The Harvard Crimson THE UNIVERSITY DAILY, EST. 1873
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VOLUME CXLIX, NO. 52 |
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 13, 2022
EDITORIAL PAGE 4
NEWS PAGE 5
SPORTS PAGE 6
Harvard needs to do better at protecting human rights defenders
Economist discusses merits of social safety net programs at IOP event
Meet the new women’s baketball head coach, Carrie Moore
DSO Selects HUA Harvard Students Flock to New App Elections Group
TOBY R. MA—CRIMSON DESIGNER
SEE SIDECHAT PAGE 3
SEE ELECTION PAGE 3
The Dean of Students Office has appointed an interim election commission to conduct the first elections of the Harvard Undergraduate Association in a selection process some former UC members have called unconstitutional. Though the HUA constitution mandates that members of the election commission be appointed by a majority vote of the outgoing UC executive board, some UC leaders say they weren’t consulted. The HUA constitution outlines two procedural paths for forming an interim election commission by the April 6 deadline. The first path requires a majority vote of departing UC leaders — a group consisting of the
CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
UC president, secretary, treasurer, and committee chairs. In the event of a deadlock, the HUA constitution calls for the Dean of Students Office to select the commission. It is this second option that the Dean of Students Office, along with UC President Emmett E. de Kanter ’24 and Vice President Christopher T. Cantwell ’22, relied on to justify their process. “The Commission was selected by myself and my colleague, JR Bagley, as representatives of the DSO, not the president and vice president,” said Assistant Dean of Student Engagement and Leadership Kate T. Colleran. “As the executive board is no longer operating at the capacity needed to do a full vote on a tight timeline, we went with the DSO option.”
What do final clubs, the Undergraduate Council, and Yardfest performer Swae Lee have in common? All are popular subjects of memes on Sidechat, a new social media app that has swept Harvard’s campus since its launch in late March. On Sidechat, students can anonymously post, comment on, and upvote — or downvote — jokes and confessions about Harvard student life. Before arriving at Harvard, the app launched platforms at other universities, including Tufts and Cornell. The app features a leaderboard of the top 10 contributors ranked by “karma,” or the number of total upvotes minus downvotes on posts and comments. As of Tuesday, the top contributor had over six thousand karma.
CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
By J. SELLERS HILL and MERT GEYIKTEPE
By LEAH J. TEICHHOLTZ
D&I Officer Backs Admissions System By ELLA L. JONES and MONIQUE I. VOBECKY CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
With the Supreme Court set to hear a high-stakes lawsuit challenging Harvard’s race-conscious admissions policies, Sherri A. Charleston, Harvard’s first Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, defended the University’s practices and commitment to diversity in an interview last Wednesday. Anti-affirmative action group Students for Fair Admissions brought the lawsuit against Harvard, claiming that the school’s consideration of race in its admissions process violates civil rights law and discriminates against Asian American applicants. In January, the United States Supreme Court agreed to take up the case along with a second lawsuit Students for Fair Admissions filed against the University of North Carolina — a move that could have major implications for the future of affirmative action in higher education admissions. During the interview last week, Charleston said that what Harvard is defending is its holistic admissions process and the similar processes of other schools around the country in the legal battle. “What we are defending, in our case, is the ability of Harvard College and Harvard Uni
MICHAL GOLDSTEIN—CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
‘An Exceptional Job’ Allston Residents and Harvard Students Commend the Ed Portal By MICHAL GOLDSTEIN CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
Harvard’s relationship with Boston’s Allston-Brighton neighborhood has been fraught for decades. The University’s ambitious plans to expand its footprint in the area have been met by resistance at every turn. Recently, the neighborhood has become home to a growing regulatory battle over Harvard’s proposed
900,000-square-foot mixed-use development complex called the Enterprise Research Campus. Many area residents and civic leaders say Harvard — which owns roughly one-third of the neighborhood’s land — must do more to engage residents in its decision making and support the construction of new affordable housing. But amid the longstanding tensions, there is one University-run initiative that has been welcomed with open
arms: the Harvard Ed Portal. The Ed Portal, located in Allston, provides learning opportunities for area residents through an array of educational programs. Its youth program brings Harvard students in as mentors to local public school students, while other initiatives provide resources to adults seeking work. Truong L. Nguyen ’23, an Ed Portal
SEE ED PORTAL PAGE 3
versity — and really all of higher education — to be able to consider the whole student in its practices,” Charleston said. “I’m a historian of race in this country, and I think quite centrally about the ways in which race is a key component to any number of other factors,” Charleston added. She said that the litigation brought to the Supreme Court by Students for Fair Admissions against Harvard threatens the school’s ability to ensure diversity and inclusion on campus and that Harvard’s consideration of race in its admissions process is necessary for the school to evaluate prospective students. “What we’re trying to do is to think about how you evaluate the whole student and see race as a key component of that,” she said. If barred from utilizing race as a factor in their admissions practices, Harvard and other American colleges and universities would fall short of their institutional goals, according to Charleston. “What is at stake here is the ability of colleges and universities across the country to create the kind of diverse communities that I think many people and key research in the area has demonstrated is not only essential to the educational mission
SEE CHARLESTON PAGE 5
Cambridge City Council Nears Lab, Office Development Moratorium By ELIAS J. SCHISGALL CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
The Cambridge City Council is poised to institute a moratorium on office and lab development in the Alewife neighborhood of Cambridge for the next year and a half, allowing the city time to weigh options for rezoning in the area. The Ordinance Committee of the Council unanimously voted to recommend a zoning petition to temporarily prohibit new offices and laboratories from being built in Alewife during a virtual meeting last Thursday. The petition now goes to the full Council for consideration, where it is likely to be adopted. If the moratorium goes into effect, the city will have until
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
Harvard Today 2
December 31, 2023, to propose and enact long-awaited changes to the Alewife zoning districts before office and laboratory permitting can continue. A 2019 study released as part of the Envision Cambridge project recommended a set of zoning amendments to make Alewife “a vibrant mixed-use district with a strong sense of place,” but the Council and city staff have yet to transform them into actionable legislation. The moratorium was prompted by a recent series of sizable property acquisitions by Healthpeak Properties, a Denver-based trust specializing in real estate for laboratories, medical offices, and other healthcare-related uses. According to the Cambridge Day, Healthpeak has spent near-
News 3
Editorial 4
ly $600 million on property in Alewife to date. “Alewife has really been a lost opportunity,” McGovern told The Crimson. “We’ve sort of created places for people to work or live, but we haven’t really created places for people to be, to interact.” “Now we’ve got this one developer who’s buying up a good chunk of the land,” he continued. “Here’s an opportunity for us to kind of take a step back and say, ‘What is it we really want to see in this area?’” The 2019 study, which will serve as a blueprint for potential amendments to the zoning code, called on the city to impose low maximum limits on parking in new developments,
SEE ALEWIFE PAGE 5
Sports 6
The Cambridge City Council may temporarily prohibit office and lab development in Alewife. JOEY HUANG—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
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