THE HARVARD CRIMSON THE UNIVERSITY DAILY, EST. 1873
| VOLUME CL, NO. 30
EDITORIAL
FAS
Harvard Should Be Bigger BIGGER IS BETTER. From social mobility, to pioneering research, to field-leading alumni, we believe Harvard does good. Expansion, physical and digital, would only increase these benefits. A bigger Harvard is a better Harvard.
| CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
MUSIC
SPORTS
In The Gallery of Rhythms: Unveiling 50 Years of Hip-Hop
Graham Blanks Wins NCAA Divsion I Cross Country Nationals
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FRIDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2023
Admin Toxicity Complaints Left Unaddressed ‘BULLIED INTO LEAVING.’ Top Harvard officials repeatedly failed to address complaints against Associate Dean for Research Administration Services Lauren Ferrell that accused her of creating a toxic work environment, according to 10 current and former University administrators. In just under two and a half years, the department has shrunk from 26 to 10 staffers. SEE PAGE 6
SEE PAGE 9
COMPLAINT
Dept. of Education Investigating Harvard INVESTIGATION. The U.S. Department of Education launched an investigation into Harvard on Tuesday over the University’s response to allegations of antisemitism. SEE PAGE 7
TOBY R. MA — CRIMSON DESIGNER
DONORS
Gift Officers Wary About Israel-Hamas Backlash BY EMMA H. HAIDAR
GAY
MILES J. HERSZENHORN AND CAM E. KETTLES CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
Gay Will Testify in Congress on Dec. 5 BY MILES J. HERSZENHORN CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
Harvard President Claudine Gay will testify before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce about antisemitism on college and university campuses, the committee announced in a press release Tuesday morning. Gay will testify during a hearing on Dec. 5 alongside MIT President Sally A. Kornbluth and University of Pennsylvania President Elizabeth Magill. Harvard, MIT, and UPenn have all faced calls to do more to combat antisemitism after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel revealed bitter tensions on college campuses across the country. Harvard spokesperson Jason A. Newton confirmed in a statement that Gay accepted the committee’s invitation to testify. “President Gay looks forward to sharing updates and information on the university’s work to support the Harvard community and combat antisemitism,” Newton wrote. Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), who chairs the Education and Workforce Committee, said in the press release that by holding the hearing, the committee is “shining the spotlight on these campus leaders and demanding they take the appropriate action to stand strong against antisemitism.” “College and university presidents have a responsibility to foster and uphold a safe learning
SEE PAGE 7
H
arvard gift officers are privately worried that some longtime donors will stop giving as a result of the controversy over the University’s response to the Israel-Hamas war and concerns about antisemitism on campus, five Harvard donors said in interviews over the past month. A few of the donors also said they have personally faced pressure to stop donating to Harvard. The donor backlash has put an additional strain on Harvard administrators, who have also worked overtime to ease tensions on campus over Israel and Palestine. “I have talked to people in the administration of the University and I know they’re concerned. Everyone’s concerned about it,” said Kenneth G. Lipper, a former member of the Executive Committee of the Committee of University Resources — a group consisting of people who have
donated at least $1 million to Harvard. “It’s a difficult time for the president and it’s a difficult time for the University,” Lipper added. After initially declining to comment for this article, Harvard spokesperson Jason A. Newton wrote in a statement after publication Wednesday that the University “has been in conversation with alumni and supporters, and will continue to engage closely with them.” “They are a vital part of our community,” Newton added. Harvard faced fierce criticism from a slew of prominent affiliates — including major donors and former University President Lawrence H. Summers — after it released an initial statement about Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel that did not address a controversial student statement and failed to directly condemn Hamas. Over the weeks since, University officials have made several efforts to contain the backlash. Harvard administrators released eight additional “messages to the community” related to the Israel-Hamas war, and
President Claudine Gay established an advisory group to combat antisemitism on campus. Provost Alan M. Garber ’76 also acknowledged the first statement’s shortcomings in an interview with The Crimson, saying he “has regrets” over it. But the damage inflicted by Harvard’s initial statement has been difficult to reverse — and it could prove very costly for the University. A Growing Donor Exodus Several major Harvard donors have opted to publicly withdraw their support for the University over the weeks since Oct. 7. The Wexner Foundation, chaired by billionaire Leslie H. Wexner, cut ties with Harvard and the Harvard Kennedy School after it described the University’s response to Hamas’ attack on Israel as a “dismal failure.” Idan Ofer, an Israeli billionaire and businessman, quit the Kennedy School’s executive board in protest of the University’s handling of the situation. Bill A. Ackman ’88, a billionaire hedge fund manager who donated $26 million
to the University in 2014, has emerged as one of President Claudine Gay’s most vocal critics since Oct. 7. Ackman repeatedly slammed the University in posts on X and called on Harvard to publicly list students who were members of the student groups that signed onto the controversial statement that held Israel “entirely responsible” for Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. But billionaires are not the only donors who are threatening to suspend their charitable contributions to Harvard. In an open letter by the Harvard College Jewish Alumni Association, more than 200 donors have pledged to stop giving to the University until a series of demands are met, including the development of a plan to combat antisemitism on campus. “It should not require three statements (the latter two following a faculty protest) for this University and its leadership to condemn these evils,” the group wrote in the letter, addressed to the Harvard Corporation. More than 1,800 alumni signed an
SEE PAGE 5
KISSINGER
Ex-Secretary of State Kissinger ’50 Dies At 100 BY RAHEM D. HAMID AND ELIAS J. SCHISGALL CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
Henry A. Kissinger ’50, a former Secretary of State and faculty member in the Government Department, died in his home in Connecticut at 100, according to a statement on his website Wednesday evening. Kissinger, who served as Secretary of State under Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford, exerted a lasting influence on American foreign policy and was among the most controversial figures in American politics. As a diplomat, Kissinger was instrumental in advocating for a policy of detente with the Soviet Union and China, helping organize Nixon’s 1972 visit to China, where he met with Chairman of the
Chinese Communist Party Mao Zedong. The trip ended nearly a quarter-century of diplomatic isolation between the U.S. and China. Kissinger’s “shuttle diplomacy” during the 1973 Yom Kippur War — in which Egypt and Syria invaded Israel — led to disengagement agreements ending the conflict. But Kissinger’s diplomatic legacy is mired in controversy. He was intimately involved in the bombing of Cambodia between 1969 and 1973, which resulted in the deaths of at least 50,000 civilians and contributed to the rise of the brutal Khmer Rouge regime. He also faced criticism for supporting authoritarian regimes in Pakistan, Chile, Argentina, and Indonesia. In 1973, Kissinger was jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize alongside North Vietnamese diplomat Lê Đức Thọ, for the
negotiation of the Paris Peace Accords to end the Vietnam War — prompting two members of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee to resign in protest. Thọ turned down the Prize and accused the U.S. and South Vietnam of violating the agreement, leading to the continuation of the war in Vietnam until 1975. Born into a Jewish family in Bavaria in 1923, Kissinger fled Nazi persecution as a teenager and arrived in New York in 1938. He served in the army toward the end of World War II and enrolled at Harvard in 1947 on the G.I. Bill. After receiving his bachelor’s degree in 1950, the former Adams House resident returned for his master’s degree in 1952 and a Ph.D. just two years later, in 1954. At Harvard, his undergraduate thesis ran for nearly 400 pages, resulting in the imposition of 150-page limit for future govern-
ment theses. Prior to his political career, Kissinger taught at his alma mater from 1954 to 1969 as a professor in the Government Department. There, he overlapped as a faculty member with Zbigniew K. Brzezinski, who would later serve as National Security Advisor under President Jimmy Carter, Samuel P. Huntington, a future Carter administration official who co-founded Foreign Policy magazine, and then-Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean McGeorge Bundy. Bundy was an architect of the Vietnam War who would himself leave Harvard in 1961 to serve as National Security Advisor to President John F. Kennedy ’40. Peter L. Malkin ’55, who interacted with Kissinger as an undergraduate, said that he was “moved by the fact that he has
SEE PAGE 4
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THE HARVARD CRIMSON
LAST WEEK
DECEMBER 1, 2023
COVID-19
HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL
HARVARD LAW SCHOOL
HMS Researchers Find Paxlovid
Judge Rules on HBS Professor
HLS Professor Discusses Israel-Hamas
PAXLOVID. Harvard Medical School-affiliated researchers published research on Nov. 14 showing that one in five patients who used the antiviral drug Paxlovid experienced a rebound case of Covid-19, compared to 2 percent of patients who did not use the drug. Previous studies on the efficacy of Paxlovid demonstrate that the drug is effective in reducing hospitalization and death rates in high-risk patients by 80 percent, according to Mark J. Siedner, an associate professor of medicine at HMS and a senior author on the paper. BY TSION DANIEL,
LAWSUIT. Harvard Business School professor Francesca Gino’s $25 million lawsuit will face its first major hurdle, with a federal judge set to rule on the motions to dismiss her claims filed by the University and quantitative analysis blog Data Colada. In October, the University and Harvard Business School Dean Srikant M. Datar jointly moved for a partial dismissal of the lawsuit, petitioning to strike down Gino’s accusations of breach of contract, defamation, and civil conspiracy to commit defamation — but not Gino’s claim of gender discrimination by the school. BY ADELAIDE E. PARKER — CRIMSON STAFF WRITTER
GEOPOLITICS. Harvard Law School professor Noah R. Feldman ’92 discussed the potential broader effects of the 2023 Israel-Hamas war on geopolitical tensions in the Middle East at an HLS event last week. The event, titled “The 2023 Israel-Hamas War: A Historical Perspective on Causes and Consequences,” was hosted in Wasserstein Hall on Nov. 21. Harvard History professor Derek J. Penslar was scheduled to speak alongside Feldman, but he was unable to attend due to health issues.
ANNA FENG, DANIELLE J. IM, AND HELINA TAMIRU— CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
AROUND THE IVIES YALE FACULTY, ALUMNI, AND PARENTS SIGN LETTER DETAILING ANTISEMITISM ON CAMPUS
BY ADINA R. LIPPMAN, DHRUV T. PATEL— CONTRIBUTING WRITTERS
In Photos: The 138th Game BY KATHERINE A. HARVEY AND NICHOLAS T. JACOBSSON
HARVARD-YALE HIGHLIGHTS
More than 1,400 Yale affiliates signed a Nov. 20 google form letter titled “Letter to Yale Administration to Combat Antisemitism.” The letter described three allegedly antisemitic incidents, including tweets from a professor supporting Palestinian resistance and chants by a pro-Palestinian student group. The letter also outlined a proposal for addressing antisemitism at Yale. It called for the school to implement antisemitism trainings, among other demands.
The annual showdown between the Harvard Crimson and the Yale Bulldogs returned to the Yale Bowl in New Haven, Connecticut, on Nov. 18. The Crimson went into the game with an 8-1 record, and had already clinched a share of the Ivy League title. A win at The Game would have secured sole possession of the title. After a tight game, the Crimson fell to the Bulldogs 18-23, closing out the team’s 150th season with a share of the Ivy League title in a three-way tie with Yale and Dartmouth.
THE YALE DAILY NEWS
PRINCETON TO REVAMP ‘FAMOUSLY RIGOROUS’ FIRSTYEAR SCIENCE CURRICULUM The Integrated Science Curriculum, an intensive program that allows some Princeton freshmen to pursue an accelerated course that covers physics, chemistry, molecular biology and computer science, will be redesigned. The redesign will aim to increase the focus on data science and its intersection with biology and chemistry. The course — known among students as one of the most academically challenging classes — is set to return in fall 2024.
PASSING PLAY. Sophomore quarterback Jaden C. Craig ’26 makes a pass down the field.
KATHERINE A. HARVEY — CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
SUSPECT ARRESTED FOLLOWING SHOOTING OF THREE PALESTINIAN STUDENTS, INCLUDING BROWN STUDENT The Burlington Police Department arrested Jason Eaton Sunday in connection to the shooting, which occurred Saturday night. The Brown Daily Herald reported that a Brown University junior Hisham Awartani was among the victims, as well as Kinnan Abdalhamid and Tahseen Ali Ahmad. Awartani was shot in the spine, but is in stable condition. The FBI has opened an investigation into the incident to determine if it was a hate crime.
NICHOLAS T. JACOBSSON — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
CLOSE CATCH. Junior wide receiver Ledger G. Hatch ’25 fights through tight coverage by Yale’s Sean Guyton to make a touchdown catch, giving the Crimson a narrow 18-17 lead.
NICHOLAS T. JACOBSSON —
NICHOLAS T. JACOBSSON —
CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
TOUCHDOWN TAKEOFF. Yale senior Ryan Lindley scores the first touchdown of the game in the second quarter.
DARING DASH. Sophomore quarterback Jaden C. Craig ’26 looks to make a pass down the field.
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
PENN UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT TO TESTIFY BEFORE CONGRESS ABOUT ANTISEMITISM ON COLLEGE CAMPUSES University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill is set to testify before Congress on Dec. 5 in a hearing titled “Holding Campus Leaders Accountable and Confronting Antisemitism.” Harvard President Claudine Gay and MIT President Sally Kornbluth will also testify at the hearing. The hearing comes after the U.S. Department of Education opened an investigation into Penn and other schools in regards to alleged antisemitism on college campuses.
KATHERINE A. HARVEY — NICHOLAS T. JACOBSSON — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
KATHERINE A. HARVEY — CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
CRIMSON COURAGE. Senior Ean P. Norenberg ’24 cheers on teammates Spencer B. Cassell ’23’24 and Logan A. Bednar ’24.
BELLOWING BLEACHERS. Harvard fans filled the Yale Bowl, flooding the stadium with a wave of Crimson.
FOOTBALL FAREWELL. Linebacker Brock A. Locnikar ’25 shakes hands with someone in the crowd after the game.
THE DAILY PENNSYLVANIAN
MORE THAN 80 STUDENT GROUPS AT COLUMBIA REVIVE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY APARTHEID DIVEST COALITION Following the suspension of the groups Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace earlier this month, more than 80 student groups have brought back the Columbia University Apartheid Divest coalition. The coalition had previously been inactive since 2020. The Columbia Spectator reported on Wednesday that the groups involved in the coalition can host pro-Palenstinian events with the goal of working toward “collective liberation.” THE COLUMBIA SPECTATOR
KATHERINE A. HARVEY — CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
PALESTINE PROTEST. Harvard and Yale students staged a pro-Palestine protest during halftime at The Game. Yale increased security at the Yale Bowl before the game.
NICHOLAS T. JACOBSSON — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
DOUBLE DOWN. Crimson defenders converge on a Yale ball carrier. Harvard was not able to defend its lead, as Yale’s touchdown with under six minutes to play provided the winning points in the Bulldogs’ 23-18 victory.
NEXT WEEK
THE HARVARD CRIMSON DECEMBER 1, 2023
What’s Next
IN THE REAL WORLD U.S. SAYS ASSASSINATION PLOT IN NEW YORK DIRECTED BY INDIAN OFFICIAL An Indian government intelligence worker ordered the assassination of a Sikh separatist in New York in May, U.S. prosecutors said Wednesday. The court filing comes amid security of India’s intelligence and spy services following similar allegations made by Canadian authorities this year. According to prosecutors, the assassination attempt was stopped by U.S. authorities, the Washington Post reported Thursday.
POPE FRANCIS WARNED ISRAEL NOT TO COMMIT ‘TERROR’ IN UNDISCLOSED CALL Pope Francis warned Israeli President Isaac Herzog that it is “forbidden to respond to terror with terror,” according to a senior Israeli official familiar with the call. The conversation between Francis and Herzog occurred in late October in the wake of the Hamas attacks earlier that month, the Washington Post reported. Herzog said Israel was defending its own people, but Francis said that the responsible should be held accountable, not civilians.
UAW ANNOUNCES DRIVE TO ORGANIZE AUTOMAKERS INCLUDING TOYOTA, TESLA
Start every week with a preview of what’s on the agenda around Harvard University
Friday 12/01
Sunday 12/03
Tuesday 12/05
NARCAN TRAINING WITH THE CAMBRIDGE PUBLIC HEALTH DEPARTMENT AND SOMERVILLE
MOVIE SCREENING: FEMALE BOSS
LAST DAY OF CLASSES
Harvard Art Museums, 11:30 a.m. The Harvard Art Museum is hosting an hour-long Narcan training on Friday that will be facilitated by the Cambridge Public Health Department and Somerville Health and Human Services. The training is being held in conjunction with the museum’s exhibition Objects of Addiction: Opium, Empire, and the Chinese Art Trade.
