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SSMU General Assembly loses quorum prior to ‘Divest for Human Rights’ motion vote

by Ella Milloy on

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The Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) held its Winter 2021 General Assembly (GA) on Feb. 16, reaching its quorum of 350 for the first time since Fall 2017. Although the GA approved the nomination of the auditor for the 2021 fiscal year, the centrepiece motion, “Divest for Human Rights,” was only approved in a consultative capacity after many attendees exited the meeting prior to the vote, causing the meeting to lose quorum.

The “Divest for Human Rights” motion seeks to expand SSMU’s leadership on matters of social justice and human rights and calls on the McGill administration to divest from companies such as Lockheed Martin, TC Energy Corporation, Re/Max, and Puma, among others. The motion looks to advance previous and ongoing demilitarization and fossil fuel divestment campaigns.

After several questions from attendees regarding whether the motion falls under SSMU’s mandate, Ayo Ogunremi, SSMU Vice-President (VP) External Affairs, explained that the motion was relevant to the mandates of both the Office of External Affairs and SSMU regarding student-run political campaigns.

“SSMU has a number of mandates to demonstrate leadership,” Ogunremi said. “Under the preamble of the constitution, SSMU is mandated to demonstrate leadership [regarding] issues of human rights, social justice, and environmental protection. The constitution also acknowledges that SSMU has a history of doing this [….] SSMU has a responsibility to support these sorts of human rights-based resolutions.”

With peak attendance reaching almost 390 students, the meeting’s debate period raised a diversity of opinions. The GA witnessed a notably intense debate regarding sections 3.2.2 and 3.2.3 of the “Divest for Human Rights” motion, both focussing on human rights issues on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Although students came prepared with comments both in favour of and against these particular sections, the debate quickly turned into a heated cycle of repeated arguments. 

In an interview with The McGill Tribune, Engineering Representative to the SSMU Legislative Council Jake Reed expressed his concern over the tense debate period during the GA. 

“I worry that [Zoom] fosters animosity in the same way that internet debates, flame wars, and comment sections do,” Reed said. “Because they rely on anonymity, [online debates] involve a lot more active aggression than arguments and confrontations in real life do, and I think the same thing played out in this GA.”

Following the lengthy debate, the GA voted on whether to continue or end the debate period in order to proceed to vote on the motion. After a majority voted in favour of ending the debate, many individuals immediately left the GA Zoom call. Attendance dropped from almost 390 members to 307. As a result, the GA lost quorum, which had been maintained until the voting period. The “Divest for Human Rights” motion has been approved in a consultative capacity and will be put to vote at the next Legislative Council meeting on Feb. 25. 

On Feb. 18, Divest for Human Rights Coalition, the group that wrote the motion, issued a statement condemning the participant exit before voting as an anti-democratic tactic, and called on SSMU executives to support the policy.

Moment of the Meeting: 

The meeting started 26 minutes later than scheduled as GA staff had to individually admit every member into the GA from the Zoom waiting room. Due to the popularity of the motion, GA staff ensured that the Zoom call could allow up to 500 members. SSMU Speaker of Council Lauren Hill asked attendees to remain patient as they admitted the 390 registered students to the call.

Soundbite: 

“If it isn’t approved, […] the motion will be null. I’m going to note that there is no longer quorum [….] For quorum check, we currently have 311 in the room, but given that we currently have three staff, myself, the parliamentarian, and the recording secretary, we have 307. We don’t have quorum. This means that this motion will go to the Legislative Council.” 

– SSMU Speaker of Council Lauren Hill on the loss of quorum prior to the vote on the Divest for Human Rights motion.

A previous version of this article stated that the “Divest for Human Rights” motion was not approved. In fact, the motion was only approved in a consultative capacity because the meeting lost quorum before voting on this motion. The article has been updated to clarify this. The Tribune regrets this error.

McGill, News

Tribune Explains: McGill’s Mandatory Meal Plan

by Hanna Hipwell Serfaty on

More in McGill:

First year students who left residences during the Winter 2020 semester may be wondering what will happen to their rollover meal plan money. Students who paid for the Mandatory Meal Plan during their first year in residence, or those who voluntarily elected to purchase the meal plan, now have hundreds of dollars left over. The McGill Tribune investigated if the funds will be reallocated and how students can use them.

