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Sunday, March 22, 2026
The Observer

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Author Clint Smith speaks about history of slavery and writing

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The Atlantic staff writer Clint Smith spoke at the Smith Ballroom at the Morris Inn on Wednesday evening. Smith’s book, “How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America,” was a #1 New York Times Bestseller and a 2021 National Book Critics Circle Award Winner for Nonfiction. 


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Tech ethics faculty fear focus on banning TikTok is misplaced

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Brendan Carr, a commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), said the social media app TikTok should be banned in the U.S. The Council on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) has spent months negotiating with TikTok to determine if it can be divested by its Chinese parent company ByteDance creating bleak outlooks and the possibility of a ban. 



The Observer

Center for Social Concerns ends SSLPs, introduces NDBridge

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The summer service learning program (SSLP) and its international counterpart (ISSLP) have been phased out by the Center for Social Concerns. NDBridge is the University’s new summer community engagement program, limited to rising sophomores. The previous programs were open to students in each of their three summers.



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Campus stages ‘The Winter’s Tale’ and ‘Steel Magnolias’

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Notre Dame students are taking the stage this weekend in two different shows. The department of film, television and theatre (FTT) will be staging Robert Harling’s “Steel Magnolias” at the Decio Theatre in the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center, Nov. 10-13. Elsewhere on campus, the Not-So-Royal-Shakespeare Company (NSR) will be putting on “A Winter’s Tale” at the Washington Hall Lab Theater, November 10-12. 



The Observer

University files brief defending affirmative action in Supreme Court cases

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Last week, the Supreme Court heard two concurrent cases on the state of affirmative action in college admissions, Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina and Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College. The petitioner in both cases — Students for Fair Admissions, a nonprofit that has taken issue with the race-conscious admission policies at UNC and Harvard — has argued that those policies constitute racial discrimination, especially against Asian-Americans.