24 Quincy St, 7 p.m. The Harvard Film Archive will be showing the 1959 film Female Boss (Yosajang) directed by Han Hyung-mo. The movie, which stars Cho Mi-ryong, Yi Su-ryon and Yun In-ja, is about a woman who falls in love with her employee.
Wednesday 12/06
Monday 12/04 LEVELING THE PLAYING FIELD: ADVOCATING FOR TRANS ATHLETES’ RIGHTS UNDER TITLE IX
Friday 12/01 FAMILY FEUD: A SWING SIBLING RIVALRY JAM Sanders Theatre, 7 p.m. Join The Harvard Krokodiloes, the Radcliffe Pitches and the Harvard Din & Tonics.
All Day Event Tuesday marks the final day of classes for the Fall 2023 term at Harvard College. Celebrate the end of the semester and avoid thinking about your impending finals!
Virtual, 5 p.m. - 6 p.m. Join Harvard Law School professor Alexander Chen and Clinical Fellow Maya Satya Reddy as they discuss The Harvard Law School LGBTQ+ Advocacy Clinic’s work on the inclusion of transgender athletes in sports. The event will specifically address the clinic’s recent letter to the Department of Education.
Saturday 12/02
REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES: THE MUSICAL
Loeb Drama Center, 7:30 p.m. Come see The American Repertory Theater’s musical Real Women Have Curves at Loeb Theater Wednesday night. The musical, set in the summer of 1987 in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles follows Ana as she wrestles with her dreams.
Friday 12/08 CERAMICS PROGRAM SHOW AND SALE
IN CONVERSATION BY THE HARVARD BALLET COMPANY
Office for the Arts at Harvard Ceramics Program, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Head to the Office for the Arts at Harvard Ceramics Program for the Office of the Arts’ annual Winter Show and Sale. The Show and Sale will feature ceramics by staff, instructors, and participants of ceramic classes. Over the four days of the sale, more than 100 artists will show their work.
The Harvard Dance Center, 7:30 p.m. Come see The Harvard Ballet Company’s Fall 2023 production at The Harvard Dance Center. The production features 10 student-choreographed pieces and 1 guest-choreographed piece of dance styles from classical ballet to modern dance.
The United Auto Workers announced a drive on Wednesday to organize the U.S. factories of Honda, Toyota, Tesla, and a dozen other automakers. The UAW also launched a website where workers at 13 companies can sign union cards, according to the Washington Post. In the past, efforts to unionize automakers have failed due to local laws and culture in the southern states, where many factories are located.
ELON MUSK CURSES AT ADVERTISERS AMID MASS EXODUS FROM X As advertisers continue to leave X over concerns of antisemitism and racism on the platform, Elon Musk targeted advertisers in a rant at a livestreamed event on Wednesday. At the New York Times DealBook conference, Musk told departing advertisers to “Go f--- yourself,” the Washington Post reported. Musk called out Disney chief executive Bob Iger.
PICTURESQUE PIZZA
KOCH NETWORK ENDORSES NIKKI HALEY IN FINAL PUSH TO DEFEAT TRUMP Billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch announced they will put their political network and financial support behind Nikki Haley’s presidential campaign in a bid to defeat Donald Trump. Tuesday’s endorsement from the brothers’ conservative political action committee Americans for Prosperity Action concluded a yearlong search for a Trump alternative, according to NPR. Haley still trails Trump in nationwide polls, but the move delivered a major blow to Governor Ron DeSantis. JULIAN J. GIORDANO — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
THE HARVARD CRIMSON Cara J. Chang ’24 President
STAFF FOR THIS ISSUE Brandon L. Kingdollar ’24
Cynthia V. Lu ’24
Managing Editor
Business Manager
Magazine Chairs Io Y. Gilman ’25 Amber H. Levis ’25
Design Chairs Sophia Salamanca ’25 Sami E. Turner ’25
Eleanor V. Wikstrom ’24 Christina M. Xiao ’24
Blog Chairs Tina Chen ’24 Hana Rehman ’25
Multimedia Chairs Joey Huang ’24 Julian J. Giordano ’25
Arts Chairs Anya L. Henry ’24 Alisa S. Regassa ’24
Sports Chairs Mairead B. Baker ’24 Aaron B. Schuchman ’25
Technology Chairs Kevin Luo ’24 Justin Y. Ye ’24
Associate Managing Editors Leah J. Teichholtz ’24 Meimei Xu ’24 Editorial Chairs
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Night Editors Andy Z. Wang ’23-’24 Assistant Night Editors Rahem D. Hamid ’25 J. Sellers Hill ’25 Sidney K. Lee ’26 Jo B. Lemann ’26 Nia L. Orakwue ’25 Thomas J. Mete ’26 Claire Yuan ’25
Story Editors James R. Jolin ’24 Brandon L. Kingdollar ’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 Cory K. Gorczycki ’24 Joey Huang ’24 Julian J. Giordano ’25 Christopher L. Li ’25 Addison Y. Liu ’25 Editorial Editors J. Sellers Hill ’25 Arts Editor Zachary J. Lech ’24 Sports Editors Griffin H. Wong ’24
Associate Business Manager Derek S. Chang ’24 Copyright 2023, The Harvard Crimson (USPS 236-560). No articles, editorials, cartoons or any part thereof appearing in The Crimson may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the President. The Associated Press holds the right to reprint any materials published in The Crimson. The Crimson is a non-profit, independent corporation, founded in 1873 and incorporated in 1967. Second-class postage paid in Boston, Massachusetts. Published Monday through Friday except holidays and during vacations, three times weekly during reading and exam periods by The Harvard Crimson Inc., 14 Plympton St., Cambridge, Mass. 02138
CORRECTIONS The Harvard Crimson is committed to accuracy in its reporting. Factual errors are corrected promptly on this page. Readers with information about errors are asked to e-mail the managing editor at managingeditor@thecrimson.com.
roast
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THE HARVARD CRIMSON
NEWS
Lawsuit Against Comaroff Will Move to Mediation BY RAHEM D. HAMID AND ELIAS J. SCHISGALL CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
The lawsuit alleging Harvard ignored years of sexual misconduct complaints against professor John L. Comaroff will move to mediation, according to court filings this month. In a Nov. 20 court filing, U.S. District Court Judge Judith G. Dein referred the lawsuit to Magistrate Judge M. Paige Kelly for alternative dispute resolution. A mediation hearing is slated for Dec. 13, according to a Nov. 21 filing. The lawsuit, initially filed against Harvard in February 2022 by one former and two current graduate students in the Anthropology Department, alleges that Harvard knew of sexual misconduct complaints when initially hiring Comaroff and insufficiently responded to student complaints of further sexual harassment. An updated complaint, filed in June 2022, includes additional allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct from Comraoff’s time as a professor at the University of Chicago. Comaroff, a professor of African and African American Studies and Anthropology, was placed on a semester of unpaid leave by then-Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Claudine Gay after internal investigations found he violated Harvard’s sexual harassment and professional conduct policies. Comaroff, via his attorneys, has consistently denied the allegations in the lawsuit. He is currently on medical leave, according to Ruth K. O’Meara Costello ’02, one of his attorneys. Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra said in an October interview that Comaroff remains bound by FAS sanctions. Accusations of sexual misconduct against Comaroff — and two other senior Anthropology faculty — were first published in The Crimson in May 2020. The professor’s first class following his return from leave in fall 2022 was met with a walkout and protest organized by Harvard’s graduate student union. The following semester, more than 100 students walked out of his first class in protest, kicking off a semester of activism that included an additional rally, an email campaign, and an occupation of University Hall. Comaroff has rejected student activists’ characterizations of his behavior. Costello did not respond to a request for comment for this article. The lawsuit featured prominently in student activism, with organizers pasting printouts of the complaint to his office door in the Barker Center during the second walkout and two of the plaintiffs speaking at a February rally. But if the parties reach a settlement, it will mark a decidedly private end to a highly-publicized legal dispute. The move to mediation suggests a final outcome in the yearslong case may come behind closed doors. In a pair of rulings in the spring, Dein allowed nine of the lawsuit’s 10 counts to proceed to discovery. Dein wrote in her ruling that the evidence supports “a finding that Harvard engaged in a long-term pattern and practice of indifference to complaints of sexual harassment against professors” in the Anthropology Department. But the notice for the Dec. 13 mediation hearing notes that “the entire mediation process” is confidential. According to the filing, both Harvard and the plaintiffs are bound to “keep confidential all communications exchanged during the mediation process.” Harvard spokesperson Jason A. Newton and attorneys for the plaintiffs declined to comment on the move to mediation. rahem.hamid@thecrimson.com elias.schisgall@thecrimson.com
DECEMBER 1, 2023
LEGACY OF SLAVERY
Sean Kelly to Lead Committee Evaluating Winthrop Denaming WINTHROP HOUSE. Professor Sean D. Kelly will chair the committee evaluating a request to dename Winthrop House. BY JOYCE E. KIM AND TESS C. WAYLAND CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
A
committee of Harvard faculty, chaired by Philosophy professor Sean D. Kelly, will review a request to dename Winthrop House submitted earlier this year. The denaming request — a 42-page report submitted March 1 by students as a part of the Dename Winthrop project — details the legacy of the two John Winthrops, who both enslaved people and are the namesakes for the House. More than 1,000 Harvard affiliates, including 50 Winthrop descendants, have signed a petition in support of the request. The committee will recommend either taking no action, denaming the House, or contextualizing the existing name in its final report, Kelly said in an interview with the Harvard Gazette, a Harvard-run publication. Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra and President Claudine Gay will make the final decision in collaboration with the Harvard Corporation, Harvard’s highest governing body. Kelly, a faculty dean of Dunster House, said the decision should be “intellectually rigorous” and “involve meaningful engagement” with University stakeholders. Per FAS denaming guidelines, the committee was convened by the University and the FAS after the denaming request passed administrative review in April. It is now in its outreach phase, collecting comments from Harvard affiliates via an anonymous feedback form. There is no stated timeline for the committee’s work. Students who spearheaded the denaming request have criticized the University’s lack of transparency about the review process.
In February, students demonstrated in Winthrop House to encourage peers to support denaming of the House. JULIAN J. GIORDANO — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
Kiersten B. Hash ’25 — one of the co-leads of the Dename Winthrop project — said administrators have shared “little to no information” with student organizers about the review’s next steps, which she said was “difficult” and “frustrating.” In September, around 100 students emailed administrators calling for greater transparency in the review process, including releasing a list of committee members, a timeline, and public updates of the review. “We felt like those three things in particular were super important to achieving trans-
parency and also community inclusion,” Hash said, adding that organizers only learned of the committee when it was publicly announced on Nov. 16. University spokesperson Jason A. Newton did not comment on criticism of the process. Dename Winthrop’s other colead Clyve Lawrence ’25, said that as part of the committee’s outreach, he and Hash are arranging a meeting with Kelly. Kelly said that a big part of the University’s work will be determining how complicit the Winthrops were in preserving the institution of slavery, and how
their “alleged behaviors” should be contextualized within their broader legacy. “We want to understand to what degree these people may have been involved in these practices, but also what the significance of those practices would have been during that period,” Kelly said. Lawrence, a Crimson Editorial editor, said he was “proud” of what he said had been “hundreds of hours” of work from student organizers. “We really want to push for the University to not only acknowledge the actual history behind
the name, but also acknowledge that students are leading this effort and ensure that there is accountability on both fronts.” Hash said she was “hopeful” that there would be a “community reckoning” on the Winthrop legacy. “That’s what our project is about — it’s about listening to the cohorts on this campus, or beyond this campus, that have been ignored, and their voices have been erased for essentially hundreds of years,” she said. joyce.kim@thecrimson.com tess.wayland@thecrimson.com
Harvard’s Top Lawyer Diane Lopez to Retire in February BY MILES J. HERSZENHORN AND CLAIRE YUAN CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
Former secretary of state Henry A. Kissinger ‘50 delivers remarks at Sanders Theatre. NICHOLAS M MENDEZ — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
KISSINGER FROM PAGE 1
Henry Kissinger ’50 Dead at 100 been such a tremendous presence for so many years, and it seemed like he might go on forever.” A Harvard regulation that restricted faculty leaves to two years prompted Kissinger to resign his professorship in 1971, but he arranged a deal with the Government Department before he left to reserve a space for him until the end of Nixon’s first term. In 1973, after months of deliberation, the department ended the arrangement. A deparment search for a successor to Kissinger was unsuccessful. Four years later, the Government Department voted almost unanimously to offer Kissinger a professorship, which he did not accept. Former Harvard Kennedy
School Dean and professor Graham T. Allison Jr. ’62, a student of Kissinger’s at Harvard, said in an interview that Kissinger was a contender for “the greatest American statesman in the 20th century,” though he acknowledged the former diplomat “made a lot of mistakes.” “He opened my eyes to bigger questions of geopolitics, statecraft, and even war and peace — or what he would call the world order,” Allison said. “Overall, I think that he’s one of the few statesmen about whom I bet 100 years from now, the students at Harvard will still be reading and studying his statecraft,” Allison added. rahem.hamid@thecrimson.com elias.schisgall@thecrimson.com
Diane E. Lopez, Harvard’s top lawyer, announced on Thursday that she will retire at the end of February after serving 30 years as an attorney for the University. Lopez, who was elevated to the role of vice president and general counsel in 2019, helped steer the University through several complex lawsuits and led a review of Harvard’s ties to Jeffrey E. Epstein, the late financier and convicted sex offender. Though the spotlight usually fell on other senior Harvard administrators, Lopez served as an influential figure behind the scenes as the University confronted a number of legal challenges during Lopez’s nearly fiveyear tenure as general counsel. The review of Epstein’s donations to Harvard led Lopez to recommend in a report that the University adopt new donor guidelines and implement clearer mechanisms for evaluating potentially controversial gifts. Lopez led the Office of the General Counsel as Harvard successfully sued the Trump administration at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic to prevent the enforcement of guidelines that barred international students from remaining in the United States if they were enrolled in colleges and universities that moved courses entirely online. Harvard also faced a series of high-profile lawsuits during Lopez’s tenure, including a suit that
alleged the University ignored years of sexual harassment by African and African American Studies and Anthropology professor John L. Comaroff. The lawsuit, first filed in 2022, has now moved to mediation, according to court filings in November. Lopez, who joined the University in 1994, wrote in a message to her colleagues that it has been a “great privilege” to work in the Office of the General Counsel. “I am grateful to all of you and to the institution for providing me with a legal career that is unparalleled for the many and varied challenges we have tackled together, often in the spotlight of public attention,” Lopez wrote. “The benefit of my many years as your legal counsel allows me to say that however seemingly intractable the challenges we face at any given time, the good work of the University will continue, as will the benefits Harvard provides to the nation and the world,” she added. Harvard President Claudine Gay told the Harvard Gazette — a University-run publication — that Lopez has been a “wise counselor, an outstanding legal strategist, a humane colleague, and a passionate advocate for the mission and values of Harvard.” “She has expertly handled an exceptional variety of legal matters and has helped guide Harvard through innumerable challenges with an incisive mind and a steady hand,” Gay said. Though Lopez steered Harvard through many major lawsuits over the past five years, she did not lead the defense in the most significant
case to face the University in decades: a lawsuit filed by Students for Fair Admissions that challenged Harvard’s race-conscious admissions practices. In that case — which ended with the Supreme Court ruling against Harvard in a 6-2 decision — the University was represented by William F. Lee ’72 and Seth P. Waxman ’73, two partners at the WilmerHale law firm. In addition to her roles in the Office of the General Counsel, Lopez served on several bodies and committees over her 30 years at Harvard. She was a member of the Crisis Management Team, the Gift Policy Committee, and the President’s Task Force on Inclusion and Belonging. Lopez was also named to the staff advisory committee that helped advise the search for Harvard’s 29th president. Harvard Provost Alan M. Garber ’76 praised Lopez for serving as Harvard’s general counsel during a “particularly active time.” “With the superb team of legal professionals and staff she leads, she has helped Harvard remain true to its values and mission while solving problems and pursuing opportunities in the ever-changing world of the modern research university,” Garber told the Gazette. Gay said the search for a new vice president and general counsel will begin soon. Eileen Finan, a longtime University attorney, will serve as interim general counsel beginning March 1. miles.herszenhorn@thecrimson.com claire.yuan@thecrimson.com
NEWS
THE HARVARD CRIMSON DECEMBER 1, 2023
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FAS
FAS Dean Hoekstra Sets Sights on Interdisciplinary Work in First Year INTERDISCIPLINARY. Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra said in an interview earlier this month that she wants to focus on facilitating interdisciplinary research and scholarship. BY RAHEM D. HAMID AND ELIAS J. SCHISGALL CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
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ith two major academic leadership positions to fill, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra said she wants to focus on facilitating interdisciplinary research and scholarship during an interview with The Crimson earlier this month. The two new openings will give Hoekstra, who began her position in August, an opportunity to implement a vision for the future of Harvard’s largest academic school. Hoekstra said while she had not yet developed specific priorities or long-term goals for the institution, “emerging themes” of a vision are beginning to take shape, including creating opportunities for interdisciplinary work between the FAS’ three academic divisions and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. She said she hopes to “create can inclusive engagement that draws from across our many disciplines in the FAS.” Earlier this month, Arts and Humanities Dean Robin E. Kelsey and Sciences Dean Christopher W. Stubbs both announced they would step down from their roles at the end of the academic year, capping off their eight- and fiveyear tenures, respectively.