What is the Mandatory Meal Plan? 

All students living in McGill residences except Solin Hall must pay for the Mandatory Meal Plan. The funds are split into two accounts: The Home Base Account and the Flex Account. 

The Homebase Account can be used at any of the five downtown residential dining halls on campus, whereas the Flex Account is divided between oneCard services and Flex Dollars. OneCard can be used for laundry services in residences, off-campus food purchases, and on-campus vending machines. Flex Dollars can be used to dine in over 20 on-campus restaurants and cafés, most of which are currently closed due to COVID-19. 

What is the Rollover Plan, and does it expire?

In previous years, leftover credit from the Mandatory Meal Plan was valid for the two terms following a student’s move-out from residence on Apr. 30. After that date, any leftover credit is transferred to the Rollover Plan: Funds that are taxable and expire at the end of the following academic year, typically the Fall and Winter semester of a student’s U1 or U2 year. 

During the duration of the Rollover Plan, Homebase dollars are accepted at the five downtown residential dining halls. Rollover Flex dollars, on the other hand, can be used in any of the on-campus locations where meal plans are accepted until April 30, after which any leftover money expires and is non-refundable. 

Are there exceptions for students who had to move out of residences early last March because of COVID-19?

Students who lived in residences during the 2019-2020 academic year and who vacated residences early are exempt from the Rollover Plan’s expiry. Although the Food and Dining services page reads that the Rollover Plans will expire on Apr. 30 2021, this does not reflect recent updates. Monique Lauzon, Student Housing and Hospitality Services (SHHS) representative, confirmed the extension in an email to The McGill Tribune.

“Due to the exceptional circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent closure of the university resulting in reduced services, the Rollover Plan deadline was extended for all 2019-2020 residence students,” Lauzon wrote. “Funds remaining in the Rollover Plan at the end of April 30, 2020 have been made available for students to use on campus until the end of their academic studies.”

Can students cancel their meal plan or get a refund?

Students cannot cancel or receive a refund for their Mandatory Meal Plan barring extenuating circumstances. For example, students who need to leave McGill for a medical emergency may necessitate a request for a refund. Students may request an exception by contacting SHHS. For non-emergency requests, there are certain costs associated with cancelling a meal plan based on the date that a student moves out of residence.

Are residence hall cafeterias open to non-resident students?

For students with the Rollover Plan, New Residence and Carrefour Sherbrooke dining halls are currently open to non-resident students. Royal Victoria College (RVC) is not available to non-resident students due to the recent COVID-19 outbreak. However, there have not been positive cases since Jan. 21, and the dining hall is likely to re-open to the public soon. 

 

 

Point-Counterpoint, Sports

Point-counterpoint: Are eSports really sports?

by Adam Burton, Sarah Farnand & Sophia Gorbounov on

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eSports: Competitive, coordinated, and strategic true sports

When video games became popular in the 1970s, games like Pong and Atari swept the nation by storm. Players everywhere gathered at local arcades to compete on consoles the size of refrigerators that could do little more than render a cluster of bouncing pixels. Since then, video games have come a long way: Computers have become faster, game developers have gotten more creative, and consumers have demanded higher quality options. In 2020, video game revenue netted 179.7 billion dollars, more than the global film and North American sports industries combined. 

While video games were traditionally marketed towards children, they are now a market-dominating force with an extremely competitive e-sport scene. Although many argue that eSports should not be considered real sports, this belief is being proven wrong as the industry develops. One of the most common arguments against eSports is that they do not require any physical prowess to compete, but this fails to acknowledge the seemingly inconceivable reaction times and fast-twitch muscle movement that takes years of practice to develop. 

Strategic play is another component of eSports that is often dismissed. Team planning, evasive maneuvering, and advanced meta-analysis are put to the test throughout the gaming world. Games like League of Legends, Valorant, Dota 2, and Overwatch have all fostered competition that has filled arenas throughout the world. 

With the skill and determination required to succeed in eSports, it is hard to deny that it is a real sport. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the market share for competitive video games has only risen and is expected to continue rising to match that of the world of “real” sports.

eSports are a skill, but not a sport

Video games do not usually come to mind when one thinks of daily exercises. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a sport as a physical activity engaged in for pleasure. While playing a video game requires skill and some coordination, it does not incorporate enough physical aspects to be a sport.

