The Harvard Crimson - Volume CL, No. 21

THE HARVARD CRIMSON

Opinions Split on Direct Delivery

‘MIXED FEELINGS.’ Harvard is now delivering packages directly to

Men Don’t Need Their Own ‘Affirmative Action’

PAGE 10

Emi F. Nietfeld ’15 on Success, Struggle, and ‘Acceptance’

PAGE 13

Wins Season Opener

HLS Affinity Group Severs Ties with Firms that Require Mandatory Arbitration Agreements

Harvard Law School’s largest racebased affinity group will sever ties with private law firms that require their employees to sign mandatory arbitration agreements. The Harvard Asian Pacific American Law Students Association announced in an Aug. 21 statement to its members that it will be notifying “specific firms” that APALSA “will not be offering them access to APALSA members through formal sponsorship.” The list of affected firms was compiled using employment data collected by the Law School’s Office of Career Services, APALSA justice committee Co-Chair Louis Lin wrote in an email. In a statement, the organization wrote

COVID-19

Most freshmen arrive at Harvard College eager to participate in orientation activities, from wilderness hikes to leadership training. But this fall, some spent their first few days on campus in isolation amid a spike in Covid-19 infections.

Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations have been on the rise in the Greater Boston area since mid-July. But even as Harvard has slashed its Covid-19 restrictions, students said the virus has continued to have a disruptive effect on the beginning of the fall semester.

Harvard University Health Services Executive Director Giang T. Nguyen shared Covid-19 guidance with affiliates in an Aug. 25 email, encouraging them to take a rapid test before arrival on campus and follow CDC guidelines, which dictate isolating for five days after a positive test.

that it hopes “this policy will encourage law firms to eliminate mandatory arbitration agreements.” Mandatory arbitration agreements in job contracts stipulate that employees who believe their employers have violated their rights cannot bring claims to court. Instead, their claims must go through third-party, private arbitrators, which critics say tend to vastly favor employers. In March 2022, Congress passed a law that prohibits employers from mandating arbitration for sexual assault or harassment-related disputes.

This isn’t the first time in recent years that HLS students have protested the hiring practices of private law firms. In 2018, the Pipeline Parity Project called for a boycott of law firm Kirkland & Ellis over its use of arbitration agreements. Two weeks later, Kirkland & Ellis announced that it

would no longer require the agreements.

APALSA’s statement referred to the new “firm responsibility policy” as their justice committee’s “first step” and said the organization has been exploring the possibility of “collective action” with other Law School affinity groups to “maximize” the policy’s impact.

“This is phase one, and with new laws being passed and introduced on mandatory arbitration, we believed it was vital to take steps ourselves too,” Lin wrote in an email. “We are considering other metrics and plan to work with APALSA members to figure out our next steps.”

Lin declined to comment on the specifics of the committee’s conversations with other groups on campus.

Third-year HLS student Shashank Vura, an APALSA member, said he is “unequivocally” against firms that require

arbitration agreements, but that as “people’s professional interests are so entangled with these firms,” he would like to see more opportunities for general members to give input on potential expansions of the firm responsibility policy.

“With the majority of APALSA’s membership going to big law firms, they deserve to have a say in this policy if it expands significantly,” Vura said. Per the statement to its members, APALSA “welcome[s] the general body’s feedback, questions, and concerns.”

The justice committee in the 2022-23 academic year had also considered severing ties with law firms that had been identified by the group Law Students for Climate Accountability as having negative climate impact or those that had engaged

SEE PAGE 4

According to Nguyen’s email, students can attend class if they test negative after exposure to Covid-19.

In a subsequent email sent to students and residential staff on Aug. 31, Associate Dean of Students Lauren E. Brandt ’01 wrote that Covid-19 tests would be “distributed upon individual request 1 at a time until the supply is exhausted” from house building manager offices.

Umaama Hussain ’27 tested positive at the start of freshman orientation, and she said the tight conditions in her room made it difficult to socially distance.

“I kept my door locked, and every time I left my room I put on a mask, but we’d obviously run into each other sharing the same common space and the bathroom,“ Hussain said. “So that was a bit tough.”

After testing positive for Covid-19, Hussain contacted her proctor, who sent her a list of instructions regarding self-isolation. Though Hussain said she found

SEE PAGE 5

Quantitative analysis blog Data Colada published an analysis Saturday summarizing three exhibits in the defamation lawsuit filed against them by Harvard Business School professor Francesca Gino — the bloggers’ first public remarks on the substance of the lawsuit.

In June 2023, Data Colada published four posts alleging data fraud in four papers co-authored by Gino. Soon after the allegations, Harvard notified Gino of potential tenure revocation on July 28.

Just five days later, Gino took legal action — against Harvard, HBS Dean Srikant Datar, and the data investigation blog Data Colada — for alleged defamation and gender-based discrimination. Gino has accused Data Colada of conspiring with Harvard to defame her, citing the bloggers’ decision to bring their allegations di-

rectly to the Business School in June 2021.

Data Colada’s post Saturday walked readers through three exhibits from Gino’s lawsuit, which included retraction letters sent by Harvard to three academic journals. The letters contain findings by the bloggers and Maidstone Consulting Group, the external forensic firm hired by Harvard’s investigation committee in May 2022.

The post came just over two weeks after the bloggers announced they had retained legal counsel using funds raised by academics and supporters in response to the lawsuit. As of Wednesday evening, the fundraiser had raised more than $330,000 for the team’s legal fees.

Andrew T. Miltenberg, an attorney for Gino, wrote in a statement Wednesday that the exhibits should not be construed as evidence of fraud.

“It is essential to remember that the forensics firm hired by HBS was unable

SEE PAGE 8

School Committee Talks Teachers

Prof. Avi Loeb Seeks Alien Artifacts

CAMBRIDGE

Housing Group Endorses Candidates

CONTRACT CONCERNS. Several Cambridge educators appeared in front of the School Committee to address contract concerns as the committee attempted to discuss their agenda, which did not include ongoing contract negotiations. Educators’ comments directly after the Cambridge Education Association demonstrated outside of the meeting amid an impasse in contract negotiations with the district. While negotiations have been ongoing since October 2022, the union’s prior contract expired on Aug. 31, leaving educators without a renewed contract. BY SALLY E. EDWARDS AND AZUSA M. LIPPIT — CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

ALIENS? Harvard Astronomy professor Abraham “Avi” Loeb and his research team have found metallic spherules of “likely extrasolar composition,” according to an Aug. 29 preprint posted to the online paper repository arXiv. The researchers discovered the spherules — which were produced when the meteor Loeb calls “IM1” collided with Earth — during a June 14 to 28 scientific expedition in the Pacific Ocean. Harvard and Papua New Guinea University of Technology researchers have an agreement to work together. BY JASMINE PALMA, NEIL H. SHAH, AND AUSTIN H. WANG — CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

COUNCIL ENDORSEMENTS. Affordable housing advocacy group A Better Cambridge endorsed nine candidates for this year’s Cambridge City Council elections, the group announced last Friday. ABC endorsed Burhan Azeem, a first-term councilor and chair of the Transportation and Public Utilities Committee; Adrienne Klein, the mayor’s former director of constituent services; Marc C. McGovern, a fourth-term councilor; bartender Joe McGuirk; care coordinator Frantz Pierre; Cambridge Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui; and others. BY MUSKAAN ARSHAD — CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

The Week in Photos

NEW HAVEN ALDERS APPROVE $16 MILLION FOR CITY’S CONTRIBUTION TO COX SETTLEMENT

NEWS

NYC PUBLIC SCHOOLS SET TO BEGIN REDUCING CLASS SIZES THIS SEPTEMBER

Class sizes in New York City schools will be reduced to 20-25 students over the next five years, a process laid out in state legislation in September 2022 and beginning to take effect now. A Department of Education working group consisting of parents, local leaders, and community organizers will guide the implementation of the latest solution to a longstanding issue.

THE COLUMBIA SPECTATOR

FOOTBALL COACH BUDDY

TEEVENS DIES

Longtime Dartmouth football coach Buddy Teevens died on Tuesday, months after he was severely injured from a bicycle accident in March. He was 66. Teevens was critically injured after he was struck by a pickup truck while riding his bike near his home in in St. Augustine, Florida. Teevens attended Dartmouth as an undergraduate, where he played on the football team as quarterback. He later returned as head coach of Dartmouth’s football program.

CALLS FOR CONTRACT. More than 50 Cambridge educators rallied in support of the Cambridge Education Association outside of a School Committee meeting on Tuesday night. The teachers’ union remains in a contract stalemate with the school district JULIAN J. GIORDANO — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

BEER GARDEN. Somerville-based brewery Aeronaut brought life to an austere block with yard games, lights, music, and libations as part of its seasonal beer garden pop-up at Harvard’s Zone 3. The zone, which encompasses 267 Western Ave., started in 2015 as an initiative by Harvard. The beer garden will make one more appearance on Oct. 7. BY SAMI E. TURNER — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

FACULTY EXPRESS ‘DEEP CONCERN’ WITH PENN RESPONSE TO PALESTINE WRITES FESTIVAL

THE DARTMOUTH 36 Penn humanities faculty members sent a letter of protest to university administrators Sunday, calling for amendments to the university’s official statement on this weekend’s Palestine Writes Literature Festival. The festival has drawn criticism for its inclusion of speakers that some campus and national groups have accused of antisemitism. Some of the faculty members who signed the letter argue that the administration’s response to the festival poses a threat to the inclusion and well-being of Palestinian and Arab students, and erodes the university’s commitment to freedom of speech.

THE DAILY PENNSYLVANIAN

FUNNY BUSINESS. The Circus Cooperative Cafe — which opened in the recently closed Darwin’s cafe location and is run by some of its former employees — opened Sept. 12. The event followed a soft opening two days earlier for friends and family. The co-op is located on 31 Putnam Ave. in Harvard Square, the site of one of the four Darwin’s

SEPTEMBER 22, 2023 THE HARVARD CRIMSON

IN THE REAL WORLD

SENATE CONFIRMS CHAIRMAN OF JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF, SIDESTEPPING TUBERVILLE BLOCKADE

In an 83 to 11 vote Wednesday, the Senate confirmed Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. UThis vote evades Senator Tommy Tuberville’s blockade against pentagon promotions, after having long been stalled. According to the New York Times, Democratic Majority Leader Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) brought each individual nomination up for a full Senate vote in order to circumvent Tuberville’s blockade.

AZERBAIJAN CLAIMS FULL CONTROL OVER THE NAGORNO-KARABAKH REGION AS ARMENIAN FORCES AGREE TO DISARM

Azerbaijan claimed control of the region Nagorno-Karabakh from Armenian separatists who agreed to disarm and discuss reintegration on Wednesday. The agreement was reached after a deadly assault by Azerbaijani forces. The ceasefire could lead to the end of the rule of the Nagorno-Karabakh population.

A 96-YEAR-OLD FEDERAL JUDGE IS BARRED FROM HEARING CASES IN A FIGHT OVER HER MENTAL FITNESS

After refusing medical testing to assess her mental fitness amid concerns she is not suitable to serve on the bench, 96-year-old federal appeals Judge Pauline Newman was barred from hearing cases for one year. According to the Associated Press, this barring is the latest update in a pre-existing debate over whether or not Newman should continue in the U.S. Court.

PENTAGON WORKING TO RESTORE BENEFITS TO LGBTQ+ VETERANS

The Pentagon began contacting former LGBTQ+ service members who have been denied benefits due policies targeting sexual orientation, specifically Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell on Wednesday. According to the Associated Press, under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell service members who did not identify as heterosexual could serve as long as they did not mention their sexual orientation.

UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT ZELENSKY VISITS WASHINGTON, ASKS FOR MORE AID

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Capitol Hill, the Pentagon, and the White House on Thursday, during his second trip to Washington since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year. Zelensky used his meetings with U.S. political leaders to advocate for continued aid for his war-torn nation.

THE HARVARD CRIMSON

Associate Managing Editors

Leah J. Teichholtz ’24

Meimei Xu ’24

Editorial Chairs Eleanor V. Wikstrom 24

Christina M. Xiao ’24

Arts Chairs

Anya L. Henry ’24

Alisa S. Regassa ’24

NEXT WEEK 3

Friday 9/22

HARVARD UNIVERSITY MEN’S

FOOTBALL VS. BROWN

Harvard Stadium, 7 p.m.-10 p.m. Harvard Men’s Football will host Brown University in Harvard Stadium at 7 p.m. Prior to the game, fans from both sides are welcome to mingle at a tailgate. The game is set to open up Ivy League play and will feature both teams coming off of first week wins.

Saturday 9/23

HARVARD UNIVERSITY WOMEN’S SOCCER VS. BROWN Harvard Stadium, 7 p.m.-9 p.m. Harvard Women’s Soccer will host Brown University in Harvard Stadium at 7 p.m.

Sunday 9/24

HARVARD FILM ARCHIVE SCREENING: THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR Harvard Film Archive, 3 p.m.-4:45 p.m.

Stop by this screening from Harvard Film Archive to learn the story of a recently widowed woman named Lucy Muir who falls in love with the ghost of former sea captain Daniel Gregg. The film, a 1947 American supernatural romantic fantasy film starring Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison, was directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. The event will required paid entry.

Monday 9/25

SHEHUO: COMMUNITY FIRE Harvard Museums of Science and Culture, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. View a photographic exhibit by Zhang Xiao — the 11th recipient of the Peabody Museum’s Robert Gardner Fellowship in Photography — that explores the transformation of Shehuo, a traditional spring festival held in rural northern China.

Tuesday 9/26

LITERARY CAREERS: YOUNG ADULT

PUBLISHING ROUNDTABLE Barker Center, 12:30 p.m. — 1:30 p.m. Join Harvard English’s department and Irish young adult publisher Little Island Press for a panel about writing, pitching, and publishing young adult fiction. The event will be hosted by Katherine Horgan, co-founder and director of Literary Careers.

Wednesday 9/27

SHANA REDMOND, ‘DARK PRELUDE: BLACK LIFE BEFORE MOURNING’ 104 Mt. Auburn St. Floor 2R, 12 p.m. See Shana Redmond, professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, present on her forthcoming monograph “Dark Prelude: Black Life Before Mourning.”

Thursday 9/28

HARVARD MUSEUM EVENT: LATEST EXCAVATIONS AT ABUSIR AND SAQQARA

Geological Lecture Hall, 6 p.m.-7 p.m. Stop by the Geological Lecture Hall or listen on Zoom to hear Miroslav Bárta present the latest results from archaeological research at Abusir and Saqqara, two ancient Egyptian cemeteries.

Friday 9/29

WHITTENBERGER LECTURE: CLIMATE CHANGE AND HEALTH IN THE MEDIA

677 Huntington Ave Room 202, 4 p.m.-5 p.m.

Join the Harvard School of Public Health for a lecture discussion on topics around the environment and health in the media with Somini Sengupta, the international climate reporter for the New York Times.

BRAVING THE RAIN

Magazine Chairs Io Y. Gilman ’25 Amber H. Levis ’25

Blog Chairs Tina Chen ’24

Hana Rehman ’25

Sports Chairs Mairead B. Baker ’24

Aaron B. Schuchman ’25

Associate Business Manager Derek S. Chang ’24

STAFF FOR THIS ISSUE

Night Editors Isabella B. Cho ’24

Vivian Zhao ’24

Design Chairs Sophia Salamanca ’25 Sami E. Turner ’25

Multimedia Chairs Joey Huang ’24 Julian J. Giordano ’25

Technology Chairs Kevin Luo ’24 Justin Y. Ye ’24

Assistant Night Editors Nia L. Orakwue ’25

Claire Yuan ’25

Samuel P. Goldston ’26

Christina M. Strachn ’26

Jack R. Trapanick ’26

Story Editors Brandon L. Kingdollar ’24

Vivi E. Lu ’24

Leah J. Teichholtz ’24

Meimei Xu ’24

Design Editors Toby R. Ma ’24

Nayeli Cardozo ’25

Sami E. Turner ’25

Laurinne P. Eugenio ’26

Photo Editors Joey Huang

JACK R. TRAPANICK — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

‘Mixed Feelings’ About Package Delivery

packages’ shipping arrival.

HLS Affinity Group Severs Ties with Certain Firms

in Supreme Court advocacy “incompatible with [APALSA’s] commitments,” according to a policy draft obtained by The Crimson.

Climate and sustainability has become a focal point in recent years for Harvard Law School student activists. In 2020, dozens of Harvard Law School students disrupted a first-year student recruitment event held by law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP to call on the firm to drop oil and gas company ExxonMobil as a client.

According to the organization’s Aug. 21 statement, APALSA has “implemented changes” to its fundraising approach to ensure that the firm responsibility policy “will not affect [its] annual operating budget.” According to Vura — the organization’s former Membership Chair — APALSA’s budget “exceeds 100,000 dollars annually” and “mostly comes from law firms.”

