to students about this decision framed it as a net gain, not a loss, and in theory, this proposition sounds sensible for students who are taking classes from home or whose all-online course load doesn’t require venturing far from one’s dorm room. But, as is the case with many of the school’s other decisions, this one has a distinct adverse impact on a subset of students: those who dwell off-campus and don’t own a car. As related by a student who asked that she remain nameless, a number of OSU students are required by their university jobs to travel each week to a faraway part of campus for a COVID test. Alas, their finances prohibit them from car ownership, and so they need to take the bus to get their test… the bus which, under normal circumstances, would be fare-free, but which thanks to the school’s decision is not. They proceeded to contact the school for help. The school’s advice? Take your car. How much enlightenment can be credibly claimed by an institution whose representative’s default response is to practically berate a socioeconomically disadvantaged student for not owning an automobile?
A Splurge of Funds
Affording the university the benefit of the doubt, we might assume that their decisions are borne of economic necessity: perhaps they’d love to pay their student workers a fairer wage, to provide for transportation for underprivileged students, to shepherd in a new policing model which champions prevention rather than penalty and in which public safety officials are held accountable for their own actions. And perhaps the reason they are inert on each of these initiatives is one of cold hard cash — namely, there being an insufficient amount to go around. On some level, given trends in funding for public colleges over the last decade, this defense might appear solid.
But if that’s the logic behind the administration’s inaction on meaningful social justice initiatives, then there’s a crucial counterpoint: the money they’re happily committing to other, glitzier efforts… to say nothing of the staggering budget surpluses they run year after year. Indeed, if finances are the impediment to the aforementioned student-driven efforts, then the university appears to have pulled a cash-covered rabbit out of a hat to finance select causes.
In all seriousness, it wasn’t a cash-covered rabbit; it was, more likely, benefactors with money to donate and a wish list of causes towards which the money would be put. Yet, one wonders whether some savvy financial reallocation might have permitted some of the money freed up by that charitable donation to be put towards projects to further benefit the most marginalized students instead.
One also wonders how much leverage the university might have used to parlay some of that magnanimity into a seed fund for meaningful, desperately-needed reforms instead. Perhaps it’s easier to persuade donors to give money if in return their names can be affixed to new buildings or benches or paths. But OSU’s architectural needs are considerably less grave than their social justice needs at the moment; one longs for a new approach to donations, as long as the funding structure demands such reliance. What if donors could instead help to finance programs to protect public safety without an overreliance on police, to boost student workers’ wages, and to improve compliance with COVID precautions? The “Mr. Moneybags Public Safety Reform Initiative” might not have the same ring as a new office, public meeting place, or outdoor ornament, but it would be a marvelous step towards making good on the worthy goals alluded to in Johnson’s address. And if the donors say no? The funds saved by the university each year post-CPD disassociation would go a long way towards financing those changes, too.
A Facade of Social Responsibility
The university’s defenders might contend that many of the aforementioned stories are ones which, although tragic, cannot be blamed solely on the university, that external parties bear much of the blame too. This contention oughtn’t be discarded out of hand, but it also shouldn’t be used as a Get Out of Jail Free card by which ethically debatable decisions can be pinned solely on other unjustly-run institutions — especially in light of the numerous instances in which the university has, under its own volition, acted counter to the values which it espouses.
One late January night, a lovely snowfall lured over one hundred mostly-maskless students outside to frolic, toss snowballs, and cram themselves into school-owned dumpsters and moving carts which they proceeded to push down a hill at which another crowd of students stood. This entire debacle was a bald violation of health guidelines put forward by the school, the governor, the CDC, and virtually anyone with more than an iota of common sense. And yet, when campus police were summoned to the scene, they declined to send everyone back inside or call for reinforcements; instead, they opted to pose for selfies with the students, and one even joined in a round of dumpster-shoving.
Miraculously, that potential superspreader event appears not to have had as crushing an impact as feared, according to the data furnished by the university’s COVID dashboard. Still, that doesn’t excuse the school’s inaction in the face of selfish and irresponsible behavior any more than “… but no one was killed” would excuse a police officer who lets a drunk driver off with a warning. COVID, though it’s stricken down people from all walks of life, has had a disproportionate impact on lower-income and BIPOC students; one might interpret the laissez-faire treatment of the snow lovers as part of a larger pattern of indifference towards social justice when it conflicts with optics or special interests.
The roster of manufacturers of university spirit wear provides another source of worry: many of the brands manufacturing OSU-licensed shirts, hoodies, and more have been linked to factories which employ labor practices that might be described as ethically debatable at best and downright exploitative at worst, from sweatshops to sub-living wages to sexual harassment; staples of the spirit store, such as Nike and Champion, have beenlinked to said scandals, an in spite of cursory efforts at improvements, their complicity in ongoingly wretched working conditions is chilling. At “best,” these brands hide between a painfully convoluted supply chain that obscures which companies are using which factories, making it nearly impossible to hold brands accountable. Said brands often employ that old standby argument, “We don’t own the factories, so we’re not responsible,” but that argument belies the fact that their decision of factories offers an implicit stamp of approval to — and essentially funds — the working conditions therein. (It goes without saying that the vast majority of garment workers are also female and nonwhite; addressing crises like these is central to social justice.) Some might point out that this is a systemic issue, much larger than any one brand, and that even the aforementioned brands’ behavior is par for the course. Broadly speaking, this objection is accurate… but it’s also misleading, for it in no way excuses the brands — and those brands’ big clients — who are complicit in said system.
“Ethically made” should be an ethos for all of its licensed apparel, not merely a category like “women’s T-shirts” or “men’s bottoms.”
OSU has taken a heartening step towards justice by offering in its bookstore a selection of T-shirts made by Alta Gracia, a Dominican apparel company whose garment workers are unionized and paid a living wage. (Incidentally, their T-shirts are also among the most affordable pieces of clothing at the bookstore.) But ultimately, “ethically made” should be an ethos for all of its licensed apparel, not merely a category like “women’s T-shirts” or “men’s bottoms.” Without a broader commitment to this vision, one couldn’t be faulted for wondering whether the school’s association with AG is more of a shield against criticism than an indication of the university’s values. The university and its bookstore partners wield considerable clout given the former’s status as one of the largest universities, with a massive alumni network and vociferous fan base to boot; it’s time that they put that leverage to good use.
… Are We Well on Our Way?
To be sure, the Ohio State University has done some work to benefit marginalized students, from their financial aid programs, to their Office of Diversity and Inclusion, to their COVID-related programs (such as the “Emergency Pass” and mental health funding). None of this is negated by the aforementioned criticisms. But neither should we allow the University to use these meaningful successes as a fig leaf to obscure the numerous areas in which they have yet to work for meaningful change. Social justice isn’t achieved by nibbling around the edges; it’s achieved by getting to the core of the issues fueling inequality. We sincerely hope Ohio State will show its commitment to justice in action as much as in word.