Although there is strategy involved in video games, board games like chess or card games like Solitaire also require strategy, but are not comparable to sports. And although, like sports, gamers can improve their skills with training, playing an instrument also requires practice and training, which still does not make it a sport. 

Sports require full-body movements and coordination, not just finger and hand movements. And while it is possible to move your whole body while playing a video game, it is not usually required to be successful. It is completely possible—and common—for people playing eSports to sit in front of their TV or computer with a bag of chips and move the controller with one hand while snacking with the other. In this way, not only is there no physicality involved, but playing video games often is also unhealthy, whereas sports are proven to improve health and well-being. eSports and other forms of competitive gaming takes a toll on the mind and the body, but in a different way than regular sports. Playing sports competitively or recreationally can leave the whole body tired and help build muscle and lose fat. After playing sports, one’s mood is boosted, and the mind is clearer. eSports simply do not give these results.

Playing video games for hours on end gives the body nothing but headaches, grogginess, and irritation. eSports are competitive similar to the way that chess is competitive: It does not require physical exertion, and does not provide health benefits in the way that physical sports do. eSports could be considered an art form like playing the violin or a game like checkers, but not as a sport.

Editor’s pick

Ultimately, when considering the inherent physical nature of most sports, eSports cannot confidently be categorized the same way. While it remains true that video games and competitive gaming require high levels of skill and critical thinking, their lack of exertion rules eSports out as a sport. 

McGill, News, SSMU

SUS Winter General Assembly amends electoral by-laws

by Katia Lo Innes on

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The Science Undergraduate Society (SUS) of McGill convened on Feb. 17 for their Winter 2021 General Assembly (GA). Despite the attendance of all executives and departmental representatives, the meeting failed to meet the required quorum of 100 students from four different departments. Without quorum, the GA proceeded as a consultative forum. 

Much of the evening’s discussion revolved around adapting to remote learning. With campus life on pause, executives expressed their frustrations in trying to provide meaningful services to their constituents. McGill Anatomy and Cell Biology Students’ Society (MACSS) Vice-President (VP) External Rahul Thareja highlighted the unexpected obstacles departments faced since remote learning began, including barriers to fulfilling clothing orders from the previous academic year.

“We were finally able to access [the] Strathcona [Building] and finally sent out our clothing orders from Winter 2020 because they were locked inside, and we couldn’t get to them,” Thareja said. 

Despite these logistical setbacks, department executives reported to the council that virtual engagements with the science community have been largely successful. Further, the SUS GA moved to implement a series of motions that would improve the quality of their in-person services for coming semesters. The renewal of the Computer Task Force (CTF) fee and the Science Student Space Improvement (SCSS) fund both passed unanimously. Although both of these funds have been underused this academic year, SUS VP Finance Rohan Bhutkar emphasized the SCSS’s services and urged executives to use them to their advantage. 

“[SCSS] is a fund you all know and love,” Bhutkar said. “This is what gets you new couches and replaces [old ones]. Please apply to this fund if you have any ideas on how to use this money during COVID times, which I haven’t come up with [yet], but if you have any, let me know.”

Although COVID-19 has curbed the usual flow of students in the Burnside basement, it has not stopped the onset of student government elections. With SUS general election campaigns beginning March 1, SUS President Sydney Merritt moved to amend the SUS electoral bylaws. Previously, the SUS electoral bylaws explicitly stated that the only online platform to be used for campaigning was Facebook. Merritt noted that this bylaw was outdated and especially restrictive during the remote semester.  

“In non-remote years […] you could promote your candidacy in front of classrooms on blackboards, or even in lectures,” Merritt said. “With the complete transition to the online platform, I find that the Facebook limitation makes it inaccessible to all members of the science community. Some people don’t use Facebook, but instead use Discord and other types of platforms.” 

Moment of the meeting:

To add levity to an otherwise taxing virtual conference, the SUS General Council has been instituting a theme for each biweekly meeting. This week’s theme was lab coats; many executives donned customized lab coats and safety goggles. At the end of the general assembly, Arts & Science Undergraduate Society VP External Ethan Mendell proposed the next meeting’s theme: Pyjamas and hot chocolate.  