“We believe that, as the largest race-based affinity group on campus, APALSA can play a leadership role at HLS and beyond in promoting justice, inclusion, and fairness within the legal profession,” the organization wrote.

neil.shah@thecrimson.com

BY ELLA L. JONES AND JOHN N. PENA CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

For Harvard students who live in the College’s upperclassmen houses, the beginning of the year is a chaotic time that includes moving in, unpacking, and adjusting to a new living space.

This year, however, students making online orders to put the final touches on their preparations for the school year arrived on campus to a new package delivery system.

During the academic year, students typically receive an email informing them that their package is available for pickup in their house’s mail yard. But due to the high volume of packages that arrive to students in the weeks immediately following move-in, the College has previously used larger, more organized locations for pick-up at the beginning of each year.

Beginning Aug. 16, Harvard temporarily hired Olympia Moving and Storage to handle the processing and delivery of packages directly to the dorms of students living in the nine houses located along the Charles River. The change has drawn mixed reviews from students, who lauded the ease of having packages delivered to their dorms but bemoaned the system’s shortcomings.

The delivery system will continue until Sep. 26, after which parcel pickup by students in house mailing rooms will resume.

Those who have welcomed the change cited the convenience of having parcels sent directly into their dorm rooms without needing to be present at the time of delivery.

Lauren H. Kim ’25 said she has had a “really great experience” with the package delivery system, though she noted a slight delay in delivery to her house compared to

“So far, all of my packages that have been delivered have arrived at my room safely — which I do appreciate because some of them kind of large and it would be hard to carry them up the stairs all by myself,” said Lilia Gonzales ’23-’24, who has ordered “at least 10” packages so far this year.

Sera P. McDonald ’24, who works as a building manager assistant in Winthrop House, said hiring Olympia has made building staff’s work more manageable during the rush of deliveries since move-in.

Before the implementation of the new system, McDonald was responsible for labeling and organizing all packages delivered to the house. Now, Olympia handles these responsibilities.

“It’s honestly more convenient for me, but the people working at Olympia are working very hard to

It’s honestly more convenient for me, but the people working at Olympia are working very hard to get packages processed.

get packages processed,” she said.

For others, the convenience of the new system has been dampened by delays in delivery and feelings of invasions of privacy as Olympia employees enter their rooms to deliver the packages.

Ryan T. Rhee ’26 said he has “mixed feelings” about the new system.

“It’s good when it works efficiently,” he said. “The only problem is when it takes an entire day when you could have just gotten it the same day.”

Emily G. Salem ’24 also described her frustration with delivery delays.

“It’s kind of painful to hear that you have the package and then not

have it delivered for another day or two, especially if it’s something you need,” she said.

When dorms process packages for students, the package’s recipients receive an email that residents of river houses will have their packages delivered within 24 hours of receiving the email.

Aside from delays in delivery time, some students said that the entry of Olympia moving staff into their rooms raised privacy concerns. Melanie M. Volz ’25, a junior living in Mather House, wasn’t “super comfortable” with Olympia’s current delivery practices.

“There wasn’t a door knock or they didn’t ring the doorbell,” Volz said.

Harvard spokesperson Jonathan Palumbo wrote in an emailed statement that Olympia Moving and Storage is a “longterm University vendor,” adding that the University has taken “additional steps including adding security staff presence during delivery hours and working with Building Managers to address any issues identified by students.”

“Students have been provided with a QR code to access support with checking on their packages and members of our team are closely monitoring all of the activity,” he added.

A spokesperson for Olympia Moving and Storage did not respond to a request for comment.

Brian Lin ’26 pointed out that the College could let students decide if they prefer having their packages delivered or picked up in their house’s mailroom.

“I feel like if anything should be improved, they should give preference to all the students,” Lin said.

In his statement, Palumbo cited “space constraints” in the River houses to explain why the College hired Olympia to deliver packages to students’ dorms.

“The space that was used for storage in previous years is not available this year so this plan was enacted,” he wrote.

ella.jones@thecrimson.com john.pena@thecrimson.com

College Required 51 Students to Withdraw Last Year

BY J. SELLERS HILL AND NIA L. ORAKWUE CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

The Harvard College Administrative Board placed nearly 150 students on probation and required 51 to withdraw for academic underperformance during the 202122 school year — a five-year high — according to a report released by the school at the beginning of the fall semester.

The actions were taken as part of the Ad Board’s “academic review” process, which examines the academic records of all students who “receive unsatisfactory grades or who fail to meet the College’s minimum academic requirements,” according to the Ad Board’s website.

The review is also sometimes applied to students who fail to meet certain degree requirements. The Ad Board is an administrative body responsible for the

application and enforcement of Harvard College policies. Chaired by Dean of the College Rakesh Khurana and composed of approximately 30 College administrators and faculty, its responsibilities also include approving student petitions, enforcing academic standards, and disciplining students.

The academic review cases are distinct from disciplinary actions taken against students for “social behavior,” including sexual misconduct and drug and alcohol offenses. They also do not include cases of academic dishonesty, which have been adjudicated by the Harvard Honor Council since 2015.

According to the Ad Board’s website, students may be required to withdraw if they receive a second consecutive unsatisfactory record or fail to meet minimum academic requirements.

To meet minimum requirements, students must receive no

more than one failing grade, or a grade lower than D-. If they do receive a failing grade, they can meet minimum requirements as long as they receive no unsatisfactory grades — those lower than C- — and earn a satisfactory grade in at least one letter-graded Faculty of Arts and Sciences course for credit. The Ad Board data does not provide a more detailed breakdown of why this year’s 51 students were forced to withdraw.

Students who are forced to withdraw — the most severe sanction short of dismissal — are required to work a full-time, paid, non-academic job for more than six months before petitioning to return to the College. This withdrawal normally lasts for one academic year; however, a second offense can see a student be required to withdraw again or be fully dismissed.

In the 2021-22 school year, four students were permanently dis-

missed from the College following academic review, the most in at least five years. Typically, students who are required to withdraw from the College for a second time are not readmitted, per the College’s handbook.

According to the new report, the 2021-22 academic year saw 149 students placed on probation for academic underperformance.

Students are generally placed on probation — an official change in a student’s status — for a first unsatisfactory record.

Harvard spokesperson Jonathan Palumbo declined to comment on the statistics but reiterated the College’s commitment to transparent data reporting.

The Ad Board’s busiest job is not academic or disciplinary review, but approving various petitions for undergraduates, including those for leaves of absence, summer school credit, and simultaneous enrollment. The body re -

leased its petition statistics in the early fall semester for the 2021-22 academic year.

According to statistics released by the board for the 202122 school year, 478 students were approved to take makeup exams for medical reasons, more than the previous four years combined.

The 2021-22 academic year also saw a record 317 approvals to “bracket” a course, which is a petition to allocate an undergraduate class credit toward a graduate degree.

The number of students approved for a voluntary leave of absence, at 270, was roughly in line with pre-Covid numbers. The year prior, in 2019-20, a record 1,850 students petitioned and were approved for leaves of absence amid a heavily restricted campus.

sellers.hill@thecrimson.com nia. orakwue@thecrimon.com

AFTER MOVE-IN, river house students express ‘mixed feelings’ about direct dorm delivery.

Sera P. McDonald ’24 Winthrop House Building Manager Assistant

EDUCATION

Faculty Criticize AP Psych Restrictions

CURRICULAR BANS. Harvard faculty criticized restrictions on AP Psychology under Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill.

BY AZUSA M. LIPPIT CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

Harvard faculty expressed concern over perceived curricular censorship in Florida following restrictions on the College Board’s Advanced Placement course in Psychology due to the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Florida House Bill 1069 is a revision of House Bill 1557, the “Parental Rights in Education” — commonly referred to as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Under the bill, instructors are prohibited from discussing topics of gender identity or sexual orientation in the classroom.

House Bill 1069, approved by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in May, expanded the restriction of content on gender and sexuality to pre-K through eighth grade. It had previously applied only to kindergarten through third grade. The bill also requires that high school instruction of such content be “developmentally appropriate.”

Following the amendment’s approval, the Florida Department of Education sent a letter to

the College Board asking the nonprofit to review its offerings and determine “whether these courses need modification to ensure compliance” with Florida law.

The College Board’s AP Psychology course includes a section on gender and sexual orientation, in potential violation of Florida’s bill. According to an Aug. 3 statement from the College Board, “any AP Psychology course taught in Florida will violate either Florida law or college requirements.”

But on Aug. 4, Florida Commissioner of Education Manny Diaz Jr. sent a letter to Florida superintendents stating that the course can be offered “consistent with Florida law.”

“In fact, the Department believes that AP Psychology can be taught in its entirety in a manner that is age and developmentally appropriate,” the letter continued.

Still, Harvard faculty expressed concern over the course’s state of jeopardy and broader curricular restrictions in Florida.

Huan-Tang Lu, a Harvard Graduate School of Education lecturer who specializes in youth mental health and counseling, said curriculum censorship like Florida’s will “definitely create a lot of doubt in students.”

“They’re still exploring their identities at that age,” Lu said. “I don’t even know if they feel em-

powered enough to advocate to stop these kind of changes.”

“They will probably observe how teachers, how staff, how administrators react to this ban,” Lu added. “The way they see this world will change.”

HGSE senior lecturer Frank D. Barnes said he believes the consequences of Florida’s curriculum interventions will extend beyond the classroom to students’ broader understanding of society and identity.

“What the reaction is, is not just what’s in the curriculum, but who is part of the human experience, what is the value of their narrative, do we allow multiple perspectives of the same national experience to exist — and coexist, and recognize that two things can be true at the same time,” Barnes said.

“Any time that we tell people in a systemic, institutional way that we don’t see you and won’t see you, it is not a move forward in human progress,” he added.

Harvard Psychology professor Mahzarin R. Banaji said she believes the restriction of psychology course content is emblematic of a greater attack on science education.

“Dismantling science is as dumb as going after Mickey Mouse is unpatriotic,” Banaji wrote in an emailed statement. “The people of Florida must decide as to whether to continue in this race to the bottom.”

HGSE lecturer Liao Cheng

said the curriculum restriction “reflects an underestimation of students’ ability to think for themselves.”

Cheng called the restrictions “unfortunate,” adding that “the study of psychology presents a very helpful perspective for students who understand the inner workings of the mind, both to understand how others perceive and react to the world, and also how they themselves perceive and respond to the world.” Florida’s curricular restrictions have also extended to the teaching of critical race theory, including a ban of the College

Board’s AP African American Studies course in the state in January. The next month, the College Board modified the course requirements around critical race theory, though the board at the time denied that the changes were related to Florida’s ban.

For AP Psychology, however, the College Board said in a June statement that it would not modify its curriculum.

“We have learned from our mistakes in the recent rollout of AP African American Studies and know that we must be clear from the outset where we stand,” the statement reads. “As with all

AP courses, required topics must be included for a course to be designated as AP.”

Despite curricular uncertainty in Florida, Cheng said she remains hopeful for the future of K-12 education, citing a positive atmosphere in her own classes. “I’m pleasantly surprised that many students that I have talked to are still passionate about going into teaching, despite the less than ideal atmosphere in the broader society,” Cheng said. “They really want to bring a positive impact on young people.”

azusa.lippit@thecrimson.com

Harvard Received $218M in Foreign Funding Since January 2022

BY ROHAN RAJEEV CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

Harvard received upwards of $218 million in foreign funding since January 2022, according to recent data from the Department of Education.

Per Section 117 of the Higher Education Act, American universities are required to report gifts and contracts received from foreign sources that exceed $250,000. The latest update to the portal reflects funding reported up until April 6, 2023, though reported funding includes some gifts and contracts with start dates in the future.

COVID-19 FROM PAGE 1

The report comes amid an ongoing investigation by the Department of Education that began in 2020 on the grounds of Harvard allegedly soliciting funding from foreign governments. Other institutions facing foreign funding inquiries by the Ed Department include Stanford, MIT, and Yale.

In compliance with the Ed Department’s requirements, Harvard reported more than $1.1 billion in foreign funding from 2012 to 2020 and retroactively updated its reporting criteria at the time of the opening of the investigation.

The report groups funding into four categories: gifts, restricted gifts, contracts, and restricted contracts. The greatest

Covid-19 Surge Hits Campus

Harvard’s response to Covid-19 sufficient overall with guidelines that were “pretty clear cut,” she said it was difficult to obtain necessities while self-isolating.

“I wish there had been a bit more support in terms of just getting food and essentials to the dorm,” Hussain said.

Mirika Jambudi ’27, whose suitemate tested positive for Covid-19 early in the year, also reported difficulty social distancing in her dorm.

“In Wigg, the rooms are super small, so there’s not much I can do to avoid suitemate contact, and Harvard has no procedure for what to do with that,” Jambudi said.

In response to student criticisms of Harvard’s response, HUHS spokesperson Tiffanie A. Green pointed to Nguyen’s Aug. 25 email.

“COVID-19 continues to circulate both locally and nationally. Harvard University Health Services urges members of the community to adhere to the precautions detailed in the Fall semester public health message to protect themselves and others,” Green wrote.

Elizabeth S. Pollard ’27 was one of several students to test positive after participating in the First-Year Retreat Experience pre-orientation program. Testing positive during orientation meant Pollard was unable to take part in many events, including field day and First Chance Dance. “I feel like I was able to adjust pretty well and pick up on every-

thing,” Pollard said. “But it was definitely unfortunate to have to miss out on all of those activities.”

Mower Hall resident Chanden

A. Climaco ’27, who tested positive at the start of the semester, said he believes Harvard’s current guidelines are enough to prevent the spread of Covid-19 “as long as people are adhering to them.”

“I haven’t looked at Covid guidelines in a while,” Climaco said. “It seems like this resurgence has been one of the first times I’m actually hearing of Covid in several months, and so looking at what the policies were and seeing that they weren’t two weeks of quarantine that will be enforced was maybe a little surprising, but I don’t have a take on whether it was good or bad necessarily.”

Jack A. Kelly ’26, who tested positive for Covid-19 last week, said he feels a “little bit of frustration” over how administrators and faculty have handled the fall uptick. “I felt like there weren’t super well-defined Covid policies, that when I was talking with professors, it almost felt like I was asking for special treatment,” Kelly said. “You should never feel like you’re asking for special treatment — you’re just asking for it to be recognized that you have Covid, that you’re going to be a little bit behind, and that you’re going to need some support catching up.”

amount of funding came in the form of restricted contracts with $73.2 million, while gifts, restricted gifts, and contracts followed with $63.8 million, $48.5 million and $33.2 million, respectively.

The United Kingdom topped the list as Harvard’s largest source of foreign funding at $51.7 million, comprising 23.6 percent of the total share of foreign funding. Switzerland, China, and Hong Kong were also big contributors, giving $21.3 million, $16 million, and $14.2 million, respectively.

Dan G. Currell, former deputy under secretary and senior adviser in the Ed Department, said while an initial assumption may be that foreign countries give

money to American universities to “buy influence or get access to secrets,” in most cases, countries have other motives for providing funding.

Currell said he believes the main impetus for countries to send financial support to American universities is “cultural placement,” citing the example of Chinese support to the Juilliard School, a private performing arts conservatory in New York.

Funding funneled into American universities is also the product of higher education and research being a collaborative “ecosystem,” Curell said.

“It reflects the fact that you have ongoing, enormous

amounts of collaboration between Harvard and other institutions as well that require a lot of money to run,” he added.

On the effects of geopolitical tensions on foreign funding, Curell said the “continuing flow of money into especially elite schools” in addition to consistent enrollment from international students during the Covid-19 pandemic showed how “robust” the relationship between these countries and elite institutions like Harvard.

Thomas D. Parker ’64, a senior associate at the Institute for Higher Education Policy, said one of the main reasons for high figures of foreign funding to schools like Harvard is “purely intellectual.”

“It’s hard to make a claim that you’re a great university if you’re not a repository of knowledge and scholarship about different cultures in the world, including languages and literature and history,” Parker said.

Parker said Harvard’s largest contributors of foreign funding say less about the University than about individual countries’ academic interests, like science and engineering. “Good science doesn’t know national boundaries. And increasingly good science requires international cooperation,” Parker said.

Want to Rename Harvard Medical School? The Price Tag is $1 Billion

BY MILES J. HERSZENHORN AND CLAIRE YUAN CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

Harvard Medical School’s naming rights are for sale. The asking price? An unrestricted donation of $1 billion.

The Harvard Corporation — the University’s highest governing body — set the cost for renaming Harvard Medical School nearly a decade ago, according to a former Harvard official. The request for a $1 billion unrestricted gift, which has not been previously reported, would represent the largest single donation in Harvard’s history.

Harvard has slowly begun renaming some of its schools in recognition of philanthropy over the past 10 years. The Universi ty renamed its School of Public Health in 2014 after receiving a $350 million unrestricted dona tion from a charitable founda tion run in part by billionaire Hong Kong investor and HSPH alumnus Ger ald L. Chan.

Around the same time, the Corporation decided on prices for the naming rights to HMS and many of the University’s other schools, according to the former Harvard official.

