THE HARVARD CRIMSON THE UNIVERSITY DAILY, EST. 1873
| VOLUME CLI, NO. 5
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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
SEE PAGE 4
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
SEE PAGE 8
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THE HARVARD CRIMSON
LAST WEEK
FEBRUARY 16, 2024
CAMBRIDGE PUBLIC SCHOOLS
HARVARD LAW SCHOOL
POLICE
Cambridge Launches Universal Pre-K
Fried Remembered As ‘Ebullient’ Prof.
CPD Warns of Spike in Break-Ins
UNIVERSAL PRE-K. The Cambridge Preschool Program will now provide free preschool for all Cambridge four-yearolds starting this year. The program, which will cost the city $20 million per year, anticipates enrolling 550-600 students according to a Feb. 5 School Committee meeting with the City Council. The program has been in the works for three decades. While there have been some complaints of poor communication, city parents applauded the effort as a “huge win” for equal access to education. BY DARCY G LIN AND EMILY T. SCHWARTZ — CRIM-
CHARLES FRIED. Friends, colleagues, and students remembered longtime Harvard Law School professor Charles Fried as an “ebullient” professor who “loved teaching” and sported an enecyclopedic knowledge of topics ranging from Latin to World War II history. Born in Prague, Fried fled the Nazis in 1939 to England before moving to the U.S. A graduate of Princeton, Oxford, and Columbia, he served as Solicitor General under President Ronald Reagan, arguing 25 cases before the Supreme Court. Charles Fried died on Jan. 23 in Cambridge, Mass. He was 88. BY S. MAC HEALEY AND SAKETH SUND-
INCREASING HOUSEBREAKS. The Cambridge Police Department warned of an “emerging pattern of housebreaks” and provided crime prevention and safety tips in a citywide alert sent last week. CPD’s Crime Analysis Unit identified a 145 percent rise in house breaks in January of 2024 as compared to January of 2023 — from 11 incidents to 27 incidents. Total property crime, which also includes larceny and auto theft, increased 10 percent over the year. BY SALLY E. EDWARDS AND ASHER J. MONTGOMERY — CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS, PHOTO BY JULIAN J. GIORDANO —CRIMSON
SON STAFF WRITERS, PHOTO BY EMMA A. LUCAS — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
AR — CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS, PHOTO COURTESY OF HARVARD LAW SCHOOL
PHOTOGRAPHER
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The Week in Photos
AROUND THE IVIES BROWN INVESTIGATED FOR ALLEGED DISCRIMINATION BY THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
PALESTINE PROTEST DEMONSTRATION IN THE YARD — Nearly 200 students gathered at Widener for a “die in” on Monday afternoon, demanding Harvard disclose and divest its financial investment in companies with ties to Israel’s presence in Palestine.
The U.S. Department of Education opened an investigation into Brown over alleged discrimination against Jewish students, according to the Brown Daily Herald. Following a complaint filed by Editor-in-Chief of conservative campus news site Campus Reform Zacharcy Marschall, the Office for Civil Rights opened a Title VI Shared Ancestry investigation into the university.
SALLY E. EDWARDS — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
BROWN DAILY HERALD
THC Read more at THECRIMSON.COM
LABYRINTH EMPLOYEES AND PRINCETON STUDENTS PROTEST AGAINST MANAGEMENT ISSUES FOLLOWING UNIONIZATION Bookstore Labyrinth Books saw a protest the morning of Feb.13 following the official recognition of the Labyrinth employees’ union last month, according to The Daily Princetonian. Demonstrators included Labyrinth employees, Princeton students, and other residents, who presented a letter detailing ongoing complaints against store management such as understaffing and intimidation. THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
PENN WILL OFFER AI UNDERGRADUATE DEGREE IN 2024, FIRST OF THE IVIES The University of Pennsylvania is now the first Ivy League to offer a bachelor’s degree in artificial intelligence starting in fall 2024, according to The Daily Pennsylvanian. Students will take courses in computing algorithms, machine learning, and electrical and systems engineering, as well as learn to use AI tools responsibly towards advancing scientific and healthcare discoveries. This follows Carnegie Mellon University’s establishment of the first U.S. university AI undergraduate degree in 2018. THE DAILY PENNSYLVANIAN
SUNSET OVER THE CHARLES — Rowers practice on the Charles River as the sun sets over a chilly Tuesday evening. ADDISON Y. LIU — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
ELECTION INSIGHTS — The Harvard Kennedy School hosts Steve J. Kornacki, a political correspondent for NBC News, in a discussion about the 2024 presidential election on Wednesday. FRANK S. ZHOU — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
DARTMOUTH TO REINSTATE SAT AND ACT REQUIREMENTS FOR COLLEGE ADMISSIONS Dartmouth’s President Sian Beilock announced on February 5 that the College’s SAT and ACT admissions requirements will be reinstated for the Class of 2029 and onwards, according to a report by The Dartmouth. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dartmouth implemented a test-optional policy along with many other U.S. universities. According to the announcement, the decision follows an economics study concluding that standardized testing is a significant predictor of student success, regardless of background or socio-economic status. However, some Dartmouth students expressed disappointment at this decision, stating that a holistic approach helps eliminate disadvantages for students from lower-income communities. THE DARTMOUTH
IOP FORUM — Rep. Mike Gallagher, right, and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, left, speak at an Institute of Politics forum on Monday. The pair lead the House’s Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. FRANK S. ZHOU — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
LUNAR NEW YEAR— The Chinese Student Association organized a dinner on Friday at Quincy Dining Hall for students to celebrate Lunar New Year. JACK R. TRAPANICK — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
NEXT WEEK
THE HARVARD CRIMSON FEBRUARY 16, 2024
What’s Next
IN THE REAL WORLD HOUSE REPUBLICANS IMPEACH HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY The U.S. House of Representatives voted to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas Tuesday following an unsuccessful vote last week. The Republican Party has pushed for Mayorkas’ impeachment for months, accusing him of lying under oath and “refusal to comply with the law.” He will now be tried by the Senate, which is currently controlled by Democrats. His removal, which requires two-thirds majority approval, is unlikely.
GREECE FIRST ORTHODOX COUNTRY TO LEGALIZE SAME-SEX MARRIAGE Greece officially legalized same-sex marriage and gave same-sex couples the full parental rights, including the right to adopt children on Thursday. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis promised to institute marriage equality after he was re-elected into office last year. He kept this promise when Parliament voted 176-76 in support of the legislation, which represented members on both sides of party lines in the 300-seat congress. Greece is now the 16th European Union nation where gay marriage is legal.
Start every week with a preview of what’s on the agenda around Harvard University
Friday 2/16
Monday 2/19
Wednesday 2/21
WEATHERHEAD FORUM—THE WAR IN ISRAEL/PALESTINE, PART 4: A
BOOK TALK: CAMILLA NORD, “THE BALANCED BRAIN: THE SCIENCE OF MENTAL HEALTH”
COUNTWAY CINEMA: THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS
Zoom, 1 p.m. Join neuroscientist Camilla Nord in a compelling discussion about the scientific developments that are drastically changing the way we think about mental health.
Harvard Medical School, 4 p.m. Join The Countway Library and the Longwood Campus Black Staff Caucus in an in-person viewing of the 2017 movie The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which explores changes in modern medicine and the discovery of cancerous cells in the 1950s.
Saturday 2/17
Tuesday 2/20
Thursday 2/22
SPOTLIGHT TOUR: OUT OF THIS WORLD, WITH ARIELLE FROMMER ’25
STUDY GROUP WITH CONGRESSMAN WILL HURD
THE STATE OF BLACK AMERICA
Zoom, 12 p.m. A conversation with Political philosopher Michael Sande, Palestinian philosopher and former president of Al Quds University Sari Nusseibeh, and professor of Jewishphilosophy at Hebrew University and professor of law NYU Law School Moshe Halbertal.
Harvard Art Museums, 11 a.m. Join Arielle Frommer ‘25 on a journey at the Harvard Art Museums, where art meets astronomy through the lens of three pivotal works. Frommer explores the intriguing connection between celestial phenomena and artistic expression.
Institute of Politics, Littauer 130, 4 p.m. Join Resident Fellow Congressman Will Hurd and Ryan Clancy, chief strategist for No Labels, in a study group about America’s readiness to elect a President who does not identify as either Republican or Democrat. Open to Harvard I.D. holders .
JFK Jr. Forum, 6 p.m. Setti D. Warren, Director of the Institute of Politics, will be moderating a conversation featuring prominent scholars on numerous issues that Black communities face across the country. The event will be open to Harvard I.D. holders and will be live-streamed on YouTube.
Sunday 2/18
Friday 2/23
RICE: A STORY OF AFRICA AND THE AMERICAS
HARVARD WOMEN’S WATER POLO VS BROWN UNIVERSITY
Peabody Museum, 9-5 p.m. Visit the Peabody Museum and explore the complex history of rice cultivation in the Americas, highlighting the indispensable African expertise that fueled its success, the grave human sacrifices demanded by the Atlantic Slave Trade, and the enduring legacy of the Gullah Geechee culture.
Blodgett Pool, 6 p.m. Come watch the Harvard University Women’s Water Polo Team play against Brown this Friday! The showdown will be held at the Blodgett Pool in the Athletic Complex. The match will also be live-streamed online for those who cannot make the match in-person.
US HAS NEW INTELLIGENCE ABOUT RUSSIA’S NUCLEAR CAPABILITIES Members of Congress and key U.S. allies were briefed on technological advances to a “space-based nuclear weapon” that could threaten the U.S. ‘s satellite, officials briefed on the matter told The New York Times. The country currently does not have counter measures that would adequately disrupt the weapon, which has the potential to disrupt civilian communication.
SUPREME COURT HEARD ORAL ARGUMENTS IN TRUMP BALLOT ACCESS CASE The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on a case over whether former President Donald Trump can be taken off the Colorado primary ballot. From the Justices’ questions to lawyers, they appeared likely to overturn the Colorado decision, allowing Trump to appear on the ballot this election.
LOWELL LANDSCAPE
INDONESIAN DEFENSE MINISTER CLAIMS VICTORY IN NATIONAL ELECTION Prabowo Subianto, the current Minister of Defense of Indonesia, declared himself the winner of Wednesday’s Presidential Elections. Known for his past human rights abuses, Subianto claimed victory in the absence of confirmed results from official election authorities. He will inherit Indonesia’s now ever-growing economy, with concerns by many about his past authoritarian affiliation
JINA H. CHOE — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
THE HARVARD CRIMSON J. Sellers Hill ’25 President
STAFF FOR THIS ISSUE Miles J. Herszenhorn ’25
Matthew M. Doctoroff ’25
Managing Editor
Business Manager
Magazine Chairs Hewson Duffy ’25 Kaitlyn Tsai ’25
Design Chairs Laurinne Jamie P. Eugenio ’26 Sami E. Turner ’25
Tommy Barone ’25 Jacob M. Miller ’25
Blog Chairs Eve S. Jones ’25 Hayeon Ok ’25
Multimedia Chairs Julian J. Giordano ’25 Addison Y. Liu ’25
Arts Chairs Anna Moiseieva ’25 Allison S. Park ’25
Sports Chairs Katharine A. Forst ’25 Jack K. Silvers ’25
Technology Chairs Dennis S. Eum ’26 Neil H. Shah ’26
Associate Managing Editors Elias J. Schisgall ’25 Claire Yuan ’25 Editorial Chairs
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Associate Business Manager Mathias Melucci ’26 Meredith W.B. Zielonka ’25 Copyright 2024, The Harvard Crimson (USPS 236-560). No articles, editorials, cartoons or any part thereof appearing in The Crimson may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the President. The Associated Press holds the right to reprint any materials published in The Crimson. The Crimson is a non-profit, independent corporation, founded in 1873 and incorporated in 1967. Second-class postage paid in Boston, Massachusetts. Published Monday through Friday except holidays and during vacations, three times weekly during reading and exam periods by The Harvard Crimson Inc., 14 Plympton St., Cambridge, Mass. 02138
Night Editors Mert Geyiktepe ’25 John N. Peña ’25 Assistant Night Editors Jina H. Choe ’26 Sally E. Edwards ’26 Azusa M. Lippit ’26 Tilly R. Robinson ’26 Frank S. Zhou ’26 Story Editors Ryan H. Doan-Nguyen ’25 Rahem D. Hamid ’25 Miles J. Herszenhorn ’25 Yusuf S. Mian ’25 Nia L. Orakwue ’25
John N. Peña ’25 Paton D. Roberts ’25 Elias J. Schisgall ’25 Claire Yuan ’25
Helen L. Piltner ’25 Marina Qu ’25 Jack R. Trapanick ’26 Art Editor Samantha H. Chung ’25
Design Editors Sami E. Turner ’25 Editorial Editors Laurinne Jamie P. Eugenio ’26 J. Sellers Hill ’25 Hannah S. Lee ’26 Ian D. Svetkey ’25 Tomisin M. Sobande ’26 Angel Zhang ’26 Sports Editors Catherine H. Feng ’27 Katharine A. Forst ’25 Nicole M. Hernández ’27 Jack K. Silvers ’25 Emma S. de Jong ’26 Photo Editors Nghia L. Nguyen ’26 Julian J. Giordano ’25 Addison Y. Liu ’25
CORRECTIONS The Harvard Crimson is committed to accuracy in its reporting. Factual errors are corrected promptly on this page. Readers with information about errors are asked to e-mail the managing editor at managingeditor@thecrimson.com.