Soundbite: 

“We have officially implemented electronic fund transfers, which means no more cheques. If you’re ever requiring money, yes, it can be direct-deposited into your account. So one more step towards sustainability and no more paper.”

—SUS VP Finance Bhutkar on eliminating cheque transfer as part of SUS’ environmental initiative

News

Sex and Self hosts a talk on institutionalized racism in healthcare

by Margaret Askey on

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On Feb. 13, Sex and Self, a McGill-based sexual education organization, hosted a virtual panel titled “Institutionalized Racism in Healthcare” as a part of their “Facing the Facts” event series. The panel included Tanya Bass, a self-described “Southern Sexologist” with experience in the fields of reproductive health, HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted infections (STI) prevention, women’s health, and health equity. The second presenter was Dr. Rachel Bervell, a medical resident at the University of California and one of the co-founders of The Black OB/GYN Project and founder of the non-profit organization Hugs For Ghana.

Felicia Gisondi, president and founder of Sex and Self, defined the scope of the event’s conversation and explained the educational mission of  Sex and Self which is to review the systemic and historical injustice found within the medical community. 

“Many folks rarely review and analyze the institutions that perpetuate [systemic] health care,” Gisondi said. “In reviewing sexual and reproductive injustices, Sex and Self has learned that the systems that are supposed to provide care to Black folks often fail them.” 

Bass began the presentations by calling attention to unethical medical practices that were used in the early North American British colonies and explained that many white surgeons dehumanized enslaved Black women through non-consensual operations.

“Some people call [Dr. J. Marion Sims] the father of gynecology,” Bass said. “I don’t. [He operated on] enslaved women with painful fistulas [who] couldn’t consent because they were not citizens. We were able to get to modern day gynecology on the backs of Black and brown women.”

Discussing these unethical experiments that advanced medical science, Bass explored how current conceptions of the Black body are shaped by Sims’ experiments performed on enslaved women, mentioning his victims by name.

“The development of what we now call the speculum is [thanks to] Black and brown women, specifically Anarcha, Lucy, and Betsy,” Bass said. “[What results] is also this idea [that] Black women are able to endure more pain that white women, as they are strong women who’ve [had to] endure these operations. They didn’t have a choice, and couldn’t speak out.”

Considering how racism continues to live on in modern healthcare institutions, Bass stated that confronting the history of systemic racism in the North American medical system is critical to incorporating anti-racism into healthcare practices today.

“Unless you pay attention to what’s happening or folks are able to speak out and stop the injustice, it will continue to happen,” Bass said. “There were Black folks who were enlisted in the South to help promote the use of birth control, but also [to] promote eugenics and control the Black population.”

Bervell elaborated on the contributions that racist doctors such as Sims made to the field of practical gynecology and the relation of such contributions to slavery and forced labour in the American South.

“[Obstetrics and gynecology] are really rooted […] in slavery,” Bervell said. “In the same way that America was built using the hands of African Americans, medicine was furthered using their whole bodies.”

Regarding how medical professionals conducted non-consensual experiments on enslaved African women, Bervell explained how these experiments were legally justified and urged broader recognition of the facts.

“Black women were frequently the subjects of these medical experiments because they were convenient, compared to white women who [had to] give consent to the procedure,” Bervell said. “All that was needed was permission of the owner. We have to say it, we have to speak it. It is racism, not race, that is affecting Black women’s health.”

Gisondi concluded her statement by sharing her stance with The McGill Tribune on anti-racist sexual education practices. 

“Creating an event [with] Black experts lead[ing] an open conversation surrounding systemic racism within the healthcare system has provided us with a true understanding of how our healthcare system was created,” Gisondi wrote in an email to The McGill Tribune. “This has allowed us and our audience to understand why Black and POC folks are continually discriminated against and what can be done next.”