Harvard College and the Harvard Kennedy School — which was renamed as a memorial for former President John F. Kennedy ’40 in 1966 — are almost certainly not options for renaming.

Harvard spokesperson Jason A. Newton declined to comment on the $1 billion price tag for the naming rights to HMS. Billionaire hedge fund manager John A. Paulson gave a $400 million unrestricted donation to the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences in 2015. The gift, which was the largest in University history at the time, rechristened the school in his honor.

named in honor of hedge fund manager Kenneth C. Griffin ’89 in April after he made a $300 million unrestricted donation to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. In an April 11 press release, the University said GSAS was renamed to recognize Griffin’s “commitment to Harvard’s mission over the years,” which totals more than $500 million.

Affiliates slammed the GSAS renaming, citing Griffin’s public support of Republican political candidates, including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Griffin donated nearly $60 million to Republicans in the 2022 election cycle, though he has since backed away from supporting DeSantis’ 2024 presidential bid.

The Medical School’s $1 billion price tag is significantly higher than thenations in recent years that renamed HSPH, SEAS, and GSAS. But a decade later, it is unclear if thetion has changed

its asking price for HMS. (With inflation, $1 billion in 2013 is now worth $1.3 billion).

Newton declined to answer questions about the price of renaming other schools across the University.

The renaming of HSPH and SEAS — both of which occurred as part of the University’s most recent capital campaign — indicates that more schools might be renamed when Harvard launches its next University-wide campaign, a move that is expected to occur in the coming years. A $1 billion donation — while extremely rare — is not unheard of in higher education. Stanford University received a $1.1 billion donation last year to establish a new school of sustainability.

The Medical School received a $200 million donation from the Blavatnik Family Foundation in 2018. The gift, the largest in HMS history, led the school to rename the 10 academic departments on its main campus as the “Blavatnik Institute at Harvard Medical School.”

The Corporation’s decision to issue price tags for the naming rights to various schools across the University suggests that Harvard is willing to go to great lengths to incentivize its wealthiest donors to make nine and 10-figure donations.

Newton, the Harvard spokesperson, declined to answer whether HMS is actively pursuing a $1 billion donation.

rohan.rajeev@thecrimson.com alexander.fung@thecrimson.com

SAMI E. TURNER — CRIMSON DESIGNER

Could Dropping Legacy Sustain Racial Diversity?

color, and national origin.”

A“slight tip.”

In a March interview, Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons ’67 used these two words to describe the admissions preference provided to children of alumni. But some say the practice confers more than just a narrow advantage to legacy applicants — and striking it down would result in dramatic changes to the diversity of Harvard’s student body, which is under threat after the fall of affirmative action.

In its high-profile lawsuit against the University, anti-affirmative action group Students for Fair Admissions argued that Harvard’s admissions policies violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits institutions that receive federal funds from discrimination “on the basis of race,

Just days after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of SFFA to effectively end race-based affirmative action in higher education, a federal complaint alleged that Harvard’s use of legacy and donor preferences was also in violation of the Civil Rights Act. Legacy admissions have drawn the ire of higher education experts, the Supreme Court during oral arguments, and Democrats and Republicans in Washington this summer. In July, the Department of Education formally opened an inquiry into Harvard’s use of legacy preferences.

Still, Fitzsimmons defended the practice, noting in the March interview that it has been in place for a “very, very long time.”

“That’s what our office does,” he said.

Proponents of legacy and donor admissions point to higher yield rates, intergenerational culture and traditions, and the importance of donations for maintaining generous financial aid. But opponents argue that the preferences hinder meritocracy and disproportionately benefit wealthy and white applicants.

For Harvard, questions linger about how the College’s student body would change without legacy and donor preferences — and if the University’s fundraising would take a hit.

In the month following the Supreme Court’s decision, other institutions, including Wesleyan University and Occidental College, have eliminated legacy preferences. Other peer institutions, including MIT — Harvard’s rival down the river — have eschewed the preference since at least 2006.

Harvard has yet to follow suit, and it remains unclear whether the University is actively considering a move away from the practice.

In an email to The Crimson, Harvard spokesperson Jonathan Palumbo declined to comment on whether Harvard is reconsidering legacy and donor preferences, but he referred back to a statement the University released after the Supreme Court decision.

“Following the Supreme Court’s recent decision, we are in the process of reviewing aspects of our admissions policies to assure compliance with the law and to carry forward Harvard’s

longstanding commitment to welcoming students of extraordinary talent and promise who come from a wide range of backgrounds, perspectives, and life experiences.”

‘Who Might Replace Them’

Peter S. Arcidiacono and David E. Card — expert witnesses for SFFA and Harvard at the admissions trial, respectively — presented dueling analyses of Harvard’s student body composition in the absence of legacy admissions and affirmative action.

In a 2019 paper, Arcidiacono projected that removing legacy preferences while keeping affirmative action and holding fixed the number of applicants that Harvard admitted over a six-year period would result in a 4 percent decrease in the number of white admits.

The number of African American, Hispanic, and Asian American admits would increase by 4 percent, 5 percent, and 4 percent, respectively, according to Arcidiacono’s analysis.

“When legacy or athlete preferences are eliminated, we estimate that the racial composition of Harvard’s admitted class changes by a non-trivial amount,” the report states.

But removing legacy admissions would likely not fully offset the decrease in racial diversity caused by striking down affirmative action, Arcidiacono said in a September interview with The Crimson.

“The thing is, when you get rid of legacy preferences, you want to be thinking about, ‘Well, who’s going to come in to replace them?’ and that’s going to look more like the admissions pool as a whole,” Arcidiacono said. “So it’s still going to be more likely than not that it would be a white applicant who might replace them.”

Arcidiacono also found that likelihood of admission for legacy applicants differed based on an applicant’s race.

“If you are Black, you do not get the same legacy bonus that

you would if you were white,” Arcidiacono said.

A more drastic change occurred when Arcidiacono modeled the effects of “removing all racial preferences for underrepresented minorities,” “penalties against Asian Americans,” and “legacy and athlete preferences”

for children of alumni “didn’t do that much in our simulations.”

“The big problem is going to be African Americans. And to some extent, Hispanics,” he added. “They’re going to fall off if they don’t do something to try and adjust for them.”

Removing consideration of factors that allegedly benefit White applicants does little to generate racial diversity.

in a 2018 analysis.

He concluded that the number of Asian American admits would increase by 50 percent over the six-year period.

A 2017 expert report by Card, which was used in the district court trial, modeled changes to Harvard’s class composition after removing preferences for race, legacy status, athlete-recruit status, children of Harvard faculty and staff, and members of the Dean’s and Director’s interest lists — typically reserved for top donors.

According to Card’s simulation, while the percentage of white students and Asian American students would increase, the share of Hispanic students would decrease to 9 percent and the percentage of Black students would fall by more than half.

“Removing consideration of factors that allegedly benefit White applicants does little to generate racial diversity,” the report states.

“My analyses suggest that using race-neutral policies to generate diversity comes at a cost to class quality,” Card concluded in the report.

In a September interview, Card said removing preferences

‘Not the Right Way to Get Loyalty’

Some universities worry that putting legacy preferences on the chopping block may make donations and fundraising dollars an added casualty. Harvard has previously defended legacy admissions practices by noting the importance of alumni in fundraising efforts.

In a 2018 report released by Harvard’s Committee to Study Race-Neutral Alternatives — which formed to investigate means of achieving student body diversity in the absence of racebased affirmative action — the committee considered, among other options, eliminating legacy and donor preferences.

Still, the committee found that none of the alternatives could be implemented without “significant and unacceptable sacrifice to other institutional imperatives.”

“Harvard alumni also offer generous financial support to their alma mater,” the report stated. “That financial support is essential to Harvard’s position as a leading institution of higher learning; indeed, it helps make the financial aid policies possible

BY MICHELLE N. AMPONSAH AND EMMA H. HAIDAR CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

THE LEGACY EDGE. With the end of affirmative action, some say axing legacy preferences might preserve campus diversity.

Conclusions of Harvard Expert David E. Card 2017 Expert Report for District Cour t Trial

that help the diversity and excellence of the College’s student body.”

Wesleyan President Michael S. Roth, who recently announced the university’s decision to ditch legacy preferences, said it is unclear how much eliminating legacy and donor preferences will cost elite schools in fundraising.

“I have said on the record that I do find it obscene that the richest schools in America are said to be the ones that are most worried about losing fundraising dollars,” he said.

Roth added that Wesleyan has a “very loyal alumni group” that will continue to stay involved, even without legacy preferences.

“We spend a lot of time trying to get them to give us money and affection and loyalty. But I don’t think we need to promise them an unearned advantage,” Roth said. “That’s not the right way to get loyalty in my view.”

According to Town & Country, Texas A&M — which dropped legacy preferences in 2004 — saw an initial dip in alumni donations, but donations eventually grew from $61 million to $92 million between 2004 and 2006.

The Council for Advancement and Support of Education, a nonprofit, estimated in a 2022 report that less than a quarter of donations are given directly by alumni.

At a forum hosted by Harvard Graduate School of Education on Sept. 12, Harvard Economics professor Raj Chetty ’00 — who recently co-authored a paper analyzing the effects of wealth and privilege in the college admis-

sions process — fielded questions from an audience member about the correlation between legacy preferences and donations.

Chetty pointed to peer institutions that do not have legacy admissions or have eliminated it in years past that nevertheless “continue to fundraise.”

“The reason for that, from an economic point of view, is that the wealth distribution in the United States is so skewed that the fraction of people who make donations that actually matter at this scale of these institutions is a very small number of people relative to the number of legacy students who are being admitted,” he said.

‘The Infamous 96’

The University of California system, which does not confer preferences for legacy applicants in the admissions process, has been used as a model for what other universities might look like in the absence of both affirmative action and legacy admissions. Affirmative action in California public universities ended with the passage of ballot Proposition 209 in 1996. Proposition 209 prohibits preferential treatment based on race, sex, or ethnicity in public employment, contracting, and education.

A 2020 report on the impact of Proposition 209 on the UC system found that after the end of race-conscious admissions, there were declines in applicants

enrollment increases for white students and a shift in enrollment of minority students from selective campuses to less selective campuses.

After Proposition 209, the numbers of minority students plummeted at the University of California, Los Angeles. In 2006, 10 years after the proposition passed, only 96 Black students were admitted to the freshman class at UCLA, termed the “Infamous 96.” Ultimately, after enrollment numbers were finalized, there were 100 Black freshmen out of a total of 4,852 undergraduates.

Last fall, UCLA’s student body was 4.5 percent African American or Black and 22.5 percent Hispanic. At UC Berkeley, the incoming class was 3.6 percent African American or Black, 52.1 percent Asian American, 21.1 percent Latinx, and 30.7 percent white for the incoming fall 2022 class.

When asked if Harvard’s student body might look similar to the UC system if legacy admissions are eliminated, Card said it would be “not even close,” noting that the percentage of Black residents in California is lower than the national average.

The University of Michigan also does not give preferences for children of alumni in the admissions process. For the 2016-17 enrollment year, the student body consisted of 65 percent white students, 15 percent Asian American students, 5 percent Black students, 6 percent Latinx students, 1 percent Native American students, and 10 percent other or unknown.

In an amicus brief filed in the Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina case, the University of Michigan stated, “Despite persistent, vigorous, and varied efforts to increase student-body racial and ethnic diversity by race-neutral means, admission and enrollment of underrepresented minority students have fallen precipitously in many of U-M’s schools and colleges.”

kins University — which prac-

ticed race-conscious admissions — removed legacy preferences in its admissions process and saw an increase in diversity.

In 2013, 9 percent of the in-

Nov. 17, 2014

Anti-affirmative action group Students for Fair Admissions sues Harvard and University of North Carolina for use of raceconscious admissions policies

Oct. 20, 2021

Amherst College ends admissions preferences for legacies

Jan. 24, 2022

Supreme Court agrees to hear the Harvard and UNC cases.

Oct. 24, 2022

Supreme Court agrees to hear the Harvard and UNC cases.

John Jay College of Criminal Justice professor Evan J. Mandery ’89 said universities could dismantle legacy admissions but continue to accept students from elite preparatory schools at high

Oct. 31, 2022

Justices critical of legacy and donor preferences during oral arguments

June 29, 2023

Affirmative action is overturned by the Supreme Court

coming freshman class at Johns Hopkins were legacies, according to the university. Students who identified as Black, Latinx, or of Indigenous descent comprised 18 percent of the student body.

The percentage of legacies at Johns Hopkins fell to 2 percent in 2022 after the admissions preferences were dropped. Of the students admitted to the school’s class of 2026, 16 percent were African American, 21 percent were Hispanic or Latinx, and 2 percent were Native American. For Wesleyan, it is too early to tell how the student body composition will change. But by eliminating legacy admissions, Roth said he hoped Wesleyan would send “a signal that we are really serious about recruiting a diverse campus.”

‘By Itself, It’s Not Enough’ Richard D. Kahlenberg ’85, a vocal critic of legacy preferences, described the potential elimination of legacy admissions as “necessary but not sufficient.”

A cynical university could make a statement about their virtue by eliminating legacy preferences and find other ways to fill those very same slots with wealthy white students from New England prep schools,” Kahlenberg said.

rates. “You can just boost the number of people you admit from Andover and Groton and Exeter, whether or not their parents went to Harvard or not, and you can have a very similar student body,” Mandery said.

Kahlenberg, who was an expert witness for SFFA during the admissions trial, said universities should also institute “need-affirmative policies” that provide an admissions preference to students who come from low-income families.

“Wealth is really important to educational opportunity in America. And wealth also better captures the history of enslavement and segregation, of redlining, and other socioeconomic factors like income,” Kahlenberg said.

Chetty’s research suggested that instituting need-affirmative policies at Harvard and peer institutions in the “Ivy-Plus” category would have the same impact on socioeconomic diversity as eliminating legacy, “equalizing athlete shares by income,” and “contextualizing non-academic credentials” combined.

“Legacy preference is the beginning of the conversation about what needs to happen to make admissions more equitable. But it is an offensive practice so it should end,” Mandery said.

June 29, 2023

President Joe Biden Urges

Department of Education to analyze practices like legacy admissions

July 3, 2023

Federal complaint filed against Harvard alleges legacy preferences violate Civil Rights Act

July 19, 2023

Wesleyan ends legacy preferences

July 25, 2023

Department of Education opens investigation into Harvard’s legacy and donor preferences

and enrollment from underrepresented groups at every UC campus. At the same time, there were

Still, some universities have improved student body racial diversity after eliminating legacy preferences. In 2014, Johns Hop -

“It’s an important step — it’s a symbolic step. But by itself, it’s not enough,” he said.

michelle.amponsah@thecrimson.com emma.haidar@thecrimson.com

July 26, 2023

Occidental College ends legacy preferences

July 28, 2023 Virginia Tech ends its legacy admissions policy

Aug 1, 2023

University of Virginia limits legacy preferences

Michael S. Roth

Wesleyan University President

I have said on the record that I do find it obscene that the richest school s in America are said to be the ones that are most worried about losing fundraising dollars.

Richard D. Kahlenberg ’85 Critic of Legacy Preferences

It’s an important step — it’s a symbolic step. But by itself, it’s not enough.

LABOR

MGB Union Files Unfair Labor Charge

COMPLAINT FILED.

Unionized residents and fellows at Mass General Brigham alleged retaliatory benefit cuts in an unfair labor practice charge filed Friday.

BY CAM E. KETTLES CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

Newly unionized residents and fellows at Mass General Brigham filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board Friday alleging the hospital system retaliated against them for unionizing by removing long-standing benefits.

In the charge, MGB Housestaff United alleged MGB had cut department-specific stipends that generally cover electronics, board certification fees, licenses, and other professional development costs. Bargaining unit members in Dermatology, Orthopedics, Radiology, Neurosurgery, Psychiatry, and Infectious Disease received emails in August indicating they would no longer receive such stipends.

The departmental changes occurred more than a month after the union’s successful election on June 8 and subsequent certification.

MGB has not begun bargaining with union officials to establish their first contract.

National labor law prohibits employers at unionized workplaces from changing compensation or benefit structures before negotiating with union representatives — unless the changes were economically necessary or part of a recurring event, like annual wage reviews. Regardless, employers are required to provide the union advance notice and a chance to bargain over the changes. According to the filing, the Committee for Interns and Residents — MGB Housestaff United’s parent union — did not receive prior notice.

“The message that was communicated to residents through program directors was that MGB was reviewing all the department benefits in light of the unionization,” said Diego B. Lopez, a new-

ly elected bargaining committee member. “Basically, everything was kind of up in the air at the moment about which benefits we’ll still have and which ones we’re going to lose.”

In a written statement to The Crimson Monday, MGB spokesperson Jennifer Street denied that the hospital system had cut benefits. Street also denied that MGB had knowledge of the ULP.

