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THE HARVARD CRIMSON | October 29, 2018
Diversity From Page I
Vigil From Page I
Report: HKS Still Students Honor Fallen at Gathering Mostly White, Male Douglas W. Elmendorf wrote in an email introducing the report. “We are not satisfied with the current situation and are committed to taking further steps to improve diversity, as well as inclusion and belonging.” The Kennedy School last collected internal data on the demographics of its students, faculty, and staff as part of a task force on diversity in 2017. A draft rep ort of the data, leaked to the press, presented stark statistics: African-American and Latinx faculty members numbered in the single digits, women made up less than a third of faculty members, and the yield rate among African- American students was declining, among other findings. Addressing the lack of faculty diversity it found, the 2017 report read, “Without that diversity, we risk taking narrow views on policy issues important to our students and to the world and to missing important issues altogether.” Its findings sparked protests and conversations among students and faculty about the dearth of minorities and women at the school. Acting on the recommendations from the report, the school hired Dean of Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging Robbin Chapman and instituted bias trainings for senior administrators. Still, a year later, the numbers have hardly budged. According to the latest demographic report, men represented 53 percent of the student body and 71 percent of the faculty — nearly the same percentages as in the 2017 report. Women maintained a significant majority among staff, making up again 70 percent of staffers at HKS. The 2018 report — which only examines U.S. citizens at the school — also provided a breakdown of the demographics of each degree program. In the Masters in Public Policy program, the largest the school offers, the percentage of African-American students increased from 4 percent in 2015 to 7 percent in 2018. Last year’s report found that students who
“I’m surprised that this report, if it is the inal template, does not reflet historical ata. It seems to be a moment in time report.” Khalil G. Muhammad HKS Professor
identified as Hispanic constituted 7 percent of the student body in 2015; in 2018, “Hispanic/Latinx” students made up the same proportion. The number of Asian-American students pursuing the MPP degree, however, increased noticeably between this year and last. In the 2017 report, Asian Americans made up 7 percent of MPP students, whereas the 2018 report showed Asian-American students represented 17 percent of students. Chapman said the dean and senior staff — the team which produced this inaugural public report — could not explain the jump. “That’s part of the work we are going to be doing moving forward,” Chapman said. The faculty data showed even less of a shift from previous reports. In the 2018 report, 79 percent of professors identified as white. Only one professor identified as “Hispanic/Latinx,” and the report said two professors are Black or African American.
Elmendorf wrote in his email to HKS affiliates that the 2018 report followed a recommendation from the 2017 task force to conduct follow up studies. He said administrators plan to update these reports “each fall,” and Chapman said the school will release demographic breakdowns every October moving forward. Several Kennedy School affiliates said the very existence of the report shows the school’s commitment to improving diversity at the school. “The timing of the report was really important because as students, a lot of us have continued meeting on diversity, equity, and inclusion issues,” Kennedy School Latinx Caucus CoChair Amanda R. Matos said. “For us, it was timely in the sense that we have a lot planned for this year to make sure that this is still on our administration’s radar.” Some students pointed to what they consider to be several flaws in the report’s methodology. HKS Black Student Union President Akina E. Younge said she was “happy” to have concrete numbers but is still concerned about the details of the report. “I think that’s really important that we have data and information that we can all talk about,” Younge said. “That doesn’t mean that the data is completely correct or representative.” Specifically, Younge worried the inclusion of students who are completing dual degrees at other Harvard graduate schools inflated the numbers of minorities — rendering the data less representative of the Kennedy School’s full-time student population. “By including the joint degree [students], it means that, if the purpose is to tell us what the experience is like for people on campus, it’s not actually doing that because this isn’t representing the folks and the experiences of being on campus if we’re including people who are not on campus and who are not in the classroom with us,” she said. Chapman said the number of students completing joint degrees is “very small compared to the overall number of students” and did not “skew” the data. HKS Professor Khalil G. Muhammad said the report showed “room for improvement,” especially because it did not contain demographic or admissions data collected from previous years. The document presented only statistics from 2018. “I’m surprised that this report, if it is the final template, does not reflect historical data. It seems to be a moment in time report,” Muhammad said. “It seems to be