Creative, Podcasts

The T: “Divest For Human Rights” Feb. 17

by Sequoia Kim on

More in Creative:

This week on the show:
• 7 student organizations come together to pen a motion demanding that McGill divest from companies complicit in human rights
• Governance: SSMU Legislative council
• Governance: McGill Board of Governors

Episode links:
• Student organizations collaborate on SSMU ‘Divest for Human Rights’ motion, by News Staff Writer Ella Fitzhugh
www.thetribune.ca/news/student-o…sembly-021621/
• Legislative Council approves question on SSMU Membership Fee increase, by Arts & Entertainment Editor Jonathan Giammaria
www.thetribune.ca/news/16022021/
• Board of Governors discuss preparations for in-person classes, by News Staff Writer Ella Milloy
www.thetribune.ca/news/board-gov…lasses-021621/

Host: Sequoia Kim, News Editor
Guest speakers: News Staff Writer Ella Fitzhugh, Arts and Entertainment Editor Jonathan Giammaria, News Staff Writer Ella Milloy
Podcast Producers: Multimedia Editors Sarah Ford & Alex Hinton, Creative Director Aidan Martin, Editor-In-Chief Helen Wu
Artwork design: Design Editor Chloe Rodriguez

Science & Technology, Science Rewind

Science Rewind: Notable Black scientists and inventors throughout history

by Zoe Karkossa on

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Content warning: Anti-Black racism and discrimination

Black people have long been barred from academia and entrepreneurship opportunities due to institutionalized racism and prejudice. In honour of Black History Month, The McGill Tribune highlights notable scientists and inventors who succeeded in making important scientific progress in spite of systemic anti-Black racism. 

Madam C.J. Walker (1867-1919)

Walker was one of many Black women afflicted with scalp ailments in the early 20th century. Exposure to harsh lye soap and sulphur, commonplace at the time among laundresses like Walker, contributed to severe hair loss. In 1904, she started working as a sales agent with Annie Turbo Malone, a Black chemist and entrepreneur who designed hair products specifically for Black women. With the help of her four barber brothers, Walker developed a scalp conditioning and healing formula by experimenting with both store-bought and homemade products. She used this to launch her own business and embarked on a successful door-to-door marketing campaign. Walker expanded her line and went on to launch a factory and salon. She employed 40,000 other African-Americans during her lifetime and pursued a wide variety of philanthropic work.

Frederick McKinley Jones (1893-1961)

Despite only having a sixth-grade formal education, Jones received 60 patents over the course of his life, with the majority of his work focussing on long-term refrigeration. Having worked as an automobile mechanic and an electrician, Jones’ first inventions were designed for the motion picture industry such as developing a contraption that combined moving pictures with sound. In 1935, he turned his focus to food transportation, creating a first-of-its-kind system for automatic refrigeration in long-haul trucks. He expanded his work to invent a variety of other devices, including a portable X-ray machine and a mobile air conditioning unit used for blood and medication storage.

Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner (1912-2006)

Kenner was born to a family of inventors and continued the tradition by patenting five products throughout her life. Although she was accepted to Howard University, she was forced to drop out due to financial barriers. In 1957, she filed a patent for a sanitary belt with a moisture-proof napkin pocket, the design of which inspired modern menstrual pads. Kenner’s opportunity at commercial success was cut short when the company she hoped to work with found out she was Black and rescinded their interest in her products. She continued inventing throughout her life, including a patent for a walker attachment with a serving tray she designed for her sister who had multiple sclerosis.

Marie Maynard Daly (1921-2003)

After graduating magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Queens College, Daly decided to pursue graduate education. In 1947 at Columbia University, she became the first African-American woman to obtain a doctorate in chemistry in the U.S. She studied the composition and metabolism of the cell nucleus, and her post-doctoral research on the chemistry of histones provided fundamental discoveries to the field of chromosomal proteins. She was also the first person to identify a relationship between cholesterol and clogged arteries, which was essential in understanding the causes of heart attacks. Daly later became a professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and continued her research until 1987.

Marie Van Brittan Brown (1922-1999)

Born and raised in the neighbourhood of Jamaica in Queens, NYC, Brown often felt unsafe alone in her apartment due to the area’s high level of crime. Building on the closed-circuit television technology of the time, she filed a patent in 1966 for a design involving a series of peepholes in her front door paired with an adjustable remote-controlled camera. A precursor to the modern home security system, her innovation allowed residents to see who was at the door, talk to them via a two-way microphone, and remotely lock or unlock the door. Although the patent was never put to commercial use, it has been cited in numerous other patents since, and Brown later received an award from the National Scientists Committee for her ingenuity.

