THE HARVARD CRIMSON THE UNIVERSITY DAILY, EST. 1873
| VOLUME CLI, NO. 5
|
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL
OPINION
Judge Dismisses Morgue Lawsuit Against Harvard
How Harvard Killed Its Best Title IX Resource
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| FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2024
CONGRESS SUBPOENAS HARVARD
SEE PAGE 6 SAMI E. TURNER — CRIMSON DESIGNER
Harvard Students Hold ‘Die-In’ Protesting Airstrikes on Rafah BY SALLY E. EDWARDS AND ARAN SONNAD-JOSHI CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
Nearly 200 students gathered on Widener steps to stage a “die-in” demanding that Harvard disclose and divest its financial ties to “companies complicit in human rights abuses towards Palestinians” on Monday afternoon. After laying on the Widener steps, attendees recited Palestinian writer Refaat Alareer’s poem “If I Must Die” and played recordings of the names of individuals killed in Gaza before student speakers addressed the crowd. According to Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine, the group organized the demonstration in response to Israeli airstrikes on Rafah on Sunday night. “The Israeli Occupation Forces murdered more than 100 Palestinian the last ‘safe zone’ in Gaza,” HOOP wrote in a statement. “Harvard is complicit through its investments in Occupied Palestine, and we planned this demonstration to demand its divestment and disrupt normalcy during genocide.” According to the Palestine Red Crescent Society, Israeli airstrikes killed over 100 Palestin-
ians in Rafah. The Gaza Health Ministry, run by Hamas, said at least 67 were killed. HOOP, an undergraduate student group that calls for Harvard’s divestment from companies involved in the Israeli presence in Palestine, has been inactive for nearly two years. The group was originally founded by PSC members but now operates independently of the PSC, according to a Monday evening emailed statement from HOOP. Violet T.M. Barron ’26, a member of Harvard Jews for Palestine, said it was “important to mobilize” after last night’s events and that she was encouraged by the number of students who attended the rally. “The die-in went public the morning of, and then hundreds of people showed up,” Barron, a Crimson editorial editor, said. “I think that was definitely a testament to the power of student organizing and protests on campus.” The event was publicized online by the PSC, as well as unrecognized groups including the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions caucus of Harvard’s graduate student union; the African and African American Resistance Organization; Law Students for a
Free Palestine; and Harvard Jews for Palestine. Currently, University policy prohibits officially recognized student groups — like the PSC — from co-organizing on-campus events with unrecognized groups. During the rally, student speakers accused Harvard of attempting to silence student protestors. “How can we work for this University, walk the campus of this University, or represent this University as the administration focuses on silencing us, rather than protecting us, or — crazy thought — doing something?” one student speaker asked. University spokesperson Jason A. Newton declined to comment on the criticisms. At the rally, organizers called on Harvard to disclose investments in companies “complicit in human rights abuses towards Palestinians,” divest from holdings in these companies, and reinvest funds in “Palestinian history, culture, and communities.” “We must identify the connection between our university and this genocide,” a student speaker said. “We know Harvard is hiding these connections from us — this
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Ganz Says Elmendorf Mishandled HKS Antisemitism Investigation BY WILLIAM C. MAO AND DHRUV T. PATEL CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
After Harvard Kennedy School lecturer Marshall L. Ganz ’64 faced allegations of antisemitism from three Israeli students, HKS Dean Douglas W. Elmendorf opened an investigation — a process that Elmendorf mishandled, Ganz alleged in an interview on Friday. Ganz’s allegations come nearly a year after the start of the investigation, a process that began in April 2023 and faced criticism from two other prominent HKS faculty members. Ganz, who is Jewish, said in an interview that the investigation was a “kangaroo court.” He alleged Elmendorf turned to an external investigator but failed to consult HKS faculty members during the fact-finding process, which Ganz said was standard procedure for such investigations. HKS spokesperson Sofiya C. Cabalquinto disputed Ganz’s allegations in a statement, calling his description of the investigation “inaccurate.” In spring 2023, the three students who were enrolled in
Ganz’s three-week class on organizing community action submitted a proposal to organize Israelis around a shared value of a “liberal-Jewish democracy.” Ganz, however, told the students to “reframe” their project, calling the idea of a Jewish democracy “a contradiction” because democracies include multiple ethnic or religious groups, according to Ganz’s account of the events. Ganz described the students’ project as “inflammatory” and said it distracted from the course’s main objective, which was to learn community organizing and not discuss Middle East affairs. The students turned down Ganz’s suggestion to adjust their project and filed a complaint in March to the Kennedy School with the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law. In April, Elmendorf launched a formal investigation into the allegations, hiring an independent investigator who interviewed Ganz and the three students. In June, the investigator found “sufficient evidence” that Ganz had discriminated against the students on the basis of their ethnic identity — a
finding that Elmendorf accepted as final. Ganz wrote in an article published in The Nation on Feb. 1 that “the pedagogical mission in this large course, full of rich racial, national, and cultural diversity, was to enable every student to learn to organize.” “The purpose of the course was not to debate Israel/Palestine,” he added. Ganz alleged Elmendorf barred him from consulting lawyers during the process and criticized him for not involving faculty members in the fact-finding process. “There is no discussion here, no discussion with any faculty,” Ganz said. “He just goes, ‘Okay, we’re going to hire an investigator.’” Cabalquinto disputed Ganz’s allegation, writing that Elmendorf consulted “three senior faculty members to advise him on appropriate action and prevention of future incidents.” “All parties were given the opportunity to present evidence and to review and comment on preliminary findings,” Cabalquinto wrote. “The Dean then took action responsive to the allegations.” Several HKS professors
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