Hoekstra, who largely declined to address campus controversies over Israel in the same Nov. 16 interview, said advisory committees have not yet been assembled for the searches for their successors, but added that she hoped the roles would be filled by the end of the academic year. Kelsey’s resignation came amid internal frustration from some humanities faculty members surrounding the Arts and Humanities strategic planning process, particularly surrounding a proposal — since abandoned — to condense several language concentrations into one broader program. Kelsey previously told The Crimson his resignation was unrelated to faculty backlash on the proposal. Hoekstra said she was “enormously grateful” for Kelsey’s leadership and supports “efforts to develop a strong and affirmative vision for the future of humanities at Harvard,” but acknowledged that the strategic planning process has been “challenging.” “It’s not an easy task, but nothing worth doing is easy,” Hoekstra said, adding that faculty input was important to guide the strategic planning process to its conclusion. “I have really no preconceived notion of what the final outcome should be,” she added. Asked about Stubbs’ replacement, Hoekstra — herself a biologist — said she was still working on developing priorities across the FAS, including the Sciences. Still, she said, there was “exciting opportunity” in the Sciences, including helping facilitate the adoption of artificial intelligence at Harvard. She said the FAS has created an AI systems working group, chaired by Government professor
HMC Sells Holdings in Meta, Alphabet BY KRISHI KISHORE AND ROHAN RAJEEV CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
The Harvard Management Company sold a significant percentage of its direct holdings in Meta and Alphabet, as well as the entirety of its direct holdings in several acquired biomedical and pharmaceutical companies, during the third quarter of 2023. According to a Nov. 9 public filing, the total value of HMC’s direct public portfolio in the third quarter was $885 million, representing a 15 percent decline in value from the second quarter. HMC stewards the University’s endowment, which ended fiscal year 2023 at a value of more than $50 billion. In fiscal year 2023, 11 percent of the endowment was invested in public equities. Each quarter, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission requires money managers with more than $100 million of investments, including HMC, to disclose their direct public holdings. The data from the Nov. 9 filing represents ownership changes from July through September. HMC sold 15.6 percent of its shares in Meta and 27.9 percent of its shares in Alphabet, the parent
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company of Google, in the third quarter of 2023. Despite the sell-off, Meta and Alphabet continued to be HMC’s largest direct holdings, constituting $288 million and $228 million of the portfolio, respectively. Aside from the sale of these investments, HMC also bought shares in Instacart, a grocery delivery company based in San Francisco that recently went public in September of this year. HMC sold 100 percent of its shares in 12 companies, consisting entirely of pharmaceutical and biomedical companies. Several of these companies were recently involved in mergers and acquisitions. For instance, Magenta Therapeutics announced earlier this year that it would be acquired by Dianthus Therapeutics, a deal that closed in September of this year. Similarly, EQRx, an oncology and immunology biotechnology company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was acquired by Revolution Medicines in a transaction that closed earlier this month. Instacart was HMC’s only new holding in the third quarter of 2023. HMC’s holdings in Instacart totaled $15.4 million, almost 2 percent of the portfolio, valuing each share at $29.69 — slightly below the IPO share price of $30. Additionally, HMC sold off 53.8 percent of its direct holdings in Sana Biotechnology and 8.7 percent of its direct holdings in 10x Genomics from the second to the third quarter, consistent with the trend of HMC selling its biopharma holdings. HMC also maintained its direct holdings in a number of semiconductor companies, including NVIDIA, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, ASML Holding, and Advanced Micro Devices. krishi.kishore@thecrimson.com rohan.rajeev@thecrimson.com
of the practice Latanya A. Sweeney and FAS Dean of Administration and Finance Scott Jordan. The group, consisting of faculty and staff, is “exploring potential opportunities and disruptions of AI systems,” Hoekstra said. Stubbs will remain an adviser to Hoekstra on matters regarding AI, according to Hoekstra. She added that there are active faculty cluster hire efforts in two interdisciplinary fields — climate studies and ethnicity, Indigeneity, migration — with the climate cluster hire nearing completion. “We must be nimble,” Hoekstra said. “This is really about having the ability to seize opportunities as they present themselves, whether that’s in faculty hiring or new areas of scholarship.” Still, Hoekstra said she was “still in the listening and learning phase” of her transition into Harvard’s most powerful deanship, focusing on continuing to have conversations with department chairs, faculty, and students about the FAS. “I expect to be able to talk to you about priorities in the spring,” she said. rahem.hamid@thecrimson.com elias.schisgall@thecrimson.com
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Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra discussed interdisciplinary efforts within the school in a Nov. 16 interview. JULIAN J. GIORDANO — CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
DONORS FROM PAGE 1
Harvard’s Gift Officers Are Worried About Backlash Over Israel-Hamas Response additional letter in support of HCJAA, but did not explicitly pledge to cut financial ties with Harvard. Andrew H. Levy ’66, who has decided to stop donating, said he did not know what Harvard was saying about the conflict until former University President Lawrence H. Summers publicly condemned the University’s response on X. “Although my amount of money is not significant, as a symbolic act, I feel it would be disingenuous for me to give any more money to Harvard,” Levy said. “I’m always willing to reconsider it if Harvard behaves better,” Levy added. Many more donors, however, have opted to voice their concerns and frustrations privately to University leadership. In a Nov. 10 email to Harvard President Claudine Gay, Peter L. Malkin ’55 — namesake of the Malkin Athletic Center — as well as four alumni labeled the initial response a failure and implored Gay to “restore civility on campus.” While Malkin said he will continue to donate, he has received several emails discouraging him from doing so. “Harvard has been sustained by huge gifts in hundreds of millions of dollars that are almost incomprehensible, and those are going to be more difficult to come by,” Malkin said. Special Access The furor over the University’s response has also revealed the direct lines between Harvard’s most powerful donors and the University’s top officials. Hedge fund magnate Kenneth C. Griffin ’89 called Penny S. Pritzker ’81 — senior fellow of the Uni-
versity’s highest governing body, the Harvard Corporation — to urge that Harvard issue a statement forcefully defending Israel. Griffin’s $300 million donation to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences in April led the school to rename the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in his honor. The call — which was first reported by the New York Times — occurred on Oct. 9, hours before Harvard issued its first statement about Hamas’ attack against Israel. Griffin’s call with Pritzker demonstrated the special access that top donors have to the University’s most senior administrators. Harvard’s biggest donors regularly receive additional communication from the University about how their money is spent and are invited to attend private events with the Harvard president and senior leadership. Though Gay and other Harvard officials maintain that its relationships with donors do not threaten academic freedom, the University depends on donors to fulfill its academic mission. Philanthropy accounts for 45 percent of its annual revenue, including 8 percent that comes from current-use gifts. During a Nov. 17 dinner in New York with Harvard donors, Gay extensively discussed the divisions on campus over the fighting in Israel and Gaza — another exercise in damage control for a president whose first semester has been almost entirely consumed by the backlash against Harvard. “I worry — more each day — that divisions and tensions on our campus are having a chilling effect, that people are becoming increasingly reluctant to extend a hand or to offer support for fear of saying or doing the wrong thing,” Gay said.
Gay told donors the University had increased security around campus, including stationing more Harvard University Police Department officers around campus. She also said Harvard will take steps to address Islamophobia and other forms of hate but did not specifically announce any new initiatives. Jeffrey S. Flier, who served as the dean of Harvard Medical School from 2007 to 2016, said that while donors have generally refrained from making public demands of the University in the past, the scale of the outrage has emboldened them. “A university president or a dean these days has to be spending a lot of time thinking about these issues because they care about their donors, but they cannot just accede to demands that are inappropriate for the academic freedoms and for the actual terms of gifts,” Flier said. “On the other hand, are they happy if five of their biggest donors say, ‘I can’t give to you anymore because I’ve lost confidence in your moral sense, in your leadership?’ No. They don’t want that,” he added. Harvard’s Financial Future Since Oct. 7, Gay has been forced to reckon with what Garber, the University’s provost, called Harvard’s worst crisis in more than a decade. But the backlash, which erupted as Gay reached her 100th day in office, could have the potential to impact her tenure for years. One of Gay’s chief imperatives as president is to fundraise for the University, with Harvard expected to launch a capital campaign at some point over the next few years. The University’s last capital campaign, which ended in 2018,
raised a record 9.6 billion dollars over the course of five years. It relied heavily on engagement from a variety of donors, with 633,000 contributions from more than 153,000 households. It is unclear, however, if donors’ anger at Harvard over its initial messaging about the Israel-Hamas war could impact the timing of the next capital campaign. If a significant number of influential donors reconsider their support for Harvard, Gay could face major hurdles in her fundraising efforts. It would not be the first time that controversy on campus disrupted capital campaign planning. The University’s last capital campaign was marked by delays and administrative turmoil; while administrators started to privately court donors as early as 2004, Summers’ abrupt resignation in 2006 led Harvard to push their timeline. In the years leading up to an official announcement of a capital campaign, the administration typically reaches out privately to its most prominent donors, whose contributions can total up to approximately 40 percent of the campaign’s monetary goals. This private outreach sets the tone for the public fundraising to follow, allowing the University to assess what monetary goals are in sight. The pushback from donors also comes as Harvard’s endowment has decreased for a second consecutive year — the first time such occurrence in 20 years — which may add to the pressure on Gay to ensure the University’s financial stability. emma.haidar@thecrimson.com miles.herszenhorn@thecrimson.com cam.kettles@thecrimson.com
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THE HARVARD CRIMSON
COVER STORY
DECEMBER 1, 2023
Research Admin File Complaints, Leave En Masse FRANK S. ZHOU — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
ALLEGED TOXICITY. Current and former University administrators alleged a toxic work environment that they said top Harvard officials failed to address. BY CLAIRE YUAN CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
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op Harvard officials repeatedly failed to address workplace complaints against Associate Dean for Research Administration Services Lauren Ferrell that accused her of creating a toxic work environment, according to 10 current and former University administrators. The administrators allege that Ferrell harassed and bullied members of the department, including by retaliating against staff, questioning their intelligence, and insulting and diminishing them in both public and private settings. Ferrell leads the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Research Administration Services, which provides research development and administrative support for faculty in the FAS and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. When Ferrell arrived in the FAS RAS department in June 2021, there were 26 other staffers. In just under two and a half years, that number has fallen to only 10. According to the current and former University administrators, many of the employees who resigned cited Ferrell’s behavior as a reason for their departure. Some staff members resigned from the department before successfully securing new employment, which the administrators cite as a direct result of dissatisfaction with the work environment. According to the current and former University administrators, there have been 14 informal complaints to Title IX about Ferrell since her appointment to the associate deanship. Employees have also repeatedly reached out to FAS Human Resources with concerns about Ferrell’s behavior. At least three complaints have also been filed with the state, two through the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination and one through the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office. Current and former University administrators spoke to The Crimson on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. Ferrell did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Harvard spokesperson Jonathan Palumbo wrote in an emailed statement that the “FAS takes seriously all concerns raised regarding challenges in the workplace.” “There are policies and processes in place to allow employees to share feedback and to enable FAS to address concerns,” he wrote. “We cannot comment to anyone about confidential personnel matters, especially ongoing matters.” “Nevertheless, we affirm our commitment to ensuring that all employees are held to the same high standards, and that everyone is treated fairly and with respect,” he added. In a Thursday evening email addressed to “colleagues,” FAS Dean of Administration and Finance Scott Jordan — to whom Ferrell directly reports — announced that the RAS will now jointly report to Harvard Dean of Science Christopher W. Stubbs in addition to himself. “Under this expanded leadership, RAS will continue to solidify its commitment to keep pace with the transformative changes in the research landscape,” Jordan wrote. “RAS’ reimagining effort began this summer with updated job descriptions and recruitment practices, and will continue with onboarding that supports the recruitment and retention of a strong networked team that values diversity, integrity, ethics, outreach, and engagement.”
partmental staff, but less than five months later, he departed his post at the University at the conclusion of his temporary appointment. Attempts to contact his email bounced back with an error message, but no updates on the investigation had been provided to the staff. When reached by phone, Houston declined to comment, citing HR policy against discussing confidential investigations. According to a July 2022 complaint filed through Harvard’s anonymous reporting system EthicsPoint obtained by The Crimson, Ferrell “yelled” at a third-party hire during a virtual work meeting. “Ms Ferrell’s erratic and unprofessional behavior continued to escalate, culminating in two zoom calls during which she yelled, stood up and pointed, waved hands, called my work terrible and unusable, the overall experience ‘disappointing’ as well as using condescending, derogatory language and body
“In addition, it also demonstrates a pattern at FAS of ignoring Title IX staff complaints filed against Ferrell with staff repeatedly told by Ferrell’s supervisor, Dean Scott Jordan, that they needed to support Ferrell,” the complaint reads. Jordan received multiple email correspondences detailing Ferrell’s behavior and seeking resources for support. Harvard President Claudine Gay, then-President Lawrence S. Bacow, and Harvard Provost Alan M. Garber ’76 were also copied on emailed complaints about Ferrell. According to the University administrators, Ferrell has a close relationship with Gay — who was dean of the FAS at the time and hired Ferrell. Ferrell has allegedly invoked her name on multiple occasions to intimidate staff members. University spokesperson Jason A. Newton declined to comment. According to the current and former administrators, the lack
“
Harvard used to feel like ‘home’, but within the last two months or so, I have been bullied, gaslighted, excluded and manipulated by Lauren Ferrell.