Features

Hooked on the craft

by Jackie Lee on

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Crocheting is a balancing act. To make each stitch, one hand grips the hook and the other controls the tension of the yarn: Too taut, and the project will turn out cramped, stunted; too loose, and it will be flimsy, undefined. 

 

I was 10 when my Oma taught me to crochet, and it took a full week. Each day we practiced together, her worn but still-deft hands guiding mine until I could yarnover, chain stitch, and single crochet. I marveled at the diversity in her repertoire, from delicate lace doilies made with thread to bulky crewneck sweaters spun from Icelandic sheep’s wool. My first project was restricted to a simple square (though it looked more trapezoidal), but it felt like mine—here, at last, was something I had made. 

 

There’s something magnetic about crafting, whether it’s crocheting a scarf or knitting a sweater. For many students, it becomes a reprieve from the hustle of everyday life, a chance to wretch our hands from the vice of our keyboards. Just as uniform stitches require careful attention to balance, students too must work to manage their personal and academic lives during remote learning semesters and beyond. While academics may in some ways prove a hindrance to crafting, they are also a conduit by which to channel creative energy. Unlike nebulous professional or personal aspirations, which may prove fruitless despite best efforts, crafting is foolproof: Learn the technique, follow the instructions, and voila—a handmade, three-dimensional scarf, sweater, blanket, or amigurumi has been transformed from a simple ball of yarn. 

Crafting becomes a meditation, a mindfulness that rewards the practitioner not only with a creative outlet but a physical, meaningful result. Although crocheting and knitting was once pegged as tedious monotony, it is this very consistency that offers a sanctuary from the difficulties of present life.

Research Briefs, Science & Technology

Puffy exoplanet challenges traditional notions of planet formation

by Daria Kiseleva on

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Since the first exoplanet was discovered in 1992, scientists have identified more than 4,000 of these astronomical bodies. Exoplanets—planets found outside our solar system—have been shown to challenge traditional theories of planet formation, which were based on Earth’s own system. 

A recent study has revealed that gas giants can form from a smaller core than previously thought possible. The study was led by Caroline Piaulet, a PhD student at the University of Montreal’s Institute for Research on Exoplanets (iREx), in collaboration with a team of astronomers including Eve Lee, an assistant professor in the Department of Physics at McGill and the McGill Space Institute.

The exoplanet WASP-107b, which orbits the star WASP-107, was first observed in 2017. This gas giant is classified as a “super-puff”—a planet with a very large radius compared to its low mass.

The initial low estimate of its mass prompted researchers to seek a more accurate estimate using data collected over several years by the Keck Observatory in Hawaii. Using the radial velocity method, they could determine the planet’s mass by observing the effect of its gravitational pull on its host star. This independent, direct measurement of the mass showed that the planet was even lighter than expected—about 10 times lighter than Jupiter but similar in size.

Planets begin to form when dust and gas particles surrounding a young star in a protoplanetary disk clump together. If a massive rocky core is formed, its strong gravitational pull can accrete enough gaseous atmosphere to create a gas giant before the disk dissipates.

WASP-107b’s low density suggested that while the gas envelope comprises over 85 per cent of its mass, its core is no more than four times the mass of Earth. This estimate is significantly lower than the previously believed threshold of about 10 earth masses considered necessary to form a gas giant.

“The bigger implication [is] that it doesn’t take as much solid [material] as we thought to make a gas giant,” Piaulet said in an interview with The McGill Tribune. “The riddle that it posed was how could such a big planet form from such an apparently low-mass core.”

 

One theory is that WASP-107b formed farther away from its star than its current location, and the colder temperature allowed the core to accumulate an atmosphere faster.

“One way to think about this is that [the core] has some gravitational sphere of influence, that is, the maximum radius in which you can gather some gaseous atmosphere initially,” Lee said in an interview with the Tribune. “But this atmosphere eventually cools down […] and shrinks, [leaving] some empty room within this gravitational sphere of influence for the ambient gas to refill. And that means that if it can cool faster, you can gather a more massive envelope a lot quicker.”