LFG JNP
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THE HARVARD CRIMSON
NEWS
FEBRUARY 16, 2024
HARVARD EXTENSION SCHOOL
Administrator Accused of Plagiarism ANONYMOUS COMPLAINT. Harvard Extension School administrator Shirley R. Greene was accused of 42 instances of plagiarism in a complaint sent to the University Friday. BY TILLY R. ROBINSON AND NEIL H. SHAH CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
H
arvard Extension School administrator Shirley R. Greene was accused of 42 instances of plagiarism in her 2008 University of Michigan dissertation in a complaint sent to the University Friday — the latest in a string of anonymous plagiarism complaints against Black Harvard officials. All three anonymous complaints — against former University President Claudine Gay, Harvard Chief Diversity Officer Sherri A. Charleston, and now Greene,
who handles Title IX complaints at the Extension School — were leveled at Black women who hold or held leadership positions at the University. Unlike Gay, Charleston and Greene are administrators and do not hold academic appointments at Harvard. The complaint was submitted anonymously to the chair of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ professional conduct committee Friday afternoon and obtained by The Crimson. The allegations ranged from “plain silly” to “especially worrisome,” according to plagiarism expert Jonathan Bailey, who runs the blog Plagiarism Today and independently reviewed the complaint at The Crimson’s request. Bailey wrote in an email that the contents of the complaint were “definitely enough” to “warrant a thorough review of this dissertation,” though he added that many of the allegations “either don’t prove plagiarism or only point to
very minor errors.” Extension School spokesperson Harry J. Pierre declined to comment on Greene’s behalf. FAS spokesperson Holly J. Jensen declined to “comment on anonymous allegations other than to say there are FAS and University policies and processes in place to review workplace issues raised within the FAS, and we will follow all procedures outlined by University guidelines.” The series of complaints suggests that alleging plagiarism has become a tool of choice for Harvard critics —such as conservative activist Christopher F. Rufo — seeking to discredit the University and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives throughout higher education. But unlike Gay, who already faced backlash over her response to antisemitism on campus, and Charleston, whose position made her a target for DEI critics, Greene is a mid-level administrator at Harvard in a student-facing role. Gay, who wrote that the allega-
tions against her reflected “tired racial stereotypes” in a New York Times op-ed, ultimately requested seven corrections across two published articles and her dissertation. The controversy contributed to her resignation from Harvard’s top post. The allegations against Charleston prompted objections to what some called a racialized pattern of plagiarism complaints targeting Black women. The view was adopted by The Crimson’s Editorial Board, which wrote in a Feb. 8 editorial that “it strains the imagination to believe that similar misconduct is limited exclusively to two prominent Black women.” “Yet Gay and Charleston in particular have been singled out as figureheads for DEI” and “subjected to racist and sexist vitriol,” wrote the Board, which is wholly independent of The Crimson’s newsroom. The most extensive passages in the complaint compare Greene’s summary of Jean Kim’s theory of
Asian American ethnic identity formation with a similar summary in Janelle Lee Woo’s 2004 Ph.D. dissertation. Greene’s dissertation does not cite Woo’s. The complaint also points to a table in Greene’s dissertation that compares the stages of “ethnic identity development” postulated in five scholars’ models. Woo’s dissertation contains a similarly formatted table discussing four of the same models featuring identical descriptions of certain academic concepts. Woo could not be reached for comment. The other allegations concern scattered sentences or phrases that appear in other scholar’s publications. Most are accompanied by citations but not enclosed in quotation marks, similar to many of the more minor allegations against Gay. Sylvia Hurtado — an education professor at UCLA who sat on Greene’s doctoral committee and whose work is referenced in seven
of the allegations against Greene — said those allegations referred to methodological language describing a project Hurtado led, of which Greene was a member. Greene’s dissertation draws on data from two studies conducted by Hurtado’s team. “I do not consider this plagiarism when the team follows the same methodological steps and there are only a few ways of describing the same procedure,” Hurtado wrote in an email. “Papers from any of the research team members will have the same procedures.” “This is unfair to Dr. Greene who was following what the rest of the research did procedure-wise in handling the data,” Hurtado added. The other scholars from whom Greene was accused plagiarizing did not immediately respond to comment requests sent Monday evening. tilly.robinson@thecrimson.com neil.shah@thecrimson.com
Hoekstra Defends Harvard Protest Guidance BY TILLY R. ROBINSON AND NEIL H. SHAH CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra denied charges from student organizers that Harvard was looking to repress pro-Palestine protest during an interview Wednesday, her first of the spring semester. Hoekstra was among several top administrators to sign a Jan. 19 email reminding affiliates that protests were not permitted in Harvard classrooms or libraries, a move that suggested Harvard would take a firmer stance against disruptive protests. Some student organizers accused Harvard of seeking to repress activist efforts following a fall semester marked by sustained pro-Palestine protest, including classroom walkouts, a “study-in” at Widener Library, and a daylong occupation of University Hall. But Hoekstra denied the charges, saying that “the statement is not an attempt to repress protests but to provide guidelines about time, manner, and place of those protests.” “That wasn’t clear in the fall term,” she added. The new guidance, Hoekstra said, was issued partly in response to requests from students who sought “more clarity” on the University’s protest policies. On Wednesday, Hoekstra appointed professors Maya R. Jasanoff ’96 and David I. Laibson ’88
lead an FAS committee on classroom norms, which is designed to create guidelines for classroom interaction. She said she considers the classroom “a sacred space where teaching and learning happen. That’s key to the mission of the university,” she said. “That’s not an appropriate place for protest and dissent.” “When that line is crossed, there are disciplinary consequences,” she added. Several students who participated in the University Hall occupation and a pro-Palestine “Week of Action” in November faced disciplinary proceedings in front of the Harvard College Administrative Board, The Crimson reported last semester. During the interview, Hoekstra also addressed the leadership crisis that has engulfed Harvard since the fall, declining to comment on whether former University President Claudine Gay was right to resign. “One sentiment that I’m hearing over and over is the sense of loss — the loss of opportunity for all her presidency held, all the promise of what she was going to accomplish,” Hoekstra said. “And we’ll leave it at that.” She expressed firm support for interim Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76, suggesting his strong track record would allow the Corporation to embark on a lengthier search for Harvard’s next permanent president. “He knows Harvard from his experience as the provost all the way dating back to his time as an undergraduate, so I think
that has removed some of the urgency that one may feel and will allow the Corporation to really do the full, thoughtful process that they’ve done in the past,” Hoekstra said. The University’s last presidential search was the shortest such process in approximately 70 years, landing on Claudine Gay in just five months. But Hoekstra predicted the second presidential search since 2022 would be a more drawnout affair. “This is not something that’s going to happen quickly nor should it, because it’s such an important appointment as we all know,” Hoekstra said. “And I would expect the appointment of a provost to be first,” she quipped. Officially, Garber currently serves as both president and provost. He told The Crimson earlier this month he would not return to the position after Gay’s permanent successor was announced. Harvard has yet to announce any details on Garber’s replacement as provost or a search committee for the next president. Hoekstra was noncommittal but firm when asked if she felt Garber would be the right choice to permanently succeed Gay after the interim: “I have the utmost confidence in President Garber’s leadership.” “We’ll see what the Corporation, with lots of input and guidance from faculty and students and staff, ultimately decide to do,” she said. tilly.robinson@thecrimson.com neil.shah@thecrimson.com
PROTEST FROM PAGE 1
Students Hold ‘Die-In’ Protesting Airstrikes on Rafah is why we demand that Harvard disclose and divest.” “PSC is one of many organizations pushing Harvard to disclose and divest its holdings in companies complicit in genocide,” HOOP wrote. “The spirit of Palestine on campus is bigger
than any one organization– even PSC.” After student speeches, the group then marched through the yard, reciting chants including “Disclose. Divest. We will not stop, we will not rest,” and “Garber, Garber you will see, Palestine
Students gathered on Widener steps demanding that Harvard disclose and divest its financial ties to companies. SALLY E. EDWARDS — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
Will be Free.” Students returned to the Widener steps and continued to chant, where a student organizer told the crowd that a member of the Harvard University Police Department informed him that he was “not allowed to use an amplifier” to lead chants. “A police officer, and a representative from the College Deans Office shared with the organizer of the event that the use of the megaphone at that time and place was prohibited by the University’s Statement on Rights and Responsibilities, ” HUPD spokesperson Steven J. Catalano wrote in an emailed statement to The Crimson. An event organizer who spoke at the demonstration said HOOP plans to engage in further advocacy surrounding events in Gaza. “This is not our first and this will not be our last action,” the organizer said. “We will be resisting repression and we will stand in solidarity with our siblings in Palestine.” sally.edwards@thecrimson.com aran.sonnad-joshi@thecrimson.com
Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra, pictured above in a Wednesday interview with The Crimson, assumed office in August 2023. JULIAN J. GIORDANO — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
Harvard Students Celebrate Lunar New Year on Campus BY SAMANTHA D. WU CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
Nearly 200 Harvard students and affiliates gathered in Quincy on Friday for food and festivities to ring in the Lunar New Year. The banquet, organized by the Chinese Student Association, is an annual tradition featuring performances from the Radcliffe Pitches, the Same Squad dance group, the Harvard Wushu Club, and other student performers, followed by an afterparty in Lowell. Alexander Z. Gong ’27, a CSA cultural co-chair, praised the event as a “good way to connect with the Chinese community,” as well as a way for him “personally to connect with my parents’ heritage.” The evening included makeyour-own pork belly bao bun appetizers and a three-course meal of traditional Chinese dishes, including fried rice, lo mein, and stir fried string beans. CSA president Audrey Gunawan ’24 said that in the last few years, “it’s been a really tumultuous time for our community,” which made the banquet a “really, really unique opportunity for Asian cultures to be more showcased on campus.”
“It’s honestly one of my favorite traditions that we have,” CSA cultural co-chair Andrew W. Zhao ’26 said. “We’re all away from home and being able to celebrate with a family of CSA and a greater Asian community on campus is always great.”
“
It’s honestly one of my favorite traditions that we have. We’re all away from home and being able to celebrate with a family of CSA and a greater Asian community on campus is always great. Andrew W. Zhao ‘26 CSA cultural co-chair
Phoebe L. Tian ’27, a student performer at the event, sang “Wo ài,” which translates to “I Love.” “Having such a performance for events here at Harvard is super important because I think it really gathers everyone together and promotes unity and cohesion in the Asian American community,” Tian said.
Gunawan also emphasized the importance of the event in gathering a wide variety of people together to celebrate. “I think having the ability to gather undergraduate and graduate students from all over Boston and come together and celebrate this one night a year — that is very special to us and reminds ourselves that we have a home in this space,” she said. Stephanie Chen ’27, an attendee who has lived in China where the Lunar New Year is a “super huge deal,” said she was pleased with the banquet. “I didn’t expect there to be such a community here as well,” she said. samantha.wu@thecrimson.com
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NEWS
THE HARVARD CRIMSON FEBRUARY 16, 2024
5
UNIVERSITY
Steinberg to Advise Antisemitism Task Force FAMILIAR FACE. Longtime Harvard Hillel Executive Director Jonah C. Steinberg will return to Harvard as an adviser to the presidential task force on antisemitism. BY TILLY R. ROBINSON AND NEIL H. SHAH CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
I
Interim Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 named former Harvard Hillel Executive Director Jonah C. Steinberg as an adviser to the presidential task force on antisemitism and tapped Computer Science professor Boaz Barak to join the group, according to a person familiar with the situation. While neither appointment has been announced by the University, Steinberg’s new position was listed on Harvard’s internal directory as of Sunday evening. Meanwhile, Barak appeared at a Harvard Hillel event on Sunday titled “Meet the Antisemitism Taskforce” with the group’s co-chairs, Jewish history professor Derek J. Penslar and Harvard Business School professor Raffaella Sadun. University spokesperson Jonathan L. Swain declined to confirm Barak or Steinberg’s appointments when reached for comment on Sunday. The full makeup of both presidential task forces will be announced in the coming days, according to Swain. Barak, who is Israeli-American, and Steinberg have both publicly criticized the University’s response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack
on Israel and demanded Harvard leadership do more to combat antisemitism on campus. Barak did not respond to a request for comment Sunday, while Steinberg wrote in an email early Monday that he was “glad and honored to return in this capacity to Harvard.” Sunday marks 23 days since Garber’s initial announcement on the task forces, though he has yet to announce any further details about their activities or their members beyond the co-chairs’ names. “Sunday’s meeting hosted by Harvard Hillel is one of many opportunities the co-chairs of the task forces, and future members of the of the task forces, will take part in as they engage with the Harvard community and begin to move their work forward,” Swain wrote in a statement. The task force, which Garber announced alongside a separate Islamophobia task force, has become a flashpoint in the national debate surrounding Harvard’s handling of antisemitism on its campus. Penslar’s appointment as cochair drew backlash from some of Harvard’s most vocal critics in the months since Oct. 7, including former University President Lawrence H. Summers. Opponents of the selection accused Penslar of minimizing campus antisemitism and exhibiting an anti-Israel tilt in his scholarship and previous public statements. In response, a number of Penslar’s colleagues and peers affirmed their support for his selection. Penslar, who directs Har-
vard’s Center for Jewish Studies, mulled stepping down from the task force at the time, but has since stayed on. Barak himself had opined on the pushback against Penslar’s selection, posting on X that he disagreed with an op-ed Penslar had published in The Crimson — which Barak felt downplayed campus antisemitism — but that he felt the backlash had gone too far. “People can contest the decision to make him co chair of @Harvard‘s anti semitism task force, a thankless position which I’m sure he accepted out of a sense of duty,” Barak wrote. “But attacks on his character are uncalled for.” Barak was one of five Harvard faculty who circulated an open letter — signed by more than 350 faculty members — that rebuked a controversial Oct. 7 student statement published by the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee as “condoning the mass murder of civilians.” In a January op-ed in The Crimson, Barak wrote that he interpreted certain slogans used by pro-Palestine protesters — including the controversial chant “from the river to the sea,” which former Harvard President Claudine Gay condemned in an email — as “calls for violence and ethnic cleansing.” In the op-ed, Barak urged Harvard affiliates to “accept” the presence of opinions they “find offensive or even abhorrent” but decried disruptions of classes and events. Steinberg’s return to Harvard as an adviser to the task force comes less than one year
after he stepped down from Hillel in March 2023. During his 12year tenure leading Hillel, Steinberg was a firm pro-Israel voice on campus. After leaving Hillel, Steinberg became the Anti-Defamation League’s New England regional director — a role he departed late last month. In August 2022, Steinberg sent an email to Hillel members denouncing student demonstrators at Harvard’s freshman convocation — members of the PSC who held up a sign protesting “Israeli Apartheid” — as “anti-Israel” and “anti-Harvard.” Later that semester, he sent an email to Hillel members criticizing pro-Palestine student organizations for inviting Palestinian writer Mohammed El-Kurd to a talk on campus. Steinberg alleged in a Jerusalem Post op-ed last month that the “campus opposition to Israel traffics mostly in simplistic slogans and in the zero-sum-game notion that Israel must be destroyed or ‘decolonized’ in order for Palestinians to have dignity.” In his email Monday, Steinberg said despite “all the recent unrest and the challenges to be addressed,” he views Harvard as “a uniquely special place.” “I look forward to helping Harvard address the specter of antisemitism, and to helping ensure the University be a place in which all members of its community can be themselves and thrive,” Steinberg wrote. tilly.robinson@thecrimson.com neil.shah@thecrimson.com.
Interim President Alan M. Garber ’76 will appoint professor Boaz Barak to the presidential task force on antisemitism. CLAIRE YUAN— CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Filed by Families Students Participate Over Harvard Medical School Morgue Theft in Brief Hunger Strike BY VERONICA H. PAULUS AND AKSHAYA RAVI CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
Massachusetts Superior Court A judge dismissed a class action lawsuit on Monday filed by families affected by the mishandling of human remains at Harvard Medical School.
Cedric Lodge, the former morgue manager at the HMS Anatomical Gift Program, was charged by federal prosecutors last summer with stealing and transporting human remains. Judge Kenneth W. Salinger dismissed the claims against Harvard and Anatomical Gift Program managers Mark F. Cicchetti and Tracey Fay, citing their immunity under
Massachusetts’ Universal Anatomical Gift Act. Salinger wrote that the defendants “made a good faith attempt to comply with the requirements of the UAGA.” Last month, Harvard sought dismissal under the UAGA for several lawsuits filed following Lodge’s indictment. “The allegations in the complaints make clear that Harvard, Cicchetti, and Fay are not vicariously liable for Lodge’s actions — which means that the allegations about what Lodge did cannot defeat the Harvard Defendants’ qualified immunity,” Salinger wrote. University spokesperson Jonathan L. Swain declined to comment. A s p o ke s p e r s o n for HMS did not
A judge ruled to dismiss a class action lawsuit against Harvard filed by families affected by the mishandling of human remains at HMS. JONATHAN G. YUAN — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
respond to a request for comment on Monday. In the decision, Salinger wrote that the complaints do not allege “that any of the Harvard Defendants knew what Lodge was doing, or that any of the Harvard Defendants gave Lodge permission to do so.” “It may not seem fair that Harvard can avoid responsibility and liability in this case,” Salinger wrote. “But the Court must follow the clear command of the UAGA immunity provision.” The court order states that plaintiffs will not need to wait for their separate claims to be resolved before they can appeal the decision. Jeffrey Catalano, a lawyer representing the families, wrote in a statement on Monday that Keches Law Group is “assessing all options including our clients’ rights to appeal this decision.” “Our clients are extremely disappointed by the decision to dismiss all of their claims against Harvard and its employees for the egregious wrongs done to the bodies of so many loved ones for so long in Harvard Medical School’s morgue,” Catalano added. veronica.paulus@thecrimson.com akshaya.ravi@thecrimson.com
BY MICHELLE N. AMPONSAH AND AZUSA M. LIPPIT CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
ore than 30 pro-Palestinian M Harvard students participated in a 12-hour hunger strike Friday in solidarity with 17 students at Brown University who refused to eat for eight days to pressure the Brown Corporation to divest from Israel. Nineteen students at Brown began the strike — which was originally indefinite — on Feb. 2, ahead of the Brown Corporation’s planned meetings beginning Feb. 8. The students intended to strike until the Brown Corporation considered a resolution to divest from “companies which profit from human rights abuses in Palestine,” but they ended the strike after Brown University president Christina H. Paxson denied their request, citing “now-obsolete demands,” per the Brown Daily Herald. The 17 students ended their strike at 5 p.m. on Feb. 9, along with the Harvard demonstrators and more than 200 other Brown students who fasted for 32 hours in solidarity.
