COVER-UP BY GEORGETOWN BUREAUCRACY: McCARTHY, REYNOLDS LIBRARIES EMPTIED

13

Loading

2020 Father Bunn Award for Journalistic Excellence: Second Place for Commentary

DISCLAIMER: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS SEXUAL AND OTHERWISE OFFENSIVE CONTENT.

Editor’s Note: This story is developing, as we await responses from various branches of the administration and different centers on campus. All responses we received by the time of publication are included below.

Note on Contribution: Alexandra Bowman (COL ’22)—Cartoonist for The Georgetown Review and Founder, President, Lead Coordinator, Creative Director, and Researcher for The Hilltop Show—and Cheyenne Martin (COL ’21)—Performer, Research Writer, and Creative Writer for The Hilltop Show—contributed to this piece in outreach, research, and multimedia recording. Research for this piece was completed in conjunction with The Hilltop Show’s Research Team.

On January 22, a few staff of The Georgetown Review attended a general body meeting of The Hilltop Show—a political satire group on campus—held in McCarthy Library, a study space in the Southwest Quad.  On the way out of the room after the meeting concluded, one person noticed a book propped up on one of the shelves along the wall at the head of the conference table.  The book was entitled Cherokee, and it contained blatantly racist language degrading Native Americans.

Looking up from this one problematic book, we noticed more offensive books.  Thus, we examined every single book in the room.

Clearly, the bookcase had not been perused recently, if at all since the Southwest Quad’s construction in 2003, as thick layers of dust coated the shelves and books.  We can only assume the books have gone unnoticed for nearly two decades, since even the most ardent conservative would take exception to the books’ contents, at least without historical or cultural  context.

To be clear, The Georgetown Review does not support censorship in any form, since history is only useful if we learn from it, and learn from it all, unrestricted.  However, when providing access to historical texts—written during a different time in American history, during times of different moral and social standards—providing context is equally critical to the learning experience.

A large portion—at least half—of all the shelved books were similarly problematic, containing (one of, but in most cases, many) of the following characteristics: racism, sexism, misogyny, homophobia, fetishization, and pedophilia.

There is another library in Reynolds Hall, in which a staff member of The Hilltop Show found more problematic books, especially for a Jesuit university, portraying Christianity and the Priesthood as evil.

On January 25, The Hilltop Show reached out to the Center for Social Justice, the Women’s Center, the Center for Multicultural Equity and Access, Danielle Melidona (Community Director of McCarthy Hall), Katie Heather (Associate Director of Residential Education Office), Tom Mangano (Community Director of Kennedy and Reynolds Halls), and Bill Huff (Director of Residential Services) for comment on the origin and contents of the books, only hearing back from the CSJ, the Women’s Center, and Ms. Melidona as of this publication date.  However, as disclosed below, only Ms. Melidona answered The Hilltop Show’s questions, while the CSJ and Women’s Center have received the questions, but have not yet responded.


The CSJ

Greetings,

Thanks for reaching out. You can send me the questions you have.

Best,

Dr. Wisler


The Women’s Center

Hello all

I am not quite sure what you would like to interview us about. Annie Selak just got to campus two weeks ago, and is new to the campus.

I just assumed Directorship of the Women’s Center, but may be able to answer a few questions. 

Send me the questions and I will see what I can do. 

Thanks

Shiva


Ms. Melidona

Hi all,

Here is what I’ve been able to gather:

1. How did the McCarthy and Reynolds libraries acquire their books? Was there a process for donations, or shopping for them?

  • The libraries were created as social and study spaces for students when the Southwest Quad was built and opened in 2003. The shelves were initially bare and there was no plan to fill them until an alum of Georgetown University donated the books to the libraries. Since then, students have contributed to the libraries by donating their old books for various classes or personal collections. I do not have the name of the alum, but am working to identify that information.

2. When did the libraries acquire their books? Are the collections maintained, added to, and/or monitored? 

  • Most of the books are from the initial donation by [name], but the current collections are not formally maintained, monitored, or added to. The spaces operate less as formal libraries and more like community libraries where members take and drop off books as they wish. There is a goal for creating a catalog in the future, but plans have not yet been finalized.

3. What is the purpose of the books? Are the books designed for leisure and/or study reading for students?

  • The initial donation of books was designed for leisure reading. I am not certain how often the books are actually used given that there is no formal check-in/check-out process

4. Is there a current catalog of the books?

  • There is not a current catalog of books nor has there ever been a catalog of books.

5. Is there still a process for donating or receiving books for the spaces?

  • There is no formal process for donating or receiving books. Most students will just bring books into the libraries and leave them on the shelves.We tend to see the volume of books increase at the end of each semester.

6. Are the libraries open to anyone in the Georgetown community?

  • Anyone who has access to the residence halls has access to the books.

7. Is there a check-in/check-out process, or does the library operate on an honor/borrow system? If there is a system, is it enforced?