Former staffer in HR complaint
A ‘Hostile Workplace Environment’ In a misconduct allegation sent to FAS HR in October 2021 obtained by The Crimson, a former staff member wrote that they were “terrified to come to work, feel completely isolated from my coworkers.” “Harvard used to feel like ‘home’, but within the last two months or so, I have been bullied, gaslighted, excluded and manipulated by Lauren Ferrell,” the former staffer wrote. According to the former staffer. FAS HR convinced them not to pursue an investigation but kept the report on file as an official misconduct complaint. Two complaints have also been filed through Harvard’s internal EthicsPoint anonymous reporting hotline. An internal HR investigation began on June 7, 2023, when Program Manager for Professional Conduct Lance Houston contacted the department. Houston met with de-
language,” the complaint reads. In a September 2022 state complaint filed against Ferrell obtained by The Crimson, a former staff member claimed Ferrell created a “hostile workplace environment,” including multiple “instances of harassment and humiliation.” The complaint, filed through MCAD, alleges that Ferrell’s actions caused “undue stress and emotional harm.” During individual meetings, the MCAD complaint reads, Ferrell leveled misleading and unsubstantiated claims about the staffer and their work performance. Ferrell allegedly told the former employee twice in a “demeaning and negative tone” that she had “heard” they were “difficult.” Despite repeated staff attempts to raise concerns, “senior leaders at FAS ignored Title IX staff complaints filed against Ferrell.”
of action from HR and the University at large seemed to indicate that Harvard’s administration would protect Ferrell. The complaints leveled against Harvard and Ferrell came as the University was in the process of instating new policies to address power-based harassment and bullying. Harvard has fielded criticism in the past for the way it handled complaints of power-based harassment or bullying, particularly from graduate students. The Crimson reported earlier this year that more than two dozen current and former students, staff, and colleagues alleged that top Harvard climate scientist Daniel P. Schrag had created a poor working environment for two decades by undermining subordinates, using demeaning language, and setting unreasonable expectations. In April 2022, Harvard released drafts of the University’s
first non-discrimination and anti-bullying policies, launching a six-month period during which affiliates could provide feedback on them. Harvard published its official policies in March 2023. According to the University’s policies, bullying is broadly defined as harmful interpersonal behavior — through “words or actions” — that “humiliate, degrade, demean, intimidate, or threaten an individual or individuals.” For the behavior to qualify as a violation of the policy, it must create an environment that a “reasonable person would consider intimidating, hostile, or abusive” and prevent someone from having an opportunity in their workplace or program. The policy further states that a single instance would not fall under bullying unless “sufficiently severe or pervasive.” Under the policy, bullying can include “abusive expression” directed at someone that would fall “outside the range of commonly accepted expressions of disagreement, disapproval, or critique,” including “feedback delivered by yelling, screaming, making threats or gratuitous insults” and “malicious comments” about someone’s appearance or family. Bullying can also take the form of abusing one’s authority “using inappropriate threats or retaliation.” Complaints of Retaliation In another state complaint obtained by The Crimson, a former staffer alleged that Ferrell discriminated against them “on the basis of race and retaliation.” The complaint — filed through MCAD — also cited Harvard University as one of the defendants. The complainant detailed going on medical leave, during which Ferrell attempted to contact them. When the staffer did not respond, Ferrell allegedly told another employee that the staffer needed to “learn responsibility” and “teach her kids what responsibility is.” In meetings with the former staffer, Ferrell also “started to talk down” to them, including telling the staffer that “you need to catch yourself.” The complaint also states that Ferrell made the former staffer follow a new accountability structure that involved regular check-in meetings with Ferrell at 30, 60, and 90 days — which the staffer alleges Ferrell
had not imposed on other department members returning around the same time. The difference in treatment, the complaint claims, was due to an HR complaint the staffer had filed three months before, prior to going on leave. In an email exchange with a senior human resources consultant in FAS HR obtained by The Crimson, a former staff member detailed facing retaliation from Ferrell after returning from a medical leave. The former employee wrote that Ferrell’s behavior caused an “unbearable level of stress,” making them feel as if they were “drowning in isolation” and “being bullied into leaving.” The staffer said they ultimately turned to a therapist for help. According to the email exchange with HR, Ferrell made comments about the staffer’s personal and family life during one of their individual check-in meetings. “Harvard is not paying us to raise our kids, you need to figure it out, ” Ferrell allegedly said. In the email, the former staffer asked HR to attend meetings with Ferrell, since they felt uncomfortable meeting individually with her following retaliatory behavior. In response, the HR department notified the staffer that Ferrell would be informed of the complaints and given the chance to respond “to ensure that we understand the full set of facts, instead of the views of any one person.” The HR representative also wrote that Ferrell’s job as the department’s supervisor necessitated meeting regularly with staff and that they “worry that some of her efforts to provide you with support are being misconstrued.” Still, the staffer asked HR for help with improving the environment in the FAS Research Administration Services office so they wouldn’t feel compelled to quit their job. “How can the university protect me from this behavior? What are my options? I would like to stay in the school/ department but i cannot continue to endure this behavior,” the former staffer wrote to HR. Despite the email exchanges, there was no further action by FAS HR to assist the staffer. Without help remedying the situation, the staffer resigned. “Please, help me,” the staffer wrote. claire.yuan@thecrimson.com
NEWS
THE HARVARD CRIMSON DECEMBER 1, 2023
7
INVESTIGATION
US Ed Department Investigates Harvard INVESTIGATION LAUNCHED. U.S. Department of Education opened an investigation into Harvard Tuesday following complaints of antisemitism. BY MILES J. HERSZENHORN AND CLAIRE YUAN CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
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he U.S. Department of Education launched an investigation into Harvard on Tuesday over the University’s response to allegations of antisemitism on campus, according to the department’s website. The investigation, led by the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, follows a complaint that alleged Harvard failed to adequately respond to reports of antisemitic harassment on campus — one of a slew of complaints alleging skyrocketing antisemitism and Islamophobia on college campuses after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel. Harvard joins several peer institutions on the department’s list of pending Title VI shared ancestry investigations, including Columbia University, Cornell University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Wellesley Col-
U.S. Education Department has opened an investigation into Harvard in response to allegations of antisemitism on college campuses. CAM E. KETTLES — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
lege. Harvard spokesperson Jason A. Newton wrote in a statement that the University supports “the work of the Office of Civil Rights
to ensure students’ rights to access educational programs are safeguarded and will work with the office to address their questions.”
Kristi R. Harris, chief attorney for the Office of Civil Rights in Boston, wrote in a letter announcing the investigation that the Education Department will
probe “whether the University failed to respond to alleged harassment of students based on their national origin (shared Jewish ancestry and/or Israeli) in a manner consistent with the requirements of Title VI.” A spokesperson for the Department of Education did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday. The University has faced enormous backlash from a range of affiliates, including politicians and longtime donors, over its initial response to the fighting in Israel and Gaza. Over the weeks since, Harvard administrators have come under intense pressure to do more to combat antisemitism and Islamophobia on a campus bitterly divided over the Israel-Hamas war. The federal investigation into Harvard follows a confrontation at an Oct. 18 pro-Palestine “die-in” between pro-Palestine protesters and a man identified by other outlets as an Israeli student at the Harvard Business School. The Israeli student walked around the protest and used his phone to film the protesters’ faces. Organizers of the protest repeatedly told the man to leave and used security vests and traditional Palestinian scarves to prevent
HoCos Face Budget Cut as Students Opt Out of Annual Fee BY ELLA L. JONES AND JOHN N. PEÑA CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
Harvard College’s House Committees are searching for new ways to fundraise following a 5 percent decrease in annual funding from the Dean of Students Office, according to an October document obtained by The Crimson. In total, House Committees received $204,250 for fiscal year 2024, per the DSO’s letter. A “confluence of factors” necessitated the funding cut, including “an increase in students opting out of paying the student activities fee and the normalization of the enrolled class size.” The Student Activities Fee is an annual $200 cost paid by undergraduates, though they may opt out of paying the fee. It provides funding for HoCos, the Harvard Undergraduate Association, the Harvard College Events Board, and the Harvard Foundation Student Advisory Committee — a student group that advises the Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and
Race Relations. The DSO decreased budgets equally for all four groups, according to a Harvard College spokesperson, who added that there has been an increasing trend in students opting out — though fewer students opted out of the fee this school year than last. HUA’s Co-Treasurer Corbin C. Lubianski ’24 wrote in an email that the SAF fund is $70,000 smaller this year than last. The funding cut followed a proposal from the All House Committee — which represents all HoCo co-chairs — requesting a 15 percent budget increase to fund operations for fiscal year 2024. Aurora M. Avallone ’24, a Kirkland House HoCo co-chair and the co-chair of the All House Committee, was involved with presenting the proposal for increased funding to the DSO. She described the budget cut as “sad,” adding that HoCos have already been operating under a tight budget. “Last year it was very difficult. All of our House Committees felt a strain on our budgets — on our ability to be able to cre-
ate as many events as students were asking for — and the sizes of events that students were asking for with the amount of money that we had,” she said. Dunster HoCo Co-Chair Avi Gulati ’24 said funding cuts at a time when “prices increased everywhere else” have made planning this year’s House formal especially difficult. “The prices of buses have gone up. The price at Royale has gone up since two years ago,” he said, referring to a nightclub in Boston that is often rented for formals. “It’s just not very reflective of the economic conditions around us when the College slashes part of our budget.” Harvard spokesperson Jonathan Palumbo wrote in an emailed statement that DSO administrators “work closely to support student leaders, to understand what their hopes and goals are for their work, and to support their implementation.” “We recognize that the increase in programming costs (including food, catering and event supplies) are part of the landscape in which we all are operating,” he wrote.
House Committees have turned to additional sources of revenue to pay for House events and activities, according to HoCo chairs. Currier HoCo Co-chair Samantha R. Vitale ’25 said the House is passing some costs onto residents by increasing formal ticket prices. “Immediately when we sent out the pubs for Quad Formal, we heard backlash from people about the price being $30, and I honestly do not blame them,” she said. “It’s supposed to be an event that’s accessible to everyone. Everyone in the school is invited to this formal, and so we want to make sure that everyone can go.” Avallone said Kirkland will expand on past fundraising efforts, such as its now annual Build-a-Boar event, a fundraiser where house members are invited to purchase and build a stuffed animal. Keeling T. Baker ’24, a HoCo co-chair for Quincy House, said the House would start relying more heavily on alumni purchasing merchandise. “Formal is going as usual, and merch sales — we’ve relied more
on those this past year than we have had to before,” Baker said. “We really started reaching out to alumni and stuff like that and trying to make up some of the lost money from the Harvard side.” But Baker said the House’s most successful fundraising has come from merchandise sales to parents — rather than alums — during family weekend. Avallone said she believes students often dismiss the Student Activities Fee as another frivolous charge by Harvard, but they opt out because they do not understand where it goes or the role of their contribution. “I think a big issue was that they didn’t understand where that money was going to and which groups were receiving that funding,” Avallone said, speaking about the student body. “Knowing that it is the only funding that your House Committee gets might make you think twice about how much you enjoyed that Stein or that formal and get you to opt in next round.”
CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
Arnold Arboretum workers are without a contract after their previous agreement with the University expired on Nov. 15, with both sides failing to come to a consensus on compensation after roughly three months of negotiations. Since negotiations began in August, Harvard and the Service Employees International Union 32BJ have met six times — during which time the union’s previous 2019 contract expired. The University has tentatively agreed to additional time off, clothing stipend money, and the establishment of a joint labor-management committee. The Arboretum has two dozen union-represented arborists, gardeners, and horticulturists who maintain 281 acres of University-owned land in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood in Boston. In addition to arboretum workers, 32BJ SEIU also represents campus security guards and custodians. At a Nov. 16 rally organized by 32BJ SEIU, workers said the requests were primarily quality-of-life improvements. The union has planned an additional rally for Dec. 2.
“I would like to see there to be enough financial improvements for the crew that offer us a bit more of a buffer against some of the stuff we’re up against in this area in terms of rent,” said Benjamin Kirby, an arboretum arborist and union shop steward. Kirby said a “very unified” crew came to the decision to continue bargaining past the deadline, adding that the workers were inspired to continue negotiating by the recent wave of union wins across the country. “We really care about it so much, and appreciate being able to work there,” Kirby said. In an email to Arboretum workers Nov. 16, Harvard Director of Labor Relations and Employee Relations Paul R. Curran acknowledged the rally and said the two sides are still apart in several key areas. “With these tentative agreements having been reached, the focus of the negotiations is on compensation, where the parties have yet to reach an agreement,” Curran wrote. The University’s last offer includes a 16.15 percent total wage increase over the span of four years, including a 4.9 percent increase in the first year in addition to a $1,000 stipend. He said the proposal took into account “com-
parative market factors” and “total compensation and benefits package.” Kirby said the offer does not meet the workers’ needs. “We’re not at a point yet where we think that the proposals from the other side have made us feel like we would be making enough progress to feel like it’s been worth the struggle,” Kirby said. “We do still believe that we can make progress,” said Roxana Rivera, assistant to the president of 32BJ SEIU. Curran also that the University’s proposal is comparable to the May 11 agreement with the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers, in which both sides agreed to a combined 17.9 percent total raise over four years. He said the 32BJ SEIU had rejected a proposal to bargain with a third-party mediator in October. Union spokesperson Franklin Soults wrote in an emailed statement that the negotiations do not yet require a mediator. “A complete breakdown in talks is the only reason that a mediator would be required,” he wrote. HUCTW’s negotiations, which stretched for 13 months, also stalled over compensation, as the union argued previous proposals
GAY FROM PAGE 1
President Claudine Gay to Testify Before Congress
The 2019 agreement’s working conditions will remain in place until a new contract is reached, though some key protections, including mandatory arbitration, are no longer in effect. “There is risk here in that workers are working without a contract,” Rivera said. “But again, it’s because they want to show how serious they are about really trying to achieve the best contract that recognizes the work that they do on a daily basis at the Arboretum.” cam.kettles@thecrimson.com
miles.herszenhorn@thecrimson.com
ella.jones@thecrimson.com john.pena@thecrimson.com
Harvard’s most recent offer to Arboretum workers includes a 16.15 percent wage increase over four years. JINA H. CHOE — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
did not sufficiently account for post-pandemic inflation. “There has been a strong demand from workers to see more of a wage increase in the early years of a contract — the first and second year of an agreement, primarily in the first year — just to make up for how they were set back,” Rivera said. As they continue to work without contract, Rivera said arboretum employees will not have all of the same protections they have under a current contract, but added they are willing to wait for a better offer.
miles.herszenhorn@thecrimson.com claire.yuan@thecrimson.com
environment for their students and staff,” Foxx said. “Now is not a time for indecision or milquetoast statements.” The backlash against Harvard over its initial response to Hamas’ attack has almost entirely consumed Gay’s first semester as president. Harvard Provost Alan M. Garber ’76 previously described the controversy — which erupted as Gay reached the 100th day of her presidency — as the most serious crisis the University has faced over his 12-year tenure. A wide range of affiliates — including members of Congress and former Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers — criticized the University’s first statement for failing to explicitly condemn Hamas or respond to a controversial statement signed by more than 30 Harvard student groups that held Israel “entirely responsible” for the violence. Rep. Elise M. Stefanik ’06 (R-N.Y.), the fourth-ranking House Republican and a member of the Education and Workforce Committee, has repeatedly called on Gay to resign over her handling of the situation. Gay has announced a range of efforts to combat antisemitism at Harvard in the weeks since, a response to growing concerns from affiliates about student safety amid heightened tensions on campus. In a speech to students and parents gathered at a Harvard Hillel Shabbat dinner, Gay said she formed an advisory group on antisemitism. She later pledged to work with the group to implement antisemitism education and training for affiliates. Gay has also been condemned on campus for her response to doxxing attacks against students allegedly affiliated with organizations that signed the controversial student statement, with students alleging that she has not sufficiently protected pro-Palestine student activists or Muslim students broadly. While Harvard launched a task force to support doxxed students in October, the University has not created an initiative to counter Islamophobia, despite student calls to do so. Gay’s appearance at the House hearing next week will mark her first official trip as Harvard’s president to meet with members of Congress in Washington. The full committee hearing will be held Dec. 5 at 10:15 a.m.
Arboretum Workers Without Contract Amid Impasse BY CAM E. KETTLES
him from filming people participating in the “die-in.” A video of the confrontation that circulated widely on social media shows the student coming into physical contact with the protesters as they attempted to escort him away. The incident prompted several prominent Harvard alumni to condemn the University for not doing more to combat antisemitism on campus. In addition to the Education Department’s probe, the Oct. 18 incident is also under investigation by the FBI and the Harvard University Police Department. Harvard has announced several efforts to combat antisemitism over the past month. University President Claudine Gay formed an advisory group on antisemitism and announced that she would work with the group to implement antisemitism education and training for Harvard affiliates. The Education Department opened its investigation into Harvard exactly one week before Gay is set to testify during a House Committee on Education and the Workforce hearing about antisemitism on college and university campuses.
