Rice University’s Student Newspaper — Since 1916

Sunday, April 27, 2025 — Houston, TX

Guest Opinion



OPINION 4/18/25 9:29pm

Fund the RWRC

The Student Association's plan to cut the Rice Women's Resource Center budget is wrong, and you should be mad about it.



OPINION 4/15/25 10:16pm

What it’s like to be undocumented at Rice

I’m scared and don’t know how to stop being scared. For years, the fear of deportation loomed over every moment of my life. I developed a phobia of police officers — just seeing one made my stomach turn. The thought of someone discovering my undocumented status was enough to send me into a spiral of anxiety. Even now, despite having legal protections, those fears persist, reminding me that freedom is fragile.


OPINION 3/4/25 10:56pm

Condemn DEI censorship, protect campus research

The Office of the Provost announced that Rice’s DEI office will be renamed to the Office of Access and Institutional Excellence on Feb. 28. As a graduate student, I am not privy to the reasons for this rebranding. I hope that, in light of recent federal and state directives and ongoing censorship, it is obvious why I am wary, even if the office claims to continue to promote values of diversity, equity and inclusion while removing these words from its website.


OPINION 3/4/25 10:46pm

Rice protects rich abusers — but we shouldn’t

“Culture of care” is our central motto at Rice. Orientation Week, Beer Bike, publics and even random days are accompanied by the phrase — a reminder that we’re always supposed to protect each other. We do not stand for harm. Yet even after being previously exposed for failing victims of sexual violence, Rice continues to bury cases in the name of its image, and more importantly, its endowment.




OPINION 1/21/25 11:05pm

Students should prioritize American patriotism

A threat to American values has grown rapidly in recent years: the anti-war movement’s shift to an anti-military stance, calling for divesting from, and in effect dismantling, the defense industrial base. The hyperbolic language found here should alarm Rice students because the U.S. military needs those same companies to develop critical technologies in the functioning of U.S. defense. 





OPINION 11/12/24 9:58pm

Why the Democratic Party keeps failing us - and what we can do

In the wake of the 2024 general election, many of us are grappling with frustration, disappointment and even anger toward the Democratic Party — and that’s okay. This isn’t about campaign strategy or a single election loss; it’s about the party’s choice to take a once-promising, potentially transformative nominee and reduce her to a hollow vessel for corporate donors and backers. 



OPINION 10/29/24 10:51pm

Make Election Day a permanent non-instructional day

Back in 2022, as Jones College’s New Student Representatives, we presented one of our first Student Association Senate resolutions to President Reggie DesRoches and other university leaders, asking them to designate Election Day as a non-instructional day. This resolution aimed to eliminate barriers to voting and promote civic engagement, recognizing that the right to vote should not come at the cost of academic performance. 


OPINION 10/8/24 10:36pm

Students should stop supporting Rice SJP

To foster a truly inclusive campus culture, we must consider a paradox of intolerance: a society must be intolerant of intolerance to uphold its foundational values. Rice SJP not only silences opposing voices, but promotes exclusionary rhetoric that undermines principles of inclusion and pluralism.


OPINION 10/1/24 10:52pm

Rice bends to Zionist propaganda

In the last several weeks, Rice University held three events — both openly and behind closed doors — that, taken together, demonstrate its commitment to advancing a Zionist ideology on campus, which serves as the foundation for Israel’s increasingly psychotic expansion of its genocidal violence into Lebanon and Yemen. 


OPINION 9/24/24 11:57pm

Rice is going through an awkward phase

Rice is going through puberty, marked by awkwardness, evolving parts and existential questions. This pivotal time offers both challenges and opportunities for growth. Our actions now, as a community, will have lasting impacts on Rice’s future.



OPINION 4/10/24 2:41pm

Student activism is working – and fear-mongering cannot hold us back

S.RES 02, titled “Student Association Boycott and Divestment from Corporations Complicit in the Ongoing Genocide in Gaza,” was presented to the Student Association on March 25. This resolution proposes the creation of an Ethical Spending Advisory Board designed to ensure that Blanket Tax funds are not dedicated to corporations that are complicit in Israeli colonial violence and apartheid based on guidelines created by the BDS movement.