Female-Representation-in-Food-Industry

After closing last November, New York City high schools have reopened for in-person instruction. While high schools in West Harlem have welcomed students back, many community members have expressed concern over safety measures to protect students, teachers, and their families from COVID-19.

In the film industry, the adjective “emerging” typically has a negative connotation. However, this need not be the case, as the process of emerging is never-ending—the process of reinvention is constant in a world where success is not easily defined. To emerge in the film world, one must grow and evolve into a successful individual.

Now more than ever, women are beginning to make their mark as chefs and restaurant owners across the country. Still, in comparison to their male counterparts, they remain underrepresented in higher-level positions of power.

As a child, junior swimmer Clare Larsen loved to play sports. Despite her passion, however, she always thought of sports as a boys’ world, and the male-dominated culture initially discouraged her from chasing her dreams of Division I recruitment. The message from people around her, Larsen said, was that “sports are healthy for a young woman, but [they’re] not necessarily something that you pursue.”

With a new generation of athletes like Ada Hegerberg, Marta Vieira da Silva, and Naomi Osaka, activism in sports has shifted in a new direction. Female athletes have risen to the front lines of many protests, ranging from struggles for equal pay in sports to police brutality and racial injustice.

Columbia and the Graduate Workers of Columbia-United Auto Workers have spent the past two years at the bargaining table, negotiating issues of compensation, neutral arbitration, childcare benefits, and more. As of Monday, over 3,000 GWC-UAW student workers are officially on strike until a labor contract can be agreed upon between the union and the University. Among the 23 tentative agreements already reached between Columbia and the GWC-UAW is one on how the university will subsidize and support caregivers.

Columbia is planning to return to in-person instruction this fall, University President Lee Bollinger announced in an email Wednesday. The announcement comes on the one year anniversary of the declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City.

As we all have adjusted to online life, cartoonist Liam McGrane, GS ’24, predicts a “comfortable” return to in-person classes in the fall.

It is imperative that organizations and institutions actively center the voices of people affected by the criminal legal system. Moreover, organizations should not simply ask people to share their life stories or seek to offset the organization-wide imposter syndrome, but must equally center the experiential expertise and personal knowledge of those who are called upon as sources of much needed wisdom for creating inclusive environments in policy as well as under the law for Black and Indigenous people.