Who Asked You: Confident speaking, live music, NU response to DEI orders

Alexander Hernandez Gonzalez, Alice Oh, and Anavi Prakash

March 23, 2025

The Daily Northwestern · Who Asked You: Confident speaking, live music, NU response to DEI orders

In this episode, The Daily reports on hot takes of the week, top Opinion stories of the past two weeks along with other op-ed and contributing pieces that we received. The Daily explores confident speaking, live classical music and Northwestern’s response to federal orders.

ANAVI PRAKASH: My hot take is that early morning classes, like those 9, 9:30 a.m.s are the best classes because they get you going in the morning and then you can start your day because whenever I have later classes, I just stay in bed no matter how productive I say I’m going to be in the morning.

MISHA MANJURAN OBEROI: My hot take is that I don’t think makeup in its most traditional form is a choice. I think most people do it because the male gaze has been internalized over the years and decades. We think we’re doing it for ourselves, just because we say “Oh, we do it even when we’re alone and it makes us happy,” but why does it make us happy? Why does it give us confidence? That’s something to think about.

ASHLEY DONG: My hot take is that the world would be better off without TikTok and other platforms of short-form entertainment like Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts. I admit that I am a user of Instagram Reels, despite my best efforts to stay off the apps, but I truly believe that the endless doom scrolling is killing our attention spans and taking our valuable time away from more important and probably more fulfilling endeavors.

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ALEXANDER HERNANDEZ GONZALEZ: You just heard hot takes from Audio Editor Anavi Prakash, Video Editor Misha Manjuran Oberoi and Photo Editor Ashley Dong.

From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Alexander Hernandez Gonzalez.

ALICE OH: And I’m Alice Oh. We’re so back. This is Who Asked You?, a podcast capturing opinions on the issues that matter to us and you.

ALEXANDER HERNANDEZ GONZALEZ: Hola! This is Episode Six, our final episode of the quarter! Do I want to cry my eyes out? Well, yes. Do we have time for that? Well, absolutely not. We have conversations to be had, so join us one last time. Come on, let’s go!

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ALEXANDER HERNANDEZ GONZALEZ: For my final column as Opinion Editor, I decided to reflect on my past and present. I am back home in Denver and this past weekend, I had the chance to see my speech and debate team compete at the Rocky Mountain South National Qualifying Tournament. As an assistant coach, I believe that paying it forward to those who are a part of the activity that helped me become the person I am today is important. What do you think, Alice?

ALICE OH: I mean, I was so touched by your piece, and I’m really happy that you were vulnerable with your experience around speech and around confidence. So I just wanted to thank you for writing about that. I’m sure that a lot of people have the same struggles; (it’s) super inspiring. I just wanted to point out the part where you talked about speech therapy and how it actually didn’t really help with regaining your confidence. How did that differ from your experience on the speech and debate team, and how that was actually more effective for you?

ALEXANDER HERNANDEZ GONZALEZ: My time during speech therapy was just more seen as somewhat of a bribe to me. It was more toward I would be removed from my classrooms during elementary school and literally just be locked in a private room with a speech therapist for, I don’t know, five hours, and then she would just try to make me talk and be comfortable. But the only ways that I was rewarded with speaking or saying a certain verb or word was, like Angry Birds on the iPad, Goldfish or little silly knick-knacks. And I feel like with that, I just learned that if there wasn’t a reward that comes along with what I’m saying or why am I speaking, then it has no other purpose. Like my voice doesn’t have any other purpose of being present in the conversation or just in general.

But I feel like with speech and debate, coach Anna Steed, she really taught me how to be confident in my voice and just be overall energetic in the ways in which I present myself and specifically in the ways of my experiences and my identity. Specifically, there was an assignment for the introduction to speech class where we had to write about our personal experiences, about how we deal with our self-confidence and stuff. And I remember we had a little stage in the back of Room 161 and she made every single student go on that stage and read their script, essentially. And I remember when I was up there, I cried my eyes out because I was like this is literally exposure therapy, like that one episode of (The) Jerry Springer (Show) where this lady’s scared of pickles. Someone brings a jar of pickles, and she screams and runs, leaves out the room. I felt like that, but I couldn’t leave because it was my grade. So, even without exposure to talking to a group of people and others that have to listen to what I have to say and just made me realize that my voice is important, and I could talk about things that do affect people in a personal way and just in general, in a broad sense.

