The Harvard Crimson The University Daily, Est. 1873 | Volume cxlv, No. 128 | Cambridge, Massachusetts | tuesday, november 20, 2018
editorial PAGE 4
sports PAGE 6
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We welcome the extension of the Harvard admissions trial.
Harvard men’s basketball loses in heartbreaker to Rhode Island.
A Public Health professor will lead the Advanced Leadership Initiative.
Lev Investigates Racist Drawings By Shera s. avi-yonah and ruth a. hailu Crimson Staff Writers
Leverett House staff and the Dean of Students Office are currently investigating “deeply disturbing and offensive images” drawn on a public whiteboard in McKinlock Hall, according to an email sent by House tutors last Thursday. A photo of the drawings sent to The Crimson shows depictions of two faces — one labeled “Black” and the other “Other blacks, Mexicans, Muslims, Jews” — alongside racist comments. The board featured a list of terms including “globalists,” “caravan,” and “Soros,” referring to billionaire philanthropist George Soros. In the lead up to the midterm elections, farright politicians and pundits circulated a conspiracy theory that Soros was funding the caravan of immigrants traveling to the United States. Another marking on the white board labeled this list “anti semetic [sic] code words.” McKinlock resident Malaaz H. Ghandour ’19 said she passed the whiteboard several times on Wednesday evening and Thursday morning. Each time, more comments had been added. After speaking with her roommate — Crimson contributing columnist Jenna M. Gray ’19 — Ghandour decided to alert her tutor and the Leverett House deans. “I’d seen a lot of writing on the board before. A lot of it was just inane or stupid things that were supposed to be funny,”
Gray said. “But I hadn’t really seen racialized comments before or anything directed at any particular ethnic group, so it stood out to me in that way.” Late Thursday evening, John L. Pulice III ’15, who serves as a tutor in McKinlock, wrote in an email to residents that House staff had brought the matter to the attention of the Harvard University Police Department. HUPD spokesperson Steven G. Catalano did not respond to a request for comment. “I am sorry if any of you were also impacted by these – no community can or should tolerate hate-speech, least of all a community that is also our home,” Pulice wrote in his email. “If any of you would like to talk about this, I and other tutors are available.” Pulice also wrote the drawings “appear to be part of a pattern” in McKinlock — a pattern Ghandour and Gray both said they recognized. The students said they had heard of another complaint by Leverett students in response to whiteboard drawings related to gender and sexuality. Leverett Resident Dean Bilal A. Malik wrote in an email that while House administrators are looking into “how these drawings appeared,” their “first and foremost priority is working with our students and other community-members, to understand how they were impacted, and how we can help.” Malik added Leverett House is working with the Dean of Students Office to respond to
See lev Page 3
Margot E. Shang —Crimson designer
By jamie d. halper Crimson Staff Writer
A s political divisions in the United States deepen and create fissures across Harvard’s campus, University President Lawrence S. Bacow is following in his predecessor’s footsteps — taking a stand when he perceives Harvard’s interests to be under threat, and largely keeping quiet when issues turn political. With nearly five months of his presidency under his belt, Bacow has already faced a number of high-profile challenges: a high-stakes lawsuit fighting the College’s race-conscious admissions policies, federal legislation hostile to higher education, and a contentious Supreme Court nominee with Harvard ties. National politics and University issues are increasingly intertwined, and Bacow has spent the first months of his presi
dency defining his approach to a role that requires he remain nonpartisan. “The challenge arises when we have contentious issues and people want us — either the University or a school or a dean or a president — to take a stand and the problem is where reasonable people can differ on certain issues, I believe it’s the function of a university to encourage debate,” Bacow said in an October interview. “If we take a position, we’re not encouraging debate, we are ending it.” The confirmation fight over Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh marked an early test of this philosophy. Controversy engulfed Kavanaugh’s confirmation process when several women came forward with allegations that a young Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted them decades earlier. The allegations sparked protests at Harvard Law School, where Kavanaugh had taught
for a decade. He was scheduled to teach a course on the Supreme Court again starting in the winter, and protesters called on Law School Dean John F. Manning ’82 to bar Kavanaugh from returning to campus pending a full investigation into the assault allegations. Manning refused to take a stand on the future of Kavanaugh’s teaching post, prompting further outcry from students. Kavanaugh ultimately decided on his own to step down from his position, Bacow told faculty assembled at an October faculty meeting. “My understanding is that Kavanaugh decided not to teach this next January and that decision is year-to-year,” Bacow said. “I don’t know more of how that decision was made.” Throughout the turmoil, Bacow remained silent, letting the Law School respond on its own to student demands that focused national media attention
on Cambridge. Bacow said in an interview last month that he is counseling deans and other top administrators across the University on how to take official stances while still fostering productive dialogue — particularly when students call on administrators to speak out on contentious issues. “We have had conversations and we continue to have conversations about how do we encourage and maintain civil dialogue and civil discourse in the University,” Bacow said. “There are a whole set of issues where people would love for us to take a stand.” The Academic Council — comprised of deans, vice presidents, and members of the Provost’s office — has served as a forum for these discussions. Bacow rebranded the group of Harvard administrators, which