The team considered the possibility of the planet interacting with WASP-107c, another planet in the system. Located farther away from its host star than WASP-107b, WASP-107c has a notably eccentric orbit. Deviation from a near-circular orbit is a sign of some disturbance in the planet’s history, which could indicate an encounter with another planet.

“Imagining that both [WASP-107b and WASP-107c were] far from the star, having a close interaction of the two might have slingshotted [WASP-107b] into an eccentric orbit such that the closest approach point was very close to the star,” Piaulet said. “And eventually […] every time it gets closer to the star, the star tug[s] on it and shrinks [the orbit].” 

In this scenario, even at its closest point to the host star, WASP-107c would still have been too far to circularize its eccentric orbit, unlike WASP-107b. 

The researchers plan to continue studying WASP-107b, particularly its atmosphere. The molecular features of the atmosphere differ depending on the distance from the star at which the planet forms and could provide new evidence for the planet’s formation location. The James Webb Telescope, set to launch in October 2021, will collect more data for the research. 

content warning, Editorial, Opinion

Academic freedom does not justify discrimination

by The McGill Tribune Editorial Board on

More in content warning:

*Content Warning: This article discusses systemic discrimination and suicide.

On Jan. 19, the Religious Studies Undergraduate Society (RSUS) published an open letter calling on McGill to address discriminatory behaviour by Dr. Douglas Farrow, a faculty member in the School of Religious Studies. The letter describes how Professor Farrow creates a harmful environment in his classes, particularly towards 2SLGBTQIA+ students, violating McGill’s preferred name policy and expressing hostile views towards transgender individuals and same-sex marriage. Academic freedom must never outweigh the safety of marginalized students. McGill must act to protect its students and clarify the scope of its policy to recognize its supposed commitment to equity. 

While McGill has yet to release a statement directly addressing concerns over Farrow, the university has sent out two separate emails this academic year reaffirming its commitment to academic freedom. The first addressed a controversy at the University of Ottawa, where a non-Black instructor used an anti-Black slur in class. The second was in response to an open letter from the Students’ Society of McGill University that denounced Professor emeritus Philip Carl Salzman––who has published racist views about Middle Eastern people––and called for McGill to overhaul its policy on academic freedom. In both emails, the university claimed that academic freedom and equity and inclusion cannot supersede one another, yet failed to acknowledge the harm students experienced.

Academic freedom is undoubtedly important; at its core, the principle is meant to protect academics from arbitrary punishment and secure their ability to research freely. In the classroom, it allows for the expression of any idea or opinion without fear of censorship. But at times, academic freedom can be used as a cover for instructors to propagate harmful ideas, allowing educators to equate discrimination to a difference of opinion and a simple matter of freedom of speech under insufficient university policies. The fact that Farrow teaches required courses forces queer students to interact with someone in a position of power who believes their identity is a threat and refuses to use their correct name and pronouns. When rates of suicide amongst trans individuals are higher than almost any other demographic, that Farrow or any other instructor can get away with this is deeply troubling. 

Behaviour of this kind can serve to work against the principles of academic freedom and open discussion in the long term by discouraging marginalized individuals from pursuing academia. If students are forced into unsafe learning environments, they may be less likely to remain in the field to conduct their own research. Additionally, marginalized faculty members may feel less safe expressing their own views for fear of discrimination.

In principle, academic freedom should work in tandem with equity and inclusion to create a safe university environment; in practice, McGill has failed to show much consideration for the latter. It does not help that the university’s statement on academic freedom is vague, making it difficult to know where the line is drawn between academic freedom and punishable discrimination. While the university is clear that academic freedom cannot be used as a defence against hate speech or otherwise illegal behaviour, discrimination often goes beyond what is explicitly outlined by law. As such, McGill must redefine the boundaries of their statement. 

As with freedom of speech, academic freedom should not directly translate to total freedom from consequences. Farrow’s position as an academic should not give him an unquestionable right to teach required courses. There can and should be ways to ensure a safe learning environment, and allowing students to opt out of courses taught by Farrow and others with actively harmful views is but one example. McGill cannot flaunt its preferred name policy, its plan to address anti-Black racism, or any other initiative while failing to address hateful behaviour towards students and faculty.

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