“To send solidarity to @ browndivestcoalition for their incredible hunger strike, 30+ Harvard students committed to a day-long hunger strike to prove to university corporations that we will not back down,” the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Coalition wrote in an Instagram post on Friday. Violet T.M. Barron ’26, an organizer with Harvard Jews for Palestine and a Crimson Editorial editor, said in a video posted on the PSC’s Instagram that she participated in the hunger strike because “until our universities divest, they are complicit and we are complicit — because we pay tuition — in the genocide in Gaza.” Syd D. Sanders ’24 also said in an interview posted by the PSC that he chose to participate “because we will not rest until we divest.” Harvard was among six universities — including Yale, UChicago, and Pomona College — whose students participated in solidarity strikes with the strikers at Brown. michelle.amponsah@thecrimson.com azusa.lippit@thecrimson.com
Harvard Slashes Healthcare Investments, Tech Rises to 98% of Portfolio BY SIDNEY K. LEE AND THOMAS J. METE CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
he Harvard Management ComT pany increased its direct holdings of Alphabet and Meta and continued its major sell off of biopharma holdings — which now make up less than 1 percent of the portfolio — during the last three months of 2023. Meta and Alphabet together make up 70 percent of the HMC’s public portfolio. Light & Wonder Inc., a company that provides gambling services, makes up the third largest stake in HMC’s portfolio. The total value of the public portfolio rose 12.54 percent, eclipsing $1.18 billion in assets under management — the highest level for HMC in two years. The increase in the holdings of HMC
— which is responsible for stewarding Harvard’s $50.7 billion endowment — comes as the S&P 500 continues to hit fresh records and beat Wall Street expectations, closing above 5,000 for the first time on Friday. Each quarter, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission requires any portfolio with over $100 million in investments to disclose their direct public holdings. The data released by the SEC last week details the HMC’s ownership changes in publicly traded companies during the fourth quarter of 2023. During the latest quarter, HMC sold its stake in eight of its nine biopharma companies, which are counted as part of the healthcare sector. The persistent sell-off of stocks within the sector continues a trend that began in early 2021. In 2020, at the height of the
Covid-19 pandemic, healthcare stocks represented 67 percent of HMC’s portfolio. The holdings have now been reduced to less than 1 percent. HMC’s most significant biopharma sell off came roughly two months before Alan M. Garber ’76 was named Harvard’s interim president following Claudine Gay’s surprise resignation. Shortly after becoming interim president, Garber announced he would step down from Exelixis, a biotech company whose board he first joined in 2005. He will remain on the board of Vertex, a pharmaceutical company he first joined in 2017. Garber’s relationships with the healthcare sector raised questions about potential conflicts of interest due to his position on the HMC board of directors. HMC spokesperson Pat McKiernan previously said that HMC
does not have direct holdings in Vertex or Exelixis. The healthcare sector has been under strain after facing its second straight year of annual losses in 2023. It is expected to face an uphill climb towards a recovery as the sector remains under scrutiny for its high pharmaceutical prices as Congress kicks off Medicare drug price negotiations. Technology investments reached a record-setting 98 percent of the portfolio — up from 53 percent in 2022 — following the latest purchases of more than 1.3 million shares. With a 34 percent increase in Meta holdings, its total value in the portfolio jumped to $456 million. Similarly, a 56 percent increase in HMC’s holdings of Alphabet stock — the parent company of Google — marked a value of $379 million in the portfolio. Adding to the near total sell-off
of biopharma holdings, HMC sold its full position in Grab — a Singaporean tech app — after purchasing over 13 million shares since December 2021. HMC sold their holdings after shares declined by over 50 percent in value, the first shares were purchased at $7.13 and all were sold at $3.46 apiece last quarter. Grab was once hailed as a long-term growth investment after emerging markets experienced lowered evaluations in 2020, but failed to meet investor expectations. HMC preserved its direct holdings in semiconductor companies, the most notable including NVIDIA, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, and Advanced Micro Devices. They combine for roughly 8 percent of the portfolio. While HMC’s public portfolio is dominated by three Magnificent Seven stocks — a group of the
highest performing U.S. tech companies — their performance in the public market continues to trail the S&P 500, a long-term trend for HMC which tends to expose the endowment to low risk investments. sidney.lee@thecrimson.com thomas.mete@thecrimson.com
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THE HARVARD CRIMSON
COVER STORY
6
FEBRUARY 16, 2024
House Republicans Subpoena Top Harvard Administrators JULIAN J. GIORDANO — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
CONGRESS. The House Committee on Education and the Workforce subpoenaed three top Harvard administrators on Friday. BY EMMA H. HAIDAR AND CAM E. KETTLES CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
H
ouse Republicans subpoenaed three top Harvard officials on Friday, demanding internal documents and communications for an investigation into the University’s handling of antisemitism on campus. The House Committee on Education and the Workforce issued subpoenas to interim Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76, Harvard Corporation Senior Fellow Penny S. Pritzker ’81, and Harvard Management Company CEO N.P. “Narv” Narvekar, the first time the committee has issued subpoenas to a university. The escalation came more than two months after the committee first announced an investigation and made good on
a weeks-long threat to coerce the University into producing meeting minutes from the governing boards and the Harvard Management Company, the University’s investment arm. While the subpoenas do not require Garber, Pritzker, or Narvekar to testify before Congress, such a demand could be imposed in the future. The subpoenas include a request for all meeting minutes from the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers — the University’s highest and second-highest governing bodies — dating back to Jan. 1, 2021. The committee also requested meeting minutes for the Harvard Management Company between Oct. 7, 2023 and Jan. 2, 2024, the day former President Claudine Gay resigned. Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) wrote in a statement that the subpoenas are a “wakeup call to Harvard.” “I will not tolerate delay and defiance of our inv e s tigation
while Harvard’s Jewish students continue to endure the firestorm of antisemitism that has engulfed its campus,” she wrote. Harvard spokesperson Jonathan L. Swain wrote in a statement Friday morning that a subpoena is “unwarranted” but said Harvard “remains committed to cooperating with the Committee.” “Given the breadth and extensive nature of the information Harvard has provided to the Committee, it is unfortunate that the Committee has chosen to issue a subpoena,” Swain added. “Harvard has provided fulsome and good faith responses across ten (10) submissions totaling more than 3,500 pages that directly address key areas of inquiry put forward by the Committee.” The last submission was made Wednesday, the date of the committee’s final deadline. In the subpoenas, the committee demanded meeting minutes from the now-defunct antisemitism advisory group Gay formed, communications relating to Garber’s antisemitism task force, and any reports of antisemitic acts since Jan. 1, 2021. Swain wrote that the University remains “steadfast in our commitment to combating antisemitism, in whatever form it manifests itself and our ongoing efforts to ensure that Jewish students feel safe, valued, and
The House Committee on Education and the Workforce Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) sits during a congressional testimony last December. MILES J. HERSZENHORN — CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
embraced at Harvard.” The subpoenas included a request for documents and communications regarding the University’s response to a controversial pro-Palestine letter signed by more than 30 student groups in the immediate aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, pro-Palestine protests after Oct. 7, the Harvard Palestinian Solidarity Committee’s annual “Israeli Apartheid Week”, and an altercation at an Oct. 18 “die-in” at Harvard Business School. The committee also ordered
Harvard also raises the possibility that the leaders of Columbia University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Pennsylvania — the other universities under investigation by the committee — could face subpoenas of their own. Stanley M. Brand, an attorney who previously served as general counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives, said in a Jan. 24 interview with The Crimson that even after issuing a subpoena, congressional committees are limited in their abil-
“
I will not tolerate delay and defiance of our investigation while Harvard’s Jewish students continue to endure the firestorm.
Virginia Foxx Chairwoman House Committee on Education and the Workforce
Harvard to produce communications regarding Sidechat posts made by Harvard affiliates “targeting Jews, Israelis, Israel, Zionists, or Zionism,” documents about allegations of antisemitism against Harvard Kennedy School lecturer Marshall L. Ganz ’64, and documents since Jan. 1, 2021 regarding disciplinary action taken against Harvard affiliates for “conduct involving the targeting of Jews, Israelis, Israel, Zionists, or Zionism.” The subpoenas require the documents to be produced by March 4. While Friday’s demands are not significantly different from the committee’s previous voluntary requests for documents, subpoenas are enforceable. It is unclear if Harvard will decide to fight the subpoenas, a move that would result in a prolonged battle with the committee and could even lead to the House voting to hold Garber, Pritzker, and Narvekar in criminal contempt of Congress. The subpoenas, however, were a clear signal that House Republicans are intent on exerting an unprecedented level of oversight of colleges and universities during a presidential election year. The decision to subpoena
ity to enforce it. “The ways in which they enforce them are arduous, long, and drawn-out proceedings in court under the contempt statute,” said Brand, who has also represented congressional witnesses for almost 50 years. “They can huff and puff and say ‘we’re going to hold you in contempt,’ but that takes months, if not years to bring to fruition,” he added. The subpoenas informed Garber, Pritzker, and Narvekar that they must “produce all responsive documents that are in your possession, custody, or control, whether held by you or your past or present agents, employees, and representatives acting on your behalf.” “You also should produce documents that you have a legal right to obtain, that you have a right to copy, or to which you have access, as well as documents that you have placed in the temporary possession, custody, or control of any third party,” the committee wrote. While the subpoenas do not include a prior request from the committee for text messages and members of the administration and governing boards, the demand for internal communications and meeting minutes could offer more insights
into how the University has approached handling its leadership crisis. Paul Reville, a professor of education policy and administration at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, said in a Jan. 24 interview that the committee’s previous requests “in the view of some people border on harassment from Congress and other sources who clearly have an agenda to undermine universities like Harvard.” Foxx, however, insisted that Congress had to take these actions when Harvard did not do enough to combat antisemitism on campus. “If Harvard is truly committed to combating antisemitism, it has had every opportunity to demonstrate its commitment with actions, not words,” Foxx wrote in the Friday press release. Swain wrote that Harvard had sent more than 3,500 pages of documents to the committee, which includes 1,o00 pages of material submitted to the committee in response to its review of plagiarism allegations against former Harvard President Claudine Gay. In a statement announcing the subpoenas, Foxx wrote that 40 percent of documents submitted in relation to campus antisemitism were publicly available. She previously accused the administration of trying to obstruct the investigation by not fully complying with all of the committee’s requests. “In its most recent response, Harvard failed to make substantial productions on two of four priority requests and its productions on the remaining two priority requests contain notable deficiencies, including apparent omissions and questionable redactions,” Foxx wrote on Friday. The University has made 10 submissions to the committee over the course of two months, including providing the committee with details about meetings by the Corporation and private recommendations made by Gay’s antisemitism advisory group in the fall. What the University does and does not submit in the coming weeks will determine how much the public sees about its decisions in the months following Oct. 7. emma.haidar@thecrimson.com cam.kettles@thecrimson.com
NEWS
THE HARVARD CRIMSON FEBRUARY 16, 2024
7
DANA-FARBER
Animal Activists File Federal Complaint ALLEGED MISCONDUCT. Animal activists filed a federal complaint Sunday alleging data falsification against Dana-Farber.
BY VERONICA H. PAULUS AND AKSHAYA RAVI CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
A
ctivists against animal experimentation filed a federal complaint Sunday alleging that researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute had committed data falsification. The complaint targeted research from one particular study on breast cancer using mouse models. Published in March 2023 by Nature Communications, the paper was later retracted in December, less than one year later. The federal complaint — filed by advocacy group Stop Animal Exploitation Now with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Research Integrity — claimed that the paper’s retraction warranted a full misconduct review into the related re-
search, which was allegedly funded by three federal grants totalling over $2 million. Nature Communications wrote in the December retraction that “an investigation conducted after its publication discovered several instances of image overlap and identified irregularities in the source data provided by the authors.” “The Editors therefore no longer have confidence in the integrity of the data in this article,” they added. Nature wrote that all authors agreed to the retraction. The federal complaint comes after a data investigation blogger alleged last month that four senior researchers at DFCI falsified data across dozens of papers. DFCI later initiated retractions to six papers and corrections to 31 more. SAEN Executive Director Michael A. Budkie, who filed the federal complaint, wrote in the complaint that in addition to the data falsification, “the validity of this study is highly questionable because studying cancer in mice simply doesn’t work.” Mouse models are commonly
used in scientific research, including studies on breast cancer. In a Monday interview with The Crimson, Budkie said that SAEN has previously filed similar complaints against researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, following which the scientists were allegedly found guilty of research misconduct. Budkie described the retracted Dana-Farber article as “disturbing,” and said that “it’s clear that the use of animals is very closely connected to research misconduct.” DFCI spokesperson Ellen Berlin wrote in an emailed statement to The Crimson that “the paper cited had been undergoing review for some time.” “Any credible issue raised about a research publication and brought to our attention is given a comprehensive review,” Berlin wrote. ORI spokesperson Joya Patel declined to comment, writing that “ORI is not able to confirm or deny the existence of any potential pending cases” and that “if there is a case finding of misconduct, it will be posted to ORI’s case summaries
Animal activists filed a federal complaint against Dana-Farber researchers with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. JINA H. CHOE — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
page.” Spokespeople from Harvard Medical School, Nature Communications, and the ORI did not re-
spond to requests for comment on Monday. Geoffrey Shapiro, the primary author on the paper, also did not
respond to a request for comment. veronica.paulus@thecrimson.com akshaya.ravi@thecrimson.com
Pro-Palestine Organizers Slam Harvard’s ‘Repression’ of Protest BY MICHELLE N. AMPONSAH AND AZUSA M. LIPPIT CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
Harvard pro-Palestine organizers slammed the University’s “repression” of student activism during a rally in Cambridge Common de-
manding U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) vote against U.S. military aid to Israel. The protest — the second large-
More than 200 people attended a pro-Palestine rally on Sunday, marching from Cambridge Common to Senator Elizabeth Warren’s home, demanding for her to vote against U.S. military aid to Israel. FRANK S. ZHOU — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
scale pro-Palestine demonstration of the spring semester — comes as Harvard leadership has taken a more hardline stance toward campus protests. On Jan. 19, interim Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 and other top administrators sent a Harvard-wide email warning student protesters that they were forbidden from blocking movement to and from “campus buildings, classrooms, administrative offices, or other spaces.” In a speech at the Sunday rally, Kojo Acheampong ’26, a co-founder of the African and African American Resistance Organization, criticized the University’s attempts to regulate protest. “Me, along with a couple of my comrades over at Harvard, have faced repression,” Acheampong said. “We’ve seen what it’s like. We’ve seen what the University tries to do to stop a movement.” More than 200 people attended the rally, which was organized by advocacy groups including AFRO, the Harvard Graduate Students for Palestine, and the Boston Party for Socialism and Liberation. The event began in Cambridge Common before protesters marched to Warren’s home in Cambridge. Though the Harvard University Palestine Solidarity Committee did not officially organize the event, they circulated an email on student mailing lists advertising a protest at the same time and location demanding Harvard “divest from all
investments, both implicitly and explicitly, fueling occupation” by Israel. Per Harvard policy, the PSC, an officially recognized student group, is forbidden from co-organizing on-campus events with unrecognized groups, which include AFRO, GS4P, and Harvard Jews for Palestine. In a Friday Instagram post with the heading “Fuck Institutional Repression,” the PSC denounced “ridiculous protest policies” and the use of institutional protest guidelines to repress pro-Palestinian speech on Harvard’s campus. “PSC is under intense, disproportionate and frankly, racist scrutiny from the Harvard administration,” the post reads. A Harvard spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. Unrecognized protest groups increasingly led pro-Palestine demonstrations last fall, including a 24-hour occupation of University Hall by Harvard Jews for Palestine. Several students involved in the occupation faced disciplinary action by the Administrative Board. Acheampong and three other undergraduates were also disciplined by the Administrative Board — chaired by Dean of the College Rakesh Khurana — following their involvement in a pro-Palestine “week of action” last November. “I think, as we all have seen, in the recent administration statements there has been continued
crackdown and pressure on student organizers on Harvard’s campus,” a PSC organizer said in an interview with The Crimson. “But we will continue to be active on campus and present a wide variety of ways to mobilize Palestine.” During the rally, protesters called on Warren, a professor emerita at Harvard Law School, to condemn suppression of student activism on college campuses. They also criticized her support of a $95 billion emergency spending package currently being considered by the Senate. The bill would provide military aid to Ukraine and Israel and also humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza if passed. Demonstrators demanded Warren vote “no” on any American aid to Israel and stop accepting donations from “Zionist donors.” “Warren, Warren, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide,” the demonstrators chanted. “Warren, Warren, you’re a liar, we demand a ceasefire.” A spokesperson for Warren did not respond to a request for comment. In an interview after the rally, Acheampong said the event had “a critical mass of people” and promised that activism would continue throughout the semester. “We’re about to enter the fourth week of school, and we’re coming strong,” he said. michelle.amponsah@thecrimson.com azusa.lippit@thecrimson.com