Vanessa D. Gilbreth — MGB’s senior legal counsel — was copied on an email containing the initial filing sent by MGB Housestaff United to the NLRB Friday, according to CIR spokesperson Annie Della Fera.

According to union organizers, department chairs justified the August benefit cuts by pointing to a March 2 decision by MGB to increase the annual living stipend to $10,000 and raise salaries by 10 percent. The an-

nouncement came less than two weeks after the union campaign launched publicly.

“This stipend is intended to assist with cost of housing, child care, or any other financial challenges you face during your training,” wrote top MGB administrators in a March 2 email announcing the increase.

“We hope and believe that this significant investment reflects the enormous value we place on our trainees,” the email read.

The email does not specify any plans to replace other benefits with the stipend. But Tuesday, Street — the MGB spokesperson — said the stipend had in fact replaced departmental stipends.

“Recent changes to benefits, which include increased stipends for all residents across Mass General Brigham that replace any local stipends or payments, were announced in March, prior to

both the submitted petition for unionization and the resulting election,” Street said.

Street added that the stipend is intended to cover “unique academic” expenses in addition to living costs.

While MGB did not communicate information about benefit replacements in its March emails about the stipend increase or benefits, MGB sent residents and fellows a March 16 explainer on unionization that suggested the hospital system might revoke departmental benefits.

“If the contract standardized practices across departments, benefits unique to individual departments could be modified or lost, as the contract’s terms would control. An unintended consequence of unionization could be that the organization has greater control over local departmental decisions,” the email attach-

ment read.

The stipend increase and raise were part of a broader email campaign by MGB administrators to dissuade residents and fellows from signing onto the union effort.

“Your entire relationship with Mass General Brigham — including program and education leadership – would change, and in many ways you might not like,” read a statement on a MGB website dedicated to the topic of unionization. That website has since been removed.

“The feeling among residents that I’ve spoken to is that this is just blatant retaliation,” Lopez said. “They kept trying to fearmonger that the union will take benefits away, and now they’re making that reality [happen] by taking them away themselves.”

“There were a lot of implicit threats made during the cam-

paign. Now, they are making good on those threats,” he added. Even if the replacement had been officially announced in March, Della Fera, the CIR spokesperson, said that the labor law “status quo” protections that prohibit compensation structure changes go into effect when the union effort is announced.

“The status quo starts the moment that they find out about a union effort,” Della Fera said. Lopez and fellow bargaining committee member Sarah Brown acknowledged the small monetary value of the departmental stipends that MGB cut, but stressed the importance of specific stipend programs.

“The scale of these benefits is a fraction of that of $10,000 probably from a monetary value standpoint, but are really critical, especially for my procedural colleagues who need to buy safety equipment,” Brown said.

“It just seems so petty,” Lopez said.

The ULP also alleges MGB violated national labor law by reclassifying Infectious Disease Fellows as “research fellows” instead of “clinical research fellows” after the union campaign launched publicly. In August, MGB informed such fellows they were no longer eligible to receive the $10,000 stipend without their clinical distinction.

“Infectious Disease Fellows, to date, continue to execute their clinical assignments,” read the filing.

Michael D. Morrison, a spokesperson for MGB, did not comment on the reclassification allegation.

Currently, MGB Housestaff United has finalized their bargaining committee and is now in the process of determining their bargaining priorities with a unitwide survey. Brown said the first contract bargaining timeline depends on how the ULP is resolved.

“If we hadn’t unionized and they offered us the 10K stipend and then removed other benefits, there’s nothing we could do about that. None of this is explicitly written into our contracts, which is part of the reason we unionized in the first place,” Brown said.

cam.kettles@thecrimson.com

Bloggers Sued by Gino Discuss External Investigation in New Post

to conclude fraud,” Miltenberg wrote. “The retraction notices HBS sent to journals quoted selectively from its forensics consultants — and pulled in unattributed extended verbatim quotes from Data Colada. The resulting mashup with no statement of authorship — no person or team taking either credit or responsibility.”

“This combination is especially misleading,” Miltenberg added. “This is the reason these were included as exhibits in a defamation case and should not be perceived as fact.”

A retraction email sent by Harvard to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reported that Gino’s 2012 study was “invalid due to alteration of the data that affects the significance of the findings.” Retraction notices addressed to two other journals — Psychological Science and the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology — included similar wording.

In each notice, Harvard investigation officers alleged discrepancies between public repository Open Science Framework data – published by Gino – and original data – collected by Qualtrics or research assistants.

In the final part of its examination of Gino’s work in June, Data Colada wrote that “we have received confirmation, from outside of Harvard, that Harvard’s investigators did look at the original Qualtrics data file and that the data had been modified.”

Gino, however, alleges this post defamed her by “falsely implying that there are additional, non-disclosed facts that irrefutably demonstrate Professor Gino’s malfeasance.”

She claims that Harvard could not prove the originality of the

Qualtrics data over the published data — or of her involvement in modifying it.

The data bloggers had flagged eight participants in Gino’s 2012 paper — a study on honesty pledges — under suspicion that their responses had been tampered with, as the response IDs were either out of order or repeated.

In a separate investigation, the forensic firm uncovered 11 observations that appeared in Gino’s 2012 study but not in the original Excel files obtained from her research assistant — including the responses from all eight of Data Colada’s flagged participants.

“The probability of us getting this right by chance is about 1 in a billion,” Data Colada wrote in their post Saturday.

The forensic firm’s investigation also found that “52% of reported responses contained entries that were modified without apparent cause.”

In another of Gino’s papers — a 2015 study linking inauthenticity to feelings of impurity — Data Colada pointed out anomalies in participants’ demographic information. Several study participants incorrectly listed their graduation year as “Harvard,” and Data Colada observed that these specific responses were extraordinarily supportive of Gino’s hypothesis.

The firm found that 20 of the 24 responses listing their class year as “Harvard” were original, but 8 of these responses had been altered in the published dataset, along with several responses that listed actual class years.

According to the firm, 25 observations that appeared in Gino’s published data were absent in the study’s original Qualtrics files — all of which strongly supported Gino’s hypothesis. The firm noted

that while Gino’s published dataset provides statistically significant support for her claim, the study’s original dataset does not.

“Exhibit 4 documents much more evidence of tampering than we had uncovered, with many other (non-‘Harvard’) observations having been altered (or selectively included/excluded), in ways that contributed to the published findings,” Data Colada wrote in their post Saturday.

The lawsuit also includes the retraction letter for a 2014 study by Gino, which found that individuals who cheated on a task were more creative on subsequent unrelated tasks.

In this study, Data Colada flagged 13 out-of-order observations under suspicion of manipulation — the dataset was otherwise almost perfectly sorted.

Published excerpts of the firm’s investigation did not examine these data points but did find that some of the study’s independent variables (specifically, whether or not a person had cheated) were altered from the original data.

Exhibit 5 focuses on a 2020 study on mindset and networking, where Gino reported that being in a “prevention-focused” mindset rather than a “promotion-focused” mindset makes people more likely to view a networking event as morally impure.

In their original post, Data Colada hypothesized that some of the study’s “promotion” responses had been changed to reflect lower levels of perceived moral impurity, and some “prevention” responses had been changed to reflect higher levels of perceived moral impurity.

On Saturday, Data Colada wrote that the firm’s findings referencing in Exhibit 5 refer-

ence evidence of tampering that “seems to confirm” Data Colada’s earlier observations. Moreover, Harvard’s investigation found far more potentially altered responses than Data Colada had — flagging 168 answers as possibly tampered with.

Currently, Data Colada is in the process of responding to Gino’s lawsuit itself. The bloggers wrote in a Sept. 1 post that their employers — the University of Pennsyl-

vania, University of California, Berkeley, and ESADE — have indicated that they will support Data Colada at least through the initial stages of the legal process.

Data Colada must file a motion in response to Gino’s lawsuit by Nov. 8. If the case is not dismissed, Gino’s suit against the bloggers could last anywhere from a few months to several years.

In the meantime, the bloggers write that Data Colada will con-

tinue mostly unchanged. “We have some posts in the works, some of which are relevant to this ongoing crisis, and some of which are not,” said Data Colada in their Sept. 1 post. “We don’t know what is going to happen next, but we are confident that ultimately we will win this case.”

adelaide.parker@thecrimson.com jennifer.song@thecrimson.com

Residents and fellows at Mass General Brigham voted overwhelmingly to form a union in June. JENNY M. LU — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

Data Colada, an analysis blog sued by HBS professor Francesca Gino for alleged defamation, published a post analyzing findings in an external investigation into Gino’s research. JOEY HUANG — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

A Free Kurdistan Starts with Language Preservation

KURDISH LANGUAGE AND CULTURE.

The Kurdish language is a symbol of resistance against oppressive regimes. Learning it at Harvard allows connection to both history and current liberation movements.

BY DALAL M. HASSANE

Just months ago, I felt the breeze of the motherland hold me so tightly I could almost sense my Kurdish ancestors offering me protection, healing, and joy. I felt Kurdistan — a place I believe to be a land of freedom despite the geopolitical forces that have shackled it across four states.

I stood in my mother’s city, Slemani, feeling more connected to her than ever, absorbing the memories of her childhood in the land that created her, uplifted her, and held her. In moments like these, my identity was not a sharp split, but an eternal bond to those who came before me.

Though my joy back in the homeland made every border on this Earth feel meaningless, internally I still experienced their lasting effects. I felt as though my linguistic disconnect from Kurdish identity affirmed the borders that have perpetuated harm against my people.

As a Kurdish and Syrian-Arab woman, my ties to language have always been complex. My English is better than both of my ancestral languages, and I feel a constant imbalance between Kurdish and Arabic. At Harvard, I was able to immediately enroll in an elementary Arabic class; however, it took almost a year of requesting language instruction to hear Sorani Kurdish in a Harvard classroom for the first time this month.

While I feel empowered by the opportunity to learn the Kurdish language at Harvard, I am infuriated that others do not get the same chance. In different parts of Kurdistan, the act of preserving our indigenous language is often treated as criminal. That is why it’s more important than ever to teach and learn the language across the diaspora.

On September 16, 2022 — around one year ago — Jina Amini, a Kurdish woman from Rojhelati (Eastern) Kurdistan died, reportedly after being beaten by the Iranian morality police. Her Kurdish name, the one her family used, was not the same one she used for official documents because of state discrimination. Today, the people of Kurdistan continue to repeat “jin, jiyan, azadi,” meaning “women, life, freedom,” as history repeats itself with the silencing of Kurdish heritage, language, and history.

Across Kurdistan, the Kurdish language has been a target of erasure because it is perceived as a threat to the regimes that try to diminish our culture, history, and freedom movements.

COLUMN

THE THINGS WE CONSUME

SENIOR SALE: Clearing Closet and Conscience

HARVARD CONSUMERISM. Despite the stereotypes caused by their ubiquity, well-organized senior sales are a positive for everyone involved — including the Harvard community. But they don’t make a dent on consumer waste writ large.

BY MATTHEW E. NEKRITZ

The mailroom during move-in week is a daunting place. Delivery boxes stacked to the ceiling construct a cardboard jungle of our collegiate consumption. Mail center workers zig-zag between the skyscrapers of packaging materials as they process neverending shipments of clothing, bedding, furniture, storage containers, and other easily-ordered goods. Stamped on what feels like every brown box, the sinister Amazon arrow smiles, as if to say “you may own our products, but I own you.”

“From August 16 to September 13, 2023, 27,466 parcels were received and processed for all twelve undergraduate Houses. Of the total, 49% were Amazon parcels,” a Harvard University Mail Services spokesperson wrote to me.

“During the same date range, 13,226 parcels were received and processed at the Harvard Yard Mail Center for first-year students. Of the total, 57% were Amazon parcels.”

Damn. That’s a lot of things we consume.

As college students, we are, by nature, mega-consumers. In many ways, we have no choice. The 21st century college experience lends itself to cheap and efficient online shopping as we race to turn blank dorms into temporary homes.

Our liminal existence on campus (swipe access ends the day after finals!), the unknown of what future rooms can hold, and limited affordable summer storage opportunities discourage investment in higher quality, longer lasting products.

The acquisition of things feels like a canon part of the college undergraduate experience. And so, in many cases, the orders that clutter our mailrooms at the beginning of the year clutter our dorms by the end of it. Our quickclick purchases suddenly risk becoming landfill fodder. Enter the “senior sale.”

***

In attempts to clear closets, part with unneeded products, and make a few bucks while keeping things out of the landfill a little longer, students flock to email lists to auction off their goods. While dubbed the “senior sale,” students in all classes participate.

I’ll be honest: My immediate impression of senior sales was not positive. Too many times, I have excitedly clicked on a sale to find myself scrolling through a slideshow of someone’s garbage. I groan as peers upsell once-free Harvard merchandise, half-filled Tide Pod cases, and other items that could easily be donated or placed in a communal space for others to use. My hair grays as I click through slide after slide of fast-fashion items captioned “brand new, never worn.”

Pressure on the usage and teaching of the Kurdish language persists in regions like Bakur (occupied Northern Kurdistan), where the streets of Amed and Mêrdîn continue to flourish with vibrant markets and songs of resistance. Occupying governments continue to inflict violent pressure on cities in Rojhelat like Sine, where the mountains stand taller and stronger than the bullets that pierce Kurdish bodies.

As I begin to learn Kurdish at Harvard, I think of women like Zara Mohammadi, a teacher from Sine, who was sentenced to five years in prison because she taught Kurdish in her class. I think of the people who are subjected to violence for preserving the culture I am just beginning to understand. I think of the people who are incarcerated for teaching, writing, and speaking the words I have just begun to learn.

Sometimes, the Kurdish language feels foreign to me, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. I am deeply connected to these lands. I, like other Kurds across the diaspora, long for a world of freedom, of azadi. I want not only to learn the language, but to preserve it. I want to dance the halparke as I understand every word that rings along to the sounds of the saz. But most importantly, I want to honor the work of people like Mohammadi, who embody resistance.

This process of learning the language that has survived generations in my family, generations in Kurdistan, is one that both resurfaces and introduces many emotions. I feel rage at the continued attack on Kurdish identity and language. I feel a sense of healing, as I recognize the words that filled my family’s household. Most importantly, I feel a sense of urgency, a desire to protect and share all aspects of my ethnicity. To continue reviving what doesn’t appear on a map.

We Kurds will continue to yell “jin, jiyan, azadi.”

From Amed to Halabja, from Mahabad to Efrîn, we will uplift the narratives of those who fought to keep our struggle alive. We will remain unapologetically Kurdish, anywhere and everywhere, because people like Jina Amini were never able to. Because people like Zara Mohammadi are put behind bars for doing so. Because our rivers flow across borders as one and our mountains greet one another from miles away, embracing one another in a shared pain yet a shared sovereignty.

As I connect each letter in the Kurdish alphabet in a Harvard classroom, my pen gliding across the sheet in an effort to connect what was once fragmented, I think of a free Kurdistan in which our chants of “jin, jiyan, azadi” evoke our rich history, not our drawn-out suffering. I think of a free Kurdistan in which our language, history, and culture are no longer considered crimes in their being, but testaments to our ancestral lands.

So, as this piece developed in my mind, I prepared to rip senior sales to shreds and reject this micro-market entirely, pontificating

on how they fail community principles and rely on a capitalist spirit unneeded in our college houses. At their worst, I still think I might be right. For the sake of our environment and culture, we need to be more thoughtful consumers, and we should undoubtedly think more about fulfilling our community needs before haphazardly throwing used goods up for sale. But at their best, with the right intentions, senior sales hold a glimmer of hope for building a more sustainable, community-focused culture on our campus.

***

Elizabeth I. Ogolo ’24 is no stranger to senior sales. She has participated in them on both sides, and her current sale boasts over 100 items neatly organized and displayed on a Google slideshow. She has put clear effort, time, and intentionality into the process.

“As an FGLI student, not only is it a way for me to reduce the amount of clothing, items, bedding, and dorm stuff that I have and have accumulated during my three, going onto four years on campus, but it is also a very sustainable way to get an income,” Ogolo told me.

Ogolo also noted that there was “something really cool about keeping things within Harvard’s community” through senior sales.

“It’s another means of recycling, albeit a lucrative one,” she said. ” It still does fulfill that purpose of keeping things in circulation so you don’t have to purchase something else and increase waste that way.”

Ogolo criticized the oversaturation of low quality sales filled with goods that “could have been left in the donation bins in your house basement,” noting that “it makes people less inclined to actually go look at senior sales.”

Senior sales, however, are not always monetarily based. Ogolo mentioned the “unspoken and underrated tradition” of passing down items for free, which leans into community values with the fullest force.

Cabot House, of which I am a proud resident, is no stranger to these traditions. Every year, the “Tiki Bar,” a charismatic and slightly out-of-shape bar, is passed on within the House. Rather than paying, prospective buyers are asked to write a love letter to their roommates, according to last year’s Tiki keeper Stephany Zhivotovsky ’23.