the only way to measure progress or retrogression over time is to actually see what’s happened in prior years, and this report doesn’t have that.” In light of the numbers, Elmendorf wrote that the school has begun expanding student recruitment to include more candidates from diverse backgrounds and is “revisiting” the procedures for faculty searches to “de-bias selection processes.” Still, while racial and ethnic minorities remain very much in the minority, Matos said it is difficult to be confronted with that reality. “No matter how often I think and breathe and live about issues tied to race and ethnicity, it is still no matter what, very jarring to see when for me, as a person of color, sometimes called a minority, seeing myself reflected in small numbers,” Matos said. “It hits my heart in a way I can never fully be prepared for.” alexandra.chaidez@thecrimson.com
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faith.” Dean of the College Rakesh Khurana also addressed the vigial attendees. He spoke about voting and politics, saying at one point that he does not “want to live in a society that loves its guns more than its babies.” He ended his speech with a call to action. “Today we breathe, tomorrow we start working for change,” Khurana said. “We must do both.” Amitai B. Abouzaglo ’20, who attended the event, said he hopes this event is not the sole reason people go to the polls on Nov. 6. “Everyone was saying four months ago ‘You better vote. You want to do something? You better vote. You better do something.’ Don’t make us the altar,” he said. While the shooting occurred hundreds of miles away, some students said the events Saturday “hit home” for Harvard affiliates of the Jewish faith. Attendee Ilan M. Goldberg ’20, who serves as Vice President of Community Relations for Hillel, said the historical im-
pact of the tragedy has been on his mind. In an interview after the vigil, Goldberg said that, as someone whose family came to the United States from Mexico for “safety and in part for better opportunities,” the events Saturday were unsettling. “I think we’d seen acts of anti-Semitism, swastikas, and maybe anti-Semitic talks and posts, and that kind of thing, but this really was the first and hopefully the last act of mass violence against the Jewish community in the United States,” Goldberg said. Vice President of Tikkun Olam at Hillel Paulette K. Schuster ’20 said the tragedy in Pittsburgh had personally affected her due to her family history. “My grandfather was a Holocaust survivor and the rest of my family came to here — to Canada — for exactly the religious safety that Ilan mentioned,” Schuster said. “I think as generations go, it’s easier to feel more and more secure, and this was a very, very startling reminder for the community that that’s not always
the case.”
“I just want to say thank you... We can do a lot to support each other within the community, but an event like this really causes people to turn inwards and it’s been incredible to feel the pull of the outside in a positive way, the other people lifting us up.” Ilan M. Goldberg ’20 Vice President of Community Relations for Harvard Hillel
Several Faculty Deans across the College sent emails to their students in the wake of the tragedy to publicize the Sun-
day vigil and to encourage those who felt affected by the events to reach out to House administrators and tutors for support. “We stand strong in our denunciation of the cowardly act of violence that resulted in the loss of so many innocent lives,” Winthrop Faculty Deans Ronald S. Sullivan Jr. and Stephanie Robinson wrote in an email to House residents. “We stand in solidarity with our Jewish brothers and sisters.” Reflecting on the heightened emotion and strong bonds of those gathered in the room, Goldberg said he was grateful for those who attended the vigil Sunday evening. “I want to just say thank you to all of the communities that came out to support us today,” he said. “We can do a lot to support each other within the community, but an event like this really causes people to turn inwards and it’s been incredible to feel the pull of the outside in a positive way, the other people lifting us up.” aidan.ryan@thecrimson.com
UC Says No to Funds for Student Dinners By Jonah S. Berger Crimson Staff Writer
The Undergraduate Council voted against establishing two programs at its Sunday meeting, one which would have funded dinners in Harvard Square to help sophomores decide on a concentration, and the other which would have funded student-led advising trips to Boston. Each initiative would have taken $4,800 from the Student Life Committee’s budget. The first program proposed providing 40 groups of six students each — four sophomores considering a concentration and two upperclassmen already enrolled in that concentration — with money to eat at a restaurant of their choice in Harvard Square. Sixteen representatives voted in favor of the measure, while 27 voted against, and one abstained. The other program would have funded 20 outings into Boston for groups of freshmen and seniors. The trips would have been designed to allow seniors to provide “formal” and “informal” advising for the freshmen, as well as to give seniors the opportunity to reflect on their time at Harvard. The final tally was 18 votes in favor, 21 against, and two abstaining. Some representatives questioned the merits of the advising initiative, saying it was not an efficient or equitable way to offer mentorship and reflection programs.