8
THE HARVARD CRIMSON
EDITORIAL
DECEMBER 1, 2023
COLUMN
THE THINGS WE CONSUME
Cannabis Cambridge, Humbug Harvard MARIJUANA USE. Something is amiss. It seems there’s a critical contradiction in our smoky status quo. BY MATTHEW E. NEKRITZ
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For half of my life, I have lived in a state where weed is legal. I am from cannabis Colorado. I was 11 years old when voters — much to the chagrin of then-Governor John W. Hickenlooper (who has now dramatically changed his stance as senator) — approved Amendment 64, which legalized recreational marijuana. I watched as dispensary after dispensary popped up along the streets of Denver while stigmas fell and weed lifted our state economy. Now, more than a decade later, 38 states, three territories, and the District of Columbia allow medical marijuana use, while 24 states, two territories, and D.C. have also legalized recreational use. In 2020, the National Institutes of Health reported the “highest levels of marijuana use recorded since the 1980s” among college students. Clearly, our levels of usage aren’t the only thing that’s getting high. At Harvard, we’re no different: Students use cannabis. Whether to spice up social gatherings, ease anxiety, brainstorm their column for The Crimson, or to simply get a little stoned, there is no doubt that even at our pristine Ivy League institution, students (and I would venture to guess professors!), enjoy the devil’s lettuce. But even in our state of Massachusetts, where recreational use is legal and dispensaries can be found a mere four-minute walk away from campus housing, Harvard, following federal policy, deems the herb illegal on campus property. Uniquely, ninety-eight percent of undergraduates at Harvard live on campus, making nearly all possession by students ‘illicit.’ Something is amiss. It seems there’s a critical contradiction in our smoky status quo. On one hand, we are entering a new era of cannabis culture in Cambridge. This summer, Harvard Square celebrated as Western Front became the first dispensary to open in the neighborhood. Just last week, Herbwell Cannabis opened down the street from the Quad. Diaspora — a private cannabis club launched by a co-founder of Yamba Market, Cambridge’s pioneer dispensary — hosts consumption events in the former John Harvard Brewery space. Cambridge’s legal weed scene is only just beginning to blossom. On the other, marijuana, federally recognized as a Schedule I controlled substance, sits out of place along-
side a wide array of drugs ranging from heroin to psilocybin to bath salts, which are federally prohibited and described as having “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.” As a recipient of federal funding and thus a complying participant in the Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act, Harvard, too, must completely ban the substance. That means that students over twenty-one can walk out of their dormitory, walk down the block, and walk out of a dispensary having legally purchased anything from an ounce of flower to a baggie of edibles to a cartridge of vape-able concentrate. They can then return, and on paper, be warned, sent to the Administrative Board, placed on probation, or required to withdraw. This is not necessarily for smoking in a dormitory (prohibited regardless of substance), but rather for simple possession in their own place of residence. Meanwhile, alcohol — which often facilitates students (especially freshmen) leaving our campus in ambulances due to overdrinking, and is responsible for more than 1,500 U.S. college student deaths annually — evades the scheduling list altogether. Outside of the “dry” freshman Yard, students over twenty-one can legally possess and consume it on Harvard’s campus. *** I spoke with the Harvard Economics department’s Director of Undergraduate Studies and resident libertarian, Jeffrey A. Miron — who has written extensively on drug prohibition and legalization — about the complex dynamics at play. In our conversation, he mentioned the seemingly-unavoidable campus cannabis conflict between “widespread violation” through on-campus possession and the ever-present threat of punishment. “Harvard is left in an impossible position,” Miron said. “On the one hand, it might not want to be hypocritical and make a big deal out of this, because it knows it’s gonna go on.” However, he continued, Harvard doesn’t want to be perceived “as ignoring an existing federal law because that might jeopardize its treatment under other federal policies and so on.” The wide variety of THC products available further
complicates things. While the buds of marijuana flower release a telltale odor, products like edibles or vape cartridges are far more inconspicuous. One freshman who uses cannabis regularly told me that he likes to use THC vape cartridges because of their discreet nature and lack of smell. To enforce their prohibition policies seriously and equally across cannabis products, Harvard would have to engage in unrealistic, widespread dormitory searches and over-policing that would deeply encroach on student privacy. Short of that, people possessing physical flower, with its more noticeable stench, are bound to receive the short end of the stick for the same ‘offense.’ Miron’s solution to our cannabis conundrum unsurprisingly mirrored his libertarian, “legalize all drugs” leanings: “There’s only one sensible solution, which is repeal the Drug-Free Schools Act and move marijuana out of the current Controlled Substances Act.” I unequivocally agreed with the latter step, but I hesitated with the complete repeal of the Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act. Isn’t that a bit extreme? Something Miron said earlier in our interview, however, helped me understand his position. “Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to see what different universities might do and how they would handle it and which policies would have better or worse effects overall, because the federal policy has dictated that every school automatically just assumes that all these substances are banned on campus,” he told me. Without their compulsory loyalty to federal policy, perhaps Harvard and others could craft less inconsistent, more equitable sets of reefer regulations. But I’m still skeptical — both that federal policy is soon to change, and that Harvard would otherwise risk being a trendsetter in defiance of federal law. Regardless, too myopic of a focus on federal policies might fail to recognize where the power to punish (or to look away) lies in our status quo. In Harvard’s housing, by virtue of who lives and works where, getting caught by faculty certainly seems more likely than getting arrested by HUPD. ***
I asked Miron how he would handle cannabis as an undergraduate House dean. While he wouldn’t answer directly, he offered some critical insight into what he called “benign neglect.” “My suspicion is that there are faculty deans occasionally, resident deans more often, tutors all the time, who are actually witnessing this happen,” Miron said. “And I haven’t heard about zillions of Ad Board cases over students who are punished, so my guess is that there’s a lot of looking the other way.” Those who look the other way are doing what Harvard as an institution seems incapable of doing. They are protecting students from unfair policies and ridiculous retribution. On our campus, this should be the norm. No student should be penalized for possessing or consuming a product that is legal one step beyond the University’s gates. At the bare minimum, we need federal cannabis de-scheduling and decriminalization yesterday. A potential downgrade to Schedule III is a step in the right direction, but still leaves gaping inconsistencies from the federal government for colleges like ours to deal with, notwithstanding that it enables prohibition (and thus unjust, unequal incarceration for weed) to continue in over half of the United States. In the meantime, more dispensaries will likely continue to open in Cambridge, just as I watched in Denver. With the normalization of legal pot purchase, stigma on campus will fade further into the haze. The presence and use of ‘illicit’ cannabis in Harvard dorms will only grow as purchasing pot becomes easier and easier, safer and safer. Amid the federal government’s ganja inaction, and thus the College’s coerced cannabis chastity, the responsibility will regrettably fall on those with the power to penalize. So, tutors, proctors, deans, tattletale peers, even HUPD officers, if you see something or smell something, choose not to say something. Let them consume.
–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.
OP-ED
How Harvard Students Got So Stressed BY ADEN BARTON
C
oncerns about “kids these days” are as old as Socrates. He once complained that children “no longer rise when elders enter the room” and so “are now tyrants.” The frequency of such complaints has rightly made many numb to claims of generational crises. But years of writing about higher education (and of being a student) have convinced me that something is very amiss with recent college cohorts. Unlike past generations, mine grew up with social media and increasingly heavy-handed parents. Plus, the ever-increasing intensity of college admissions and the postgraduate career search means many undergraduates, especially here at Harvard, spend their young adult lives attempting to cultivate a perfect CV. Not coincidentally, my peers face unprecedented mental health struggles. The percentage of Harvard freshmen who have received mental health counseling has nearly tripled in the last 10 years. I’ve come to believe that this generation of undergraduates is infected with a deep fear of not being considered successful. Or, in the words of professor Harry R. Lewis ’68, modern students are “too busy, and they’re too focused on optimizing for certain well-defined notions of success.” From this fundamental insecurity springs riskaverse workaholics who are deathly afraid of any failure. This irreparably taints how they engage in everything from classes to clubs to socializing. Screenagers These Days One culprit for young adults’ increasing anxiety and stress is, indeed, the internet. Technology has forever changed childhood. The average 17-year-old now spends nearly six hours a day on social media and far less time socializing in person. A survey from the pandemic era found that Harvard College students make frequent use of these apps, too: 15 percent spend five to six hours daily on social media, and nearly 40 percent spend three to four hours. Professor Howard E. Gardner ’65 told me that the amount of time students devote to social media “would have been inconceivable 30 years ago.” The evidence is growing that this prolonged exposure to social media can have long-term negative effects. One recent economics study argued that the introduction of Facebook on college campuses in the mid-2000s causally reduced student mental health. Now, a whopping 95.9 percent of respondents to The Crimson’s annual freshman survey say they have Instagram, an app that has also been linked to mental illness as users constantly compare themselves to others. Former Dean of Freshmen and celebrated firstyear adviser Thomas A. Dingman ’67 has already seen these deleterious effects on campus. “There are students who are convinced that nobody else is dealing with the struggles that they’re encountering because the way that people curate their
profiles online leads somebody to believe that everybody else is having more fun, working less hard, having more friends,” he said. Parental Guidance Suggested Changing parenting styles have also left kids with less time to independently roam and socialize. One paper from this year cited this decrease in freedom — a result of excessive parental oversight — as a “primary cause of the rise in mental disorders.” These effects can arise from good intentions, but they remain adverse. As parents increasingly strive “to remove all wrinkles in the pathway that students tread,” Dingman said, Harvard undergraduates become “less resilient and less familiar with overcoming some obstacles.” Greg C. Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, wrote in an email that this overparenting, combined with modern catastrophizing about the state of society, “undermines young people’s internal locus of control, their sense of self-efficacy, their belief in their own resilience, and their hope for the future.” For students attending elite universities, parental overinvolvement has likely consumed their entire lives. Pre-college, parents pressure children to do well in college admissions, raising academic and extracurricular accomplishments as dimensions of insecurity. Just look at the panoply of activities many freshmen take on to win their spot here. Once students arrive on campus, technology interacts with overparenting to ensure that students are never wholly separated from home. Whereas students used to be in touch with parents on a weekly basis, according to Dingman, many more are now in touch every day. Some, like professor Lewis, believe incoming freshmen have relationships with their parents that are “too intimate.” He said that these relationships make it “hard for students to develop, again, their independent identity as an individual.” Wendy D. Fischman, a project director at the Harvard Graduate School of Education who conducted a study including 1,000 undergraduates around the country, told me that one of the most common words used by interviewed students was “mom” — indicating that modern undergraduates don’t ever fully leave home. Profile of an Anxious Student As a result of these trends, many students arrive on campus incredibly insecure and afraid of failure, having spent their lives comparing themselves to others on social media and being corralled by parents through the admissions rat race. Such insecurities are so pronounced that many longtime Harvard affiliates have taken notice. Gardner, who has seen many generations of Harvard students, told me that the current crop is “more worried and uptight.” Fischman noted that students repeatedly refer-
enced a desire to be perfect, contributing to stress that occurs “daily, if not on the minute.” Professor James T. Engell ’73, too, believes that students have “more anxiety about status” now. In order to allay these anxieties, it seems many students approach college aiming not at learning or intrinsic fulfillment but at continuing to accumulate prestige and set themselves up for career success. Modern students are “so transactional about their college experiences, so focused on building their own resumes, building a profile, having experiences that’ll lead to a job,” Fischman said. Such priorities stand in stark contrast to the experience of older generations. Dingman said that when he was a student, “there was not the scramble to determine postgraduate directions.” Similarly, Gardner, speaking of his and his friends’ perceptions of their futures after Harvard, said, “I think we all felt secure” — the opposite of how I would characterize my peers. Stress and Extracurricular Excess This acute need to be exceptional has transformed college from a time of contemplation and curiosity to one of manic overextension, during which worried students amass commitments in an attempt to stand out and land coveted postgraduate opportunities. Engell told me that Harvard students are “here because they have succeeded already in the competition.” While they seek to continue this hard-won sense of success, he said, “at a certain point, not everyone is going to grab the brass ring.” But that won’t stop them from trying. “Students, on the whole, seem to be busier. They are more scheduled. They are more rushed. They are often involved in more activities, a greater number of activities. Their schedules are sliced and diced,” Engell said. First-year adviser Dingman told me this “overscheduling” makes it hard to even find time to have advising meetings. It would be one thing if such commitments came from a place of genuine passion, but Fischman’s research demonstrated that students’ extracurricular involvements were usually “more about collecting activities that they could put on their resume — much less about exploration and trying to discover real interests and passions,” she said. Indeed, each year, swarms of freshmen apply to the Harvard College Consulting Club — despite likely not knowing what consulting was a month before — ostensibly because the club boasts a low acceptance rate and therefore signals prestige. I should know. I was one of many who joined for this exact reason. This is one example of a broader phenomenon in which students’ extracurricular commitments often transition from service-oriented pursuits in high school to pre-professional clubs at Havard — probably because the hallmark of success has shifted from gaining admission to a prestigious college to securing a prestigious job. The business and pre-professional orientation of Harvard student life has become so naturalized that
many of my peers likely can’t imagine college without it. I certainly can’t. But, speaking of his own time at Harvard, Dingman said his peers “were choosing their extracurricular activities largely around the things that would give them enjoyment and fun rather than position themselves for anything.” The Unexplored and Unsocial Life This frenetic and anxious lifestyle transforms classes from the heart of the student experience to a relatively unimportant part of college life. After all, an offer at Goldman Sachs likely won’t hinge on your GPA. Indeed, data on student engagement indicate a long-term decline in study time. I can relate. Most of the tasks on my to-do list are from various extracurricular commitments, not classes. In addition to courses, social life falls by the wayside. Overworked, perpetually online students have less time to devote to socializing. “To some degree, students hang out less than they used to,” professor Engell said. “They don’t sit and talk for long periods of time without looking at their phones or their laptops.” Dingman concurred. “I don’t think they report the same sort of casual interactions. In part, that’s because I think that they are looking at their extracurricular involvements as sort of pre-professional,” he said. From 2010 to 2021, the share of Harvard seniors reporting drinking at least once a week fell by approximately 20 percentage points. This trend may not seem like a serious problem, and drinking heavily isn’t the only way to have fun. But it reflects a broader decline in socialization and a rise in youth loneliness worth worrying about. A Frame Shift I’ve written articles on just about every concerning trend I could document on Harvard’s campus: the culture of non-fun, the decline of the humanities, increasing careerism, and atrophying free speech. In each of these articles, I’ve too often leaned on institutional explanations, like the College administration’s apparent antipathy towards social life. While I’m still usually skeptical of universal narratives, I’ve come to believe that all of these issues are, in part, symptomatic of the psychological and emotional problems my generation faces. Each can be understood as a case of risk-averse, prestige-hungry students taking the safe option, whether that be concentrating in Economics instead of English, accepting a job at Goldman Sachs instead of a nonprofit, or opting not to speak one’s mind for fear of backlash. In short, kids these days are not alright. The erstwhile pillars of college — self-discovery, exploration, and growth — have given way to an anxious stasis in which students languish in their own fear of failure.
–Aden Barton ’24, an Associate Editorial Editor, is an Economics concentrator in Eliot House.
EDITORIAL
THE HARVARD CRIMSON
DECEMBER 1, 2023
9
STAFF EDITORIAL
Harvard Should Be Bigger EXPANDING CAMPUS. For a well-endowed school that prides itself on providing access to high-achieving students of all backgrounds, Harvard’s stubborn exclusivity requires remedy. BY THE CRIMSON EDITORIAL BOARD
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n 2017, Yale University opened two residential colleges as part of a plan to increase the undergraduate student population. Last fall, Princeton University did the same. Columbia University, Brown University, Dartmouth College, Cornell University, and University of Pennsylvania have also increased their student bodies in the past two decades. Of the Ivy League schools, only Harvard hasn’t. As many schools — elite and not — open their doors to more students, Harvard’s undergraduate population has held flat for decades while the number of applicants has ballooned. For a well-endowed school that prides itself on providing access to high-achieving students of all backgrounds, this stubborn exclusivity requires remedy.
We know firsthand how a Harvard education can change your life, and we believe earnestly that — at least on net — Harvard graduates make the world a better place. For these reasons, when it comes to admissions, we believe that more is more. Any truly egalitarian vision for Harvard must necessarily include expanding its undergraduate population. As former University President Lawrence H. Summers knew, to expand, Harvard must go bravely across the Charles. Using the large swaths of land it has already acquired in Allston, Harvard can construct new undergraduate Houses. It planned to do so under Summers but did not. Now, the University must reconsider. Done well, these new Houses would not only benefit the marginal admit — they could make student life better for all undergraduates. Relative to the Quad and often-isolating overflow housing, the Allston Houses would better foster community by centralizing undergraduate living. Worthwhile as physical expansion may be, we know that it can only do so much. Harvard should aspire to serve any young person around the world who desires to learn, and that demands it think big-
ger. Namely, Harvard should continue taking bold steps to expand access to non-affiliates. Through initiatives like Axim Collaborative, the University has already made significant efforts in this area, which it should further. Building on this success, we hope to see Harvard digitally publish more materials from its courses, including lecture recordings and reading lists. Restricting these resources when publication has so few costs renders them artificially scarce without good reason. Along similar lines, Harvard should further its partnerships with Historically Black Colleges and Universities, as well as less well-resourced schools in general. As we consider expansion, we should not, however, forget the question of class composition. While expansion offers Harvard the capacity to admit more students from underrepresented backgrounds, after the end of race-conscious admissions especially, it does not nearly solve the problem of diverse admissions by itself. To this extent, Harvard must pursue, with equal ambition, avenues for expanding access to under-
represented groups, for example, through summer camps for low-income students. Finally, it must be acknowledged: Any plans for expansion are bound to meet difficulties in their implementation. First, concerns about development in Allston abound. As we have argued, expansion in Allston must address the effects of such growth on locals. Harvard owes it to Allstonians to engage them in good faith when making choices that could profoundly impact their lives. Second, Harvard must ensure quantity does not trade off with quality. Specifically, a low student-faculty ratio is essential to the educational experience, meaning the University must ensure increases in faculty hiring match any increases in the undergraduate population.