“There was an honor in carrying on a tradition and a feeling of, ‘I’m gonna give you something that has been cherished for a really long time and hope that you continue to cherish it and pass it on,’ and there’s no monetary exchange happening,” Zhivotovsky told me.

She credited the tradition, in part, to Harvard House life.

“Harvard’s unique in that everyone is assigned a House and more than 90 percent of

students live on campus, so you know the people that are going to be in your House the next year,” she said. “You already have this community.”

We could use more House traditions like the Tiki Bar. Be it a couch, table, rug, or bar, furniture that would otherwise find itself on Facebook Marketplace (if not a landfill) should be passed down for free in our Harvard community, extending its utility and eliminating the potential for waste.

Ogolo sees opportunities to build this culture further by better organizing and centralizing senior sales, trades, and other sustainability events, noting that “there’s a lot of fragmentation” and “a lot of students end up missing out.” She offered the clever idea of a mailing list specifically for transactional sales and swaps, regardless of House.

***

Still, as much as swaps and sales can support our sustainability efforts, a fresh new box at the mail center remains a click away. I’ll be honest: When I need something quickly, efficiently, and on the cheap, there’s a strong chance I’ll find myself scrolling through the internet for satiation. In 2023, as a college student, who wouldn’t?

Either way, I think we can all see why our environment would prefer we turn to, or at least consider, fulfilling our needs from within the community. Our waste would decrease, our psychological reliance on the Amazon shopping cart would weaken, our communal bonds would strengthen, and we’d all probably feel a little better too.

I can’t help but be a pessimist, though. If by some brilliant grace, the entire Harvard undergraduate population suddenly stopped buying from Amazon and Shein and built a robust and logistically sound market for sale, swaps, re-use, and community-reliance, I figure it wouldn’t make a dent. We are specks in a world addicted to buying new.

The shopping carts and one-click orders and Prime delivery days don’t look back. The landfills still overflow. The factories churn away and the planet overheats as we drown in the smokestacks of our ‘unlimited’ production marketed as growth. Satisfied leisurely ‘needs’ on one end, exploited labor and mass resource consumption on the other. I struggle to find a silver lining.

But if we don’t even attempt to challenge our consumer mindset — and reconsider not just how we fulfill our needs in our community, but what those needs really are — who else is going to save us?

–Matthew E. Nekritz ’25, a Crimson Editorial Editor, is a Social Studies Concentrator in Cabot House. His column, “The Things We Consume,” runs tri-weekly on Wednesdays.

–Dalal M. Hassane ’26, a Crimson Editorial editor, lives in Leverett House.

I feel a sense of urgency, a desire to protect and share all aspects of my ethnicity.

Men Don’t Need Their Own

‘Affirmative Action’

ADMISSIONS GENDER GAP. The lack of men at college has deep roots that should not be addressed by admission policy, and this debate obfuscates the reality of male privilege post-college.

BY THE CRIMSON EDITORIAL BOARD

Three months after the fall of race-based affirmative action, the academic world is still wrestling with questions of who does — and doesn’t — deserve a tip on the admissions scale: from athletes, legacies, children of donors, and children of faculty (who collectively comprise 30 percent of Harvard’s student body), to men. Across the nation’s collegiate classrooms, women outnumber men three to two. Of course, this ratio does not yet reflect the growing number of students who identify outside of the gender binary. But still, it is significant — and for some admissions offices, alarming.

As a Board, we’ve decided firmly in favor of race-based affirmative action and staunchly against legacy admissions. An admissions boost for men may appear to align with our appeals to a diverse student body in our defense of race-based college admissions.

But these struggles for educational equity are not equal. Affirmative action is primarily beneficial because it is reparative. The policy boosts opportunities for applicants that have historically faced systemic barriers to higher education and its premiums.

Men do not qualify as such applicants. Colleges like Harvard admitted only men for centuries. But even in more recent history, though fewer men have been attending college than women since the 1980s, they remain severely overrepresented in the positions of power that many leverage higher education to achieve.

Although women and men fill entry-level corporate positions in the United States and Canada at approximately the same rate, the proportion of women dwindles with each promotion, until women make up only around a quarter of C-suite roles. Once in these seats, women are assumed to be less competent leaders than men.

In academia, too, women make up only 31 percent of full-time faculty — and only 27 percent of tenured faculty — in American higher education, as of 2019. They face bias in publishing and grant applications, and are more likely to be asked to do low-visibility work without reward.

Men may face barriers that make them less likely to apply to college, but women face barriers from the moment they step on campus to long after they’ve graduated. Arguments for an admissions boost for men that hinge on gender

OP-ART

Dissent: Equitable Admissions Are Proportionate

BY LEAH R. BARON AND TOMMY BARONE

parity in the dating scene are nonsense in comparison to the long histories of racism and gender discrimination.

An eye for an eye, as it’s said, leaves the whole world blind. Likewise, an attitude of indifference to inequality in one realm cannot but cultivate indifference to inequalities in other realms.

Instead of absolving selective colleges of their obligation to admit comparable numbers of men and women, we wish that the Editorial Board had consistently applied its reparative admissions rationale to men.

While not a case of affirmative action, a gender imbalance in higher education still constitutes a real social problem. For young men to feel that they don’t have a future or access to higher education — one of the most effective mechanisms for upward mobility — is a significant issue, both for the well-being of those young men and for society at large. Thousands of purposeless second sons under European primogeniture spurred the First Crusade. From the GI Bill to monogamy, history is littered with attempts to remedy the societal instability caused by lost young men. At the point of college admissions, it’s much too late to help this male malaise. Gender gaps in academic achievement develop well before the college admissions process, and for varying reasons across socioeconomic groups. For Black and Latino young men, low rates of college admission seem attributable to the school-to-prison pipeline and household income inequality that incentivizes earning income over attending college. Young white men from low-income backgrounds are part of a broader “rural America death spiral,” facing the opioid epidemic and rising suicide rates. In the case of men generally, toxic masculinity pressures men to assume the role of breadwinner at the expense of their own well-being.

This Editorial Board has often found itself on the right side of history when it comes to college admissions. We have penned defense after defense of race-conscious admissions. We have written odes to the brilliant diversity of our campus. And we have argued trenchantly for the consistent application of these egalitarian principles to class. But today, after years spent contending that no barrier thrown up by an unequal world should encumber access to Harvard, the Board has decided that it need not stand by that principle fully when the barrier in question obstructs men. With the uncompromising belief that underrepresentation of one kind in higher education threatens representation of all kinds, we dissent.

Advantage and disadvantage is not some tidy binary that categorizes groups sweepingly as either ahead or behind across all domains.

A better universal ethic for college admissions starts with the following, deeply egalitarian axiom: Ability is equally distributed across the population; a child born into one circumstance is just as likely as a child born into any other to possess the potential for qualities sought by Harvard — intelligence, creativity, industriousness, and the like.

graduated.

Solutions to these various causes of gender disparities in educational achievement must start at an early age. Harvard Graduate School of Education and Harvard Kennedy School should fund research and outreach programs to develop such practical, narrowly tailored, early onset solutions. Harvard has already committed to partnering with historically Black colleges and universities, much to our approval; we hope Harvard continues to invest in initiatives that foster a more equitable education system for all students.

We believe in fixing the problems that plague men today. But that requires acknowledging the pervasive harms of the patriarchy, under which women continue to suffer, and the nuanced intersectional nature of these problems — which casts gender-based ‘affirmative action’ as incomparable to the race-based affirmative action we so recently lost.

–This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.

To reach its conclusion, the Board relies on the reparative rationale behind our support for race-conscious admissions. The logic goes something like this: Certain groups in America face systemic disadvantage; this disadvantage harms all members of such groups, putting them behind in the college process; colleges, which have important obligations to serve society, ought to account for these disadvantages when making admissions decisions.

Now, we understand our peers’ reluctance to support an admissions boost for men. It feels odd — frustrating, even — to call for colleges to come to their aid when women continue to face so many deep inequalities.

But the proof is in the pudding. At the level of education, America is failing its men — men of color, especially. Yet, even as it recognizes this crisis in male development today, the Board fails to apply its own reparative rationale correctly. With shares of male college achievement in decline for decades, a true reparative rationale would call for selective colleges to adjust for this disadvantage by the well-calibrated application of admissions preferences.

It then follows that a perfectly fair society — one in which circumstance does not impede the realization of one’s potential — would see outcomes that are exactly proportionate to its demographics. In such a society, Harvard would be a perfect cross-section of the nation with respect to the elements of one’s background — race and class, geography and gender — that most shape individual outcomes.

Whenever outcomes diverge from this expectation, we believe institutions should do their utmost to correct this distortion.

Colleges can act on this universally reparative ethic by using a catch-all adversity score to adjust for an individual applicant’s disadvantage, as the Biden administration announced it would develop this summer. The fairness, consistency, and honesty of such an approach may make it the most politically and legally tenable avenue to maintaining and expanding campus diversity. (It bears noting: Only an adversity score that captures male academic underperformance — rather than a broader basket of social outcomes where men are more privileged — will ensure proportional representation for men in college.)

With shares of male college achievement in decline for decades, a true reparative rationale would call for selective colleges to adjust for this disadvantage by the well-calibrated application of admissions preferences.

To argue as the Board does today, to disregard the educational disadvantage wrought by America’s male development crisis, to mark a neat asterisk beside it denoting that we need not care about it because it does not emerge from a long, sordid history of social subjugation, is a dangerous game.

Advantage and disadvantage is not some tidy binary that categorizes groups sweepingly as either ahead or behind across all domains. Groups we generally regard as advantaged can and do face important disadvantages, and to act as though their general advantage justifies or erases those particular disadvantages implies an understanding of justice that is bloodlessly zero-sum.

INTERDISCIPLINARY. Though disciplines may differ in method, they often ask similar questions.

So, yes, it feels strange to argue that men need help in college admissions. But we do so with our eyes fixed on the horizon: Holding tightly and consistently to the reparative ethic envisioned by our precedents on admissions is our best hope for realizing a Harvard that is diverse in every way.

–Leah R. Baron ’25, a Crimson Editorial Editor, is a Statistics concentrator in Lowell House. Tommy Barone ’25, a Crimson Editorial Comp Director, is a Social Studies concentrator in Currier House.

Dissenting Opinions: Occasionally, The Crimson Editorial Board is divided about the opinion we express in a staff editorial. In these cases, dissenting board members have the opportunity to express their opposition to staff opinion.

Men may face barriers that make them less likely to apply to college, but women face barriers from the moment they step on campus to long after they’ve

Siebel Scholars Class of 2024

The Siebel Scholars program was founded in 2000 to recognize the most talented graduate students in business, computer science, and bioengineering. Each year, over 80 outstanding graduate students are selected as Siebel Scholars based on academic excellence and leadership and join an active, lifelong community among an ever-growing group of leaders. We are pleased to recognize this year’s Siebel Scholars.

BIOENGINEERING

BUSINESS

COMPUTER SCIENCE

www.SiebelScholars.com

Dominican Restaurant Las Palmas Opens in Square

BY CAROLINE K. HSU AND SIDNEY K. LEE CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

Las Palmas, a restaurant serving up dishes inspired by the Dominican Republic, relocated this summer to a new space just one block away from its former home in Smith Campus Center.

Now located at 83 Mount Auburn St. — the former location of El Jefe’s Taqueria — the revamped location features a more spacious dining area for customers and a larger cooking space.

“People can come in, they can sit down, we can cook everything on site — and we can offer a bigger menu,” said Seila J. Green, the owner of Las Palmas.

The Cambridge location is the second for the chain, which also opened up in Roslindale, Massachusetts. Plans to move into a bigger space emerged last year in an attempt to become “more visible” and “expand” the Las Palmas brand, according to Green.

Green said Las Palmas is deeply committed to serving authentic food. The restaurant is “totally inspired by the Dominican Republic. No question about it,” she said.

Gabriela M. Vasquez Rosado ’26, a Dominican student, said she found the food reminded her of home.

“As a Dominican student on campus, getting homesick and stuff like that, it feels really nice to be able to go there and have food that is authentic to my culture,” she said, recalling finding solace in the restaurant when homesickness crept in last semester.

Maia Patel-Masini ’25 said Las Palmas “did the seasoning so well.” Las Palmas also serves Malta, a drink popular throughout the Caribbean, which Masini said she has “never seen a store sell,” except for in the international aisles of some supermarkets.

We emphasize on bringing original flavors from the Dominican Republic.

Seila J. Green Owner of Las Palmas

“We emphasize on bringing original flavors from the Dominican Republic,” Green said. “It’s a combination of a lot of flavors together. And they’re all originals.”

The new location boasts a “lively” atmosphere, with vivid greenery, neon lights, and a “homey” feel — a stark contrast from its previous incarnation at Smith. Green invited students to “just bring your laptop, eat some great food, and sit there.”

Masini praised the “cute little setup” of Las Palmas, pointing to its hanging vines and prominent flag of the Dominican Republic. “I love how it just feels kind of fresh in there,” she said.

Masini said she had “never seen anyone go” to the Smith location, so she was “really happy” when she saw Las Palmas open up in its new space.

Green emphasized Las Palmas’ dedication to expansion and cultural outreach within the Boston area.

“We are expanding and getting people to know our cuisine and our culture,” Green said. “I’m bringing all the flavors together so people can learn more about us.”

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Las Palmas provided “thousands of meals” to frontline health care workers and families in the Greater Boston area, according to its website. They served doctors who worked in hospitals, ensuring they received adequate meals during the crisis.

Though Las Palmas has not yet had a grand opening celebration, Green said staff are working toward hosting future opening festivities.

“The students are back so we’ve been very busy, luckily,” Green said. “This upcoming month should be busy as well.”

CAMBRIDGE POLICE

Cambridge Police Arresting Black People at Highest Rate in 13 Years

DISPROPORTIONATELY

HIGH. In the first half of the year, more than 50 percent of Cambridge Police Department arrests were of Black people.

BY RYAN H. DOAN-NGUYEN AND YUSUF S. MIAN CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

More than 50 percent of arrests made by the Cambridge Police Department in the first half of 2023 were of Black people — the highest proportion in at least 13 years, a newly released data set by the city reveals.

According to the dashboard, 50.9 percent of those arrested this year as of June self-identified as Black — up from 48.5 percent in 2022.

Over the 13-year period displayed in the dashboard, 39.3 percent of people arrested were Black.

By comparison, Black residents make up 10.7 percent of Cambridge’s population, according to the 2020 U.S. Census.

CPD Commissioner Christine A. Elow acknowledged this disparity in an Aug. 30 webinar introducing the dashboard, which she said “concerns her.”

“That’s something that I really want some more information on about what’s going on there,” Elow added.

Though the proportion of Black people arrested was higher in the first half of the year, the total number of Black people arrested is on pace to decrease from previous years, with 145 arrests as of June — compared to 560 in 2010 and 314 in 2022. This mirrors the trend for total yearly arrests, which have fallen substantially over the last decade, from 1,450 in 2010 to 648

Source: Cambridge Police Department Procedural Justice Dashboard. Note: Data for 2023 is only through June 30.

BY

S. MIAN — CONTRIBUTING DESIGNER

YUSUF

in 2022 and just 285 in 2023 as of June.

The number of yearly summons has slightly increased, from 397 in 2010 to 475 in 2023 as of June.

Elow called this drop “encouraging” and credited it specifically to changes in department practices.

“We moved away from real traditional law enforcement practices when it came to how we respond to calls for service in our community,” Elow said.

“We really wanted to shift away from arrests, which was our primary way of engaging when a law was broken, to more how do

we solve root causes of crime,” she added.

The dashboard also displays CPD’s yearly use of force report for 2022.

The report shows that 65 percent of use-of-force incidents involved Black and Hispanic individuals, an increase from 53 percent in 2021 and 58 percent in 2020.

The department introduced the procedural justice dashboard last month in an effort to increase transparency around police interactions, in line with Elow’s public commitments to greater accountability. The dashboard includes infor-

Cambridge Educators Rally for New Contract

BY SALLY E. EDWARDS CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

More than 50 Cambridge educators and residents rallied in support of the Cambridge Education Association outside of a School Committee meeting on Tuesday night, as the teachers’ union remains in a contract stalemate with the school district.

The union has been without a contract since the previous agreement expired on Aug. 31, just five days before the start of the school year. While the CEA and School Committee have met frequently since last October to negotiate a new contract, the two parties have yet to resolve all points of disagreement.

Dan Monahan — the president of the CEA – said while the School Committee has “begun to listen to us more,” negotiations are “not moving fast enough” “The fact that we don’t have a contract now is really pushing educators harder to take more significant action,” Monahan said.

Until a new contract is agreed upon, the terms of the previous agreement will remain in effect, according to Massachusetts labor law.

Cambridge Public Schools spokesperson Sujata Wycoff declined to comment on the demonstration Tuesday and referred back to the district’s

In an August press release, the school district reiterated its “commitment to reach an agreement on a fair contract” that values the district’s “talented and dedicated educators.”