Anonymous Posters, Vandalism Spur Tensions on Harvard Campus BY MICHELLE N. AMPONSAH AND JOYCE E. KIM CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
The appearance of antisemitic and anti-Palestinian posters on Harvard’s campus and a string of poster vandalisms have caused controversy on a campus already divided since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel. The posters, which do not appear to be affiliated with any organization and often contain incendiary messages, are part of a series of anonymous acts that have heightened tensions on campus over the past four months. The latest anonymous poster to appear on campus targeted a Palestinian Harvard graduate student. The poster was displayed in Harvard Yard earlier this week and identified the student by name. “Palestinian in the US?” the poster stated. “Not condemning Hamas means you are Hamas.” The student named in the poster declined to comment for this article. Harvard spokesperson Jason A. Newton wrote in an email Tuesday that the University does “not condone or ignore threats or acts of harassment or violence.” Per long-standing University
protocol, all posters are removed from Harvard Yard posting areas every Monday and Thursday. In late January, posters of Israeli hostages hung around campus were defaced with antisemitic messages such as “Israel did 9/11.” It is unclear whether the people who vandalized the posters around Harvard Yard — which is generally accessible to the public — are Harvard affiliates. Harvard Hillel President Nathan B. Gershengorn ’26 wrote in a Tuesday statement that members of Hillel were “disturbed” by the vandalizations of posters in January. “To be honest, it doesn’t really matter who did it,” Gershengorn wrote. “The important thing to us is that it shows the Jewish community that Harvard campus has become a place where that kind of blatantly antisemitic rhetoric and stereotypes are tolerated.” Newton wrote that “University strongly condemns the senseless and horrific vandalization on Harvard’s campus of posters displaying the faces of Israeli hostages.” “Harvard University Police Department is investigating this incident,” Newton added. After Harvard Divinity School student Shabbos “Alexander” Kestenbaum denounced the de-
facing of posters in a Jan. 21 post on X, he received an email from a Harvard employee challenging him to a debate on Israel’s role in 9/11. “I invite you to debate me today at the Cambridge Street overpass 12-1, don’t miss it!” Gustavo “Gus” Espada ’96, an active University employee at the time, wrote in a Jan. 25 email to Kestenbaum. “If you don’t show up I will use a puppet or potted plant to represent you!” he added. Kestenbaum, who is one of six Jewish students suing Harvard for its alleged failure to address antisemitism on campus, said in an interview with The Crimson that he reported the incident to Harvard’s Office for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging. Espada posted a TikTok video later that day speaking in Spanish and waving a toy machete. The video includes a screenshot of Kestenbaum’s post on X. “I, of course, was fearing for my safety,” Kestenbaum said. “And again, what made it particularly upsetting and frustrating was the fact that Harvard did not respond to any of my calls, emails, or pleas for protection.” Kestenbaum also said that he reported the incident to both HUPD and the Cambridge Police Department, and was advised to
Harvard’s campus has seen anonymous antisemitic and anti-Palestinian posters, as well as a string of poster vandalisms. MARINA QU — CRIMSON DESIGNER
file a restraining order against Espada in city court. “I’m a student, I want to learn, I want to get an education,” Kestenbaum said. “That’s not something I’m going to do and waste my time at.” “But I would expect and hope that Harvard would have a min-
imal amount of protection pertaining to Jewish students and — at minimum — discipline or fire or say something about one of their own employees taunting a student with a machete,” he added. Espada remains listed as the financial and systems coordinator for Harvard’s Department of
East Asian Languages and Civilizations, according to the department’s website. Espada could not be reached for a request for comment on Tuesday. michelle.amponsah@thecrimson.com joyce.kim@thecrimson.com
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THE HARVARD CRIMSON
NEWS
FEBRUARY 16, 2024
Baratunde Thurston Named Class of 1999 Chief Marshal BY JOYCE E. KIM CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
FAS Dean Hopi Hoekstra appointed professors Maya Jasanoff ‘96 and professor David Laibson to lead the committee on classroom norms. JULIAN J. GIORDANO — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
FACULTY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
Harvard Profs. Jasanoff, Laibson to Lead Classroom Committee CLASSROOM NORMS. Two Harvard professors will lead a new FAS committee on norms of classroom engagement. BY TILLY R. ROBINSON AND NEIL H. SHAH CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
H
istory professor Maya R. Jasanoff ’96 and Economics professor David I. Laibson ’88 will lead the newly announced
Faculty of Arts and Sciences committee on classroom norms, FAS Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra announced in an email on Wednesday. The committee, officially titled the Classroom Social Compact Committee, has been tasked with creating “simple, clear” guidelines for classroom engagement. Hoekstra had previously stated that she would be forming the committee at a Feb. 6 faculty meeting, but provided no details on the group’s composition at the time. In her email, Hoekstra wrote
that the committee would be complementary to the FAS’ initiative on civil discourse — which, so far, has centered around the Harvard Dialogues event series that seeks to “model productive dialogue,” especially on contentious issues. “Employing the skills and framework of civil discourse in the classroom is one way we increase the likelihood that a broad range of perspectives will be heard and that participants will open themselves to new ideas,” Hoekstra wrote. “Another is to ensure that every-
one in the classroom — students and instructors alike — has a shared understanding of how they together contribute to an environment that promotes discovery, learning, and meaningful dialogue,” she added. Jasanoff, whose research centers on the history of the British Empire, helped circulate a Dec. 11 letter urging the Harvard Corporation to resist calls to remove then-President Claudine Gay — which its authors said stemmed from “political pressures that are at odds with
Harvard’s commitment to academic freedom.” “The critical work of defending a culture of free inquiry in our diverse community cannot proceed if we let its shape be dictated by outside forces,” the letter said. Laibson — who serves as faculty dean of Lowell House — is a behavioral economist who co-teaches Harvard’s popular introductory economics course, Ec 10. tilly.robinson@thecrimson.com neil.shah@thecrimson.com
Baratunde R. Thurston ’99, writer, comedian, and television host, was elected by the Class of 1999 to serve as this year’s chief marshal, according to an announcement in the Harvard Gazette, a University-run publication. Each year, the class celebrating its 25th reunion elects the chief marshal of alumni, who will lead the class’s reunion celebration and will represent all University alumni at Harvard Alumni Day, scheduled this year for May 31. Candidates for chief marshal are nominated based on career success, contributions to society, and service to the College, according to the Harvard Alumni Association. Thurston, who also served as First Marshal for the Class of 1999 as a senior, said in a Thursday interview that he was “elated and deeply humbled” to be elected chief marshal. As chief marshal, Thurston will lead the alumni parade and host a luncheon for University leadership and alumni. “I cannot stress, I am looking forward to wearing the tall funny hat,” Thurston said. “And I think I get a big stick to wave around — and I’ll be very careful with it — but I will enjoy it. Thurston is currently the host and executive producer of the PBS television series “America Outdoors With Baratunde Thur-
There is always something ripping at the seams of community and testing our cohesion, our unity, and our ability to hold conflict. Baratunde R. Thurston ’99 Writer, Comedian, Television Host
GANZ FROM PAGE 1
HKS Investigation Under Scrutiny defended Ganz and supported his criticism of Elmendorf’s investigation. Kathryn A. Sikkink, a professor of human rights policy at HKS, wrote in a statement that she did “not believe that he should have been the subject of a formal investigation.” “From what I understand about this case, the pedagogical decisions he made were within the realm of his expertise and his academic freedom in the classroom,” she wrote. “We have trained staff who can help with informal processes of mediation we can use to address these issues, but to move so quickly to formal investigations creates a litigious atmosphere that is not conducive to the learning communities we are trying to create and has a chilling effect on all of us who routinely teach about complex political issues,” she added. University Professor Danielle S. Allen, who wrote a letter to Elmendorf in support of Ganz, raised concerns over the independent investigator’s non-academic background. “When he shared with me the report of the external investigator, I was concerned that the non-academic tasked with the review had failed to understand some of the pedagogic efforts Prof. Ganz had undertaken,” Allen wrote in a statement to The Crimson.
“It seemed important to articulate the teaching challenges involved with some precision so as to ensure that the hard work of teaching is well-understood, acknowledged, and protected,” she added. Ganz also criticized the Kennedy School for turning to a private investigator instead of a faculty member with more experience teaching. Cabalquinto, the HKS spokesperson, defended the investigator in a statement and called them an “experienced outside fact-finder.” “The investigator reviewed documentary evidence and interviewed at length both the students and Professor Ganz to hear their perspectives,” Cabalquinto added. The investigation into Ganz preceded the wave of backlash against Harvard since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel. A House committee launched an investigation into antisemitism at Harvard in December. In January, six Jewish students sued the University alleging “severe and pervasive” antisemitism on campus. Ganz said the charges of antisemitism levied against him represent a broader effort of “weaponizing antisemitism” at Harvard and beyond. “The real problem, I think, is the way that antisemitism is being weaponized, and they tried to use it on me,” Ganz said of recent conservative-led attacks on Harvard. “Then they started using it on Harvard,” he added. “They started using it on everybody.” william.mao@thecrimson.com dhruv.patel@thecrimson.com
Ganz accused Elmendorf of mishandling allegations that he engaged in antisemitic discrimination against students. ADDISON Y. LIU — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
‘Snow’ Big Deal: Students Disappointed by Weather
Harvard students were disappointed by the lack of snow on campus despite forecasts predicting a snowstorm. ADDISON Y. LIU — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
BY NATALIE K BANDURA AND AZUSA M. LIPPIT CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
Despite forecasts predicting up to 12 inches of snow through Tuesday, Harvard students shared a sense of disappointment after waking up to a snowless campus. A Monday email from the University’s Office of the Executive Vice President warned students of up to two inches of snowfall per hour in Greater Boston beginning at 5 a.m. Tuesday. The email also stated that schedules around the University were subject to change “depending on local conditions.” A subsequent email from Faculty of the Arts and Sciences Dean for Administration and Finance Scott Jordan to faculty and students said the FAS expected to remain open through the storm, “with all campus operations held as scheduled.” Cambridge and Boston Public Schools, as well as other Boston area universities including
MIT and Boston University, announced closures for Tuesday. Boston received just 0.1 inches of snow on Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service. Emmanuel T. Edwards ’27 said he and his friends were planning a touch football game in the snow outside of Weld Hall. “It would’ve been a really good time. And then there was no snow, so now I just have to sit in Cabot, sad,” Edwards said. Michelle Doan ’25, who had a class moved to Zoom, said she would have gone sledding down Widener steps if there had been more snow. “Basically you just find a piece of cardboard, and you make it a sled and you sled down the steps,” Doan said. “It’s one of my core winter memories.” Ava E. Stone ’26 said not knowing whether classes would be canceled or moved online was “unfair,” and that whether classes would be held in-person should have been a universal administrative decision. “How are you going to afford
some people the privilege of staying home?” she said. “If you’re gonna have a snow day, make sure it’s accessible to everybody.” Ryan O. Green ’27 said he was initially disappointed by the lack of cancellation. “I was a little bit frustrated with Harvard and their lack of sympathy for their student body,” Green said, referencing other colleges in Greater Boston that suspended classes on Tuesday. “But, it turns out, they were probably completely right.” “I was really disappointed that we didn’t have any snow, and I think this is an indication of bad things to come, globally,” he added. Miles K. Reeves ’27 said he was disappointed in the lack of snowfall, adding that he had seen pictures of Cambridge covered in snow. “Maybe next time,” Reeves said. “I feel like the campus would look really pretty with a lot of snow on it, and we just didn’t get to see it.” natalie.bandura@thecrimson.com azusa.lippit@thecrimson.com
ston” and a writer for Puck, a digital media company he helped found. Thurston was previously the digital director of The Onion, joined “The Daily Show” as a supervising producer after Trevor Noah became host, and received an Emmy nomination for hosting the Spotify-produced video series “Clarify.” As an undergraduate, Thurston was a news editor and online director for The Crimson, which he said was “a huge part of my love of Harvard and my knowledge of it.” “A lot of what I’ve ended up doing now draws on things that I was able to experiment with and explore as an undergrad,” he added, noting his involvement in Black student groups, theater and the arts, and the Harvard Computer Society. Thurston said he hopes the reunion — which he said will be “emotional and exciting” and “probably a little awkward” — provides an opportunity for “a reconnection to each other, a recommitment to the bonds we’ve established.” “Every class goes through something,” he said. “There is always something ripping at the seams of community and testing our cohesion, our unity, and our ability to hold conflict.” Though University has found itself in a historic moment — reckoning with heightened political scrutiny and a divided student body and faculty — Thurston said the position Harvard finds itself in is “not new.” Thurston said that other than being “a great pitch by the University to raise some money,” Harvard reunions are a way “to look back at the vast sweep of this institution — hundreds of years, multiple wars, civil rights, divestment strategies, all kinds of protests.” “It is a difficult time for so, so many people in this community,” Thurston said. “And I hope that this Alumni Day and this reunion season gives folks an opportunity to see each other — to hear from each other — in the most beautiful way.” joyce.kim@thecrimson.com
EDITORIAL
THE HARVARD CRIMSON
FEBURARY 16, 2024
9
COLUMN
COUNCIL ON ACADMIC FREEDOM AT HARVARD
Young Scholars Are Not the Enemies of Free Speech on Campus GENERATIONAL TRENDS. Contrary to mass media reports, younger faculty members at Harvard are not attempting to silence speech. Young scholars skew slightly more liberal than older ones, but also often defend classical principles of free expression. BY PIPPA NORRIS
T
he animus for much of the recent debate roiling Harvard is the claim that the liberal tilt of the academy has accelerated in recent years. This process is believed to have excluded heterodox voices and thereby restricted academic freedom of expression on college campuses. Lack of viewpoint diversity is widely believed to pose an existential threat to the University’s core mission of deepening intellectual inquiry, learning, and knowledge generation. As John Stuart Mill’s classic “On Liberty” framed the argument: “The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth; if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth produced by its collision with error.” The backlash against so-called “wokeness” is a core feature of contemporary conservative politics in America. Educational gag orders have been introduced by U.S. State houses in attempts to restrict freedom of learning and teaching, especially on discussions of race, gender, American history, and BGLTQ identities. PEN America has tracked over 100 bills, introduced in dozens of state legislatures, that have sought to restrict the teaching of such topics. Similarly, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression has documented how legislatures have introduced bills in state after state restricting what can be taught. Even where bills fail to pass, the process may have a chilling effect, especially promoting self-censorship among scholars lacking tenure. This all is part of a global phenomenon: In Europe — Hungary and Poland in particular — authoritarian populist governments have sought to curb academic freedom as well. Is there solid evidence that viewpoint diversity has indeed worsened over time in academia, as widely assumed? After all, decades ago, Paul F. Lazarsfeld’s pioneering book “The Academic Mind,” based on a large-scale representative survey of American social scientists, demonstrated that scholars tended to be more sympathetic to liberal or left-wing values than the general population. And even if the arc of academia bends towards progressive values, this does not necessarily mean that free debate about heterodox views is stifled. At the same time, arguments favoring the central claims that viewpoint diversity has worsened are often limited to certain well-known but highly selective anecdotal cases. Surveys of students’ perceptions of academic freedom provide insights, but responses may be colored by contemporary media debates and political polarization. A 2023 survey I helped conduct with The World of Political Science monitored the economic and social ideological values of political scientists, as well as their attitudes towards academic freedom of expression and perceptions of cancel culture. Focusing upon a subset of respondents living and working in western universities and colleges, cohort analysis by decade of birth is a
technique which can provide proxy insights into trends over time. A Look at the Data The results confirm that indeed, not surprisingly, the youngest cohorts of political scientists are significantly more liberal-left in their values than the oldest cohorts. This reflects the process of value change among the general population in western societies, which has moved younger generations towards more socially liberal positions on a wide range of issues, including tolerance of homosexuality and support for gender and racial equality, reproductive rights, and secularization. If we can extrapolate more broadly from the WPS survey, the data suggests that socially conservative views have probably become more heterodox on campus. But does this imply growing intolerance of free speech on campus? Scholars were also asked whether they agreed or disagreed with several statements about “politically correct” speech, measured using five-point scales. For example, they were asked whether freedom of expression should be limited in order to avoid giving offense. Here, younger cohorts were slightly more in favor of restrictions than older cohorts, perhaps reflecting changing sensibilities about standards of civility. On the other hand, orientations towards the core principles of academic freedom are far from simple and the broader shift towards liberal values among younger generations runs counter to supporting censorship. Compared with older cohorts, younger faculty were more favorable towards academic free speech, not less, when asked whether it was important to challenge conventional dogma, whether university policies should respect extremist views, and whether scholars should debate unpopular views about identity politics. Overall, the evidence supports a nuanced picture of trends, suggesting the need to dismantle some of the simplistic stereotypes common in popular commentary about viewpoint diversity. The evidence, at least within the discipline of political science, further confirms the long-standing drift towards more liberal-left values among younger faculty and their greater sensitivity towards “politically correct” language on moral issues. And yet, far from intolerance, the younger cohort simultaneously displays strong support for several core classical liberal principles of academic freedom and defends robust free speech. This suggests that some of the current moral panic over the threats facing academic freedom is over-inflated by partisan rhetoric. Younger scholars are not the enemies of free speech on campus. Far from denigrating these developments, John Stuart Mill might well have approved.