ALICE OH: I mean, props to you. I feel like putting yourself out there and exposing yourself to something that terrifies you is the first little stepping stone to who you are now, and I think that’s super powerful.

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ALICE OH: For my piece, I brought it back to my roots and discussed the digitalization of performance and its negative impacts on classical music. The experience of making and sharing music in real time is such a big part of the genre, so trying to replicate this aspect through digital means just doesn’t seal the deal. I’d love to see a bigger emphasis placed on innovating live performances and bringing more people out to concerts.

What do you think Alex?

ALEXANDER HERNANDEZ GONZALEZ: So while I was reading your column, I just really appreciated the way that you are very in touch with classical music, and your overall dedication to not just the craft, but also the huge things that do make classical music specifically through live performance, is very inspiring to see.

This was my favorite column of yours, (and) I really loved reading it a lot. Even just the sort of sense of having classical music be on Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube — it’s just not the same as a live performance. For me, personally, I really didn’t get the hype of live music at all until my freshman year at NU where I went to a live classical music hall within downtown Chicago. And it was so magical. It’s just like, you’re in this space with the musicians, you’re seeing how all those little pieces come together and then you’re just seeing something beautiful that’s created there, compared to putting in an AirPod or your headphones and then just putting on a curated playlist, and then that’s it.

So I really do get your sort of argument of having more people in those sort of live concert halls and spaces, but I’m just curious to see, what do you think specifically NU students should be doing to engage more with classical music and art that is classical music within not just NU, like in Bienen (School of Music) and stuff like that, but also in Chicago, where it’s a place of live music, live theater, live art in general? I’m curious about that.

ALICE OH: A lot of people have this perception of classical music as kind of foreign and kind of elitist, actually, I think a lot. But just being willing to give it a chance is a big thing. We think of it as the previous generation’s music or music for old, white, rich people. But I think that at the core of it, it’s really music for everyone, and it doesn’t have lyrics, doesn’t have a specific language, anyone can understand it.

I think just giving it a chance and saying, “Oh, maybe this weekend, we’ll go to the symphony, or we’ll go to a concert at Bienen” — I think just putting yourself out there again is like the number one thing that we can do. And it’s hard because people aren’t willing to sit down and listen to a two-hour concert and sit there and do nothing, but I think there’s value in giving yourself that kind of space and time. You don’t see that at all anymore. So I think it’s something that needs to be preserved, especially for future generations. So I definitely say just investigating and seeing what opportunities you have to listen to this kind of music and talking to students of Bienen I think is a great opportunity that we have right here at NU.

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ALEXANDER HERNANDEZ GONZALEZ: On March 4, 218 NU alums signed an Open Letter questioning the University’s decision to censor DEI. Ranging from 1959 all the way to 2024, NU alums want the university to think about where they will “draw the line.” What are your thoughts, Alice?

ALICE OH: I’m super impressed with all of these alums. I mean, first of all, I’m pretty proud of NU and its alums for such, I’d say older graduates, that we’re all honing in to say, “Oh, this is wrong.”

ALEXANDER HERNANDEZ GONZALEZ: Yeah, I just feel like, even with this sort of letter, it was a long somewhat time coming of all of these alums — literally ranging from the 50s to now — it was so cool to just to see some recognizable names that do donate to the University and those who literally just graduated were pretty much already seeing the somewhat effects of what real-life actions from the Trump administration is actively doing to universities like NU and their alma maters. And the fact that this letter was genuinely signed before, you know, the removal of DEI from SESP, Medill (School of Journalism), Bienen, Pritzker (School of Law) and The Graduate School is just so telling to the ways in which NU alums do care about the sort of standards that the University has on its students currently.

And obviously it’s not the best thing that the Trump administration is removing things that are very crucial to the core of NU’s message, but yeah, it’s just very beautiful to see a coming together of these alums ranging from multiple generations, multiple experiences and different backgrounds, and seeing those sort of identities mixed together into one sort of collective as a NU alum group and community. So I just believed it, I just really thought it was great.

And I loved how they were raising questions to the University and people on the board with President Schill, just talking about the ways in which DEI and the sort of things that the Trump administration is implementing on universities like us, is just going to impact so many students, and it currently is still impacting a lot of students at this time, and we haven’t even seen the sort of ways in which these impacts have reached their fullest extent. So I’m very curious to see what sort of response the University has, if they do have any, but if not, I don’t know.

After we published this piece, we received a lot of support from alums wanting to sign the letter, which is great, but unfortunately, we can’t do that. But it’s just really great to see that there’s other alums outside of these 218 that do believe in the standard of having DEI and not conforming to harmful rhetoric that is currently still being pushed onto NU and other communities across the nation.

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ALEXANDER HERNANDEZ GONZALEZ: Here are the other opinions from the last two weeks:

LTE: A vigil for liberty and justice for all by Op-ed Contributor Clif Brown

Fourth Wall: Democrats can put themselves back in the narrative by Opinion Contributor Aidan Klineman

LTE: A response to Gordon as the director of ‘October 8’ by Op-ed Contributor Wendy Sachs

Helsinki 2 by Op-ed Contributor Stephen Hackney

Do we really need ‘Gold Card’ citizenship? by Opinion Editor Alexander Hernandez Gonzalez

Thanks, Mr. Trump. I won’t be graduating from Northwestern by Op-ed Contributor Jeff Walsh

Communal Shower Thoughts: An Uber love story by Opinion Contributor Sylvie Slotkin

Fourth Wall: Lessons from my quarter in the Bay by Opinion Contributor Aidan Klineman

LTE: All veterans deserve a “Forever G.I. Bill” by Op-ed Contributor Richard Reif

Communal Shower Thoughts: Escaping the treadmill by Opinion Contributor Sylvie Slotkin

LTE: An Open Letter from 55 faculty members urging Northwestern to Stand Up for DEI by 55 Northwestern faculty members

LTE: An Open Letter from 95 Northwestern faculty, staff and grad workers in support of campus food services workers by 95 NU faculty, educators and grad workers

Democracy in peril — a call to action for Northwestern and beyond by Op-ed Contributor Laura Beth Nielsen

Are the administration’s budgetary concerns overblown? by Op-ed Contributor Luis A. Nunes Amaral and

LTE: An Open Letter from 922 NU alumni — Board of Trustees: Resist Trump Administration Bullying by 922 NU alumni

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ALICE OH: To the listeners, it’s been real this quarter. We hope that you enjoyed the revival of “Who Asked You?,” everyone’s favorite podcast. See you around.

ALEXANDER HERNANDEZ GONZALEZ: From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Alexander Hernandez Gonzalez.

ALICE OH: And I’m Alice Oh. Thanks for listening to another episode of Who Asked You?

ALEXANDER HERNANDEZ GONZALEZ: This episode was reported by Alexander Hernandez Gonzalez and Alice Oh and produced by Anavi Prakash.

The Audio Editor is Anavi Prakash. The Multimedia Managing Editors are Kelley Lu and Jillian Moore. The Editor in Chief is Lily Ogburn.

Our theme music is “Thoughts” by KaizanBlu, used under a Creative Commons 4.0 International license and provided by the Free Music Archive.

Alexander Hernandez Gonzalez is a Medill sophomore. He can be contacted at alexanderhernandez-gonzalez2027@u.northwestern.edu. Alice Oh is a Medill and Bienen sophomore. She can be contacted at aliceoh2027@u.northwestern.edu. If you would like to respond publicly to this opinion episode, send a Letter to the Editor to opinion@dailynorthwestern.com. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.