–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.
DISSENT
Dissent: Bigger Isn’t Always Better BY VIOLET T.M. BARRON AND JULIA S. DAN
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arvard’s reach, both literal and figurative, is undeniable. It boasts offices on five continents. Its name alone holds tremendous global weight. Its 400,000 living alumni can be found all over the world. Even so, some — like former University President Lawrence H. Summers and, with today’s opinion, this Editorial Board — still seek more. The Board’s call for Harvard to physically expand selfishly ignores the costs local communities have already incurred from the University’s presence in Allston and disregards the harm further expansion could cause. Even though the Board qualifies its support for expansion by calling for Harvard to consult locals, no number of conversations can remedy the steep rise in rent and housing costs Harvard’s pernicious Allston infiltration seems to
have sparked. The Board’s well-meaning aspirations of accessibility are just that — aspirational. Moreover, a bigger Harvard is not necessarily a better Harvard. Elitism doubled is still elitism. Viewing expansion as even a partial answer to concerns about diversity in a world without race-conscious admissions distracts from initiatives like socioeconomic affirmative action and ending legacy admissions that could more directly address these questions. While the Board has adamantly and admirably defended these efforts, it takes a step back today by mislabeling expansion as a worthy step toward a more diverse Harvard. With expansion, the same dismal ratios that describe our existing student body demographics — for example, that 67 percent of Harvard undergraduates come from the top 20 percent of the income distribution, while 4.5 percent come from the bottom 20 percent — would simply play out across a bigger population.
In framing expansion as even a partial solution, the Board fails to acknowledge that the handful of spots opened by physical expansion won’t suddenly be filled by a more diverse demographic of students. Expansion could also hurt, rather than bolster, Harvard’s undergraduate community. We can already see the tears shed on Housing Day when first-years learn that they’ve been placed in the Quad, much less across the Charles. When done right, initiatives aimed at increasing access to Harvard should be celebrated. We applaud Harvard’s ventures into the digital realm as a less disruptive alternative to its land grabs in Allston. For proof, one need not look further than the digitalization of one of Harvard’s most popular courses, Computer Science 50. CS50’s virtual success — it has seen more than four million online registrants — speaks to the unquestionable draw and potential merits of Harvard courses that are just a click away for many.
Ultimately, Harvard has the power and dollars to do what it will. While we cannot wave away the 360 acres Harvard already owns in Allston, we can ask that the University recognize that we don’t need another Science and Engineering Complex, a thirteenth undergraduate House, or 1,000 more spots in the freshman class. Rather, we need careful, balanced consideration of the students who already attend Harvard and the locals who reside in and around it before the University blindly heeds this Board’s imprudent calls for expansion.
–Violet T. M. Barron ’26, a Crimson Editorial editor, lives in Adams House. Julia S. Dan ’26, a Crimson Editorial editor, lives in Adams 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.
OP-ED
The Harvard Law Review’s Palestine Exception BY HINA UDDIN
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he Harvard Law Review is one of the oldest and most widely cited legal journals in the country. I participated in the grueling endeavor of the six-day writing competition to join the Law Review, like many other first-year law students, because of the chance to engage with emerging literature by leading legal scholars. As a student interested in human rights and humanitarian law, I knew there would be few opportunities to publish international scholarship within the journal due to its generalist nature. And yet, I never could have imagined that during my tenure as an editor of the Law Review, I would have to argue that international law is real, that atrocities are occurring in Palestine — as they had occurred in Israel — and that truly “reviewing” the law requires engaging scholars from diverse backgrounds with uncomfortable perspectives. All of this came to a head last month when the Harvard Law Review solicited and subsequently voted to reject publication of “The Ongoing Nakba” by Rabea Eghbariah. The decision to silence Eghbariah has called
into question our commitment to academic freedom, and has made us complicit in the continued silencing of Palestinian activists and scholars across the country. The Harvard Law Review must correct this harm, or forever bear the legacy of silence in the face of grave injustice. The decision to quash “The Ongoing Nakba” came in the form of a collective revocation vote, a deviation from the standard procedure for blog posts. Though the piece was solicited, edited, and approved through the usual process, its publication was delayed and eventually rescinded by a nearly six-hour emergency meeting of the full editorial body — a practice that to many current editors’ knowledge, had never occurred for a solicited piece. In considering publication, editors’ concerns ranged from fear of public backlash to more disconcerting criticism of the substantive claims of the piece. During our lengthy deliberations, I couldn’t help but wonder, were objections to the article genuinely based on worries about factual mischaracterization? Or rather, were they grounded in fear of what the piece argues: that when it comes to Palestine, no number of citations are enough to prove violations of international law.
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In the days after we reversed course, it became obvious to me that the Harvard Law Review had joined many other students, academics, and journalists across the United States, acquiescing to the Palestine exception to free speech. For what seems like fear of losing their clerkships or big law jobs, my peers, who normally supported academic freedom and human rights, found themselves voting contrary to these principles. The Palestine exception is destructive, it chills speech and progress, and it is now clear that it has reached one of the highest ivory towers in the United States. Ironically, by failing to publish this article, we have affirmed its trenchant observation that lawyers “tend to sharpen their pens after the smell of death has dissipated.” As a first generation, low-income student, participating in the Law Review has been one of the greatest achievements of my academic career. Now, it is those characteristics, along with my commitment to international law and academic freedom, which compel me to call on the Harvard Law Review to correct this institutional failure. The Law Review should take two important steps to make amends for this injustice. First, it must release a public apology to Rabea Eghbariah
for discriminatory treatment and inadequate engagement with his article. Second, the Law Review should publish a piece describing the legal framework of abuses against Palestinians in the occupied territories. I hope these suggestions are taken in good faith, for the betterment of a journal that aims to be academically rigorous. More broadly, across academia, we can no longer prioritize individual accomplishment over a genuine commitment to critically interrogating the truth within the framework of the law. The Law Review spoke as an institution to reject Eghbariah’s article. That is the truth of the matter, and we participated in a democratic vote to uncover that unfortunate truth. However in the extraordinary process of revoking publication of this piece, which would have been the first ever written by a Palestinian author in the Law Review, there is another truth: that there can be no “reviewing” of the law within an editorial framework that silences warnings of genocide, and indeed Nakba.
– Hina Uddin is a third-year student at Harvard Law School and an editor of the Harvard Law Review.
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THE HARVARD CRIMSON
METRO
DECEMBER 1, 2023
HARVARD SQUARE
Painted Burro Gallops Into The Square NEW RESTAURANT. Latin American restaurant and tequila bar Painted Burro opened last Monday. BY CAROLINE K. HSU AND SIDNEY K. LEE CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
P
ainted Burro, a Latin American restaurant and tequila bar, opened its third location in Harvard Square last Monday. Located on 32 Church St., the new establishment stands in the former location of the Border Cafe and features a fuschia building facade. Since opening in 2012 in Davis Square, the Painted Burro chain has since expanded to Waltham and now Harvard Square. There are also two Burro Bars — “smaller versions of Painted Burro” as described by chain owner and chef Joe Cassinelli — in the Boston area. With its selection of grilled meats, fish, and moles, Painted
Painted Burro, which opened on Nov. 20, stands at the former location of the longstanding Border Cafe. NYLA NASIR — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
Burro aims to highlight the diverse cuisines of Latin America. The restaurant also boasts an extensive alcohol menu, with margaritas, local beers, and a col-
lection of more than 100 craft tequilas. Painted Burro’s menu features classic Latin American appetizers, salads, and a wide vari-
ety of tacos ranging from cilantro grilled chicken to buffalo cauliflower. The restaurant also serves more sizable entrees, including swordfish, chimichangas, and
more. On weekends, Painted Burro offers a bottomless brunch special — all-you-can-eat fare for $25. To celebrate its grand opening, the restaurant is “throwing it back” to 2012 by featuring original dishes on the menu and 2012 prices, according to Cassinelli. “You can expect some pretty attractive pricing,” Cassinelli added. The opportunity to establish a Painted Burro location in Harvard Square arose when the space became available following the announcement of Border Cafe’s permanent closing in 2021. “It was one of the easiest openings we’ve ever done,” Cassinelli said. Customers can expect “great, upscale Mexican food” and a “lively environment,” according to Cassinelli. The 7,199-squarefoot space is completely renovated and features two full bars, with a downstairs bar-lounge area open to private events. The newly opened location has received positive feedback
from diners. “It’s not that expensive,” Jim Brown, a Cambridge resident, said. “The food is generous, and it’s good quality.” Brown said his grits were “delicious” and spoke about how friendly the waitstaff were at the Painted Burro. “I know three names, and I don’t remember names,” Brown said. Painted Burro opens at 11 a.m. on weekdays and 10 a.m. on weekends and closes around midnight. Brown added that their hours are a “big positive” for those who like to stay up late. Charlotte Wagner, a local resident, said she had a “great experience” and mentioned how well decorated the space was, but thought that Painted Burro has to find its “mojo.” “It has a really amazing bar, and I can imagine it with students and more people — and it’ll have its own vibe,” Wagner said. caroline.hsu@thecrimson.com sidney.lee@thecrimson.com
City Manager Huang Optimistic Charter Review Committee Vote BY SAMUEL P. GOLDSTON AND JINA H. CHOE CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
Cambridge City Manager YiAn Huang ’05 says he is satisfied with his collaboration with the Cambridge City Council — a week before a pivotal Charter Review Committee meeting that could decide his future in City Hall. Next Tuesday, the committee will take a final vote on whether to recommend a shift away from a city manager-led government. In a Nov. 7 meeting, the committee voted 7 to 5 in favor of a strong elected mayor system in a nonbinding vote — setting the stage for the Council to consider eliminating the city manager position entirely if repeated next week. Under the “Plan E” system, Cambridge’s government comprises a democratically elected council and an appointed city manager, who directs the city’s departments and day-to-day operations and is largely responsible for implementing municipal policy. “I see it less as this question of, ‘In a strong mayor system where you can directly elect the chief executive of the city, you’re getting more democracy. And then
if you don’t do that, you’re getting less democracy,’” Huang said in an interview with The Crimson Thursday. “There’s something about the current system that’s sharing power and driving consensus, that can be seen as more inclusive, more transparent, and actually quite accountable,” he added. “But it is a different form. It’s a little harder to explain, but I think that is something of what has made Cambridge special.” Huang recognized Cambridge’s housing challenges — which has become one of the city’s hot-button issues — while expressing hope for continuing progress. “There is such demand to live in Cambridge; I think we have an incredible city,” he said. “That’s a bit of its own curse, because then it’s driving up housing prices in a really significant way.” “I think there have been a ton of things that have been done on the housing policy side,” he added, citing a slate of housing measures like the Inclusionary Housing Ordinance, the 100%-Affordable Housing Zoning Overlay, and the elimination of parking minimums. Drawing from a recently collected survey of Cambridge residents, Huang said Cantabrigians
seem to be concerned equally with building affordable and market-rate housing. “There is a huge commitment to both thinking about the market but also thinking about ensuring that folks with lower incomes have a place to live and a place to stay in the city,” he said. When asked about the ongoing contract negotiations with the Holistic Emergency Alternative Response Team — a resident-led non-police response organization — Huang said he believes HEART has been treated “very fairly.” “We’re not always the best. Sometimes we can contract a little bit faster, but this is not a unique circumstance in the sense of how we’ve approached it,” he said. Huang sought to put a positive spin on a year of occasionally acrimonious council meetings on issues like bike lanes and policing. “Expecting just butterflies and roses in city council meetings seems unrealistic,” Huang said. “I think it’s been a really civil and constructive and positive debate over the last year that I’ve been here,” he said. Yi-An Huang ’05, pictured speaking at a Cambridge City Council meeting, told The Crimson Thursday that he is optimistic about his work with the Council. JULIAN J. GIORDANO — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
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ARTS 11
THE HARVARD CRIMSON DECEMBER 1, 2023
ON CAMPUS
50 YEARS OF HIP-HOP IN ICE-T’S AND DJ AFRIKA ISLAM’S COLLECTIONS KACY BAO — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
BY MARLEY E. DIAS AND NAJYA S. GAUSE CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
he world knows hip-hop as the bass bumping, rhyme scheming, stadium filling musical genre. However, as this year rings in 50 years of the art form, audiences have been exposed to many of the untold stories of hip-hop, which were started in by the teenagers of the ’70s and ’80s. On Nov. 4, the Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African & African American Art at The Hutchins Center hosted American rapper Ice-T and hip-hop DJ and producer Afrika Islam for the opening of the “Day One DNA: 50 Years in Hiphop Culture” exhibition. The exhibition, curated by Laylah Amatullah Barrayn, was an immersive multimedia exhibition which displayed items from the archives of Ice-T and DJ Afrika Islam to celebrate 50 years of hip-hop culture. The exhibit showcased the in-
novative founding of hip-hop and told an emotional story of Ice T and Afrika Islam’s revolutionary discographies and pop culture moments. By humanizing hip-hop’s origins through the archives of the artists, audiences were exposed to the courage and creativity that built hip-hop culture into an empire of Black expression and social justice. Ice-T, born Tracy Lauren Marrow, made his mark as a rapper, actor, and producer. His early exposure to the inner-city lifestyle and experiences with gang culture heavily influenced his music. Ice-T gained widespread recognition with his groundbreaking 1987 album “Rhyme Pays,” which featured tracks like “6 ‘N the Mornin’” that showcased his gritty storytelling and social commentary. DJ Afrika Islam, born Charles
Andre Glenn, also played a significant role in shaping the sound of hip-hop. As a member of the Zulu Nation, an influential hiphop collective founded by Afrika Bambaataa, DJ Afrika Islam contributed to the genre’s expansion by infusing it with diverse beats and rhythms. The “Day One DNA: 50 Years in Hiphop Culture” exhibition featured a wide variety of items such as tour laminates, party fliers, magazines, custom-made garments, and recording equipment, among others. The diversity in media made clear the fact that hip-hop is not just music — and it never has been. Hip-hop is a culture in itself, a radical culture, that deserves to be celebrated. When asked about the process of putting together the exhibition in an interview with The Harvard Crimson, curator Laylah Barrayn cited two objectives. “One was, of course, to tell a story of the early days of hip-hop through the objects that they had preserved in their archive. And two was to really tell the story of
their friendship — Ice-T and Afrika Islam — because they had been friends and collaborators and business partners for decades, almost 40 years,” Barrayn said. “So I wanted people to know that.” It’s safe to say that the gallery exceeded these expectations. Ice-T and DJ Afrika Islam walked around the gallery pointing at objects and photographs, explaining the stories behind each of them and reminiscing about the Golden Age of hip-hop. Walking up to a recreation of his old
“
Hip-hop didn’t invent anything,” Ice-T said, quoting Grandmaster Caz. “It reinvented everything.