SOURCE: THE WORLD OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
–Pippa Norris is the Paul F. McGuire Lecturer in Comparative Politics at Harvard Kennedy School and a faculty affiliate in the Government Department. Her piece is part of the Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard’s column, which runs bi-weekly on Mondays and pairs faculty members to write contrasting perspectives on a single theme.
SOURCE: THE WORLD OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
COLUMN
COUNCIL ON ACADMIC FREEDOM AT HARVARD
Higher Education Has a Viewpoint Diversity Problem FACULTY POLITICS. Lack of intellectual diversity has downstream effects on quality of research. An underrepresentation of unpopular research topics creates a self-fulfilling vicious cycle that damages our ability to challenge the status quo. BY TYLER J. VANDERWEELE
I
n 2002, writer David Horowitz proposed an Academic Bill of Rights to ensure viewpoint diversity in U.S. higher education. The proposal was criticized for not respecting the autonomy and scholarly standards of academic disciplines, and for attempting to force change from the top down. The critics had a point, but I think his diagnosis of the problem was correct: Higher education struggles with respect for appropriate forms of viewpoint diversity. For example, the imbalance in faculty political commitments has only grown in the intervening decades: By one measure, the liberal-to-conservative ratio of faculty in American universities increased from 2:1 in 1989 to 5:1 in 2017. According to a 2023 survey by The Crimson, among Harvard faculty, it now appears to stand at roughly 26:1. If this lack of viewpoint diversity were simply due to the steady conquest of ignorance by knowledge, this would be worth celebrating. The reality, however, is that ideological or political homogeneity often just inhibits the pursuit of truth, sometimes causing entire areas of inquiry to be neglected. This hinders universities’ missions of generating, preserving, and transmitting knowledge and preparing students for democratic citizenship. As John Stuart Mill argued in “On Liberty,” ignoring alternative viewpoints compromises our capacity to pursue truth, to understand other perspectives, to realize when we are wrong, and even to adequately defend our positions when right. Lack of intellectual diversity among faculty (and administrators) might also render open student discourse increasingly difficult as indeed we experience at Harvard. How do we explain the lack of intellectual diversity among faculty?
A central explanation may concern the research areas in which departments choose to hire. For example, in my own discipline of public health, I believe there would be opposition to faculty searches for experts on the relations between religion and health or marriage and health despite empirical evidence indicating their importance. For many, the topics seem too closely associated with traditional values. I would imagine similar dynamics are at play in many disciplines. As the ideological perspectives become more homogeneous, the topics considered important narrow, further reinforcing lack of intellectual diversity. It’s a vicious cycle. I don’t believe universities should implement new quotas targeting ideological diversity, but I do think they should self-consciously diversify the research areas they target in faculty searches. I would put forward the following principle as one consideration, among many, that departments should weigh in faculty hiring: When a research area requires attention to viewpoints that are held by a large portion of the population and that exert significant influence on policy or society, it would be advantageous to have someone on faculty who either holds the view or conducts research on those who do. More specifically, when such viewpoints concern values, or concern matters on which there is not scholarly consensus, it would be advantageous to have a faculty member who holds the view; in contrast, when there is evidence-based scholarly consensus that the relevant view is false, it would be advantageous to have someone who studies those who hold that view. Universities should thus try particularly hard to hire faculty who hold disfavored or controversial
views when those views are held by a large portion of the population, have not been clearly refuted, and influence culture and policy. Application of this principle to topics and viewpoints that are currently underrepresented in academic work would both preserve disciplinary autonomy and scholarly standards and also increase viewpoint diversity in ways that enhance the pursuit of knowledge. If this principle were applied consistently, I could imagine faculty searches being conducted in sociology or in public health on marriage and health; in psychology, on character and virtue assessment; in philosophy, on Thomas Aquinas, whose philosophy (not just theology) continues to exert major influence on the Catholic Church and its 1.4 billion adherents. More controversially, a school of public health might consider hiring a pro-life scholar of women’s health. Hires in these often-neglected areas would increase the political, intellectual, and religious diversity of the faculty. Adding scholars with different perspectives might allow us to find some common ground on divisive issues. It would certainly improve the quality of argument and scholarship on both sides. That many would consider such a proposal objectionable may itself be evidence that ideological factors often drive faculty hiring. To be clear, not all widely held viewpoints deserve equal consideration under this principle. Many believe in alien UFOs, but this does not exert major policy influence. While numerous Americans embrace young-earth creationist views, which exert some societal influence, there is scholarly consensus against the position. However, having a scholar who studies those hold-
ing such views would likely give a department a strong advantage in the transmission of knowledge. Greater viewpoint diversity would produce a host of positive follow-on effects. It would reshape what are central versus fringe topics within a discipline, and editorial willingness to publish on them in high-ranked journals. This may in turn affect who is hired and promoted. Likewise, a lack of viewpoint diversity among faculty also affects graduate students. It is difficult for graduate students to study certain topics if they can’t find faculty to advise them. Without faculty interested in unfashionable topics, prospective students may decide it isn’t worth applying or may face rejection for lack of advisors. In turn, the absence of graduate students studying these subjects reinforces a perception that departments don’t need to hire in these areas. Expanded viewpoint diversity would ultimately serve the University’s pursuit of Veritas, in helping us refine, strengthen, correct, and appropriately situate our arguments, as we encounter those with whom we disagree. Harvard scholars and leadership would do well to recall Richard Feynman’s wise words: “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.”
–Tyler J. VanderWeele is the John L. Loeb and Frances Lehman Loeb Professor of Epidemiology. His piece is part of the Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard’s column, which runs bi-weekly on Mondays and pairs faculty members to write contrasting perspectives on a single theme.
THE HARVARD CRIMSON
EDITORIAL
10
FEBURARY 16, 2024
JULIA N. DO — CRIMSON DESIGNER
COLUMN
A BROKEN SYSTEM
How Harvard Killed Its Best Title IX Resource CHANGING OFFICES. The change from OSAPR to OGE may seem inconsequential, but the gutting of OSAPR was not just another administrative consolidation — it meant the loss of perhaps the best resource for survivors on campus. BY RACHAEL A. DZIABA
“Y
ou are not alone” reads a sticker stuck on the door of the Lamont Library bathroom stall. At first glance, the purple rectangle offers a helpful list of resources for people who have experienced sexual assault, with phone numbers for Harvard University Health Services, peer counseling, and Harvard University Police. There’s only one problem: The first organization, the Office of Sexual Assault Prevention and Response, no longer exists. Three years ago, then-Provost Alan M. Garber ’76 announced the merger of Title IX and OSAPR into the Office for Gender Equity, which comprises Title IX and a new, confidential resource called Sexual Harassment/Assault Resource Education, or SHARE. However, prior to this system most undergrads now know, there was OSAPR, an office independent from the legal proceedings of Title IX that provided confidential advocacy, support, and counseling for survivors of sexual assault. In the alphabet soup of Harvard offices, the change from OSAPR to OGE may seem inconsequential, but the gutting of OSAPR was not just another administrative consolidation — it meant the loss of perhaps the best-known, most-trusted resource for survivors on Harvard’s campus. The end of OSAPR marked a key shift in Harvard’s sexual assault response strategy with profound — though little-known — consequences for a campus that has struggled to reckon with its rape culture. OGE declined a request for comment on criticisms raised in this article. ‘They Put the Students First’ Harvard College created the Office for Sexual Assault Prevention and Response in 2003 to provide education and support services to students across the College. In 2010, its services were expanded to the entire University. In addition to providing direct support to survivors, OSAPR embraced a “community engagement” model under the tenure of former Director Pierre R. Berastaín ’10, who headed the office from 2018 to 2020. From the annual Denim Day, which garnered as many as 1,000 attendees, to a candlelight vigil dubbed “Take Back the Night,” to self-care events in the upperclassman Houses, the office worked directly with students to shift campus culture and raise awareness about sexual violence and consent. Getting out of the office and into student spaces created a “low-risk, more accessible context” for students to access services, according to Berastaín. OSAPR also provided advice and support to student groups like the Harvard Feminist Coalition, formerly known as Our Harvard Can Do Better, an anti-sexual assault advocacy organization for which I am an organizer. Harvard Feminist Coalition organizer Sanika S. Mahajan ’21 put it simply: “OSAPR was probably one of the only spaces on campus that we felt we could go for open conversation about campus culture around sexual violence.” The numbers speak for themselves. Under this community engagement model, OSAPR saw a 390 percent increase in walk-ins and a 415 percent increase in hotline calls, according to Berastaín. Osiris Rankin served for three years as a Consent Advocacy and Relationship Education tutor, a position supervised by OSAPR. Rankin wrote in an email that what made OSAPR unique was “the people and the trust they earned.”
“In my time as a tutor, I often tried to evaluate whether the people I interacted with seemed to be putting the students first or Harvard first,” Rankin said. “To me, it felt like they put the students first.” Starting from Scratch Despite OSAPR’s successful model, in March 2021, the University decided to shut it down. To explain the decision, Garber and University Title IX Coordinator Nicole M. Merhill pointed to a 2019 campus survey and the results of an external review earlier that year as evidence of the need to “streamline our resources,” and expand prevention resources. A University spokesperson at the time added that the change sought to “improve upon community knowledge of the resources and services available.” If these were the problems, dissolving OSAPR — almost universally known by students and expressly dedicated to prevention — was not a solution. The external review does not even mention OSAPR, and the campus climate survey Garber and Merhill cited shows widespread familiarity with the office. Additionally, the decentralization problem highlighted by Garber and Merhill concerned personnel filing issues hardly related to OSAPR. In fact, instead of improving available resources and student awareness, the merger seems to have had the opposite effect. According to William M. Sutton ’23, an organizer with the Harvard Feminist Coalition at the time of the merger, the transition “cleared house.” “There was really no passage of institutional knowledge between SHARE and OSAPR,” said Sutton. Only one staff member moved from OSAPR to its successor office, SHARE, a new hire still unfamiliar with OSAPR’s practices, according to two people familiar with the transition and public directory pages. Practically no documents were left behind, according to another source. OGE seems to have expected as much. In interviews of candidates for the new office, former Harvard Graduate Student Union Vice President Marisa J. Borreggine recalls interviewees being told to “expect a start-up culture at SHARE.” Associate Director of SHARE Greta Spoering explained that “building up the trust within the community is something that takes time” and something that they are “still doing.” She’s right. It does. And yet, in one fell swoop, the University erased OSAPR’s 18 years of progress, leaving SHARE to start from nothing. ‘Things Just Got Worse from There’ Much of the community trust and relationships OSAPR had built were lost with the office. Bailey A. Plaman, President of the HGSU, recalled SHARE’s lack of bandwidth to get started on prevention efforts in its early days “because the two people that had been hired were so overburdened” with hiring new staff. SHARE “just didn’t have the people to be able to get things off the ground,” they continued. In the first year after its closure, Sutton, the Harvard Feminist Coalition organizer, explained that student activists’ had trouble building a relationship with SHARE. “They’re creating a new office,” he said, “and they’re creating it under the watchful eye of an administrator who also has allegiance to the Title IX
side of things.” “When that office was moved, we lost a lot of our ability to trust that openly, and we lost people who were on our side,” Sutton added. With SHARE focused on starting from square one, OSAPR’s community initiatives appear to have fallen by the wayside. Since the merger, there have not been Denim Day, Take Back the Night, or other community initiatives. Also unlike SHARE, OSAPR actively supported student activism against sexual assault. OSAPR set up booths with snacks and pamphlets at protests opposing rape culture. When Winthrop House Faculty Dean Ronald S. Sullivan, Jr. decided to represent Harvey Weinstein, OSAPR issued a statement supporting dismayed students. SHARE, on the other hand, has been uninvolved in protests against professor John L. Comaroff, who is accused of sexual harassment by multiple graduate students. When I worked with other students to organize a walkout, rally, and occupation last year, SHARE was nowhere to be found. The closest thing to a statement from SHARE was OGE’s director criticizing a lawsuit from three of Comaroff’s accusers for discouraging people from using the system. OSAPR’s undergraduate peer educators, who planned much of the office’s community programming, were also lost during the merger, consolidated into Wellness Educators, an HUHS program that promotes healthy lifestyle practices. (Their Instagram features, among other things, facts on nutrition and applying sunscreen — hardly anything to be seen on sexual assault.) Without community events and initiatives, sexual assault resource offices struggle to change culture or make students aware of their resources. “Public presence is really important for survivors to feel comfortable coming in and sharing this incredibly personal thing with their school,” said Dr. Nicole Berdera, a sexual violence researcher It is telling that OSAPR’s name remains on stickers in bathroom stalls and the resource pages of several house sites, including Leverett, Eliot, Pfoho, Quincy, and Currier: SHARE has not yet filled the vacuum. ‘Title IX Advocacy is a Very Small Part of What They Do’ Among students who are aware of SHARE, some remain hesitant to access its services. The new structure, which houses SHARE under the same organizational umbrella as Title IX, can leave students unsure about how separate the two offices are. Students are not always sure of “what’s a confidential resource versus not,” said Anushka Patel, a CARE tutor. This lack of clarity can lead students to avoid SHARE out of fear that going to it will automatically trigger a Title IX complaint, as is the case for many other University employees. The OGE website does little to resolve this confusion. SHARE and Title IX staff are listed on the same page, and the site does not make clear the divisions between or confidentiality of OGE’s three entities. Concerns about OGE’s merged structure go deeper than appearances. SHARE — and all of OGE — is under the purview of the University Title IX Coordinator, raising concerns about its ability to function as an independent student advocate, like OSAPR did. According to Berdera, if survivor advocates ar-
en’t independent, “they can’t do their jobs.” “The closer they are to campus organizations like Title IX, with competing interests,” she explained, “the less they can work well.” In other words, even with strict safeguards in place, staff in one office might tread carefully to maintain collegiality with another or out of fear of consequences from higher-ups. In the transition to SHARE, Borreggine, former Vice President of the Union, felt that the responsibility to advocate for survivors was “shifted onto students.” In fact, in President Garber’s 2021 statement about the merger, advocacy was not even listed among the functions of the newly-created OGE. Several survivors described feeling that SHARE focused more on counseling than advocacy. One student who sought out SHARE’s services after being referred by a union representative told me “it didn’t really seem like they were really anything more than a therapy team.” In her first meeting, she said she was told by her SHARE counselor that there was not much SHARE could do for her. “Frankly, I’m not sure how much bite this office really has,” she added. Another student told me she felt her counselor provided helpful support as she navigated seeking a no-contact order. Still, she added that it felt like most of what SHARE does is counseling. “Title IX advocacy is a very small part of what they do,” she said. How We Can Do Better With the closure of OSAPR, we lost a trusted, wellknown resource actively involved in the Harvard community. While Garber and Merhill purported that the purpose of the merger was to expand resources and increase awareness, the move has instead crippled the progress of sexual assault response and prevention on campus, leaving SHARE to start from nothing. Harvard must re-establish an office fully independent from Title IX to regain the trust of survivors and the campus community alike. At the very least, OGE should provide further clarity and transparency about the separation of its offices and their respective confidentiality levels. SHARE must also designate specific “survivor advocate” positions, in addition to its team of counselors, to guarantee that advocacy for the survivors’ best interest stands at the heart of its work. Finally, the office must restore OSAPR’s community engagement ethos, fostering relationships with student organizations, coordinating advocacy and awareness events, and reestablishing the CAARE peer educator group. Bringing back the annual Take Back the Night and Denim Day events, for instance, will return the crisis of sexual assault to the forefront of the Harvard community’s mind, promoting awareness of sexual assault resources and de-stigmatizing conversations about sexual violence. Killing OSAPR was a mistake. But it does not have to be the last word. By returning to OSAPR’s strengths, Harvard can set itself on a path to fighting the epidemic of sexual assault with the care and urgency it requires.
