The name of the Georgetown Academy is one that I am hesitant to adopt. In its previous incarnations, the Academy has been fiery to the point of self-isolation; it has been so rigid in its scathing tone and insistence upon denouncement that it has forgotten the value in its own founding.
But, unfortunately, this name is necessary for the moment. While this incarnation of the Academy will not be as devotedly and flippantly conservative, nearly as furious or personalized, and hopefully does not pretend to come from any sort of place of moral gravity, it will still fulfill the same project — the doomed countercultural project of questioning the actions of our university and fundamentally seeking to restore some semblance of a greater Georgetown that was more closely guided by its founding principles and ideals.
Similar to a standard campus publication, I anticipate that most writing here will take place through the lens of opinion journalism. If you and I are especially fortunate, my colleagues and I will uncover information worthy of publication as well. The constraints of a standard college newspaper will intentionally not apply, but I would prefer the Academy be thought of as one. It should serve that purpose above all else.
In 1916, the Georgetown College Journal quoted the physician James J. Walsh as claiming that: “Some day, when the story of college journalism in this country is written, it will be found that nearly everyone who went through college and made a success of writing afterwards, began his work on a college paper, and looks back on that experience as one of the precious incentives of his life.” But both of our relevant college publications provide little “precious incentive” to do good work; an admittedly understandable focus on career and personal risk has subverted the student desire to reach out and fight for a higher good for an institution it is meant to revere. Even the Voice, a publication rooted in protest, repeatedly finds itself more insistent on the same sort of moral righteousness that plagued the 2010 Academy, albeit in a more “compassionate” manner. The Hoya has established itself a biweekly comfort zone in firing a single shot at a time, missing its mark, and ducking below cover before it can see where the bullet landed and celebrating as if it has won the battle.
This is partially by institutional design (juxtapose Gelderloos’ infamous anarchist argument against peaceful protest outside American military bases alongside the Voice and The Hoya’s bloated, codependent budget requests) but in a way has removed what is so invigorating about campus journalism in the first place — to selectively and passionately fight for the good of a specific, largely ambivalent body of students subject to the same generally unchecked authority. The Fourth Estate of Georgetown is vital because it is the only real representation of the Third. If the Academy is to be the only consistently dedicated component of the Fourth, it must check the decreasingly devout impulses of the First and Second in order to best serve the Third. If the Academy is to be the only consistently dedicated component of the Fourth, and it requires anonymity and its authors being undergraduates with Substack accounts, then so be it. The ends will justify the means.
This iteration of the Academy will use the slogan of every iteration before it: that “the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of conflict, remain neutral.” But, far more so, its founding principle will be AD MAJOREM DEI GLORIAM — as I humbly and gingerly lay this first mission statement of the fourth Academy at your feet, I pray that we can fulfill and justify it.