“The School Committee looks forward to continued negotiations with the CEA,” the press release reads. “We will continue to update the community periodically as we work together toward a new contract with our union partners.”

The CEA announced Monday that it would demonstrate ahead of the School Committee meeting Tuesday evening. Additionally, the educators union plans to rally before and after the school day once per week.

Members of the union will not work outside of school hours and plan on “walking in together at the beginning of the contractual day and walking out together at the end of the contractual day,” according to a CEA press release.

Randi Campbell, an English teacher at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, said the reality of teachers’ extended hours “needs to be shared”.

“I don’t know a single teacher who does not take work home with them or do work when they should be spending time with their family,” Campbell said. “I think that the only way that you really get people to see that is to have teachers stand up and share that experience.”

past 24 years, said teachers “just want a fair contract.”

“I want the School Committee to know that we’re not all right, that teachers are really stressed,” DeLucia said. “The bottom line is we want our kids to be the best — but you need to support us when we are doing the heavy lifting.”

Bella Sandoval, a teacher at CRLS, added that the price of living in Cambridge increases the difficulty for educators in the district. She said it’s “naive” to believe that someone living on an educator’s salary can afford to live in Cambridge.

“You can stay teaching and working in the community that you love,” she said. “But if you want to afford to live and support a family, you either move your family out and commute — which adds a toll on people’s lives, of course — or you stay and live in somewhat poverty in the area.”

Molly Brooks, a history teacher at CRLS with a master’s degree, said her compensation does not reflect the level of education she attained.

“Unfortunately, I can say I still live paycheck to paycheck, and I have a second job — sometimes three, depending on the time of year,” Brooks said. “On top of how ridiculously difficult this job is and the demands that take place — not just in the building, but outside — I still have that additional stressor in my life of, you know, being able to pay all my bills.”

Chris Montero, a history teacher at CRLS, said he hopes the School Committee “gets the message that we’re not going away.”

“We demand to be compensated fairly, and we demand to be treated like professionals — because we are — and I think that the sooner they get that, the better off they’re going to be,” Montero said. “It’s just a matter of when they’re going to come to that realization — I hope it’s sooner rather than later, but we’re in it for the long haul.”

sally.edwards@thecrimson.com

ter understand how we police in the community,” Elow, the CPD commissioner, wrote in an introductory statement accompanying the dashboard.

“The introduction of this latest dashboard begins to take a deeper dive into two of the biggest issues that can create barriers to community trust of law enforcement: race and transparency,” Elow added.

CPD has partnered with the Center for Policing Equity to “help the department identify or address any potential vulnerabilities or disparities from the data featured in the dashboard and develop harm reduction strategies,” according to an Aug. 15 press release.

CPD has been under increased scrutiny this year after an officer shot and killed a 20-year-old Bangladeshi American college student, Sayed Faisal, in Cambridgeport on Jan. 4. Faisal’s death has sparked more than a dozen local protests — including occupations of Cambridge City Hall — against alleged racism and brutality by the Cambridge Police Department.

mation on arrests, citations, and summons issued by CPD from 2010 onwards and will be updated quarterly.

Users can filter the data by race, ethnicity, neighborhood, gender, and time period. Its site also includes pages for its annual use of force report, the definitions used throughout the dashboard, including terms such as “automobile law violation” and “scheduled assessment,” and a feedback and contact form.

“Trust and respect are rooted in transparency and accountability. This includes making reliable data available quickly to our community, so residents can bet-

At the Aug. 30 panel introducing the dashboard, Elow said the goal of the dashboard — which the department has been working on for the past two years — is to “give the public deeper insight into the Cambridge Police Department and also for us to take a deeper look at ourselves.”

During the webinar, Elow said she was “proud of ourselves” for having reached the end of this “really huge, complex undertaking.”

“We really don’t think there’s another dashboard in the state that provides this level of detail,” she said.

Circus Cooperative Cafe Opens Shop

BY SIDNEY K. LEE AND CAROLINE K. HSU CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

The Circus Cooperative Cafe — located in the recently closed Darwin’s cafe and run by some of its former employees — opened Sept. 12 on the outskirts of Harvard Square after a soft opening two days earlier.

The co-op is located on 31 Putnam Ave., the site of one of the four Darwin’s locations that shuttered late last year. Following the closures, a small group of former Darwin’s employees began plans to open a worker-owned cafe and raised just over $13,000 on GoFundMe.

Co-owner Caleb S. Zedek said the day of the grand opening was “crazy.”

“There were like 20 people in the door in the first 15 minutes. We sold out of pastries in, I think, 40 minutes,” Zedek said. “We have continuously heard from customers that they are incredibly happy that there’s a cafe in the neighborhood again.”

The Circus Cooperative Cafe takes its name from what many employees saw as the circus-like atmosphere of the old Darwin’s locations. The co-op’s team of four has added two new people and is looking for a couple more employees, according to Zedek.

Everyone who joins the cooperatively-owned cafe will be on “an ownership track,” Zedek said. During the initial six-month employment period, new employees get to know the business. After that, there is an opportunity for ownership for each worker.

“I think our goal, at the very least, is to prove that employee ownership is a viable model,” Zedek said.

Zedek said he hopes the members of the Circus Cooperative Cafe can be a “resource” for future groups of employees who may need support “figuring out

purchasing a business that they know and love.”

While the co-owners have all worked at a cafe before, Zedek said the team is still “learning as we go.”

Zedek said the menu at Circus is a bit smaller than it was at Darwin’s and that it is more “streamlined.” In addition to the standard cafe beverage and pastry options, there are sandwiches familiar to former Darwin’s customers.

“We wanted people to be able to come in and still find a couple of the sandwiches that they are used to enjoying,” Zedek said.

“We have also added a couple of sandwiches of our own.”

Zedek mentioned the Go Chu sandwich in particular, which is a chicken salad sandwich with gochujang mayo, a little bit of cilantro, and “some really fantastic homemade pickles.”

Emma Atlas, a local resident who grew up visiting Darwin’s, described the cafe as a “cozy, good place to do work.”

“But I have a bit of a special place in my heart for Darwin’s, so it’s a bit hard coming here knowing it’s not the same — but it’s similar,” she said.

Zedek said the team aspired for the Circus Cafe to become a “community space.” Inside, there is a shelf where customers can leave “books, zines, art” to share with the neighborhood. The cafe will soon carry copies of the Boston Compass, a local newspaper.

Ellen Frith, a Cambridge resident, spoke about the Circus Cooperative Cafe’s space as having been a “gathering place for a long time.” The location’s previous two tenants — Petsi Pies and Darwin’s — were both coffee shops.

“It’s just important to have a neighborhood gathering and a place for people to get to know each other and maybe be able to affect some changes,” Frith said.

sidney.lee@thecrimson.com caroline.hsu@thecrimson.com

Theater Kids Deserve Space to Struggle

BY VIVIENNE N. GERMAIN CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

In the words of Konstantin Stanislavski and almost every annoying drama teacher, “there are no small parts, only small actors.” Possibly inspired by this concept, a teenage girl cast in a bit part (Salesgirl #2) tried to energize her character by barking the line “Courtney, take your break!” with melodramatic intensity and a sharp edge. Her delivery was comically atrocious — and after a recorded clip of it reached the internet, it became a public joke.

The “Courtney, take your break” meme originated from a YouTube video featuring a community youth group’s rendition of “Omigod You Guys,” the opening number of “Legally Blonde: The Musical.” It’s a mess: Preteens and teenagers struggle to stay on pitch, fail to reach high notes, bumble through simple choreography, miss cues, forget lyrics, and make feeble acting choices. The video, uploaded multiple times with various titles including “Illegally Blonde,” rose to popularity as a laughingstock and a farce. It continues to circulate after half a decade, recently regaining attention on TikTok. Millions of viewers laugh at the spectacle and share vicious commentary online, and their mockery is not only mean; it’s destructive. Children deserve the space to perform plays and musicals — well or poorly — without being subjected to ridicule.

Based on the 2001 novel and the romantic comedy film of the same name, “Legally Blonde: The Musical” premiered in San Francisco and opened on Broadway in 2007. Despite initial mixed reviews, “Legally Blonde” is a remarkable work of theater with bright music, clever lyrics, and a funny book. The musical matches the film’s buoyant energy and exceeds the film’s artistic quality. When performed successfully, “Legally Blonde” thrills audiences, which makes the rough scene captured in “Illegally Blonde” feel glaringly awful.

The “Illegally Blonde” kids are not alone in their shortcomings. “Legally Blonde,” a demanding show, is a common selection for secondary schools, summer camps, and community youth groups. Their attempts at the musical usually fall flat due to dull and flimsy acting, weak and shaky singing, lame and clumsy dancing, uncomfortable stage kisses, and distracting lyric changes — like an awkward switch from “look at my ass” to “look at my abs” in “Bend and Snap,” a fan-favorite

song that has nothing to do with abdominal muscles. These issues often ruin the show, but they are typical in children’s theater. The “Illegally Blonde” kids’ unsuccessful performance is not unusual.

However, the “Illegally Blonde” kids are uniquely exposed to derision from adult strangers due to the digital permanence of their opening number. Some viewers relate to the kids and sympathize with their efforts, but most viewers delight in making fun of their failures. A well-known version of the video, published five years ago in September 2018 and titled “Illegally Blonde: For Your Consideration,” is peppered with notes that read “oof the chord,” “they all gave like 68% of their all,” “whore,” and “1-800-273-8255,” the former national suicide prevention hotline number. The comment section displays cruel remarks like “they sound like dying walrus especially the girl in the purple shirt.” Ultimately, “For Your Consideration” bullies kids and enables viewers to do the same.

While the “Illegally Blonde” performance of “Omigod You Guys” is hilariously disastrous — similar to performances in viral videos like “Illegal Hamilton” and “Illegal Heathers,” which emulate the “Illegally Blonde” joke — its amusing nature and low quality do not justify its receipt of widespread mockery. Adults should not ridicule children in any setting, due to the inherent power imbalance in age difference, the perceived credibility of a grown-up voice, and the sensitive impressionability of a young mind — but adults should especially avoid ridiculing children for trying theater. Theater serves children well. When they participate in plays and musicals, wonderful or terrible, they test unfamiliar territory, dedicate hours of hard work, develop useful skills, muster the courage to face an audience, care about the process and the product, build confidence, embrace creativity, have fun, and feel proud of their efforts. Many of them cringe with embarrassment when reflecting on their terrible musicals years later, but they cherish the memories. Through theater, kids learn and grow while enjoy-

ing the arts. Most children are not gifted actors, but all of them deserve a chance to take the stage. Bullying children for bad performances deters them from pursuing new experiences, which denies them the rewards. It also undermines the inclusive and exploratory spirit of the arts. Kids benefit from self-expression and experimentation, which are the aims of recreational youth theater and the arts in general. They should be able to take advantage of these opportunities without risking exposure to public hate and humiliation.

The unkind statements about “Illegally Blonde” are not limited to the “For Your Consideration” commentary. A video by content creator Kevin Lynch, “WORST Legally Blonde Musical Production EVER!” includes bitter words from Lynch (such as “it’s like The Helen Keller School for the Arts”) and brutal responses from viewers (such as “actively resisting homicidal thoughts”). Adults also ridicule “Illegally Blonde” on other YouTube videos, TikTok, BuzzFeed, X (formerly known as Twitter), and personal blogs. Even worse, the mockery extends beyond individuals with small platforms. The award-winning NBC sketch-comedy show “Saturday Night Live” created a parody of “Illegally Blonde,” making fun of the kids’ performances onstage and their presumed lives backstage. In the digital short, former SNL cast member Aidy Bryant’s character asks, “Can middle school productions win Tonys?” before falling off the stage — only one of many jokes made at the children’s expense.

Through reaction videos, social media posts, and mainstream television content, adults make fun of “Illegally Blonde” for personal gain. They deride an amateur youth musical in the pursuit of short-term amusement, internet clout, and monetary profit, lacking apparent concern for the children’s emotions and self-image. Adults should find ways to uplift themselves without crushing kids. Laughs, likes, and loot are valuable, but not as valuable as a child’s confidence.

To the bullies’ credit and the performers’ defense, “Legally

EDITOR’S PICK: THEATER

‘THE HALF-GOD OF RAINFALL’ TAKES STAGE AT LOEB

Blonde” is an ill-advised choice for children’s theater. Despite telling a fun story, the musical is an ambitious undertaking. The Act One finale, “So Much Better,” requires powerful vocals with high-energy movement, exhausting the actor before she ends the song with a notoriously difficult high sustained belted note. Act Two opens with “Whipped into Shape,” a number that requires strong vocals while jump-roping the entire time. Additionally, the ensemble must learn complicated dance choreography, the orchestra must handle exceptionally challenging music, and the tech team must manage numerous costume and set changes. “Legally Blonde” also involves suggestive themes — characters allege a sexual affair, imitate an orgasm, and describe a UPS courier as “walking porn” — which indicates that the show is not meant for kids.

Considering the difficulty of “Legally Blonde,” audiences should approach youth performances of it with kindness and understanding. They should appreciate the kids’ work and remain supportive of their endeavors. By desiring a professional-grade performance from neighborhood preteens, adults impose detrimental pressure on them, contributing to the harmful culture of burdening children with expectations of constant excellence and perfection. They damage kids’ development and well-being. Amateur theater should be a means for kids to escape stress, rather than a contributor to it.

The adults sneering about the mediocre costumes in “Illegally Blonde” should remember fishing through decades-old, ill-fitting clothes in the back of their public school’s low-budget arts department closet. Adults mocking the production’s laughably fake dog barks should remember the ways their teachers cut corners to ensure that youth soccer teams, science bowls, and debate clubs could function despite lacking access to extensive resources. Most importantly, adults ridiculing the performers should remember what their lives were like as insecure thirteen-year-olds trying their best to navigate adolescence.

At least one impressive Broadway actor butchered lines in an unimpressive summer camp production of “Almost, Maine,” and more than one average guy threw up onstage in a below-average children’s church group production of “The Music Man.” That’s okay. Not every kid is a star, but every kid deserves the freedom to play and the freedom to flop.

vivienne.germain@thecrimson.com

Playwright and poet Inua Ellams breathes new air into the concept by combining and reshaping Greek mythology, Yoruba spirituality, and basketball into a stunning new epic play, “The Half-God of Rainfall.

“The Half-God of Rainfall” introduces the Greek pantheon and the Òrìṣà, which are personified natural forces in Yoruba spirituality. The play follows Demi (Mister Fitzgerald), the demigod son of Zeus (Michael Laurence), who is the king of the Greek Gods, and Modúpé (Jennifer Mogbock), a Nigerian high priestess who worships Osún (Patrice Johnson Chevannes), also known as the river Orisha. Demi grows up in Nigeria, plays basketball, and immigrates to America to join the NBA. Presented by the American Repertory Theater and New York Theatre Workshop, and directed by Taibi Magar, “The Half-God of Rainfall” runs through Sept. 24 at the Loeb Drama Center in Harvard Square. The play is a slam-dunk hit, with Ellams and Magar successfully transporting their audience through a 90-minute spectacle.

Ellams borrows from old mythology to create something new. The entire play is structured like one of Homer’s epics, with actors announcing a change in Book at certain junctures. Beyond that, Ellams writes with poetic language and rich imagery that rolls off the actors’ tongues like spoken word. Structured in the form of an epic poem, “The Half-God of Rainfall” centers a new kind of myth: the story of an immigrant, a person who struggles to exist in two places at once.

The play riffs on age-old questions present in the classical canon, such as the struggle between fate and agency, and the struggle between gods and men. Woven throughout debates about whether violence begets violence and the way that gods play dice with the lives of mortals, Ellams poses more contemporary questions that only work because of his creative reshaping. As Demi skyrockets in fame in the NBA, and then the Olympics, the play asks: Should we deify our athletes?

Within that new mythology, though, is incisive commentary on violation and colonization; of countries, bodies, and minds. Zeus, who rapes Modúpé, is an allegory for patriarchy and colonial violence. When Zeus forces himself on Modúpé, conceiving Demi, anguished monologues and well-choreographed staging convey palpable rage and distress. Mogbock, in particular, is outstanding in her portrayal of her conflicting emotions: the love she has for Demi and the pain and trauma that she carries from his conception.

A bank of black gravel covers the stage of the Loeb Drama Center for “The Half-God of Rainfall,” and this scenic design is an ingenious idea. The material is versatile, bringing astroturf to mind during the basketball scenes and providing more realism to the scenes set along the riverbank or in nature. Perhaps the tactile nature of the gravel could have been utilized more throughout the story, adding more dimension to what was otherwise a minimalist staging. Still, the scenic design by Riccardo Hernández was ultimately successful.

Though professional basketball and Greek mythology seem firmly unrelated, Ellams combines modern experiences and ancient stories beautifully. Ellams plays on the nickname “rainman” for a basketballer that rains shots into the hoop, and this metaphor gives way to beautiful passages throughout the epic. Some of the strongest scenes occur during the choreographed basketball scenes as the characters narrate the action with lyrical lines that combine natural imagery and rhythmic beats. The basketball scenes were also some of the funniest scenes with references to basketball greats like Michael Jordan and Kevin McHale — injecting delightful levity into the performance.