bedroom — complete with posters on the walls and an impressive sneaker collection — DJ Afrika Islam and Ice-T marveled at the accuracy of the exhibit. Barrayan’s curation encapsulated the youthful energy of the origins of hip-hop, and the criti-
cal role that celebration and community have played in its ever expanding reach. Ice T’s emotional vulnerability during the event was a testament to hip-hop’s grounding in the reality of black struggle and a diasporic journey for mobility. “Hip-hop didn’t invent anything,” he said, quoting Grandmaster Caz. “It reinvented everything.” Whether delving into the entertainment industry with his debut in the film “Breakin’” (1984) or his revolutionary 1992 cover story in Rolling Stone dressed as a police officer, Ice T carries a revolutionary spirit that radiates throughout the gallery. Today’s fans may forget that moments that seem like an intentional statement were just as daunting to the artists as the audiences. And so, as the year comes to a close, let us remember hip-hop as more than just music. Let us celebrate its beauty, its loudness, and — most importantly — its resilience. Here’s to 50 years of risk and rhythm. marley.dias@thecrimson.com najya.gause@thecrimson.com
Pit Orchestra Retrospective: From Tuning to Bows BY AIDEN J. BOWERS CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
After the lights dim and the idle chatter of the audience dies down to a mere murmur, the first taste of a Broadway performance is not the set, the actors, nor the lights, but the tuning of the orchestra. More often than not, the first few notes of the overture set the tone for the rest of the musical, giving the viewer a preview of what is to come. Live music is an integral part of the performance experience. The uplifting power of a pit orchestra plays a crucial role in giving Broadway musicals a polished, perfected feel. Rich melodies and thrilling orchestration elevate the talented actors and singers on-stage; a good pit provides the foundation for a great production. Since the creation of opera, ballet, and eventually musical theater, orchestras have been a vital part of the production. Today, they are known as “pit orchestras,” which comes from their typical location during a performance: the orchestra pit, a lowered area in front of the stage. The term “pit orchestra” did not come about until the late 19th century, when the orchestra pit was invented. Historically, orchestras were seated on stage along with the actors. As orchestras and casts — typically for operas, at this time — became larger and more complex, the orchestra’s presence became a burden on the stage. As a quick fix, orchestras were typically moved to the floor level of the theater. This brought a new set of obstacles, namely the safety of the musicians, who could be easily reached —
by projectiles or otherwise — by a rowdy heckler or upset crowd. At the same time, placing the musicians in front of the stage, rather than on it, proved more difficult for actors to hear. A change needed to be made, and soon, the orchestra pit was introduced. This reformation is accredited to Richard Wagner, composer of masterpieces such as “The Valkyrie” and “Siegfried.” In 1876, he led the reconstruction of the Bayreuth Festival Theatre in Germany, adding an orchestra pit that shielded the musicians from the audience and directed sound toward the performers with its curved design. This trend quickly caught on for its effectiveness and its quality-of-life improvements
for all the performers. To this day, many theaters are designed with orchestra pits. In the modern day, production teams are shaking up the pit orchestra scene with a return to roots: Many pit orchestras are once again being placed on the stage. From performances in venues without a pit to intentional choices in staging, placing the pit orchestra on stage adds flair to a theatrical performance. Broadway shows like “Dear Evan Hansen,” “Waitress,” and “Come From Away” all feature pits on stage. There’s an immersive aspect to an on-stage pit, where cast and orchestra size allow. This setup helps to give the show a more intimate feel, as well as baring
it all for the audience, allowing them to see the inner workings of the show’s audio profile. Yet from the musician’s perspective, this method has its pros and cons. Aside from creating a space issue onstage, the exposure can make pit musicianship more challenging. The added expectation of costumes, a clear space, and a physical performance aspect aside from the music can complicate a pit experience. Plus, communication is more limited than in a typical concealed pit, where whispers and nonverbal communication are generally permissible without disturbing the performance. When the audience can see even small gestures, a pit generally needs to
be more cohesive and attentive. Sometimes, this comes with the added expectation of reacting to what is happening on stage, giving more responsibility to the pit musicians. Other productions have actors onstage doubling as pit musicians or augmenting the pit. A perfect example of this is “The Band’s Visit,” which includes an off-stage pit that is supported by actors playing instruments on stage, culminating in a finale concert. Broadway and West End revivals of “Sweeney Todd” and “Company,” directed by John Doyle, featured minimalist casting and technical elements, including doubling of cast and pit orchestra. The added layer of musicianship to the main cast allows for increased dramatic expression, at the expense of limiting casting choices — every actor must also be able to play an instrument in the orchestration. Whether the pit is characterized by a more traditional orchestration — like those resembling a symphony orchestra — or a rock-band style arrangement, the pit orchestra is a staple of the musical theater experience. From within the pit, musicians have the unique opportunity to underscore actors, dancers, and vocalists in real-time on stage. The emotive power of music drives the experience for the audience and cast alike, providing an opportunity for the interdisciplinary cohesion of artists’ voices. The best pits are able to support the actors while entertaining in their own regard, preserving the magic of theater from the first tuning “A” to the last note of bows.
JULIA DO —CRIMSON STAFF DESIGNER
aiden.bowers@thecrimson.com
REVIEW: ‘THE HUNGER GAMES: THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS AND SNAKES’ BY JEN A. HUGHES AND MONIQUE I. VOBECKY CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
“The Hunger Games” series took the world by storm in 2012, and its legacy continues in the newest addition to the franchise, “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.” This film marks the return of Francis Lawrence, the director of the last three films in the series, and serves as a prequel to the original franchise by documenting the rise of Panem’s President Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth). Snow’s youth and gradual succumbing to evil serves as an emotional battleground that Lawrence takes full advantage of. With a storyline that takes viewers through the tenth Hunger Games, the creation of many of the games’ sinister qualities, and even a quasi-romance, the film has a lot to work with and handles the hefty load impressively.
4 STARS
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ARTS
THE HARVARD CRIMSON DECEMBER 1, 2023
MUSIC
‘Jekyll & Hyde’: Simply Stunning BY EUNICE S. CHAE CONTRIBUTING WRITER
COURTESY OF ANNA R. GAMBURD
Isa Peña Talks a Capella, ‘American Idol,’ Law BY GISELLE P. ACOSTA CONTRIBUTING WRITER
I
sabella “Isa” Peña ’23-’24 was never one to shirk the arts. As a Harvard College-Berklee College of Music dual degree student, she arrived on campus with a resume packed with artistic experience. Though she was heavily involved in musical theater growing up, she credits a high school organization as the earliest influence on her artistry. “I was a member of this organization called Rock for Relief, which would basically host two big concerts every year with all students from my high school performing to raise money for a different cause,” Peña said in an interview with The Harvard Crimson. “And I think that was very formative to me, not just because of the actual aspect of making music, but because every semester I would be playing with a different band. And so it kind of taught me, you know, obviously music is all about teamwork.” This collaborative attitude dovetailed into much of Peña’s later involvement at Harvard. In her freshman year, she joined The Harvard Opportunes, a coed a cappella group on campus. Peña originally resisted the idea
of joining any a cappella group, as she believed the genre’s musical onomatopoeias would be difficult for her or wouldn’t suit her style as a singer. However, once she arrived in Cambridge, she realized there was no need to worry. “I joined totally on a whim, and it became my community on campus for so long. It was so great, especially as a freshman and a sophomore to have so many people, so many upperclassmen to look up to and ask all my silly little questions to.” She carried that energy into Yard Bops, the band she founded with her current roommate during their freshman year. Her and her friend spent the weeks leading into Yard Fest building their own bands. “A week and a half before the pandemic we realized that the two of us were gonna compete for the Battle of the Bands against each other. And then we had an ‘Aha!’ moment of like, why don’t we just become one mega band?”. The resulting band was named Yard Bops after Yard Ops, the service in the basement of Weld, Peña’s freshman year dorm. The band stayed together through the pandemic, and since then has played at the Crimson Jam, the Harvard-Yale Game, and various off-campus gigs. Even so, Peña’s musical journey did not stop at the borders
of Cambridge. In the fall of her freshman year, she secured a spot on the 2020 season of “American Idol.” In the span of a single weekend, she took two plane rides and wowed the show’s celebrity judges — Katy Perry, Lionel Richie, and Luke Bryan. Though she didn’t make it to the finals, her audition and some of her performances were televised. One of those performances, her duet with Olivia Ximins, now has over 250,000 views on YouTube. She has also found success on her personal YouTube channel, where her performance in the musical “Heathers” racked up 145,000 views and her other song covers accrued thousands of views each. Peña herself considers this online success both encouraging and intimidating. On the one hand, these virtual shows of support have given her the confidence to pursue a career in the arts, which is a notoriously fickle industry. On the other hand, the YouTube algorithm often tests her self-assurance. “I have YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and sometimes I post videos, and they’ll get, like, 30 views. And I’m like, ‘Oh, God, this is terrifying,’” she said. “But then other times, I’ll post it and it’ll do shockingly well, and I’m always like, ‘Oh, gosh, could this actually happen?’”
Currently, however, music is not the only thing on Peña’s mind. At Harvard, she’s a joint Government and East Asian Studies concentrator with a secondary field in Theater, Dance, and Music. She was also recently admitted to Harvard Law School, where she is set to begin classes in 2026. In the meantime, Peña anticipates moving to New York City and becoming immersed in the local arts scene. She names Elphaba from “Wicked” as her dream role, but she doesn’t plan on limiting herself to musical theater. “I’ve learned in some classes at Berkeley just how to record in my room using a mic. And so, you know, maybe in New York next year, getting to meet a producer and work on some of this stuff would be pretty nuts,” she said. Far from separating the two, Peña intends to incorporate these gap year experiences into her legal career. She has considered focusing on entertainment law, and she cites AI and the SAG-AFTRA strikes as probable challenges for her in the future. At the end of the day, she said, “What I want to do is just protect artists and make sure that the things that they make are their own.” With that mission and years of musical experience behind her, she will face her future.
The Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club’s “Jekyll & Hyde” is a thrilling escapade into the streets of Victorian London. The production, which ran from Nov. 8 through Nov. 11, found its home onstage in the Loeb Drama Center. Director Nikhil O. Kamat ’25 presents the audience with a production that boasts engaging performances, a fixed set design that is both utilitarian and thematically versatile, dynamic orchestral music, and lighting techniques that serve as a cherry on top of an artistically and technically impressive work of theater. “Jekyll & Hyde” is an adaptation of the 1886 Gothic novella by Robert Louis Stevenson — but Kamat’s production was anything but dated, presenting a compelling mixture of the timeless story’s essence and the original 1990 musical’s energy. At the forefront of the 19-person cast is Mattheus A. Carpenter ’24, playing both the titular roles of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in a captivating performance. Carpenter navigates the parallels and tensions between the two polar opposites with grace. He plays Jekyll with a subtle but ever present stiffness that belies the manic persona of Hyde, which lies just beneath Jekyll’s cordial demeanor. Those tensions grow until they lead into one of the musical’s most notable scenes: an explosive, musical confrontation between Jekyll and Hyde near the end of Act II (“Confrontation”), complete with dramatic lighting that swiftly changes hues based on who’s speaking. The full cast is a genuine pleasure to watch as they interact and play off of one another, but particularly prominent performances include Isabella E. Peña ’24 as Lucy Harris, one of the love interests for Dr. Jekyll and a nuanced, conflicted character who quickly becomes a fixture of the show, and Anna S. Fitzsimmons ’25 as the unwaveringly steadfast Gabriel John Utterson, who serves as a much appreciated voice of reason during the utterly frenetic moments of the show. Their convincing and realistic depictions of two of the most important characters in Jekyll’s life are immensely fun to witness. While the performances are strong, the technical and atmospheric elements were perhaps
even more thrilling. Lighting designers Isabel V. Berliner ’24 and Raul Bodrogean ’25 use colored lights to an extremely effective degree, from wildly alternating them during “Confrontation” to maintaining an ominous, blood-red shade during the moments where Hyde picks off his victims one by one (“Murder Murder”). The lighting assures that the audience never misses what is happening — or about to happen. The production’s atmosphere is crucially enhanced by the efforts of the 17-member orchestra, directed by Henry Wu ’25. From sweeping, theatrical songs like Jekyll’s proclamation (“I Need to Know”), to Lucy’s sultry, sensuous song in the middle of Act I (“Bring on the Men”), and even the thematic number that lends the show its main musical motif (“Facade”), the live orchestra amplifies the emotions and intensity of each piece. The proximity of the live orchestra to both the stage and the audience, as a connective body between the two, offers a valuable intimacy between the music and the viewers and listeners. Despite a few auditory and technical issues — mainly static, warbling, and distorted audio — that occurred in the first act, the orchestra and performers persevered and delivered an otherwise completely immersive musical experience. The HRDC production of “Jekyll & Hyde” was, in one word, stunning. From the stage and vocal performances to the lighting design, not a single aspect of theatrical production went to waste. The production team, performers, and creative team took advantage of and utilized every element in the most fitting ways possible, to allow its audience a fully immersive peek into the dark, twisted mind of Dr. Jekyll and his alter ego. For fans and new audiences alike, the production delivered.
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Harvard FAS CAMLab: The Art of Transitions BY JOHN M. WEAVER CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Nestled in the basement of the Arthur M. Sackler Building sits Harvard FAS CAMLab, a web of thin hallways illuminated by shivering light installations that lead to a dark cave lined with mirrors and filled with thin mesh screens. Visitors to the installation will find themselves surrounded by an infinitely large host of dancing projections whose every movement is traced by flame, water, and silhouettes. In an adjacent room, viewers are guided through five floors of the crumbling Shakya Pagoda of the Fogong Monastery and introduced to images of austere statues that, moments later, will be shown in ruins. Viewers may be left helplessly grasping for a way to describe the installation they just visited, as it demands a new vocabulary to describe the experience. “It’s kinetic sculpture and expanded scenography with a Buddhist twist,” said Eugene Wang, the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Professor of Asian Art and founding director of Harvard CAMLab. At its heart, Harvard CAMLab is a celebration of intersections and in-betweens. By pushing technology to its limit, viewers are exposed to a novel aesthetic experience that will challenge
their understanding of sculpture and art. The first half of the installation places the Buddhist culture of dance in a modern context by educating a machine-learning model using ancient texts and professional dancers to project AI-generated images onto diaphanous screens. The purpose of these dances was partly to illustrate a state of physical and spiritual transition. “What they’re trying to do is exactly try to capture what I call that intramural or interstitial space where the postmodern spirit goes through phases and goes through stages of transformation,” Wang said. Through the use of technology, Harvard FAS CAMLab is able to put images in motion to capture the periods of transition that Buddhist art was interested in. Cosmic dancers leave behind glowing silhouettes as they fly across the mesh screens, twisted forms overlapping to form a cohesive whole. In doing so, the installation focuses on the movements that stitch together a dance from beginning to end, making the trajectory of movement the primary object of representation as opposed to any one, final form. In the next room over, Harvard FAS CAMLab explores expanded scenography through a guided digital tour of a pagoda that is doomed to collapse. View-
ers are led through each floor of the crumbling structure and shown fleeting images of Buddhist statues in a process that is meant to mirror the experience of spiritual ascent through the monastery. As they move from level to level the sculptures gradually wither and decay in order to visually represent the transience of Buddhist art. Despite this impermanence, it is the statues themselves that distinguish expanded scenography from its more traditional counterpart. Rather than looking at a physical stage, viewers are treated to a virtual play in which the statues behave as the actors, foregrounded protagonists enacting a digital performance. The expanded scenography portion of the exhibit carves out an immersive and ever-changing stage for the viewer. With their back to the only blank wall, visitors watch as every other wall around them lights up with the image of a dusty pagoda. Drawn forth into a virtual setting that evolves through sight and sound on every side of them, the viewer is encouraged to experience the often inert statues in a particularly dynamic and evolving manner. “It appeals to every sensorial aspect of an experience of art and culture,” said Mary Peng, an educator who leads private tours at Harvard FAS CAMLab.