See bacow Page 3
Union of UC Calls for Harvard to Rehire Harvard Launches Mixed Former HUHS Employee Quantum Project Students Formed By amy l. jia and sanjana l. narayanan Crimson Staff Writers
Harvard launched the Harvard Quantum Initiative last Wednesday, aiming to foster interdisciplinary collaboration in pioneering quantum methods of computing and sensing. Initiative co-directors Evelyn Hu, professor of applied physics and electrical engineering, and physics professors John M. Doyle and Mikhail D. Lukin said they believe modern technology is on the cusp of a quantum revolution — one that will bring together people from diverse academic and industry backgrounds, including physics, chemistry, and engineering. Quantum mechanics, the study of atoms and subatomic particles, enables scientists
By ruth a. hailu and olivia c. scott Crimson Staff Writers
The Harvard Undergraduate Union of Mixed Students received official recognition from the Undergraduate Council earlier this month to become the first group on campus for all mixed race students. Since they began recruiting members last week, the group has attracted plenty of immediate interest, and its membership list now includes more than 100 students. Founders Iris R. Feldman ’20, Antonia Scott ’20, and Isaiah Johnson ’20 said they want the organization to serve as an inclusive space for all identities shaped by the needs and ideas of its members. Scott said she was partially inspired to create the group after seeing mixed race organizations at other colleges, and she wanted to replicate the same experience at Harvard, which did not have a mixed race group on campus. “It was something that was really exciting to me because it was a part of my identity that I could explore and find people to understand and connect with,” Scott said. “People like Iris also had similar feelings, so she kind of approached us about actually getting serious about making it happen.” Feldman said she was motivated to create the union to provide a space for people who felt their identity did not fall into just one of Harvard’s cultural
See UNion Page 3 Inside this issue
Harvard Today 2
Students protested Mayli Shing’s termination at University President Bacow’s inaugaration in October. Now, the UC is calling for Harvard to rehire Shing. amy y li—Crimson photographer By jonah S. berger Crimson Staff Writer
The Undergraduate Council released a statement at its Sunday meeting calling for Harvard to rehire former University Health Services employee Mayli Shing, whose February firing has prompted a protracted battle between her supporters and administrators. In her termination letter, University officials stated that Shing engaged in “insubordinate conduct in repeatedly disregarding instructions.” The letter specifically references an incident in which Shing arrived at work 30 minutes before her shift began, despite previous warnings not to do so. Shing contends the University fired her in retaliation for filing claims of workplace racism and sexual harassment against a supervisor. Shing’s union representative, Geoffrey Carens, has pointed to her past evaluations describing her as “extremely reliable,” stating the University’s
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reasoning in Shing’s termination letter was “arbitrary.” Carens and Shing’s supporters have demanded the University rehire her, as well as provide compensation for the five-month period between her firing and the time she became eligible for state unemployment benefits. In its Sunday statement, the UC echoed these demands. “As the world’s leading university, Harvard has a responsibility to take a stand against sexual assault,” the UC wrote. “Fear of retaliation when one bravely speaks out against sexual harassment, as Mayli did, only to be fired without unemployment benefits, is exactly why people do not come forward about sexual harassment, and what allows sexual harassment to persist.” “As we also saw with the case of Government professor Jorge Dominguez, Harvard must work harder to prevent workplace harassment and to protect victims of such discrimina-
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tion,” the statement continued. In February and March, nearly twenty women came forward with allegations of sexual misconduct against Dominguez, who has since retired from the University. The Council’s statement comes in the wake of multiple protests organized by a loose coalition of campus groups calling for Shing’s reinstatement. The Harvard No Layoffs Campaign, Harvard Student Labor Action Movement, and anti-sexual assault advocacy group Our Harvard Can Do Better have hosted at least four rallies to support Shing, including a demonstration in October outside the office of Director of Labor and Employee Relations Paul R. Curran. University spokesperson Melodie Jackson wrote in an emailed statement Monday that Harvard values the “contributions” of its employees. “As a matter of policy, we
Today’s Forecast
See MAYLI Page 3 rainy High: 55 Low: 51
Indigenous invisibility
to more precisely determine the state of particles within an atom. It has broad applications in a variety of fields, ranging from metrology, the study of measurement, to computing, to biomedical diagnostics. Hu said the idea to create the initiative has been nearly a decade in the making and was inspired by the formation of similar research groups such as Harvard’s Center for Integrated Quantum Materials and MIT’s Center for Ultracold Atoms. “We can control information and the way we send information, and do it so much more efficiently and differently than we’re used to doing,” Hu said. By translating the theoretical science of quantum mechanics into engineering actual devices,
See quantum Page 3
Panelists discuss lack of indigenous representation at the College. amy y. li—Crimson photographer
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