Despite utilizing few props and set pieces, the production was visually beautiful. The sparse staging emphasized Ellams’ rich language, and props are often more abstract, allowing the audience to use their imagination and extrapolate the setting for themselves.

While Demi is the lead character, “The Half-God of Rainfall” is, at its core, a story about women. It is a powerful, compelling story of women’s suffering and how they wield their pain and love and turn it into power. Women are the driving force of the story. Modúpé and Osún are chief among the people who fight to protect Demi and who are champions in their own right.

Hera (Kelley Curran) is compelling in her frustration with Zeus, portraying the Queen of the Greek Gods with elegance and restraint. However, the climactic final scene, which pits the women against Zeus, felt underwhelming, perhaps due to a sudden acceleration in the pacing of the final third of the play that made the ending feel somewhat rushed.

Nevertheless, “The Half-God of Rainfall” is not a play to miss. With its skillful script and stunning production, it wrestles with issues and themes that will surely leave its audience thinking about it long after they leave the theater.

angelina.ng@thecrimson.com

MICHELE LIU — CRIMSON DESIGNER

Amateur theater should be a means for kids to escape stress, rather than a contributor to it.

BOOKS

NIETFELD ’15 ON SUCCESS, STRUGGLE, AND ‘ACCEPTANCE’

always in positive ways, but that’s the way life works and that’s okay,” Nietfeld said.

“Acceptance” is a truthful, sometimes challenging exercise in Nietfeld reliving her past traumas. Most of the memories re-

BY RACHEL A. BEARD CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

Emi F. Nietfeld ’15 is a former software engineer at Google and a passionate essay writer who recently released the paperback version of her memoir “Acceptance.” In this memoir, Nietfeld takes readers on a profound journey from her early childhood to starting her short stint at Google, exploring everything from the challenges of foster care and homelessness to the hallowed halls of Harvard, and eventually the demanding world of Big Tech. “Acceptance” dives deep into Nietfeld’s experiences with resilience, ambition, and the true cost of success.

For Nietfeld, the road to writing “Acceptance” was both long and full of emotional turmoil. She first got the idea to write a memoir after submitting her college applications, having struggled with condensing her life story into a college essay.

“I remembered feeling gutted by the process of trying to package my life story into this tidy narrative for the applications, and I felt like so many other teenagers must be experiencing the same thing,”

Nietfeld said in an interview with The Harvard Crimson.

Nietfeld hoped that readers would be able to relate to her journey and struggles with the college admissions process. The emotional impact of college admissions can be quite high, but the stakes are even higher when applying to elite institutions as a low-income student, like Nietfeld did.

While her idea for the memoir started in high school, Nietfeld’s vision for the book changed over time. Even the meaning of the title changed, though she always knew she wanted to title it “Acceptance.”

“At the beginning, it was almost a defiant, ironic title because I had been in therapy situations where people were telling me, ‘You just need to accept your life,’” Nietfeld said.

Despite its origin as a seemingly ironic comment — “just accept it” — the title morphed into a genuine need for introspection, closure, and acceptance of past traumas and experiences.

“Acceptance did not have to be the same thing as being over everything, and instead it could be a different way to move forward where I acknowledge here’s what happened and it has affected me and changed me as a person, not

Acceptance did not have to be the same thing as being over everything, and instead it could be a different way to move forward where I acknowledge here’s what happened and it has affected me.

Emi F. Nietfeld ’15

counted in the book are filled with pain or emotional turmoil. Despite the emotional challenge, Nietfeld was committed to being as truthful as possible throughout her memoir. She fact-checked every aspect of the book — combing through over 10,000 emails from her high school years, countless interviews, and old documents including her medical records. She remembers the experience as painful and embarrassing.

“I made the decision early on that I was going to fact-check everything to the best of my ability, and that I would interview ev-

erybody I could and read all of the documents,” Nietfeld said. “And that was agonizing.”

In writing her memoir, Nietfeld’s goal was to dive into what it really means to be successful and resilient. She questions the emphasis put on the latter.

“I write a lot about this idea of resilience because it’s so glorified in American culture. Often, resilience is the number one compliment that you can give somebody, and I felt like it was this burden that I had to live up to all the time where even when I was going through so many problems and so much turmoil, I was expected to be strong and be made for the better for it,” Nietfeld said.

But “Acceptance” isn’t just a recollection of past struggles: It’s a testament to Nietfeld’s growth and evolving understanding of success. No longer measuring her worth against resilience and achievements, her definition of success transformed over time. Now, it encompasses having her basic needs met, nurturing relationships she deeply cares about, and passionately pursuing projects without self-compromise.

“Today, for me, success is doing the work that I love and that’s meaningful, and making a difference in the world, and also having a lifestyle that involves love and taking care of my physical health, so I can keep doing what I am doing without burning out,” Nietfeld said.

Beyond her memoir, Nietfeld’s insightful essays have also

achieved acclaim, including a popular essay about her time at Google published in The New York Times. Nietfeld chooses to write about subjects she is passionate about.

“I write about what drives me crazy, and what I wake up in the night and can’t stop thinking about,” Nietfeld said.

Looking ahead, Nietfeld plans to advocate for others as fervently as ever. She’s currently exploring the themes of how societal inequalities impact mental health in America, and she is particularly interested in understanding the constructs of family and upbringing in diverse socio-economic settings. Moreover, she’s keen on shedding light on subjects that often go unnoticed or are misunderstood.

“I pay a lot of attention to what’s in the news, specifically when I have a perspective that I do not see people talking about in the world. So I have an op-ed about economic inequality’s role in the mental health crisis,” Nietfeld said.

With “Acceptance,” Nietfeld has not only shared a piece of her soul with the world, but also inspired countless others to find their voice, challenge societal norms, and seek their own personal acceptance.

‘One Piece’ Season Review: A Few Pieces Missing

BY TAYLOR S. JOHNSON CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

“One Piece” is a treasure-hunting shonen anime with 1,706 episodes that follows an unlikely crew of pirates: Nami (Emily Rudd), Zoro (Mackenyu), Sanji (Taz Skylar), and Usopp (Jacob Romero), who are led by an even unlikelier captain, Monkey D. Luffy (Iñaki Godoy). Together, they fight the Marines — a company who acts as a sort of police force, and numerous other pirates who stand in the way of them reaching their dreams.

On Aug. 31, Netflix released their live action adaptation, adding to the show’s ever growing series because seriously, when does it end? It covers the introduction and Arlong Park arcs in the original anime, where the crew band together and face Buggy the Clown (Jeff Ward) and Arlong (McKinley Belcher III), the main villain of this arc as well as Nami’s past nemesis. The anime has one of the

strongest fan bases to ever exist, so it is no surprise that Netflix’s adaptation has rallied so much support over these past couple of weeks. But the question remains: Does it actually deserve a renewal and a rating of 8.5/10, or is its popularity a product of extreme fan loyalty?

Starting with the negatives, the acting, costumes, and camera angles can be best described as mediocre. The acting was elementary throughout and failed to be as moving as the emotional beats are in the anime. For example, in episode two — “The Man in the Straw Hat” — Luffy says “You can dump seawater on me, and I’ll let it slide. But don’t you ever threaten my friends.” It is not at all threatening, and if anything, a little funny. Luffy is known for being overly optimistic, and by proxy a little cheesy, but there is no excuse for awkward dialogue that comes from other, more serious characters in episode two that just come off as banal and lackluster. The scenes where we learn

about Nami’s backstory in episode seven “The Girl with the Sawfish Tattoo” are also very disappointing. As anime-watchers understand, before greatness there is always a heartbreaking backstory — and Nami has one of the most heartbreaking backstories of all the characters in ‘One Piece,’ — but the acting of young Nami (Lily Fisher) and her mom (Genna Galloway) is so very bland.

The color palette for the costumes and sets, and the angles at which they are shot are as dull as can be. The hair colors, costumes, props, and scenery are significantly less vivid than expected, and the angles and shots that look amazing in animations do not translate well.

Episode three is one of the worst offenders, featuring several weird, fuzzy fisheye shots of Zoro, awkward split-view scenes of Koby (Morgan Davies) and Garp (Vincent Regan), and horrible transitions. For the majority of the time, the transitional scenes are choppy and the cam-

era angles are not very innovative or interesting. For viewers who have watched anime, it is obvious what the cinematography is attempting to do, and by extension, obvious that the efforts are fruitless.

One upside to the negatives, though, is that the glimmers of good really stand out. In episode six, The Chef and the Chore Boy, viewers get a taste of the rich backstory that Sanji — an aspiring cook and explorer — and Chef Zeff (Craig Fairbrass) share. It is already implied that Zeff is a sort of father figure to Sanji in the way they bicker with each other, but the addition of the backstory really explains why and how that came to be.

The acting by young Sanji (Christian Convery) and Zeff in this scene evokes a lot of sympathy, as does the unexpected plot twist at the end. Similarly, in episode seven, “The Girl with the Sawfish Tattoo,” when Luffy proves his friendship to Nami, it is very sad, very sweet, and very effective. Following this, episode

rachel.beard@thecrimson.com

eight has the best fight scenes of the season, particularly when Sanji and Zoro are fighting side by side and Usopp is being chased, while Luffy fights Arlong.

The cinematography and shared dialogue capture this fight in a way that is as dynamic and entertaining as the anime, but not overpowering or confusing. Here, the show seems to realize what can be transcribed from the anime and what needs to be translated.

In an adaptation, things need to be adapted, not copied and pasted. Electric green hair, fisheye camera angles, and corny catch phrases are always going to look and sound more impressive when they are animated.

Reality often puts quite the damper on creativity, but this show handles that well — especially in comparison with other live action anime — looking at you, “Death Note!”

Much like the classic anime character arc, the show gets significantly better toward the end. The acting and fight scenes find

their feet and the show justifies the points where it deviates from the original anime. Initially, the screen time Garp and Koby get, the change in Buggy’s character to make him a more threatening villain and a partner to Arlong, amongst other smaller things, is a jarring change. However, it pays off in the way the series comes to a neat close. There was a significant amount of alteration, but considering the series went from 44 episodes for the introduction and Arlong Park arc to just eight in this live action, the writers did very well.

So, the answer is convoluted. This show is a little cheesy, not very visually inspiring, and does not stay true to the original media. But as a live action anime, it has set the bar to new heights.

COURTESY OF ZOE PRINDS-FLASH AND PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE

THE HARVARD CRIMSON

David Y. Yang is an Economics professor who studies change and stability in authoritarian regimes with a specific focus on China.

FM: To start off, you got your Bachelor’s at UC Berkeley and your Ph.D. at Stanford. Now, of course, you work at Harvard. East or West Coast?

DYY: West Coast at heart, but trying my best to get used to East Coast.

FM: You study political economy, which examines the relationship between political and economic systems, specifically drawing from Chinese history and contemporary politics. What first drew you to the field?

DYY: A big part of this is my own personal experience. I grew up in China. I did not realize the censorship, the propaganda.

FM: Your research centers specifically on authoritarian regimes in China. What do you think people often get wrong in the discourse surrounding U.S.-China relations?

DYY: I think the one big misper ception on the public media people seem to have that seems to generate a lot of traction in D.C. is that there’s a coherent, long-run strategy of the Chinese government to overtake the U.S., to change the global order and so on. Certainly there’s incentive to do so, but I think the foreign poli cy made in China is much less co herent, much less far far-sight edly planned than people have realized. It’s easy to rationalize and see a very strong and scary enemy perspective, but once you know China’s politics — and for that matter the U.S. as well — I think very few countries are making an extremely strategic long game in a way that the me dia tends to portray it.

FM: Some have argued that China’s large population and diverse cultural and economic background make it difficult for a Western-style demo cratic system to take root, and that criticizing China for its undemocratic government is to hold the country to Western standards. What do you think about these claims?

DYY: There are people in China who eagerly want and fight for democracy. There are people in the U.S. who take on actions that go very much against democra cy. That happens all around the world, and is probably increas ing still today. I think economists like to think that there’s nothing unique and weird about the context. Everyone’s subject to some basic economic rules and principles, and they’re interested in potentially different consequences that the Chinese popula tion might be facing, but it’s not that people funda mentally have different preferences, it’s their culture.

FM: What was the last book you read purely for fun?

DYY: I read a lot of cookbooks for fun. I wanted to write a cookbook of my own. If you’re asking what’s the most recent book I read for fun, it’s a book called “The Birth of Intimacy, Privacy, and Domestic Life” in early modern Paris. It’s a book that looks at death records in Paris and tries to piece together how people lived 500 years ago, and how the internal domestic space evolves as the urban landscape changes.

FM: Now I’m curious about the cookbook. So what do you like to cook, or do you just like to read cookbooks?

DYY: I also like to cook. I did have a chef license when I was young, but it probably has expired at this point. I love to cook a lot.

FM: So what do you like to cook?

DYY: I like to cook all kinds of food. Chinese food, I think prob -

Q&A:

FIFTEEN QUESTIONS 15

DAVID Y. YANG ON CHINESE AUTHORITARIANISM, POLITICAL ECONOMY, AND COOKBOOKS

THE ECONOMICS PROFESSOR sat down with Fifteen Minutes to discuss his work on the political economy of authoritarian regimes in China. “There are people in China who eagerly want and fight for democracy. There are people in the U.S. who take on actions that go very much against democracy,” he says.

BY KYLE L. MANDELL CRIMSON MAGAZINE ASSOCIATE EDITOR

ably more fusion these days than just one type of cuisine. Part of my dream cookbook to write is that there’s surprisingly commonality across cuisines that one might never have realized. For example, every single food culture has a way of wrapping proteins with basically flatbread in different forms. Tacos, flatbreads, pizza, and they all come in the same form. We learn a lot about history and cultural change through the way the recipes have evolved.

FM: You might have just answered this question, but if you weren’t a professor of political economy, what do you think you’d be doing right now?

DYY: I did want to be a chef, that’s one of my dreams. I also really wanted to, when I was younger, go on to be an architect. Then I realized that’s a major career that requires some really demanding hard skills, and I took the easier route.

FM: Is there a historical time pe-

riod or regime that you find most salient in your research?

DYY: Well so I focus on China a lot, China post-1949. That’s definitely the period I’m personally excited and interested in researching. I do find the period between 1920 and 1930 — the transition of political regimes, going from the republican era to the Communist era in China — incredibly interesting. That ties together the rise of Hong Kong and the rise of this massive Shanghai during the time period, and eventually the rise of Taiwan in that time period.

FM: China has notoriously strong media censorship. Has it been difficult for you to conduct research and obtain data for your studies on the effects of Chinese policies?

DYY: Yes and no. It is a place where certain information, especially information or data that might be explicitly against the regime’s intention, might be harder to come by. It may be hard to do fieldwork,

increasingly so these days, because the government just tends to not like people coming to do surveys. On the other hand, we are talking about a state that’s incredibly strong in terms of state capacity. So the amount of data that the Chinese government collects and compiles is quite enormous, even compared to some of the traditional Western democratic regimes. For example, the procurement database the Chinese government maintains is oftentimes more comprehensive by magnitude than many other countries in the developed world. Many of the procurement contracts may reveal something that the government is not very proud of, but it’s part of reflecting a state bureaucracy system where a lot of records are being kept in there well.

FM: Is it hard for you to travel to China because of your work?

DYY: No.

FM: Your recent paper, AI-tocracy

if I’m saying that right, discusses the mutually reinforcing relationship between AI and autocratic regimes, and you’ve written about the threat of AI extensively. What did you find in this study, and what are the implications of those findings?

DYY: The key premise of that study is that for about half a century, political economists really had thought that there’s no way autocracy or non-democratic regimes can be at the frontier of innovation. And that gave us a lot of comfort because the mature democracy’s at the frontier. That’s going to make mature democracies a desirable institution and push the world’s path forward. There are cases, historically, not always, that make a challenge, and the point of this paper is to say that you might expect AI to be an important example where a status quo might be challenged, that AI is a technology that may benefit the regime rather than disturb the regime. It’s technology that’s about prediction, and prediction is really useful for civilians. And because AI uses a lot of data, and a civilian’s regime collects all the data and is potentially willing to provide that data to the firm, the firm can take that data and push their innovation frontier forward. So you can get this mutually beneficial relationship where a technology benefits the regime, and so the regime wants to develop it. And when the regime develops it, the regime can also offer useful input so that the technology gets stimulated forward a lot compared to

FM: So how do you think AI will affect the political economy of democratic nations like the

There hasn’t been any super solid evidence that there is a meaningful decline in institutional quality because of AI, in part because we’re still very early in terms of where AI’s been commercialized or been used.