Catherine L. Zhang ’19 and Nicholas D. Boucher ’19 at a UC meeting. Jocelyn Wang—Contributing photographer
Dunster House Representative Victor C. Agbafe ’19 said he preferred the Council support existing student groups focused on advising, arguing the UC program could pose a “logistical nightmare” to organize effectively. “I don’t know if the UC in this situation is the best angle to provide mentorship,” he said. “Let’s work with different student groups because people have common bonds through those groups.” Adams House Representative K. Yu-Mi Kim ’20 agreed the proposed initiative would
not prove to be a useful allocation of student funds. “At the end of the day, I don’t think this addresses advising and this is mostly just redistributing money into students’ pockets,” she said. “Basically, the $60 dollars that students pay, we’re just giving it back to them and giving them less freedom.” Finance committee leaders also announced at the meeting that for the second consecutive week, they had not imposed an across-the-board cut to their weekly grants to student groups, a welcome devel-
opment after a rocky spring semester which saw the Council tap into its “emergency fund” to shore up the committee’s finances. The committee is operating with a roughly 15 percent higher budget than the spring, partly a result of the 150 percent increase to the student activities fee this year, an optional sum Harvard undergraduates pay as part of enrollment costs. — Alexandra A. Chaidez contributed reporting. jonah.berger@thecrimson.com
personal From Page I
Race Won’t Play Role in Personal Scores releases a new set of reading procedures to officers each year, though normally the documents remain confidential. The way the College assigns personal ratings is a key point of conflict in the ongoing Harvard admissions trial, the latest development in a four-yearold lawsuit alleging the University discriminates against Asian-American applicants. Anti-affirmative action advocacy group Students for Fair Admissions first sued Harvard in Nov. 2014; in the years since, it has specifically alleged that the College systematically assigns qualified Asian-American applicants lower personal scores to justify their exclusion. As revealed in documents submitted as part of the suit, Harvard admissions officers give each applicant a score for their personality traits that ranges from 1 to 4, with 1 being the highest and 4 the lowest score. A 1 denotes an applicant with “truly outstanding qualities of character” while applicants with “questionable or worrisome qualities of character” are more likely to earn a 4. A 2013 internal review conducted by Harvard’s Office of Institutional Research found that Asian-American applicants consistently drew lower personal ratings than did appli-
cants of other races. Harvard officials have repeatedly called the report “preliminary and limited.” While the new guidelines prohibit the use of race when
The consideration of race or ethnicity may be considered only as one factor among many. Harvard Admissions Office Class of 2023 Reading Procedures
determining personal scores, the documents also urge officers to consider whether a student’s racial or ethnic background “may contribute to the educational benefits of diversity at Harvard College” when assigning overall scores. “The consideration of race or ethnicity may be considered only as one factor among many,” the guidelines read. Previous iterations of these guidelines contained no explicit guidance on the use of race. Previous versions also offered far shorter explanations of how Harvard gives out personal
scores. Director of Admissions Marlyn C. McGrath ’70 said the admissions office does not give application readers with written guidance on the consideration of race when she took the witness stand in the trial Oct. 19. Most documents examined in the case — and used in McGrath’s testimony — all date to several years ago. The admissions office drafted the new guidelines for the Class of 2023 in early October. University spokesperson Anna G. Cowenhoven wrote in an email that the new reading procedures comprise a yearly update to Harvard’s admissions policies, which remain unchanged. She declined to comment on the fact that the procedures explicitly mention race. “Harvard College’s admissions policies remain the same, the reading procedures are reissued annually and 2023 procedures are this year’s version,” Cowenhoven wrote. This year’s revised reading procedures also provide detailed instructions on how to assign the controversial personal ratings. The added instructions emphasize that admissions officers should consier “characteristics not always synonymous with
extroversion” and that “particularly reflective” or “insightful” applicants should earn higher personal ratings. SFFA lawyers introduced the reading procedures in court Wednesday after Tia M. Ray ’12, a Harvard admissions officer and director of the Undergraduate Minority Recruitment Program, testified under cross-examination that she was aware the College had published written guidelines on the usage of race in the admissions process . The revised reading procedures merely “enforced what we have been doing in practice” and are “absolutely not” a change in the admissions process, Ray said. In earlier testimony, Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons ’67 affirmed that Harvard has not, in recent history, relied on race when calculating the personal ranking. “We do not endorse, we abhor, stereotypical comments. This is not part of our process,” he said. “This is not who I am, and this is not who our admissions committee members are.” delano.franklin@thecrimson.com iris.lewis@thecrimson.com cindy.zhang@thecrimson.com