Opinion Columns
Taylor Becker | Penn's (disappearing?) middle class
A recent New York Times article showed that the median family income for an undergraduate family at Penn is $195,500, placing the median Penn family in the 82nd percentile among U.S. families.
Calvary Rogers | Unboxing Black history: Whom we remember
This semester, I’ve done my best to be as attentive as possible when examining Penn culture, and researching black history at Penn has truly strengthened that attentiveness.
Group Think | Addressing economic inequality at Penn
GROUP THINK is the DP’s round table section, where we throw a question at the columnists and see what answers stick.
Emily Hoeven | Hope is the thing with feathers
Sometimes I feel like the most tangible thing I’ve gotten from my college education is a broader and more refined understanding of just how many things are wrong with the world, how many terrible atrocities have been committed in the past and continue to be committed, how many people are suffering in many different ways.
Cameron Dichter | Critique not condemnation
After discussing, in the latter portion of my previous column, the professional troll that is Breitbart Tech Editor Milo Yiannopoulos, I was sincerely intending to pick a more pleasant topic for this week.
James Lee | The quest for nuance
To fellow PPE majors - have you noticed just how difficult it is to explain the major to non-Penn people?
Isabel Kim | This is not a column about Trump
It’s only my third column of the semester, and I am already wracking my brains to think of something to write about.
James Fisher | From the bottom of the barrel to Penn: Already at a disadvantage
The minute I stepped out of my uncle’s car and arrived at Harrison College House, I should have known that my life would change forever.
Calvary Rogers | Unboxing Black history: the white moderate
Allyship is not found in those who wear a safety pin, but in those who dedicate their efforts towards diminishing the inequities that cause protests in the first place.
Joe Tharakan | The power of the purse strings
On Monday, 97 Companies issued a joint statement going against the “Muslim Ban” executive order.
Michael Palamountain | An appreciation of labor and a critique of leisure
Despite the title, this article will not serve as some sort of rallying cry to raise the minimum wage nor will it attempt to explain the complicated nature of universal basic income.
Toe the Line: Penn Democrats | Immigration policy
One week after his inauguration, President Donald Trump issued an Executive Order indefinitely halting the resettlement of Syrian refugees and temporarily banning people from seven Muslim-majority nations from traveling into the United States.
Toe the Line: College Republicans | Immigration policy
“We cannot buy our security, our freedom from the threat of the bomb by committing an immorality so great as saying to a billion human beings now enslaved behind the Iron Curtain: give up your dreams of freedom, because to save our own skins, we're willing to make a deal with your slave masters.” – Ronald Reagan, 1964 Today, we face a different enemy, with different victims, and a different immorality.
Group Think | Discussing Cory Booker as commencement speaker
GROUP THINK is The DP’s round table section, where we throw a question at the columnists and see what answers stick.
Amy Chan | The conversation of empathy
Contrary to what most people told me before leaving, my first experience studying abroad in England was not a pleasant one.
Reid Jackson | When executive orders get personal at Penn
You could smell the urgency in the air on Sunday, as scores of Penn students suspended their studies and sped to Philadelphia’s International Airport. None of these students would be boarding flights; they were going to register their protest to President Donald Trump’s Executive Order, penned to prohibit entry to the United States by citizens of seven Muslim-majority nations: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Yemen and Somalia. The order was decidedly un-American. Prohibiting the entry of hundreds of millions of people around the world, based solely on their national origin betrays our history as a nation of immigrants.
Taylor Becker | Rational dissent
In the era of rampant “fake news” and “alternative facts,” now more than ever we have a moral obligation to seek truth to inform our dissent.
Calvary Rogers | Unboxing Black history: Hidden figures
One of my favorite quotes from Martin Luther King Jr. states “We are not makers of history. We are made by history.” It causes me to think about all the hidden contributions people have made through time that have played a major role in constructing who I am.
Emily Hoeven | The 'best four years of our lives'
Maybe it’s because I’m graduating from Penn soon, but I’ve been reflecting a lot recently on how I came to be here in the first place.
