The Harvard Crimson - Volume CL, No. 26

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THE HARVARD CRIMSON THE UNIVERSITY DAILY, EST. 1873

|

VOLUME CL, NO. 26

PSYCHEDELICS

LABOR

| CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

HARVARD YARD

MUSIC

Student Groups Mourn Palestinian Children in Vigil

Daniel Caesar Concert Shows Off Singer’s Range

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| FRIDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2023

Undergrads Unionize

Harvard To Launch Study of Psychedelics

UNIONIZATION. Harvard undergraduate workers voted to form a union by a landslide 153-1 margin Wednesday. The unionization effort follows a series of undergrad union campaigns around the country as workers seek higher wages and greater employment stability. SEE PAGE 6

HIGHER ED. Harvard will launch a new interdisciplinary program aimed at studying the social and cultural dimensions of psychedlic drugs, the University announced last week, following a $16M donation. SEE PAGE 8

EDITORIAL

A Gold Star for Goldin, None Yet for Economics ADVANCING THE FIELD. After Claudia D. Goldin won the Nobel Prize, it’s the perfect moment for Harvard to follow her lead and champion diversifying Economics for the rest of academia. SEE PAGE 10

ELIAS J. SCHISGALL — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

TASK FORCE

Harvard Creates Task Force for Doxxed Students Amid Backlash Over Israel Statement BY MICHELLE N. AMPONSAH CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

ICE HOCKEY

No. 17 Men’s Hockey Hits the Ice at Dartmouth BREAKING THE ICE. Harvard’s men’s ice hockey team will hit the ice against Dartmouth this Friday after a season in which they made the Beanpot title game but could not win the NCAA. SEE PAGE 16

­H

arvard will establish a task force to support students experiencing doxxing, harassment, and online security issues following backlash against students allegedly affiliated with a statement that held Israel “entirely responsible” for violence in the Israel-Hamas conflict. The new task force will be in operation until Nov. 3, at which point the task force will reassess its efforts to ensure that its work meets student needs, according to an email obtained by The Crimson. The message, dated Tuesday, was sent to doxxed students by Dean of Students Thomas Dunne. “We are truly grateful for all the tre-

HOTLINE

AND FRANCESCO EFREM BONETTI CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

EDUCATION

BILL PROPOSED. A bill before the Massachusetts legislature would grant teachers the right to strike amid a contract standoff between Cambridge’s teacher’s union and the public school district. SEE PAGE 11

darity Committee. “Today’s events did not occur in a vacuum,” the PSC’s statement reads. “For the last two decades, millions of Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to live in an open-air prison. Israeli officials promise to ‘open the gates of hell,’ and the massacres in Gaza have already commenced.” In the weeks that followed, students have faced doxxing attacks on websites, social media, and a billboard truck displaying group members’ names and faces and describing them as “Harvard’s Leading Antisemites.” Even as the PSC moved to state that the group “staunchly opposes” violence against all civilians, at least 10 student groups have since withdrawn their endorsements from the statement. According to the email, the DSO will lead the task force, alongside Harvard

University Information Technology, the Harvard University Police Department, Counseling and Mental Health Service, the Office of General Counsel, the Mignone Center for Career Success, the Office of Undergraduate Research and Fellowships, and the Office of Undergraduate Education. The University had begun providing doxxed students with resources prior to the creation of a formal task force. An HUIT document dated Oct. 20 provides guidance on requesting for false statements, online harassment, and personal information to be taken down. The guide also advises those doxxed to consider disabling social media accounts and to block, mute, or ignore attackers. HUIT also allows Harvard affiliates to

SEE PAGE 4

RILEY GAINES

Harvard Junior Starts Riley Gaines Event Israel-Palestine Hotline Draws Controversy BY MEGAN S. DEGENHARDT

Teachers Seek Right to Strike

mendous work that students have put forth in supporting each other through this most difficult time, and we appreciate the collaborative spirit in which students, faculty, and staff have come together to repel this repugnant assault on our community,” Dunne wrote. Aside from serving as a single point of contact, the task force will communicate proactively with students to share available resources, ensure the coordination of services, hear student concerns and suggestions, and communicate with residential staff and other College administrators. The formation of the task force comes more than two weeks after more than 30 student organizations drew national backlash for signing onto the controversial statement, which was penned by the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Soli-

Following the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas, Havard junior Shira Z. Hoffer ’25 is launching a text hotline service for information on the Israel-Palestine conflict. The effort has already picked up 20 volunteers on Harvard’s campus and around the world and aims to launch formally in the next two weeks. The hotline will provide nonpartisan information aimed at “promoting dialogue for peace” and countering hate, according to its website. Hoffer said she first had the idea for an Israel-Palestine information hotline after forwarding an Oct. 11 statement by University President Claudine Gay about the conflict to her House’s mailing list. At the end of the email, Hoffer added her contact information as an open offer for conversation.

“I have this perhaps naive, but really powerful belief that conversation across difference can change the world,” Hoffer said. Hoffer said she initially did not expect anyone to reach out to her, but when she received several responses, she thought, “maybe there is interest in making this a broader initiative.” Nicolas G. Pantelick ’24, a Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and Government joint concentrator, said he learned about the initiative from Hoffer and decided to get involved as a volunteer after studying the Israel-Palestine conflict for the past six years. “I think the hotline is mostly aimed at those who are seeking to learn more about what’s going on, and maybe even cutting through the noise,” he said. Pantelick — who along with Hoffer, is a fellow with the Safra Center for Ethics’ Intercollegiate Civil Disagreement

SEE PAGE 4

BY PATON D. ROBERTS AND SOPHIA C. SCOTT CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

Riley Gaines, a swimmer who has advocated against the participation of transgender women in women’s sports, drew criticism from dozens of demonstrators during her speaker event on campus Thursday evening. Gaines was invited to campus by Harvard’s Network of Enlightened Women, a conservative women’s club. But students demonstrated against the event — held in Boylston Hall — by throwing what they described as a “Big Trans Party” at its entrance. Groups including TransHarvard, the Queer Students Association, and the Harvard Law School’s Women’s Law Association gathered an hour before the event began to create posters and listen to speeches by organizers who criticized Gaines.

But inside the auditorium, which saw a heavy security presence from Securitas and the Harvard University Police Department, more than 100 attendees applauded Gaines’ speech. Gaines is a former collegiate swimmer for the University of Kentucky who has been a vocal critic of transgender female athletes in women’s sports. She began her advocacy work after tying for fifth place in an NCAA freestyle championship with University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia C. Thomas — the first openly transgender woman to win an NCAA swimming event. As Gaines’ talk began, demonstrators outside began speeches of their own. Schuyler M. Bailar ’19, a former Harvard swimmer who was the first openly transgender man to compete in NCAA athletics, gave a speech praising the growth of trans advocacy at Harvard since his time as an undergraduate. “People like her are happening because

SEE PAGE 7


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