  • There is no formal check-in/check-out system. The honor/borrow system most likely aligns with the current practices of the libraries, but there are no formal policies.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Best,

Danielle


However, before we could search all the books in Reynolds Library, both libraries had been cleared of all but a few books, all of which were written on innocuous topics, such as the European Union, and Railroad Wages from 1900-1952.  At least they left a game of Clue. They even cleared books on ROTC programs in the 1940s, paralegal instructional guides, and golf puns, to name a few from memory. They took no chances. But upon first encountering the books, we documented nearly forty of the most problematic ones, predicting they would clear the library when questioned.  Keep in mind, except for one book (the last in the series pictured at the end of this article—Death of an Informer), the offensive content was surmised from just the books’ front and back covers.

McCarthy Library on January 22 (featuring Alexandra Bowman)
McCarthy Library on January 31

Also, to be clear, I am writing this article as a Republican male—not the first person to jump on the bandwagon of due-process-less, social justice trigger-happiness, but this level of unresponsiveness, obfuscation, and shady lack of transparency is a problem.  It is a problem that runs deep in the veins of academia and bureaucracy, if the two institutions can be separated in this day and age.

For previous stories, The Georgetown Review has reached out to several campus institutions (the CSJ, Vice President Joseph Ferrara, Vice President Mark Bosco, and the Title IX Office), and has been ignored (or left waiting for weeks or months at best) or stonewalled every time.  In fact, we recently reached out to Human Resources about a story in the works, and we have not heard back in nearly one week. It seems going in-person to these institutions’ offices is the only way to get answers, if you’re lucky enough to encounter people who listen to your concerns and questions. The university should be accountable and accessible to its students, its lifeblood.

As of noon on January 31, both libraries were in the state we left them—fully stocked with smut.  But, by 8:00 PM on January 31, they were nearly empty, as aforementioned and pictured. Clearly, some person or persons in some agency of the university heard of the books via our outreach emails and swept the books under the rug, or rather into oblivion.  It is equally fascinating and reprehensible that the Georgetown bureaucracy can mobilize to remove hundreds of books that were sitting undetected for nearly twenty years in the span of an afternoon, but they turn a blind eye to other equally-real problems. Also, to note, they did not simply clear the shelves of all the books; they sorted through the books and only took the problematic ones, requiring more time, planning, and effort.

As a Darnall resident, I am passionate about bureaucratic unresponsiveness. Facilities issues are a main topic of concern. And, to be clear, we do not blame the hardworking and friendly custodians and other staff who try their best to keep our residence halls clean.  We are frustrated with the red-tape-ridden, unresponsive Residential Living office and other bureaucratic branches of the university.

Darnall Hall’s third-floor men’s bathroom still has cardboard on the ceiling from where the light fell off in October, and its halls have water stains on the floors (and mold) from years-long leaky showers that facilities reportedly knew about for an extended period of time.  Hot water is available only sporadically. At least a half inch of dust lines the windowsills in the lobby (a work order that was submitted to fix this issue was classified “CLOSED” in October, despite the dust remaining). The windows take Herculean strength to open, the same as move-in day, even after they were supposedly fixed and improved.  There are countless other problems, but none with which we are intimate enough to include here, for brevity’s sake.

The point is, mobilize the bureaucracy for good, for student health and well-being and happiness! Do not act behind the scenes, be unresponsive, and sweep problems away as if they never existed. Own up to, and work to fix, your mistakes.

We’d like to add that we haven’t even read the insides of these books (besides Death of an Informer, in which we flipped to a random page replete with racial slurs and sexually-explicit content). Again, the entire swath of evidence for the problematic nature of these books is based on the front and back covers.

To conclude on a lighter note, it would be a shame if the university simply threw these books away.  They are commanding respectable prices on eBay. Seems like a good opportunity to liquidate our assets and augment the endowment.

Books from Southwest Quad Libraries, In No Particular Order

Justin Drewer (COL ’23) is an Editor-in-Chief of The Georgetown Review.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official or personal position of the Editorial Board, Contributors, or Business Staff of The Georgetown Review.

13 COMMENTS

  1. “To be clear, The Georgetown Review does not support censorship in any form, since history is only useful if we learn from it, and learn from it all, unrestricted.”

    *SNORT*

  2. May I have them?

    If the library and the “students” don’t want them, I would love to have them. (This is a serious request.) I read all those authors while growing up and have very fond memories of them.

  3. I suggest you change the name of your publication to The Taliban Review… and maybe you should campaign to tear the whole place down because it was probably built by “white men” with “money”. Then you can build your own university out of??? not tents because they would probably be manufactured by racist, sexist white men… not wood because you would then advocate cutting down trees and those who did it would be racist, sexist white men… not concrete as that would emit way way too much carbon and also owned by racist, sexist white men… I guess you will all just have to stand and sit out on the ground. Hope you freeze your ass off in winter and get soaked by rain in summer… ASSHOLES

  4. People who are having full-blown sex regularly are unlikely to waste time on these witch-hunts. Deeply unattractive women seem to be disproportionately offended by sex-positive material, it seems.

LEAVE A REPLY