To the best of our knowledge, we don’t have any solid evidence about how TikTok is affecting politics, which everyone in this generation would know how important that is to your formation

FM: So what is your stance on the use of AI in the classroom, specifically regarding chatbots like I think we should view them as calculators. This is a tool that there’s no point resisting. The best way to incorporate them is to incorporate them into education and teach everyone how best to use them so that you can maximize your productivity, which means that it probably doesn’t make sense for everyone to write short summaries that are going to be replaced in our lifetime by ChatGPT. But our human talent is going to come in the form of who’s going to ask the best questions to extract from the chatbots. And those are skills that can be trained, in the same way that 20 years ago we got trained on how to best use calculators to do math problems.

kyle.mandell@thecrimson.com

SANTIAGO A. SALDIVAR — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

SOCCER

Harvard Improves to 5-2-1

out a 5-2 win with a 78th minute goal by sophomore forward Audrey Francois off a second assist of the game from Lung. The five goals against Syracuse marked the most Harvard has scored against an ACC opponent since 1996.

After returning from a trip to California which included a last minute 3-2 loss to Long Beach State (5-3-2) and a hardfought 1-1 draw with Pepperdine (2-2-5), Harvard women’s soccer looked ecstatic to be back at Jordan Field. With four games in the span of ten days, Harvard posted three consecutive home wins before falling on the road at St. John’s in a tense 4-3 thriller. The Crimson scored 15 goals across those four games and recorded shutouts against North Carolina State (1-5-3) and Samford (4-23), leaving the team with a great deal to think about heading into the start of the Ivy League season this Saturday with a key matchup against rival Brown.

Harvard vs. Syracuse, 5-2

On its return to Cambridge, Harvard set a high tempo from the opening whistle in its matchup against the Orange (2-6-1). Only 12 minutes into the game, the early Crimson pressure was rewarded.

After being set free by a long ball down the right flank from senior midfielder Gabby DelPico, senior defender Smith Hunter blitzed to the endline to deliver a cross into the box. Senior forward Ava Lung broke free from her mark at the back post and rose high to decisively head the ball into the back of the net, putting the Crimson up 1-0.

“It was exciting,” Lung reflected. “It was a really great build up play overall starting from the back. Smith made a great run down the side and I got to the back post in time so, it is an exciting feeling, the first goal of the season, for sure.”

Syracuse responded immediately, forcing senior goalkeeper Anna Karpenko to make a save. However, less than three minutes after the first goal of the contest, Harvard found itself on the break again, this time attacking up the middle of the field.

With a sequence of quick passes, first-year forward Ólöf Kristinsdóttir played the ball into junior midfielder Hannah Bebar. With her back to goal, Bebar took two quick touches to the right, creating enough space between her defender to swivel and smash a shot into the bottom right corner. The goal was the first of the season for the 2022-23 unanimously selected All-Ivy FirstTeam midfielder. Bebar showed her class again ten minutes later, pouncing on a low cross at the back post to fire her second goal of the game into the roof of the net and put the Crimson up 3-0 25 minutes in.

Harvard opened the second half similarly to how it started the first. In the 57th minute, first-year midfielder Susie Long gathered a ball from Kristinsdóttir on the edge of the 18 yard box. Taking one touch to set herself, Long belted a curling left-footed strike over the outstretched Syracuse keeper, who could do nothing but watch the ball fly into the back of her net. The emphatic goal sent Long running to the Crimson bench to celebrate, with a Harvard win all but certain.

The Orange pulled back two goals in the 67th and 73rd minute, but the Crimson rounded

Harvard vs. North

The Crimson came out ready to play and dominaed offensively for the duration of the first half. With five minutes left in the first half, DelPico was brought down inside the penalty area. The Brockton, Mass. local stepped up to the spot and coolly shot the ball into the bottom left corner past the Wolf-

Ten minutes after halftime, Harvard was on the offensive again.

Junior midfielder Josefine Hasbo chipped a pass over the NC State defense into Bebar, who fed a ball into the feet of DelPico. DelPico spun with the ball and released a sweet left-footed strike curling away from the Wolfpack

think just having seen her grow and seeing her over the past five seasons now, it’s really special to see how she’s making such a positive impact on our team,” reflected Lung when asked about DelPico’s recent performances.

Harvard vs. Samford, 5-0

GAMES TO WATCH THIS WEEK

FRIDAY 9/22

SATURDAY 9/23

SUNDAY 9/24

dóttir said. “The team chemistry and the team spirit is really good. We’ve been a little unfortunate on some results, but that’s just something we need to keep working and keep improving. I think we’re improving every game, so we’re always getting closer to our goal.”

With the win against Samford, Harvard has now scored 26 and conceded four in its past seven home games, giving it an impressive +22 goal differential at Jordan Field.

I think we’re improving every game, so we’re always getting closer to our goal.”

Harvard vs. St. John’s, 3-4

After three-consecutive wins at home, Harvard hit the road to take on St. Johns (5-1-2) in Queens, N.Y. The match sprung to life in the 28th minute when Kristinsdóttir opened the scoring against the Red Storm and then doubled her tally, and the Crimson lead, less than five-minutes later with another pin-point shot off of a Hasbo assist.

If Harvard caught St. John’s off guard with the two-quickgoals, the Red Storm certainly returned the favor. In the 38th minute, St. John cut the deficit to one after a saved shot fell into the path of junior midfielder Lauryn Tran. Exactly 50 seconds after that goal hit the net, the Red Storm tied the game off of another quick break. With less than a minute remaining until the halftime break, Harvard gifted St. John a penalty kick which graduate midfielder Jessica Garziano converted to take a 3-2 lead into the break. Harvard came out from half-time determined to get back into the game. Only a minute into the second half DelPico pounced on a mistake from the St. John’s goalkeeper, bringing the score level at 3-3.

On the 62nd minute mark, Tran scored her second of the game to put the Red Storm in the driver’s seat once again. Despite outshooting its opponents 17-8, the Crimson couldn’t find a reply and lost the game 4-3.

“I think that St. John’s was able to provide us with a new challenge that we hadn’t faced yet this season,” said Lung. “Obviously, this week, we looked at that and watched the film on it, and we’re ready to learn from it. We know what we need to do to improve on those aspects.”

“I think that again, although it’s not the result that we wanted to end our non-conference play, it will help us a lot going forward into the Ivy League,” she added.

DelPico (4G, 4A), Hasbo (4G, 4A), and Kristinsdóttir (5G, 2A) currently lead the team in points with 12 each, followed closely by Lung with (2G, 4A) and 8 points. Harvard will look to continue its excellent home form when it kicks off its Ivy-League campaign with a match-up against the three-time defending champion Brown this Saturday, September 23 at 7:00 p.m. EST on Jordan Field.

“We are really, really excited. It’s always great to play them and to play them this year in front of a home crowd will be especially exciting. I think we’re really looking forward to it, especially as the Ivy League season opener,” Lung said.

Football vs. Brown University 7:00 p.m., Harvard Stadium

Women’s Soccer vs. Brown University 7:00 p.m., Jordan Field Field Hockey vs. Brown University 6:00 p.m., Berylson Field

Men’s Water Polo vs. Mercyhurst Univ. 10:00 a.m.

Women’s Squash Ivy League Championship 12:30 p.m., Murr Center

Ólöf Kristinsdóttir ’27

Defender Smith Hunter ‘24 protects the goal against Columbia.

WEEKLY RECAP SCORES

Harvard Starts Strong with 45-13 Win

backs, an offensive line I thought played really well, tough to tell when you’ve never really played, it’s hard to get a good feel. They’re going to be a very good team in their league, maybe the best team in their league, but a very solid start to the season overall, proud of our kids.”

READ IT IN FIVE MINUTES

WITH FRESH ROSTER, HARVARD FIELD HOCKEY STARTS 2023 CAMPAIGN AT 2-0

BY JACK CANAVAN

The Harvard football team (1-0) kicked off their 2023 season on Saturday afternoon at Harvard Stadium against the (1-2) St. Thomas Tommies. The game marked the official start of the Crimson’s 150th season, and Harvard came to play, starting off strong and scoring on its first three possessions. The Crimson finished with seven touchdowns in the 45-13 victory, Harvard’s 12th win in its season opener.

“Great start to the season,” head coach Tim Murphy said. “Not sure that we thought that it would be kind of a score like that, but we came out and played great defense and anytime you play great defense going into the fourth quarter, you got a chance to win. In any good program it starts with that.

“We’re really happy how offensively we made some big plays and we’ve got some kids that can run the ball,” Murphy continued. “We’ve got athletic quarter-

Harvard’s offensive fireworks began on the first play of the season. After taking a handoff from junior quarterback Charles DePrima, junior running back Shane McLaughlin burst through a hole and down the right sideline for a 79-yard touchdown, the Crimson’s longest touchdown run since 2009. The run put the Crimson in good position with a 7-0 lead.

“That was just a really cool moment for the offense in general, to get rolling that well so early,” said DePrima about the opening offensive play for the Crimson.

“And Shane, [he’s] a really good friend of mine, of all of ours, he’s been working real hard, been battling injuries, so to see him break away that early, that was really good for him, and definitely got us juiced up.”

On the next possession, Harvard doubled its lead, with a 21-yard rush by DePrima placing Harvard on the St. Thomas 4-yard line. Sophomore running back Jaden Craig then took over, running the ball into the end zone for a touchdown, extending the Crimson lead to 14-0.

On the defensive side, the Crimson’s defensive line kept up with the offense. Sophomore defensive lineman Alex DeGrieck

forced a fumble on St. Thomas’ following possession which junior defensive lineman Nick Yagodich recovered, putting Harvard in position to score again. The Crimson did just that, scoring three plays later with sophomore running back Isaiah Abbey finding the end zone for a touchdown, extending Harvard’s lead to 21-0.

“I just think that Coach Larkey, our [defensive coordinator] had a great game plan for these guys,” said senior linebacker Matthew Hudson about the defense’s game plan. “We saw all their plays on film, we had a lot of time to prepare for them being the first week of the season, and we’re in the right place climatically to bottle the run up, make plays, and just let our guys, first game out of emotion and just fly around, be physical.”

The defense continued to make big plays for the Crimson in the second quarter, when sophomore safety Ty Bartrum intercepted a pass by St. Thomas quarterback Amari Powell and returned it 96 yards into the end zone. His interception returned for a touchdown was also Harvard’s first since 2021.

“That felt great,” said Bartrum about his interception. “They ran that play a few times that drive and before, and I was just post safety so I was just helping out and it was just right to me. When I saw the grass, I knew it was a lot of grass, and it felt great.”

The rest of the league acknowledged his play on Saturday as well, as he was named Ivy

League Defensive Player of the Week, with a total of eight tackles and a touchdown.

Outstanding secondary play made up only one part of Harvard’s stalwart defensive effort.

St. Thomas’ run-heavy offense posed a challenge for Harvard’s defense, as running backs Hope Adebeyo and Shawn Shipman combined for 101 yards and Tommies’ only two touchdowns. Limiting longer runs was key to stopping the St. Thomas offense.

“If you don’t stop the run, you can’t stop the rest, it’s that simple,” said Coach Murphy. “You gotta be able to stop the run. That’s momentum, that’s mojo, that’s how you develop physicality. So if you stop the run, you make scoring a lot harder. The team becomes more predictable, you can get after their quarterback. Week to week it’s gonna be different challenges. Not to get off to next week, but next week you got a team that throws the ball as well as anyone in our league, so we’ll cross that bridge starting tomorrow.”

Senior Kicker Cali Canaval finished out the first half of the game with a career best 43-yard field goal with only six seconds left in the first half, making the score 31-0 Harvard. Coming back on the field, DePrima opened the third quarter with a touchdown run. The quarterback reached the end zone with a 69-yard rush, making it the longest touchdown rush by a Harvard quarterback since 2009.

St. Thomas broke through halfway through the third quarter when Adebeyo ran into the endzone, bringing the score to 38-7. However, the Crimson responded with another touchdown on their next possession, when DePrima found senior tight end Tyler Neville for an 18-yard touchdown, pushing the Crimson’s lead to 45-7. The touchdown pass was the first of DePrima’s career, and Neville’s fifth.

St. Thomas got their second touchdown in the fourth quarter with 10:18 left, scoring the last points of the game. At the conclusion of the contest, the Crimson defense had a total of two interceptions, three sacks, two forced fumbles, and nine tackles for loss. Coach Murphy also made history with his 193rd win, extending his Harvard and Ivy League record for most wins as a head coach in history.

Some other players on the Crimson also made history during the game on Saturday. DePrima became the first Harvard quarterback to record 100 yards rushing in a game in 11 years. Mc-

Laughlin ended the game with 96 total yards, and senior safety Garrett Sharp had a career high of 12 tackles.

The team was also voted 25th in the Division One FCS Coaches Poll at the beginning of this week, following its win over St. Thomas. The team was unranked last year. The ranking makes Harvard the Ivy League team ranked so far this season, edging out rivals Princeton and Yale who also received votes in the poll.

“The numbers, the math doesn’t lie,” Murphy said. “We have plenty of things to clean up, trust me, we’ll do that, but it was a very very solid opener for us. In terms of just the emotion and the physicality that our kids played with, that was excellent. If we can play with that type of emotion and physicality every week, and continue to get better at the things we need to get better at, then one week at a time we can be a good football team.”

With Ivy League play rapidly approaching, the Crimson plan to build off their momentum while fine tuning small mistakes to operate at full force. Continuing a heavy emphasis on stopping the run will prove pivotal for the Harvard’s success for the rest of the season

“I would just say, we have to be a little better on first down runs,” said Murphy about areas where the team can improve. “Again, we worked a lot of players through the defensive line. It’s a combination of things. Again, we found out our guys can make plays. We found out today our guys will fight. So, we’ll have tons of things to work on. When you have guys that will fight and are really locked in, and you get great leadership, one week at a time, we can be a good football team. We’re not terribly deep, so we’re gonna have to keep doing a good job with that.”

Preparing for the week ahead, the Crimson hope to see strong play from their secondary once again when facing off against pass heavy Brown this week. In their first game of the season, senior quarterback and reigning Ivy League Offensive Player of the Year Jake Wilcox powered the Bears to a 29-25 win with 355 passing yards and 3 touchdowns, leading a fourth quarter comeback in the process.

Harvard faces off against Brown (1-0) this Friday, September 22nd at 7 p.m. at Harvard Stadium.

After a 2-0 start to the season in a pair of matches against the University of Massachusetts and the University of Connecticut, No. 14 Harvard field hockey has begun its quest toward both the Ivy League and NCAA tournaments. However, a few things have changed since Harvard last took to Berylson Field in the spring. Its former All-Ivy goalkeeper Ellie Shahbo ‘23 hung up her Crimson cleats, a fresh set of competitive first-years has joined the roster, and the Ivy League has changed the rules of its tournament — an impactful change that may work in Harvard’s favor.

This year, the Ivy League will host its first-ever four-team postseason field hockey tournament to determine which school it will send to the NCAA tournament. The teams will consist of the top four in the regular season, with the winning school receiving an automatic bid to the NCAA, no matter its Ivy League record.

HARVARD MEN’S SOCCER TIES SETON HALL, FALLS TO NORTHEASTERN

The Harvard men’s soccer team (0-2-2, 0-0) netted its first goal of the season to tie No. 23 Seton Hall (31-1, 0-0) 1-1 despite a more than two-hour rain delay, but later fell scoreless in a midweek game to the Northeastern Huskies (31-2) 0-4. In a game marked by a two-hour lightning delay, Harvard faced one of its largest challenges thus far in the season against the nationally-ranked Pirates. Seton Hall led for most of the game until senior Nik White tied it for Harvard in dramatic fashion during the 90th minute of the matchup.

Though the Crimson has just one goal on the season, it has generated many good opportunities throughout its games. As a team, it tallied 40 shots and 17 shots on goal so far.

Senior tight end Tyler Neville caught an 18-yard touchdown pass during the game on Saturday. NICHOLAS T. JACOBSSON — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

AND NADIA A. FAIRFAX CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

In Photos: New England Parade of Cows Moos on Over

BREAKING MOOS. The Jimmy Fund, a nonprofit that supports the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute celebrated its 75th year with a parade of cow statues across New England painted by artists and residents to raise funds. Five cows were displayed throughout Cambridge. By the end of the public art display’s run, the Cow Parade raised more than $1 million for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

The Inside Out in Winthrop Park was painted by Amanda Hill with glow in the dark paint. The cow is split in two, with one side depicting muscles and the other bones. SAMI E. TURNER — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

The cow Boston was painted by students of Boston-based artist Ari Hauben as part of an educational initiative throughout the New England Cow Parade SAMI E. TURNER — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

Season of Hope, painted by Andrea Lavery, is inspired by the season of spring. The cow features blooming flowers, birds, and bees. SAMI E. TURNER — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

Frida Cowlo was painted by Zoe Bradford and sat at Winthrop Park. The cow was inspired by Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. SAMI E. TURNER — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

Flora, painted by Victoria Hautala, is one of three cows that was displayed in Winthrop Park.

SAMI E. TURNER — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER