Last week, opinions writer Ava Hurwitz wrote an incredible piece about not taking internships that go against your beliefs. As a senior that left their internship, this was not a hypothetical exercise for me but a practical experience. Like many students, I have been contemplating for the past couple of months my internship during President Donald Trump’s administration. After mulling it over, I decided that working at the Kennedy Center is not aligned with who I am.
The Kennedy Center public relations internship was my dream opportunity. I’ve spent countless nights at the Kennedy Center attending shows and sometimes just hanging out on the roof. After seven semesters of rejection, I finally got the internship during my senior spring, alongside a close GW friend who became the center’s social media intern. The stars had aligned, and working there was magic. Walking through the Hall of Nations to the internal offices felt surreal. I helped announce the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, attended the world premiere dress rehearsal of “Schmigadoon” and assisted with press shots. I even left behind Broadway star Alex Brightman heading to his Watergate apartment — without fangirling because I wanted to seem cool. I attended a Fox 5 DC recording with the Alvin Ailey Dance Company, a group I’d long idolized. It was everything I’d dreamed of.
Disaster struck on Feb. 7. Trump announced at the end of the day that he would be removing David Rubenstein as the chair of the Kennedy Center board and instating himself. I headed into the weekend perplexed: No one seemed to know what was happening. We had no idea if what was happening was real, legal or even true. By Feb. 12, catastrophe: An all-staff meeting announced Trump’s appointment as board chair, Kennedy Center President Deborah Rutter’s immediate departure and the imminent arrival of Richard Grenell, the new interim director. Trump loyalists had gutted and replaced the center’s whole leadership team.
The afternoon after the news broke, the Kennedy Center PR inbox was filled with outrage, calling us weak and spineless and wishing us the worst. Maybe those people didn’t know that the interns were the ones who saw those messages, not higher powers like the new chairman. Seeing the emails took me back to a mental space I had long tried to suppress. It transported me back to my Capitol Hill experience in fall 2023. After submitting 110 applications, I’d secured that coveted Hillternship, only for it to quickly sour. Working for a congressman whose Israel-Palestine views contradicted mine, I endured being called horrible names by constituents while dutifully taking notes. It wasn’t just the name-calling that got to me, it was the claims that I was complicit, that I was spineless and so many horrendous things to say to a 19-year-old girl.
On the Hill, I felt subhuman — selling my soul for less than minimum wage and a resume line. I went home daily in tears, often breaking down before the Metro pulled out of the Capitol South station. The voices of the people who called the office crying, screaming and begging haunted me for months afterward. I still regret staying to this day, but back then I didn’t think I could’ve left. I felt so scared and restless every single day within the space. I felt used, and mostly, I felt ethically unsettled.
My resume needed this, I told myself daily. I was a junior who had switched majors. I needed this job. In many ways, that internship opened doors to Amtrak, eventually the Feminist Majority Foundation and the Kennedy Center, so I justified it as a necessary evil. I still maintain that asking myself to walk away from my first internship as a junior was too big of an ask and that without it I would not have had the opportunities that I ended up receiving.
My circumstances were completely different when Trump took over the Kennedy Center. As a graduating senior with full-time job interviews lined up, I wasn’t trapped. I could walk away, and I was privileged enough to do so. I loved my job and team with no desire to leave, but staying became impossible. I couldn’t work for someone who stifles voices he disagrees with, not while working in PR with a political communication degree. My training and education has taught me better.
When I quit the internship at the beginning of the month, I felt that I had to have faith in myself and bet on myself. I kept thinking that nothing, not even post-graduate plans, was more crucial than doing the right thing and standing up to Trump.
I am not here to tell anyone to quit their jobs — I’m not an idealist in this way. Instead, I am asking everyone to ask themselves what they believe in and what they are okay with being associated with. I call on every person interning in places making decisions they don’t agree with to ask themselves: How far is too far? When am I complacent about this organization’s wrongdoings, and how long will I be okay with that?
Take time to draw your ethical boundaries. Think about the books, movies, music and philosophers that have shaped you and your beliefs and write down what that moral compass is. Then, memorize, study and know it better than anything else because you want to know it when needed. As you venture into the world of work and internships, ensure that everything you do — from the jobs you take to the assignments you complete — aligns with these boundaries. I’m proud of my decision to leave the Kennedy Center. Now, five weeks since my last day, I can say it hurt to work four years only to walk away but knowing I refused to participate in something I fundamentally oppose keeps me going — even with a smaller coffee budget until June.
Aaliyah Guzman, a senior majoring in political communication, is an opinions writer.
