This article is part of the Review’s Student Senate column. In an effort to increase communication and transparency, Student Senators will provide personal perspectives on recent events on campus and in the community. This week at my hall meeting, my RA asked what mattered to us. My response was, “Change, and the ability of people to make change together.” I’m currently a member of Oberlin’s interim Student Senate. As I shared during my hall meeting, I thought about how collaboration is an integral part of Senate’s work. As Vice Chair, I spent the past two semesters learning about Oberlin through my work, and I want to share reflections with you from my first term on Senate. Collective chang...

As the Review reported last week, an investigation by the Worker Rights Consortium released last December revealed that Nike had been using a sweatshop as a supplier for its collegiate clothing, violating its anti-sweatshop agreement with the College. As a college dedicated to social justice, Oberlin has a Sweatshop-Free Apparel Code of Purchasing, meaning that the College refuses to buy from businesses that use sweatshops in their production process. Sweatshops are wildly unjust to workers, as they may force employees to work unreasonable hours in unfit conditions, pay less than minimum wage with no benefits and may use child labor. Unfortunately, most major sports apparel brands have been tainted by labor malpract...

It has become common practice for colleges and universities across the U.S. to mandate sexual misconduct workshops for incoming students. At Oberlin, all new students are required to attend the first round of Preventing and Responding to Sexual Misconduct workshops, and all athletes are required to attend the second, which is also open to the entire community. The mandatory first workshop is called The Essentials, and the second workshop is called Bystander Intervention. Together, these two workshops are meant to inform students about the importance and language of consent. Overall, the PRSM workshops are crucial to the social atmosphere at Oberlin. I have heard stories and personally experienced instances in which...

In a frightening shift toward the dystopian, Congress recently voted to kill vital protections for internet privacy, with President Donald Trump officially approving the bill Monday. These protections, approved at the end of Obama’s term but not yet enacted, would have been the only line of defense against those who wished to keep their personal information classified. Now, internet providers will not need our consent before collecting and sharing our data, including browsing histories, geo-locations and even the contents of our online identities. This data will be sold in aggregate to advertisers, who will use it to target ads more specifically to internet users. This effectively puts our personal information up for...