–Rachael A. Dziaba ’26, a Crimson Editorial editor, is a Social Studies concentrator in Currier House and an organizer for the Harvard Feminist Coalition. Her column runs tri-weekly on Fridays.
METRO
THE HARVARD CRIMSON FEBRUARY 16, 2024
11
CRIME
Increased Theft at Harvard Apartments ‘SELF-POLICING’ Residents at Harvard-owned apartment complex have resorted to “self-policing” amid increased theft. BY SALLY E. EDWARDS AND ASHER J. MONTGOMERY CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
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arvard graduate student Raeesa Bukhary has had so many deliveries stolen from her residence at the Peabody Terrace — a Harvard-owned apartment complex — that she has stopped ordering packages to her home. Instead, she sends them to a friend’s house on another part of campus. Bukhary is one of several students who reported experiencing property thefts at Peabody Terrace. Despite complaints, residents say that the Harvard University Police Department has not adequately addressed the issue. Since Dec. 15, HUPD has received 17 incident reports from Peabody Terrace — including thefts, suspicious activity, and assaults. HUPD spokesperson Steven G. Catalano wrote in an emailed statement to The Crimson that Harvard affiliates should take “precautions to protect their property.” “Although reported crime at Harvard is low, more than 95 percent of it is property crime,” he wrote. “It is important for students, faculty, staff, and visitors to remember that we are located in an open and densely populated setting.” According to multiple residents, the Peabody Terrace WhatsApp group chat is active
weekly with photos of ripped up packages found by the river or in a parking lot, as well as reports of missing Instacart groceries and bicycles. Residents have also reported accounts of suspicious activity and harassment. Bukhary said Harvard graduate students living in Peabody Terrace are left feeling frustrated by the “unacceptable” absence of cameras on the property. Bukhary said her friend’s residence — where she has been sending her packages — has “a security space.” “You need a password and everything to enter into the package room,” she said. “If they have that, then how hard could it be to implement here?” she added. PJ Connors, the Peabody Terrace property manager, wrote in a statement to The Crimson that “residents should call HUPD directly with any immediate safety concerns, or use blue light phones to report suspicious activity, crimes in progress or any emergency situation.” Harvard graduate student Raeesa Bukhary has had so many deliveries stolen from her residence at the Peabody Terrace — a Harvard-owned apartment complex — that she has stopped ordering packages to her home. Instead, she sends them to a friend’s house on another part of campus. Bukhary is one of several students who reported experiencing property thefts at Peabody Terrace. Despite complaints, residents say that the Harvard University Police Department has not adequately addressed the issue. Since Dec. 15, HUPD has re-
Residents at Peabody Terrace, a Harvard-owned apartment complex, alleged the Harvard University Police Department has not done enough to address a pattern of property theft. JINA H. CHOE — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
ceived 17 incident reports from Peabody Terrace — including thefts, suspicious activity, and assaults. HUPD spokesperson Steven G. Catalano wrote in an emailed statement to The Crimson that Harvard affiliates should take “precautions to protect their property.” “Although reported crime at Harvard is low, more than 95 percent of it is property crime,” he wrote. “It is important for students, faculty, staff, and visitors to remember that we are located in an open and densely populated setting.”
According to multiple residents, the Peabody Terrace WhatsApp group chat is active weekly with photos of ripped up packages found by the river or in a parking lot, as well as reports of missing Instacart groceries and bicycles. Residents have also reported accounts of suspicious activity and harassment. Bukhary said Harvard graduate students living in Peabody Terrace are left feeling frustrated by the “unacceptable” absence of cameras on the property. Bukhary said her friend’s res-
Harvard Updates City on Construction and Climate Initiatives in ‘Town Gown’ Report BY MADELINE E. PROCTOR CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
Harvard discussed its developments in Cambridge and Allston, and sustainability efforts during its 27th annual Town Gown report to the Cambridge Planning Board Tuesday evening. Harvard representatives joined spokespeople from Lesley University and MIT to present Town Gown reports, which detail the institutions’ engagement with the city beyond their gates. The phrase “Town Gown” refers to dialogue between academic institutions — symbolized by a graduation gown — and the town, representing Cambridge. Harvard’s report largely focused on the University’s sustainability and climate initiatives. Heather A. Henriksen, Harvard’s chief sustainability officer, said Harvard has already taken
steps toward its goal of fossil fuel neutrality by 2026. “You may see some of our 100 percent electric buses driving the streets of Cambridge,” Henriksen said. Still, Henriksen said Harvard has more steps to take to meet its goals, such as increasing solar power on campus and constructing “fossil-fuel free buildings.” Harvard presenters also discussed in-progress developments across the more than 16 million square feet of Cambridge real estate owned by the University. Alexandra J. Offiong, Harvard’s director of planning services, updated the city on the plans to construct a new building for the Economics department on the plot of land behind the Littauer Center, which currently houses the department. The building was funded by a $100 million donation from Pen-
ny S. Pritzker ’81, the Senior Fellow of the Harvard Corporation — Harvard’s highest governing body. Offiong added that Harvard is “nearing completion of the renovation of 60 Oxford Street,” an existing building for the Harvard Quantum Initiative in Science and Engineering and is currently renovating Harvard Science Center’s teaching labs. Offiong also showcased projects in Allston, including the planned construction of the Enterprise Research Campus and a new performance center for the American Repertory Theater — which will also include 500 beds of housing. Harvard concluded by sharing progress on initiatives to engage Cambridge students. Thomas J. Lucey, Harvard’s director of government and community relations, said partnerships with Cambridge Public
Schools are a priority for Harvard. “Harvard programs are in every single CPS school,” Lucey said. “These programs range from curriculum-based initiatives that benefit all students at various grade levels, to the high school summer school, to internships in Harvard labs, to programs that address achievement gaps.” During the meeting, some Planning Board members advocated for greater collaboration between the three schools and increased engagement with the greater Boston area. “We’re stronger together — the institutions and the city,” said Planning Board member Tom Sieniewicz. “We need each other to make this an even more extraordinary community, and to also help fix the world.” madeline.proctor@thecrimson.com
Harvard presented its 27th annual Town Gown report to the Cambridge Planning Board on Tuesday, updating the city on construction and climate initiatives. MARGARET F. ROSS — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
idence — where she has been sending her packages — has “a security space.” “You need a password and everything to enter into the package room,” she said. “If they have that, then how hard could it be to implement here?” she added. PJ Connors, the Peabody Terrace property manager, wrote in a statement to The Crimson that “residents should call HUPD directly with any immediate safety concerns, or use blue light phones to report suspicious activity, crimes in progress or any
emergency situation.” “What we are doing as a collective community, whoever sees any courier delivery or packages, they just bring it inside and just keep it near the lift,” he said. Despite Peabody Terrace residents’ efforts to remain vigilant without authority support, Verzola said the number of thefts has not decreased. “There are no cameras,” Verzola said. “The police are never there.” sally.edwards@thecrimson.com asher.montgomery@thecrimson.com
Pressure to Address Steward Health Care BY JINA H. CHOE AND JACK R. TRAPANICK CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
Massachusetts Governor Maura T. Healey ’92 is under increasing pressure to address the financial crisis facing Steward Health Care, which operates nine hospitals statewide including the Brighton-based St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center. Healey will speak to the Public Health Council Wednesday morning about the crisis, her spokesperson Karissa Hand wrote in an email, amid mounting questions about whether Steward can find a buyer to assume ownership of some of its hospitals. A Boston Globe investigation last month revealed the health care system was tens of millions behind on rent, making some of its hospitals vulnerable to service reductions or closures. If St. Elizabeth’s were to close, it could have immense ramifications for both Allston’s economy and the health of its residents, said Anna Leslie, executive director of the Allston Brighton Health Collaborative. “Not only is it the largest healthcare provider in the neighborhood, it’s the largest employer in the neighborhood,” Leslie said. In an email to The Crimson, a spokesperson for Boston Mayor Michelle Wu ’07 wrote that city officials are “in contact with the state and unions and are monitoring the situation closely.” Paul Hattis, a former member of the state Attorney General’s Health Policy Commission, said Healey’s administration has several options at its disposal, although at the moment, “the ball seems to be in Steward’s court.” Those options include a court-appointed receivership, inspection of Steward’s hospitals, or helping finance the sale of the hospitals to other regional healthcare groups. The state could also bail out the company, a possibility Healey has publicly dismissed. In a statement on Feb. 2, the Executive Office of Health and Human Services announced they “are conducting daily on-site monitoring visits” at St. Elizabeth’s and two other hospitals to evaluate day-to-day staffing, supplies, and
patient count. EOHHS also said they were working to determine the patient capacity of other health care providers in the state, suggesting the administration is taking steps to prepare for the possibility of hospital closures. On Feb. 2, Steward claimed to have secured enough financing to keep all its Massachusetts hospitals open while it looks for new owners of some of its hospitals. Still, some prominent state lawmakers including House Speaker Ron Mariano, a Quincy Democrat, remain suspicious of the health care giant, which has not released the details of its bridge funding plan. Leslie said the crisis at Steward could have been foreseen well in advance. St. Elizabeth’s had failed to pay $150,000 it owed to the ABHC as part of a non-binding community benefits agreement, Leslie said in an interview Tuesday morning. Later on Tuesday, St. Elizabeth paid the $50,000 it owed the ABHC for 2023, Leslie wrote in an email Tuesday night. “It’s troubling that it got this far,” Leslie said. “There were a lot of warning signs directly from staff, from community partners like us.” A spokesperson for St. Elizabeth’s did not respond to a request for comment. In an email, Caroline Whitehouse, a spokesperson for the EOHHS wrote that Healey’s administration had been in communication with Steward over its finances for months. Hattis said Steward has exhibited a pattern of failing to disclose information about its finances to the state. Steward sued the state Center for Health Information and Analysis in 2016 to prevent the handover of their financial statements. By that point, the health care giant had been fined hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines for refusing to disclose required financial data to the state. In Boston, the City Council will hold a hearing on the Steward crisis on Thursday, Feb. 22, which will include testimony from members of the public. jina.choe@thecrimson.com jack.trapanick@thecrimson.com
ARTS
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THE HARVARD CRIMSON
FEBRUARY 16, 2024
JED PAUL ARTIST PROFILE
ON HOW TO SEE THE CITY FROM (BELOW) THE GROUND UP BY MARIN E. GRAY CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
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ne of Boston’s time-honored pastimes is hating on its own transit system despite being ranked among the top U.S. cities for public transport — at least, according to the city’s most popular TikTok transit influencer, Jed Paul. “I never lived in a place that had a lot of transit until I moved to Boston,” Paul said in a recent interview with The Harvard Crimson. “So it just seemed like a lot of unbridled possibility of being able to go explore an entire city on foot or by train without needing to hop in the car. That’s what really got me into exploring
Boston by train.” But Paul soon realized that Boston’s shared scorn for the shortcomings of the MBTA is also a crucial component of its community — one that he has seamlessly mobilized in his video content. Since moving to Boston several years ago, Paul has amassed over 56,000 followers and counting with his locomotive excursions on his TikTok account @jeddeo1. Now a Boston transit icon, the creator says he is recognized on the street about twice per week by his “small but loyal following.” With his signature deadpan sarcastic affect, Paul narrates his experiences for his eager audience in his most popular series “Adventures with Jed” — or, as he explains, what he does to entertain himself while his wife is away. His itineraries have included taking the commuter rail to the Sonic Drive-In, riding the Blue
Line to its final stop at Wonderland, and even comparing public transportation experiences in international cities he visits to those on the T. The videos celebrate the prosaic Boston experiences and highlight areas more familiar to the resident Bostonian than the hordes of tourists in its hotspots, tapping into the unspoken culture of the Boston community. With humorously sardonic remarks about his underground journeys underscored by the familiar sensory experience of the MBTA’s signature screech, Paul’s videos vocalize frustrations and observations tacitly shared by his local viewers. Once he reaches his destination — often one of Boston’s most seemingly mundane corners — he films only a brief moment of exploration before once again returning to his subterranean commute. After all, it’s his video journeys through niche Boston culture that matter more than the physical destinations. But if you identify as a tourist or are new to the city, never fear — Paul’s content can expert-
ly guide you through Boston’s more highly trafficked areas, too. Take his adventure on the Freedom Trail as an example. “Just think of it as Boston’s very own yellow brick road, if the yellow brick road were falling into disrepair and actually led you away from the city rather than towards it.” The video goes on to sarcastically warn viewers about Boston’s tourist trap pricing, like at the Quincy Market. “For being on the Freedom Trail, that’s not very free,” he said of the $7 ice cream for sale. Paul, once a Boston outsider himself, shared additional insider tips for Boston newcomers with The Crimson: Having a Charlie Card and using the MBTA website’s train tracker are particularly useful hacks when visiting stations without fre-
quent service — or in his words, “most of them.” But Paul’s embrace of MBTA-esque delays and breakdowns, and his broader affinity for trains, began long before his move to the area. “I remember riding the train from Maryland to Connecticut, and I think my earliest memory is actually being stuck on the train and just being right before a tunnel, watching freight trains go past. Most people hate to be stuck on things like that. But I just really enjoyed the journey of it and being on tracks and watching the other trains go by.” Now, he enjoys sharing the journey and his love of trains with a supportive community enabled by today’s unique online connection. “I think that the way social media has evolved on Instagram and TikTok is that you can find a niche community for almost anything you’re interested in. And I’ve been very lucky to find a community of people who like trains and like exploring Boston,” Paul said. From viewers native to the area seeing the city anew to non-Bostonian fans just enjoy-
COURTESY OF RYAN LEE
ing the videos’ dry humor, Paul’s content offers a fresh new celebration of Boston through its underground sites and culture. There’s a lot of Boston that even Paul has yet to explore, but he noted that his own experience of Boston has been meaningfully expanded through his transit side quests. “I think there are a lot of cultural pockets that are a little bit isolated from one another, but the T tends to connect it all,” he said, observing that he wouldn’t have discovered most of Boston without his MBTA adventures and dedicated fans who follow along and suggest ideas for his journeys. “It’s just been very heartwarming to see the response that I get from people around Boston. It’s an indication to me that maybe I’m touching on the right subjects,” he said. marin.gray@thecrimson.com
Social Media’s Latest Trend — And Its Betrayal of Girlhood BY JULIETTE BU CONTRIBUTING WRITER
A strange duality has emerged on social media: Preteens pump out flower-shaped dollops of anti-aging retinol creams, while 20-year-olds tie pink bows in their hair and append “girl” to every sentence. It seems that the trends of femininity on social media today reflect girls’ rejection of their own ages. Gen Alpha rebels against girlhood through their use of products made for much older audiences, while Gen Z longs for the frivolity and innocence of a lost girlhood. There is, however, a common thread between the generation that seeks to be aged and the one that seeks a return to youth. Young girls have always played dress-up, rummaging through their mothers’ clos-
ets and parading around as the adult of their dreams for the afternoon. But as soon as the dresses and shoes come off, they are instantly children again. Gen Alpha marks a stark contrast to this once universal childhood experience. The trend of adult beauty influencers showing their skincare routines in videos has trickled down to young girls through social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram. Rather than a girlish admiration of womanhood, as manifested through temporary dress-up sessions, today’s 10-year-olds mimic the trends they see online, regularly using products made for older women — like retinol creams and makeup — in their everyday routines. The innocent infatuation with womanhood that past generations satisfied through dressup is no longer so temporary and
harmless: Today’s young girls face an age crisis, subject to older influencers advertising new anti-aging regimens. These skincare formulas have been deemed medically unnecessary for kids, both by dermatologists and by the brands that manufacture the products. Childhood innocence has grown obscured, and this obsession with appearances and excessive consumption learned through social media is to blame. The TikTok-fueled age crisis manifests itself differently in Gen Z, however. This generation is inflicted with a seemingly universal longing for childhood, shown by all the recent “girl” trends. Our communal embrace of “girl” — the unapologetic love for simple, childish joys — is comforting. For a long time, patriarchy has shamed women for the things they love, but now, women are proudly rebranding
their shared experiences. The love for walks is reclaimed as “hot girl walks,” and poor financial decisions are accredited to “girl math.” Perhaps this affinity could be considered empowering. But what even caused this social media-driven age crisis? One culprit may be Covid-19. With months or even years of online schooling, even the youngest kids were forced to develop a relationship with computers and the internet in their everyday routine. Combined with the technological reliance of the socalled “iPad generation,” Gen Alpha’s record-high levels of social media usage may make them particularly susceptible to the influence of online trends. At the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, Gen Z was in the crucial developmental stages of middle school, high school, and
early college, disrupting crucial transformative periods for this generation. As a freshman in high school at the time, the return to normalcy by my junior year felt jarring, like I was prematurely shoved into adulthood. Perhaps this longing for girlhood stems from a nostalgic desire for the security and simplicity of the youth so suddenly cut short. The association of women with consumption is nothing new to a patriarchal society: Women are constantly told that to be female is to buy the Bath and Body Works catalog for Millenials, the Stanley Cup for Gen Z, and now, anti-aging skincare for Gen Alpha. As unsettling as it is to see Gen Alpha flocking to Sephora, their actions are a product of the intersection of capitalistic and patriarchal pressures on an entire generation’s
culture. The girlhood trend is no different. Despite the veneer of community it may lend, assigning girlhood to every action trivializes Gen Z, feeding into the patriarchal infantilization of women and dismissal of women’s autonomy. Though appending the word “girl” to any action adds a sense of relatability and recognition, the trend does little to disrupt the systematic disempowerment of women. The larger issue with femininity trends on TikTok is their perpetuation of the female condition in patriarchy. These trends continue the repression of women, failing to inspire empowering views of femininity. The reality is that femininity on social media will never truly be for women: Indulgence in social media is mere consumption in the economy of visibility.