It is precisely through these novel technologies that Harvard FAS CAMLab is able to introduce visitors to the abstract and often challenging aesthetics of ancient Buddhism. Impermanence is translated into a direct visual metaphor as the sculptures shoot forward in time, huge chunks of wood and stone sloughing off in mere seconds. “The technological feat is not what is important,” said Simone Levine, the assistant curator for Harvard FAS CAMLab. “What is important is actually opening a cultural experience on the pagoda that one could not get as a tourist and that is strong enough to really show people the cosmological perspective that is embedded in the pagoda.” However, the purpose of this installation is not just to expose visitors to a particular cultural and aesthetic experience; as the Shakya Pagoda draws ever nearer to extinction, these images serve an important documentary role as they immortalize the endangered artworks inside. “One way or another this physical thing shall end and the only way that we can preserve that is probably through this digital median. So the digital median that we use has therefore both an educational purpose that allows a more experiential way of experiencing this architectural sculpture, but in the meantime it also has this practical conserva-
tion function of keeping it forever,” Wang said. Installations such as the ones curated by Harvard FAS CAMLab are well-equipped to reach wide audiences for decades to come. Images can not only circumvent physical decay, but transcend the usual limits of portability and accessibility that hinder traditional galleries. Because the artwork is housed in replicable programs that can be installed virtually anywhere, works such as these can be placed in unusual venues all across the world. Doing so expands not only the kinds of people it can reach, but the sorts of experiences it can offer, as visitors are given the opportunity to encounter art in unconventional settings. This versatility is as much thematic as it is practical, however. “When young visitors go to places such as MoMA, I noticed that they just want to hang out in the space, they don’t necessarily actually look or have sustained looks at the art,” Wang said. “For them it’s the experience of being in a certain kind of ambiance that is probably more important. So to that extent, I think our installation will accommodate that kind of interest because it is more about putting them in a meaningful experiential space.” The dynamism and movement of the installation necessitates an extended encounter
with the work itself, emphasizing the aesthetic experience rather than any individual object. Formal elements encourage this sort of personal engagement with the art as the viewer sees themselves reflected in the mirrors or finds themselves surrounded on all sides by the monolithic wooden beams of the Shakya Pagoda. “I think that whether you see the dancers reflected in the mirrors or yourself, there’s a way in which physical boundaries become eroded,” Levine said. But Harvard FAS CAMLab’s installation not only uses technology to comment on art, but vice versa as well. “There’s a certain weariness about the excess of technology to deprive one of the meaningful human experience, so what we aim to do is to show that in fact there might be a way to put the soulfulness back into the technological apparatus,” Wang said. Just as the installation explores and celebrates the intersection between the past and the present, the mobile and the static, it offers an argument for the synthesis of art and technology. It is only through these deliberately manipulated visual encounters with familiar modes of art that visitors are able to discover new ways of seeing the world. When guided by human hands towards distinctly human goals, technology has the power to make the otherwise abstract a tangible reality.
FIFTEEN QUESTIONS
THE HARVARD CRIMSON DECEMBER 1, 2023
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ndrew Manuel Crespo ’05 is a professor of criminal law and procedure at Harvard Law school, an executive faculty director of the Institute to End Mass Incarceration, and a founding editor of Inquest, a forum for advancing decarceral ideas. He has clerked for Supreme Court Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan and served as a public defender in Washington, D.C. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. FM: I thought we might begin with Inquest. It’s a decarceral forum that you helped to create, and now you serve as one of the coeditors of. So I’m really interested, what prompted you to establish it? AMC: The Institute to End Mass Incarceration, which is a center here that I run, is the publisher of Inquest — Inquest was one of our first projects — and we published it because we realized that we needed it. There are tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people across the country who are doing work every day in some way to try to end mass incarceration in the United States. And one of the striking things about it is how disaggregated or siloed that community of people can be. We realized that there isn’t one place for all those people to come together and learn from each other, share ideas with each other, inspire each other. Now they’re reading each other here and it’s sparking all sorts of new ideas.
Q&A:
ANDREW MANUEL CRESPO ’05 ON BARGAINING, FOOTBALL, AND A FATEFUL COOP PARTY THE LAW PROFESSOR sat down with FM to talk about the potential of collective plea bargaining, meeting his wife on the dance floor of the Dudley Coop, and what’s kept him coming back to Harvard. “The Harvard degree does not confer on you a guarantee that you will use the privilege and power that you get by virtue of being here to make the world better. That’s a choice. It’s always a choice.” he says. BY SAM E. WEIL CRIMSON MAGAZINE ASSOCIATE EDITOR
FM: If you had to recommend one piece, one thing that’s in Inquest, what would it be?
school, and I’m horrified by what they’re doing and that’s just the messy reality of the world we live in. FM: In a similarly pedagogical vein, I wanted to talk about your forthcoming book, “Criminal Law and the American Penal System.” AMC: I’m writing this book with a good friend and tremendous collaborator at the University of Chicago named John Rappaport. We have big hopes for this book — the hope is to pretty meaningfully reorient the criminal law class that’s a required class for every law student. If you look at the major books that are used to teach this class out there across the country, they’re written by tremendous law professors and real leaders in the field. But the first editions of each of those books, which are still their basic DNA, were written back in the late 60s and early 70s. The American prison population starts going vertical in 1973 and just doesn’t stop growing until 2009. That’s the period, the stretch of decades, during which we became the country that incarcerates more of its own people than any country in the history of the world. I think that a required class about criminal law should be teaching people about the role that law and lawyers played in creating mass incarceration and the role that law and lawyers could play in helping to end it. Plea bargaining is a major part of the story of mass incarceration. It’s how you can get to a system that can produce so many convictions essentially on the cheap. FM: : My next question has to do with your intentions going into law school. Did you know that you wanted to go into carceral advocacy?
AMC: One thing that I’m really proud of that Inquest has started doing even more recently is we’ve been publishing collected series. Three, four, or five essays run together as a theme. Some of these we’ve done as collaborations, so we did one on carceral labor with LPE Blog. And we did one that’s ongoing now with Truthout, on abolition in practice.
AMC: I didn’t have lawyers in my family. My parents were each the first ones and the only ones in their generation of siblings to graduate college. My grandparents didn’t go to college, my mom’s mom stopped schooling in third grade. I didn’t know a lot about what you could do as a lawyer, coming into law school. I was lucky my first year as a student here to be taught by someone who is a real giant at this school who passed away recently. His name is Charles Ogletree.
FM: In the conversation that you had at the symposium with some of the formerly incarcerated men who were included as part of The Visiting Room Project. I’m really interested in what you guys talked about, and how it felt to be a part of that?
In addition to being a legend here, before that, he was a legend in D.C., as a lawyer at the office where I would eventually work as a public defender, the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia.
AMC: For big chunks of the country, prison is remote. That’s part of what prison does. We literally take people from their communities, and send them sometimes hundreds of miles away, as a way to almost try to render invisible what it is that mass incarceration is doing. The Visiting Room Project is the largest collection ever, of first-person video narratives for
MARINA QU — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
men serving life without parole. It’s like you’re sitting across the table from them, just hearing them tell you a bit about their lives. And you quickly see what is apparent to anyone who knows people who are in prison — is that these are just people. They are people and they have their lives. They have stories. They have all the complexities that all of us have. What was surprising when they started this project was none of them expected to be released. And then because of elections, because of organizing, and because of the hard work of communities trying to change public policies — Louisiana had folks running their clemency system, including their governor, who were willing to give some of these men a second chance and release them — about
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25, 26 of them had been released. And a number of them spent the whole day here at Harvard. We ended it with this evening symposium where we just got to talk about their lives and the way that this project can reach out to people and start changing hearts by making apparent to people what it is that mass incarceration does on a human level. FM: Do you have any memories in particular of things that they said that, for you, are particularly salient? AMC: I’m struck by the extent to which, really to a person, they conveyed a sense of hopefulness for folks who are doing the hard work of trying to end a system as massive and as entrenched as mass incarceration. These men experienced this.
They’d been sentenced to die in Angola. And yet, the message they wanted to bring to Harvard students, to a place of just tremendous privilege, was one of hope. FM: You went to Harvard College, then you went to Harvard Law School. And now here you are as a professor at the law school. So I’m wondering, what keeps you coming back? AMC: At every stage of my life at Harvard, I have found friends who had a shared sense of values and commitments in the world that has been both formative and reinforcing. I feel really lucky to have had the space to have, now, multi-decade Harvard relationships that continue to be so important to me.
And to be making new ones every semester. FM: Given that you’ve spent so much time at Harvard, I’m very interested in how you conceptualize Harvard’s role within various systems in America. Have you seen your peers become these leaders of tomorrow, and in what ways? AMC: The Harvard degree does not confer on you a guarantee that you will use the privilege and power that you get by virtue of being here to make the world better. That’s a choice. It’s always a choice. I’m constantly inspired by what I see some of my students doing, what I see some of my peers doing, my fellow alums doing. And then sometimes I see other alums of this
I remember sitting in his office that looked a lot like this one, and asking him for career advice, and him just telling me: “You’re a public defender. You should try going to work at the office I worked at.” And I did, and it was tremendously formative for me. sam.weil@thecrimson.com
FM Fifteen Minutes is the magazine of The Harvard Crimson. To read the full interview and other longform pieces, visit THECRIMSON.COM/ MAGAZINE
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THE HARVARD CRIMSON
SPORTS
DECEMBER 1, 2023
CROSS COUNTRY
Blanks, National Champ Then-sophomore distance runner Graham Blanks runs at the Wake Forest Invitational on April 21. Blanks set a new record in the 5000 m run at 13:24.91 to win the meet. COURTESY OF JAN FIGUEROA
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UNDEFEATED Blanks is the first male runner from the Ivy League to win the Division I Cross Country National Championship. BY MILLER Y. MACDONALD CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
unior cross country runner Graham Blanks took home the individual national title at the 2023 NCAA Division I Cross Country National Championship race last Saturday, capping off an undefeated season. He is the first male runner from the Ivy League to ever win the race. The race began with a frantic rush for position, as the 255 athletes on the starting line all tried to navigate the downhill start to the 10 km course. The front pack began developing after over three kilometers had elapsed, with a group of 12 runners separating from the field at the halfway point in the race. Blanks remained tucked behind the frontrunners, not making himself visible until three kilometers to go, when he marked a surge by Denis Kipngetich and Brian Masau from Oklahoma State. “I didn’t want to leave the gap-bridging up to luck,” said Blanks in a written statement when asked about his move. Early on in the 2022 championship race, a group of three runners broke off unmarked from the pack, not to be caught before the finish line. Blanks finished sixth. “Losing the NAU pair and Hicks off the front last year definitely taught me this lesson, as well as the rest of the field,” Blanks reflected. While most of the 12-man pack retained contact after a few hundred meters, the attack strung out the group and quickly whittled the championship contenders down to a four-man group through eight kilometers. New Mexico first-year Habtom Samuel initiated another surge with 1300 meters to go, and this time only Blanks was able to follow. Locked onto Samuel’s shoulder, Blanks waited until 800 meters to go before making his decisive move, gapping Samuel and pushing for the finish line. He didn’t look back. “I run with a lot of fear,” Blanks said. “Looking back may show weakness to my competitors so once I take my chance, it’s all gas to
the finish.” “Habtom did a fantastic job of keeping the gap between him and myself small,” Blanks added. “If I hadn’t run with such fear of being caught, and became complacent with my small lead, I’m sure Habtom would’ve been able to close that small gap.” Blanks crossed the finish line three seconds ahead of Samuel, finishing the course in a time of 28:37.7. Blanks was far from an underdog heading into Saturday’s race. Just over a month earlier, he broke the tape at the Nuttycombe Invitational in Wisconsin, beating the top national contenders in the process. “The win at Nuttycombe definitely played an integral role in developing even more confidence this season,” Blanks commented. However, his confidence was already strong to begin with. “I’ve always had an unwavering confidence in myself and my coach’s training which I believe has allowed me to perform well on these big stages.” Blanks was quick to look ahead to future competitions and races. “I hope to win some more NCAA titles the rest of my time at Harvard, and with the Olympics this year, give my best shot at making the US team,” he said. As the first male athlete from the Ivy League to take home the individual title, Blanks remarked on the significance of his win in the context of the broader Harvard running program. “I remember thinking at one point during my recruiting process that winning an NCAA title at a school like Harvard would be far-fetched,” he said. However, Blanks said that his mind was changed by Kieren Tuntivate ‘20, who was an All-American cross-country runner in 2019. Tuntivate now runs professionally for the Bowerman Track Club. “I hope that, at an advantage to our program and all other Ivy League schools, I’ll have a similar impact to recruits that Kieran had on me,” said Blanks. “It’s exciting to show that you can compete –– and win –– at the highest level while also attending a school that’s historically academically rigorous.” Blanks, who studies Economics and Philosophy, consciously incorporates his academics into his athletic life. “A couple days before my race, Gary Geisler, our team-sportsmasseuse (more importantly, a
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friend and mentor to all), shared a quote with me that I believe nails the essence of distance racing,” Blanks said. “It’s an excerpt from Franz Kafka’s, ‘The Trial…’ ‘From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached.’” On Saturday, underneath the midmorning Virginia sun, Blanks’ race seemed to manifest those exact words from the German existentialist. While he was marking surges, bridging gaps, or pushing for glory, Blanks never once looked back. miller.macdonald@thecrimson.com
THC Read more at THECRIMSON.COM
SPORTS
THE HARVARD CRIMSON DECEMBER 1, 2023
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WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
Then-freshman guard Elle Stauffer attempts a three pointer against then-freshman guard Elena Rodriguez in Harvard’s annual Crimson Madness game on Oct. 15, 2021. ZING GEE — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
Harvard, 5-2, Finds Rhythm ON A ROLL The women’s basketball team is confident that its momentum will only continue to build. BY MOLLY R. MALAGUE CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
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he Harvard women’s basketball team returned to Cambridge this week after three straight road games took them to Texas and then California for the Coast 2 Coast San Diego Classic. Staying in New England for a few weeks, the team is confident that its momentum will only continue to build – no matter their matchups. The 2023-24 campaign tipped off with a 98-75 loss at 14th ranked Maryland. Harvard was outscored 31-11 in the first frame, but battled tenaciously for the
University of Massachusetts. The team found its rhythm, outscoring those squads 229-157. During the 78-57 domination of UMass, Turner joined the 1,000 point club with 22 points. Just a junior, the Texas native boasts the 12th highest scoring average in the nation, bagging 22.3 points each game. With five rebounds and five assists per game, it is no wonder Coach Carrie Moore has her averaging 37 minutes on the hardwood each night. “The coaches reiterated to me that my minutes would be going up this year,” Turner said. “So it was my responsibility to stay in shape and be in shape for the entirety of the season.” Turner was in good enough shape to put together a 29 point performance at Baylor over a complete 40 minutes on the floor. Harvard put up two of its biggest
We know that we put in the work and the preparation to prepare for our opponents each game. Harmoni Turner Harvard Women’s Basketball Junior Guard and Captain
next three. Through quarters two to four, the Crimson netted only three fewer points than the Terrapins. In her first collegiate performance, freshman Abigail Wright recorded 12 points and 7 rebounds. Classmate Mary Hollensteiner chipped in six more, with two steals to boot. Leading the way were captains Lola Mullaney and Harmoni Turner with 17 and 18 points respectively. After this opening loss, Harvard trounced three New England neighbors in Boston College, Quinnipiac University, and
quarters of the season during its first-ever matchup with the nation’s 21st ranked team; it tallied over 20 points in the second and fourth quarters. However, it was not quite enough to topple the Bears. Harvard gave the powerhouse a game buzzer to buzzer, but ultimately fell 81-71. “We understand that Baylor is a good team, but we are also a good team, so we went in pretty confident,” Turner said. “Confident that if we meet them again it will be a different outcome.”
Turner points to preparation as the key to the team’s confidence in itself. “It comes down to us understanding how good we are as a team,” she added. “We know that we put in the work and the preparation to prepare for our opponents each game.” This preparation was on full display as Harvard bounced back during last weekend’s Thanksgiving tournament in San Diego. The Crimson left the arena having won both games; it defeated the North Dakota State Bison 6964 and the Perunas of Southern Methodist University 80-67. Sharp-shooter Elena Rodriguez came to play in the first game, landing 70 percent of her shots from the field en route to a 19 point contribution. She also added six rebounds, six assists, and four blocks. Against SMU, the steady duo of Turner and Mullaney was joined by sophomore Katie Kruppa in double digit scoring. They combined for 65 points, just one bucket shy of the Perunas full squad production. Wright added 8 points. As the season heats up, the Crimson will pair thorough preparation with diligence and discipline. “Eliminating all of the excuses regardless,” Turner explained. “Everyone plays a key role on the team and the perspective that we all have to live up to to reach our end goal which is winning a championship” All of these principles are generating powerful momentum; shooting 43 percent as a team, and averaging 14 assists per game, Harvard women’s basketball is on track for another successful campaign. The Crimson will take the floor in Lavietes Pavilion this Saturday against the 6-1 Michigan Wolverines. Tip-off is at 2:00 p.m. molly.malague@thecrimson.com
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