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ARTS
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THE HARVARD CRIMSON
FEBRUARY 16, 2024
JULIA N. DO — CRIMSON DESIGNER
THEATER
Arts List: The Best Love Songs to Come Out of Musical Theater BY RIA S. CUELLAR-KOH CONTRIBUTING WRITER
W
hether it’s “Johanna” from “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” or “No One Else” from “Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812,” love songs are quintessential numbers from the theatrical canon. With its emphasis on melodrama, musical theater as a form is particularly suited to love songs — the inherent suspension of disbelief allowed in a theatrical setting allows for greater expression of interiority. Thus, musical theater houses some of the most iconic and moving love songs of all time. This Valentine’s Day, enjoy some of the tunes listed below! 1. “If I Loved You” from “Carousel” Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s work brims with phenomenal love songs — but “If I Loved You” may be their most charming and moving number. “If I Loved You” spans a coy talk between millworker Julie Jordan and carousel barker Billy Bigelow as their connection blossoms. The song starts off as playful and flirtatious, but the heart of the song begins when the pair can’t help but describe how they would act if they really did love each other, all the while denying that they do. A swelling string section as well as a soaring vocal line perfectly complement their descriptions of lovesickness. Jessie
Mueller and Joshua Henry’s stellar vocal performances enhance an already wonderful number that will leave you swooning. 2. “Till There Was You” from “The Music Man” Artists from “The Beatles” to Marvin Gaye have tipped their hats to “The Music Man” with covers of “Till There Was You.” That being said, a song only reaches that kind of beloved status for a reason. The song centers around the relationship of Marian, an Iowan librarian, and Harold Hill, a con man posing as a music professor. When Marian admits that Harold’s love allowed her to see the wonders of the world, she does so with lyrics that have now become iconic. Marian’s angelic voice flies through elegant lines such as “There were bells on the hill / But I never heard them ringing / No, I never heard them at all / Till there was you.” In a lovely orchestral touch, brass instruments only join the lush violins when Harold begins to sing. 3. “Maria” from “West Side Story” “West Side Story” captures Tony’s tidal wave of romantic infatuation with “Maria.” Amidst brewing racial tension between the two rival gangs, the Jets and the Sharks, Tony’s adoration for Maria sings with the magic of first love. The song begins hauntingly, with unseen voices echoing Maria’s name, before swelling and expanding as Tony cannot help but burst into song. Every time Tony repeats “Maria” — a whop-
ping 29 times throughout this ballad — the name grows in meaning. All that said, the most touching element of the song remains Tony’s sheer amazement and reverence as he says Maria’s name, again and again and again. 4. “Changing My Major” from “Fun Home” The musical “Fun Home” is based on Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir “Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic,” which covers Bechdel’s progression into adulthood with specific focus on her sexuality and her relationship with her secretly queer father, Bruce Bechdel. True to its source material, the “Fun Home” musical balances humor and sorrow with deftness. Bechdel sings “Changing My Major” in the afterglow of her first sexual experience with Joan. This heartwarming song captures the youthful buoyancy and awkwardness with witty comparisons of sex to college. Despite the lyrics’ humor, the song is still heartbreaking as Bechdel admits that she thought her queerness would prevent her from ever experiencing such bliss. Watching her shed her insecurities over the course of “Changing My Major” makes you fall in love with Alison as she professes her love for Joan. 5. “I’ll Cover You” from “Rent” While many love songs in theater are grand and declaratory, “I’ll Cover You” decidedly is not. While Tom and Angel admit their strong affections to each other in “I’ll Cover You,” the tune is smooth and
upbeat, while the lyrics are gentle and intimate. Jonathan Larson’s depiction of bohemian artists during the AIDS crisis captures the larger-than-life adventures of those living on the fringes of society. The refreshing optimism of the music reflects the beliefs that not only Tom and Angel, but the show as a whole, hold: That love exists in the mundane, and mutual kindness can replace material goods. Tom and Angel give each other all that they have — devotion and generosity — and it is more than enough. 6. “Out of Your Head” from “A Bronx Tale” “Out of Your Head” uses the peppy sound of 1960s doo-wop to create an extremely catchy duet. Ne’er-do-well Calogero and selfpossessed Jane trade verses about admiring each other from afar, lamenting the fact that their different circumstances would never allow them to be together. Composer Alan Menken — no stranger to the doo-wop sound after his work on the acclaimed “Little Shop of Horrors” — fires on all cylinders to create a soundtrack perfect for either dancing or pining after a stranger. When the song slows down and twists its chorus — “Girls like her don’t happen to guys like me” — into a defeat, it manages to tug at your heartstrings. Calogero’s quiet desperation in these final moments feels both sorrowful yet hopeful. 7. “All I’ve Ever Known” from “Hadestown”
“Hadestown” has beaten the odds to become a contemporary favorite. A Greek myth transformed to take place in a Great Depression-era factory town seems an unlikely candidate for a smash-hit musical — and yet it took home a mighty eight Tony Awards in 2019. Anaïs Mitchell’s fabulous blues and folk score imbues the story with authenticity while setting and story evoke fantasy. “All I’ve Ever Known” serves as a kind of reverse “Till There Was You,” as Eurydice admits to Orpheus that knowing him makes her preceding life pale in comparison. The gentle and soothing instrumental plucking compliments the newfound gentleness Orpheus brings to Eurydice’s life. 8. “Answer Me” from “The Band’s Visit”
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Few musicals have the confidence to give a ravishing finale number to an unnamed bit character, but “The Band’s Visit” does so with ease. When Dina and Tewfiq, the main characters of the show, first meet “Telephone Guy,” a man who waits by the town’s only payphone hoping his girlfriend will call him, he seems to be nothing more than a humorous bit of set dressing. Yet when the final song begins, it is “Telephone Guy” who sings of his longing. Eventually the entire town joins in, expressing their yearning in one climactic moment. Longing for human companionship brings this disparate community together, and as a treat, the phone finally rings for “Telephone Guy.”
Artist Profile: The Local Weatherman Band’s Creative Flame BY ASHA M. KHURANA CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
Local Weatherman is at a magical stage for a music artist. Just off of the tail of their threeshow tour around the Northeast, frontman Fritz Ortman spoke in an interview with The Harvard Crimson. Ortman reminisced on the shows from his home in New York City, riding the energy wave from the previous weekend. “It definitely is inspiring how we make music and what we want to get out of our live shows,” Ortman said. “There was a while where some of the songs were a low-key
one after low-key one,” he said. “I like going to shows and being at shows where it’s high-energy,” he added. This desire is shaped by Ortman’s childhood, soundtracked by his dad’s favorite bands such as Black Flag and Minor Threat. Even before his teenage years, Ortman was surrounded by the greats of punk and hardcore music. “The thing that I love the most about that kind of music is going to those shows,” he said. “And having people like jumping off stage and crazy stuff.” An ideal Local Weatherman show for Ortman would be full of that electric sincerity, a mutual exchange of sweat from band
to crowd. This shapes the vision for Local Weatherman’s newest work. “I feel like the next recording that we do is going to slot nicely into how we play those songs live now,” Ortman said. “The cohesive idea would be, I would just want to make more songs that are fun to play live, and are fast and get people involved in moving.” As Ortman writes this new, high-energy music, his lyrical inspiration has developed as a product of the lifestyle changes that occur between adolescence and young adulthood. “What I was going through at the time was going to college and being on my own and being an adult for the first time,” he said.
“So a lot of the songs reference being an adult, and employment or whatever. And now my life is sick and I sell printers, so that all worked out.” In all seriousness, Ortman’s day-to-day life as a creative in New York City’s lively indie rock scene does serve as inspiration for his writing. “There are so many bands in New York right now that are doing all sorts of cool stuff. And I feel like that is new out of when everyone was cooped up for a year and a half. People came out of that and wanted to play loud guitar again,” Ortman said. “And so there are a lot of great bands right now.” Ortman emphasizes the vitality of physical proximity to an art-
ist’s creative spark. For him, that’s home. “I live in a neighborhood where I pass by people I know all the time. So it is kind of just like being on a campus,” he said. “I’m going to do my thing. You’re going to do your thing. I’ll see you in, like, two days.” He points out that college is a space ripe for this condition of inspiration. Local Weatherman’s recent show in Burlington, Vermont — home to the University of Vermont — was packed with college students, inspiring Ortman’s interest in the creative spark that thrives in a college sphere. Ortman advises college students to take advantage of this magical time in life.
“Find a place on campus where you can have shows and develop your own scene,” he said. “Just build a community of people who are into music and supporting [bands], and going to shows, and going out in the city and checking out what bands are playing.” Local Weatherman wants fresh new bands to listen to and perform with, and he knows young people are the ones to ask. The next crowd that’s lucky enough to see Local Weatherman live should bask in the energy knowing that these shows are just what they’ve been working towards. asha.khurana@thecrimson.com
FIFTEEN MINUTES
THE HARVARD CRIMSON FEBRUARY 16, 2024
D
aniel E. Lieberman is the chair of the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology and professor of biological sciences. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
FM: You’re a biological anthropologist. Those words — biology and anthropology — are not usually seen together. Can you describe the methods of your field? DEL: Biological anthropology, which at Harvard we call human evolutionary biology, is just really the study of human biology, at every level, from genes all the way up to environments, but we use an evolutionary lens to think about how and why humans are the way we are. Here at Harvard and in my lab, we take a body-focused approach. We’re interested in what were the major transitions that occurred in human evolution that made us the way we are.
Q&A:
DANIEL E. LIEBERMAN ON EXTENDING THE HUMAN ‘HEALTHSPAN’ THE BIOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGIST sat down with Fifteen Minutes to discuss exercise and longevity. “Humans weren’t designed, we weren’t engineered — we evolved,” he says. “If you want to understand why we are the way we are, you have to include that evolutionary history as part of your perspecCRIMSON MAGAZINE ASSOCIATE EDITOR
FM: Is that a marathon jacket behind you? DEL: Yes, I’ve actually run, I believe, 26 marathons. So yes, I enjoy running. FM: What’s the best running route in Cambridge?
FM: You emphasize exercise and living like our ancestors, but often, research in the field of aging and longevity can get tied to compounds like human growth hormone, testosterone, vitamins and metformin. Why does the innocent quest for a long and healthy life so easily get ensnared by pill-peddlers and quacks?
DEL: Well, that’s the fun of this field, right? You can’t just do an experiment and replicate human evolution in the lab. We have to combine many different lines of evidence to test hypotheses. We use the fossil record. Of course, you can make hypotheses about how to interpret the fossil record and what happened in the fossil record. We look at genetic evidence, we look at physiological evidence, we do experiments in the lab on people’s biomechanics and physiology and test models, we look at epidemiological data on health. When you combine evolutionary theory and combine different kinds of evolutionary data, you can test hypotheses in a very comprehensive way.
JSG: As long as people have been trying to prolong their life, there have been quacks. Quackery has evolved along with science. Now instead of selling snake oil, we sell all kinds of pharmaceuticals, pills and high tech stuff, often with the promise that they’ll help extend people’s life, but often with very little evidence. Today, so much of our medical system, including efforts to prolong life, are about treating symptoms rather than preventing problems from happening in the first place. We pay insufficient attention to prevention, and prevention is really about how you live your life, how you use your body, what you eat, how you exercise, how you deal with stress. Those are never going to be solved by taking a pill.
FM: The Human Evolutionary Biology department holds really strong to the idea that, “nothing in biology makes sense, except in the light of evolution.” Can you tell me about the history of this quote, and the ideas that it captures?
FM: In 2009, you were awarded the Ig Nobel Prize in Physics, which is a parody of the Nobel Prizes, for your paper titled “Fetal Load and the Evolution of Lumbar Lordosis in Bipedal Hominins” published in Nature. The prize purports to honor research that first makes you laugh, and then makes you think. Your research was picked up by the prize committee for analytically determining why pregnant women don’t just tip over. What was your initial reaction when you heard you were selected for the prize?
DEL: That quote was written by a very famous biologist named Theodosius Dobzhansky. It was in an essay to high school teachers — actually, it was the title of the essay. The basic argument that he articulated beautifully in that essay — it was not a new idea, but he articulated better than I think anybody had before — is that humans weren’t designed, we weren’t engineered. We evolved. If you want to understand why we are the way we are, you have to include that evolutionary history as part of your perspective.
DEL: I was delighted because I got to have my cake and eat it too. It was a very serious paper in Nature, but also it was publicized by some newspapers as why pregnant women don’t topple over, which I thought was very funny. And I guess that that caught the attention of the Ig Nobel prize committee, and I was very honored to accept it.
FM: You’ve had the opportunity to travel around the world for your research, often in search of fossils and populations living so-called ‘ancient’ lifestyles. What’s your favorite place you’ve been to, and why?
FM: This semester, you’re teaching Human Evolution and Human Health, part of the college’s Gen Ed program. What would students outside of biology concentrations find com-
it kept her healthy. She kept doing it. She’s not a spring chicken anymore but every day she trudges on her treadmill and stays active, and it’s really helped her. She’s been a good role model for how being an active grandparent really does help keep you young.
DEL: I’ve been running the Charles River ever since I was a freshman. I will never get bored running along the Charles. But you gotta do some hills occasionally — Charles is flat — so I also like to run up from Cambridge. Often, I go down to Newton to run Heartbreak Hill, or sometimes I go to Medford or Somerville. Boston and Cambridge are great places to run.
BY DINA R. ZELDIN
FM: I notice a lot of skulls decorating your office. How do you test a hypothesis made from studying fossils and human remains?
DEL: I’ve been very lucky to have traveled to a lot of really amazing places to see how people use their bodies and live their lives in different cultures and environments. I don’t have a favorite place, but I will say that one of the most thrilling times in my life was when I spent some time just south of the equator with some hunter-gatherers, came back to Cambridge, and then, just a month later, I went on a trip with some Inuit hunters in Northern Greenland, hunting musk oxen. I wasn’t hunting — they were hunting. I was accompanying them on sled dogs in minus 30. So I went from hunter gatherers in Africa, in the hot tropics — almost overnight — to 74 degrees north of the equator, in ice and snow. The contrast was just thrilling.
15
JULIAN J. GIORDANO — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
pelling about the ideas brought in the course? DEL: Health is important, and we, right now, are facing a growing health crisis of obesity and all kinds of diseases that are related and associated with obesity. All kinds of chronic non-infectious diseases are on the rise, like Type 2 Diabetes, Alzheimer’s, heart disease, and various kinds of cancer. We spend such an enormous amount of time and money in our culture today treating those diseases, but we don’t think that much about how to prevent them. To prevent them requires an evolutionary perspective, because these are novel diseases that until recently used to be much more rare. Understanding why we are vulnerable to these diseases provides really important clues to how to prevent them and, in some cases, treat them.
FM: On the topic of chronic disease prevention, one concept you talk about in your work is the active grandparent hypothesis. Can you explain what the theory entails and how you’ve seen it practiced in your own family?
Health is important, and we, right now, are facing a growing health crisis of obesity and all kinds of diseases that are related. DEL: The active grandparent hypothesis is the idea that humans evolved to live to be grandparents. We’re one of
the few species that does that. If you look in human evolutionary history, as humans age, we didn’t become less active, we actually stayed very active. Hunter-gatherer grandparents spend hours every day hunting, gathering, getting food for their children and their grandchildren, doing all kinds of tasks that involve physical activity. There was no retirement, there were no weekends, there were no holidays. That’s what people did every day, for their whole lives, until they died. I was lucky that my parents were pretty physically active. They weren’t into sports, but they loved hiking and cross-country skiing. We spent summers hiking in various places. I grew up thinking it was normal to be physically active. My mother also was a pioneer in the women’s running movement. She started running when she was a junior faculty at the University of Connecticut to liberate the women’s gym. She was a lifelong runner and
FM: Do you think that humor has a role in popularizing scientific discoveries? DEL: I think humor relaxes people. It helps people recognize that not everything has to be serious all the time, but even things that are unserious can still have serious implications. Humor is an underused rhetorical device in the scientific world. dina.zeldin@thecrimson.com
FM Fifteen Minutes is the magazine of The Harvard Crimson. To read the full interview and other longform pieces, visit THECRIMSON.COM/ MAGAZINE
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THE HARVARD CRIMSON
SPORTS
FEBURARY 16, 2024
FOOTBALL
New Football Coach Arrives THE SEARCH for a new Harvard Football Head Coach has ended, with former Rutgers assistant Andrew Aurich being officially introduced on Thursday afternoon. BY GRIFFIN WONG CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
O
n Feb. 8, it was revealed that Andrew Aurich — a former offensive lineman at Princeton who most recently served as the tight ends coach at Rutgers — would become the fifth head coach to lead the program since the Ivy League introduced conference play in 1956. The hiring was met with mixed reactions from current and former players, with many citing Aurich’s lack of high-level coaching experience. Despite spending one season as a defensive assistant at the National Football League (NFL) level with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2012, Aurich has spent just one season as a coordinator. In that season, he directed the Princeton offense to 32.2 points per contest, and the Tigers ultimately finished 8-2, losing the Ivy League title to Dartmouth and Yale by a single game. In an introductory press conference on Thursday, Aurich insisted his inexperience wouldn’t be an issue. Andrew Aurich was officially introduced as Harvard Football’s Head Coach on Thursday afternoon. ADDISON Y. LIU — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER “Even though I haven’t been a head football coach, I’ve done a ton of work that leaves me ready to be a successful head football coach,” he said. That work began during his childhood in St. Paul, Minn., as the youngest of four sons of a football coach and teacher. Being brought up around the game of football exposed him to the tenacity required to succeed as a player. “I had some older brothers who challenged me throughout my years, and because of that, it definitely toughened me up and made me a better person,” he recalled. “Even though I was a little kid, I could see the impact my dad was having on his players, and it stuck with me.” Andrew Aurich addresses the audience at his introductory news conferHarvard College Dean Khurana (right) looks on from the audience. ADDIAs an offensive lineman at ence. ADDISON Y. LIU — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER SON Y. LIU — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER Princeton from 2002 to 2005, After another seven seasons leaving our program have gotrunning backs coach at Princeand learn more football.” Aurich quickly realized that coaching in various roles for the ta be ready to get out in the real ton in 2011. His journey took him first to coaching was his passion, takJust six years after graduating Tigers and a return to Rutgers world and be successful.” his high school alma mater, Coning inspiration from Tigers head At Harvard, Murphy built a from Princeton, he had secured to work with Schiano for a furcordia Academy, before joining coach Bob Surace. Despite an inia foothold in the NFL as a defen- ther four years, Aurich is final- program characterized by a rethe collegiate ranks in 2007 as the tial plan to pursue a medical casive assistant for the Buccaneers, ly where he wants to be. He has nowned team culture that fostight ends coach at Division-III Alreer, he ultimately decided that which would have been a dream bold plans for a program that, af- tered resilience, discipline, and bright College, where he served he didn’t love medicine the way for several aspiring coaches. It ter thirty years under the winnin- a unified locker room. Aurich for two years and helped the Lions he loved football. gest head coach in Ivy League his- seemed intent on building off of wasn’t Aurich’s. to a Middle Atlantic Conference ti“Being around my coaches “It was fun, but quickly, I re- tory and owner of ten conference Murphy’s legacy, emphasizing tle in his second season. and realizing, ‘I love football,’” alized that that’s not why I got titles, will surely have high expec- the importance of helping playThe next four years after that the new head coach said, deers develop in their roles as stuinto coaching,” Aurich said of his tations. saw him steadily climb the ranks scribing the moment he knew he “We gotta be competing for dents, football players, members stint with the Buccaneers. “It’s of the sport’s coaching tree, movwanted to be a college football definitely a business. And it also a championship,” he said when of the Harvard community, and ing from a player development coach. “I would come out to the solidified in my mind, I love be- asked what would constitute a citizens of the broader world afcoach at Rutgers in 2009 to a defootball facility in the offseason ing around Ivy League student successful first season with the ter graduation. fensive assistant for the Scarlet and hang out with my [offensive “Culture helps you win Crimson. “And the guys who are athletes.” Knights the following year to the line] coach and watch extra tape
games,” he said, echoing a sentiment frequently used by his predecessor. “Talent can only take you so far. So you need to develop a culture that everybody understands, and [athletic director Erin McDermott] mentioned it, but we’re going to be a group of people that sacrifice, that are unselfish.” On the field, Crimson offenses under Murphy were often anchored by prolific tight ends — including Kyle Juszczyk ’13, who, on Sunday, became the first former Harvard player to appear in two different Super Bowls — and under Aurich, that may not change. Murphy served in a dual role as the tight ends coach throughout his career, and the group is also the unit with which Aurich has the most experience, having worked with the tight ends for two years at Allbright, three years at Princeton, and his most recent season at Rutgers. Another staple of Murphy teams was a dominant rush defense, as the Crimson allowed the fewest rushing yards to opposing players in 2021 and ranked seventh in the same category a season later. This stout performance was, in part, due to defensive coordinator Scott Larkee ’99, who, along with quarterbacks coach Joel Lamb ’93, was a finalist for the head coaching job. It was unclear in the aftermath of the hiring whether Larkee or Lamb would return in the fall. When reached by The Crimson, Larkee declined to comment and Lamb did not reply. Aurich, in his press conference, said he’ll decide whether or not to retain them. Whether or not Larkee and Lamb join him on the sideline when the 2024 season kicks off on Sept. 21 against Stetson, Aurich committed to a philosophy of aggressive play on both sides of the ball. On the field, he plans to emphasize maximizing Harvard’s turnover margin, executing schemes, and being relentless in attacking opponents. “To me, offense or defense, you have to allow them to play fast because they’re confident in what they’re doing,” he said. “The way I look at it, we have a lot of talent here, and we should continue to have a lot of talent, so we’re going to put them in a position to show that talent by letting them be really, really aggressive with what they’re doing.” In his first few days with the program, Aurich has already gotten started on the task of getting to know his team and helping to build a cohesive locker room. “Had a great team meeting with them yesterday,” he said. “Learned a ton about them. It was exactly how I thought it would go. They are serious guys, very engaged, excited to get started, and then I went to watch them work out this morning, and it was the same thing.” “When I said, ‘Why Harvard?’ after last night’s meeting, and this morning seeing them work out, I’m even more excited,” he added. “They are exactly who I thought they would be when I was going through this process.” griffin.wong@thecrimson.com
THC
GAMES TO WATCH THIS WEEK FRI 2/16
FRI 2/16
SAT 2/17
SUN 2/18
SUN 2/18
Wrestling VS. Columbia 3:00 pm
Women’s Hockey VS. No. 7 St. Lawrence 6:00 pm
Women’s Water Polo VS. Princeton 11:00 am
Women’s Squash VS. No. 10 Drexel 2:00 pm
Men’s Lacrosse VS. Providence 3:30 pm
Women’s Basketball VS. Cornell 6:00 pm, Lavietes Pavilion
Men’s Tennis VS. Columbia 6:30 pm
Women’s Lacrosse VS. Colgate 12:00 pm, Colgate University
Women’s Hockey VS. No. 3 Clarkson 3:00 pm
Men’s Basketball VS. Columbia 6:00 pm
Read more at THECRIMSON.COM
THE HARVARD CRIMSON
SPORTS
FEBRUARY 16, 2024
17
MEN’S HOCKEY
A Beanpot Heartbreak, Again DIFFICULT LOSS. The Crimson failed to overcome Boston College in the beanpot consolation round on Monday. BY NATE M. BOLAN AND OWEN BUTLER CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
T
e Harvard men’s ice h hockey team lost 5-0 to the No. 1 Boston College Eagles (205-1, 13-3-1 HE) in the consolation round of the 71st Beanpot Tournament held at TD Garden. After falling short to the reigning champions, Northeastern, in a 3-2 overtime nailbiter, the Crimson was overpowered by the Eagles in Monday’s matinee, a game that at times looked uncompetitive. The team has struggled offensively throughout the season, and has been unable to generate shots on the offensive end of the ice. Tonight’s game was no exception, with the Crimson only finding 19 shots on goal to Boston College’s 39. The Eagles totaled 78 shots on the evening, with Harvard only tallying 38. Even with numerous offensive opportunities, the first coming from an early infraction from Boston College with a hit from behind against Harvard at 17:32 in the first period, the Crimson was unable to find the back of the net. The power play struggled to generate offense through 90 seconds of play, and when BC found the puck, almost capitalized on a Crimson defensive breakdown that resulted in an undefended shot from the Eagles barely missing the net. Play throughout the first period was level offensively, with
Harvard men’s ice hockey players watching the Beanpot’s first round game against Northeastern on February 5. NIKA IMAMBERDIEVA — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
both teams holding the opposing offense dry. Mullahy was key during the first 20 minutes, making another strong save as a Boston College skater outpaced one of Harvard’s d e -
fenders for a cross-ice pass to freshman forward Will Smith, his shot attempt bouncing off Mullahy’s right chest before being covered for the whistle. “[T]he old adage is you need your goalie to be your best penalty killer,” said Harvard Head Coach Ted Donato, “and I think that was certainly the
Matthew Coronato on the ice against Northeastern during the 2023 Beanpot.
case tonight.” The next period commenced with fiery play, beginning with an unsuccessful 3-on-2 opportunity for Harvard led by sophomore forward Marek Hejduk that resulted in the Eagles freshman goaltender Jan Korec stuffing the puck. The momentum from the breakaway was quickly halted after junior defenseman Ian Moore received Harvard’s first penalty for tripping. Boston College’s power play yielded just a single notable attempt, but the Eagles were unable to draw first blood, the puck flying behind the back of Harvard’s Mullahy and knocking off the opposite pipe. At an even 8:00 remaining in the period, Boston College netted its first goal in a 5-on-5. The play was set up with a shot from the left circle that appeared to slide through the legs of Mullahy, but didn’t squeak not over the line. Harvard’s netminder lost track of the puck in the fray, and it was promptly shoved in by a backup Eagles player. Moore would again be called for a penalty at 14:22, this time for holding. And again, no goals would result. BC would capitalize two more times in the final minute of the period. The Eagles’s first opportunity came from a pass
at the left circle across into the slot where sophomore forward Oskar Jellvik snapped the puck in on a one-timer beating Mullahy on the glove side. Just 16 seconds later, the puck would be scraped out of a scrum on the boards and taken behind the Harvard net. Before the Boston College player carried it around fully, he chipped it out in front for another one-timer, this time by first-year forward Ryan Leonard. Harvard sophomore netminder Aku Koskenvuo would start for the team in the final period. “We switched goalies in the third really to give Koskenvuo an opportunity to play in the Garden, with Derek [Mullahy] being a senior,” Donato said. “But … I thought [Mullahy] gave us a chance through the first 35 minutes of the game.” Despite strong play through the first eight minutes, Koskenvuo fell short of stopping BC’s offensive onslaught. A long carry into the Eagles’s offensive zone from senior defenseman Eamon Powell was wristed in from the right circle and across to the left side of the net. Powell went coast-to-coast on the attempt after fielding the puck from behind his own net. Shortly after the bullet from Powell, Moore served time for his third penalty, which also
marked the team’s third, for interference. In speaking after the game about the strength of the power kill, Harvard Head Coach Donato first praised the BC attack. “These guys are really highend offensive players, whether it’s Gauthier, or Perreault, or Smith, Leonard, Powell does a great job up top.” Boston College did not quiet on the offensive end, its power play remaining consistently lethal, with the attacking squad firing numerous shots on goal. Koskenvuo was able to guard his net from BC’s onslaught, remaining strong between the posts. Shortly after the power play surge, Boston College again hit paydirt in the final five minutes. The Eagles’s Smith would finally convert a shot attempt, scoring on a sharp forehand-backhand deke in front of Koskenvuo for the fifth and final goal of the game. The Crimson return to regular season play with a Friday-Saturday doubleheader against ECAC-ranked No. 6 St. Lawrence University and No. 4 Clarkson University. Both games begin at 7:00 p.m. EST and can be streamed on ESPN+. nathan.bolan@thecrimson.com fowen.butler@thecrimson.com
DYLAN J. GOODMAN — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
MEN’S BASKETBALL
Mack Carries Harvard to Victory BY ALEXANDER K. BELL CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
T
r aveling Dartmouth (5-15, 1-6 Ivy) fans hoping for an upset at Lavietes on Saturday afternoon might have felt a sense of optimism about the prospect of earning their second Ivy League win with the Big Green leading 14-13 against Harvard (128, 3-4 Ivy) eight minutes into the first half. The Crimson, however, had other ideas and four minutes later capped off a 14-2 run to secure a 27-16 advantage that they would lead to a 77-59 victory. Harvard built upon its first quarter momentum, and used its 41-28 halftime edge to establish dominance enroute to its decisive victory. The Crimson boasted depth on the offense, with six of its players tallying eight or more points, including four in double digits. The onslaught was led by first-year guard Malik Mack who dished out five assists in addition to his 18 points.
The Ivy League conference office announced Monday that Mack had been selected for Ivy Rookie of the Week honors for the eighth time this season, tying a league record held by three former student athletes (Michael Jordan: Penn, 1996-97, Adam Gore: Cornell, 2005-06, and Evan Boudreaux: Dartmouth, 2015-16). With four weekends and seven Ivy games left to play in the regular season, Mack has the chance to make the record his alone. “We had great balance out of our guys,” head coach Tommy Amaker said. “We got different contributions from a lot of different areas. The word ‘balance’ is critical. We had that this afternoon from so many different guys.” Harvard had a lot to smile about after the game. It out-rebounded Dartmouth 34-27 and limited the Big Green to just five offensive rebounds, an area that has consistently proved problematic for the Crimson this season. “We haven’t been great with keeping people off the offensive
glass,” said Amaker. “That’s an area that we needed to do better in and we did. We didn’t give up many offensive rebounds.” The Crimson have also been hurt this season by poor three point shooting. Against the Big Green, however, both Mack and junior guard Louis Lesmond knocked down four three pointers. First year forward Thomas Batties II added two more as Harvard hit at least ten three-pointers in a game for the second time in the Ivy League this season on 47.6% threepoint shooting. “It means a lot,” Lesmond said after the game. “In the Ivy League every single game counts, there’s no easy game, and it’s always good to have a good team win at home in front of our people. It sets us up for the next week.” After Saturday’s win, the Crimson sits tied for fourth place in the Ivy League with Columbia (128, 3-4 Ivy). The squad sits squarely behind Princeton (17-3, 5-2 Ivy), Cornell (17-4, 6-1 Ivy), and Yale (166, 7-0 Ivy). Yale narrowly defeated
WEEKLY SCORES RECAP WOMEN’S
TENNIS VS. DARTMOUTH
W, 4-0
ICE HOCKEY VS. YALE
L, 0-3
FENCING VS. BROWN
W, 17-10
TENNIS VS. CORNELL
W, 4-0
MEN’S
A Harvard men’s basketball player shooting the ball in a game on January 6, at Brown. ZING GEE — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
Cornell 80-78 on Saturday night to level its record to 7-0, securing its spot as the sole first place team in the league. Harvard will hit the road this weekend for crucial rematches against Cornell (5-14, 1-5 Ivy) on
Friday at 6:00 p.m. EST, and then at fourth-placed rivals Columbia on Saturday, at 6:00 p.m. EST. Both games will be broadcasted on ESPN+. alexander.bell@thecrimson.com
TENNIS VS. LOUISVILLE
W, 4-3
FENCING VS. YALE
W, 16-11
VOLLEYBALL VS. LMU
W, 3-2
BASKETBALL VS. DARTMOUTH
W, 77-59
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