The Harvard Crimson The University Daily, Est. 1873 | Volume CXLVI, No. 136 | Cambridge, Massachusetts | Wednesday, december 4, 2019
editorial PAGE
news PAGE 5
sports PAGE 8
Students should remain engaged with the Chilean student protests.
GSAS launches effort to reform advising.
Harvard falls to No. 5 Maryland in Orlando, 80-73.
GRAD STUDENTS PICKET AS CLASSES END Graduate Students Begin Picketing
Union Strike Impacts Numerous Departments
By ellen M. burstein and Michelle G. kurilla,
By ellen M. burstein and ruoqi zhang
Crimson Staff Writers
Crimson Staff Writers
Members of Harvard’s graduate student union, bundled in winter coats and donning signs, braved heavy snowfall to picket in Harvard Yard Tuesday on their first day of their strike. Carrying signs reading “UAW on Strike” and chanting “What do we want? Contract! When do we want it? Now!” Harvard Graduate Students Union-United Automobile Workers demonstrators marched from their strike base at Phillips Brooks House Association to Massachusetts Hall just after 10 a.m. They spent the rest of the day
See picket Page 3
See title ix Page 3
See Courses Page 3
Harvard’s graduate student union went on strike Tuesday at midnight. The highly anticipated strike comes after over a year of negotiations, during which the two parties failed to come to agreements on key provisions. thomas Maisonneuve—Crimson photographer
Harvard Defends Title IX Policies as Strike Begins
SEE PAGE 3
By James S. bikales and ruoqi zhang Crimson Staff Writers
A s members of Harvard’s graduate student union hit the picket lines on the first day of their strike Tuesday, University negotiators posted a position statement online arguing that the union’s proposed procedure for adjudicating sexual harassment and discrimination complaints may be in conflict with Title IX. This procedure — along with proposals on compensation and healthcare — lies at the root of
Graduate students brave the snowfall and freezing temperatures as they march through the Yard on Tuesday morning. The first day of the strike began with a walkout at 10:30 AM. kathryn s. kuhar—Crimson photographer
Apr 2015 Organizers announce plans to unionize
the deadlock between the University and Harvard Graduate Students Union-United Automobile Workers. After 28 bargaining sessions since October 2018 have failed to resolve these issues, union members launched their long-threatened, indefinite strike Tuesday. The union has proposed that student workers be given an option to raise sexual harassment and discrimination complaints through a union grievance procedure — a dispute resolution mechanism outside of current
D epartment administrators and course heads have had to reduce review sessions and relocate classes as hundreds of graduate student union members gave up their teaching duties to join the strike. Striking members of the Harvard Graduate Students Union-United Automobile Workers – which represents roughly 5,000 graduate and undergraduate teaching staff, and graduate research assistants across Harvard – withheld their work starting Tuesday, the last day of classes at the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Hundreds gave up teaching responsibilities including holding review sessions, grading assignments, and hosting office hours to join picket lines in Harvard Yard. The strike comes as FAS enters reading period, a week set aside for students to write papers and study for final exams, which begin Dec. 10. HGSU has not announced an end date for the strike. The union and Harvard have been negotiating for more than a year and produced 12 tentative agreements over the course of 28 bargaining sessions. The parties, however, remain at an impasse over key provisions on compensation, health benefits, and grievance procedure for sexual harassment and discrimination complaints. HGSU’s strike can potentially impact grading of final exams
Dec 2017 The NLRB rules against Harvard’s appeal
Nov 2016 Organizers hold their first unionization election
Dec 2016 Feb 2016 A majority of eligible students Harvard and organizers file objections to the sign authorization cards election with the National Labor Relations Board
Nov 2018 Harvard and the union begin bargaining
Apr 2018 A new unionization election is held and HGSU is officially formed
Dec 2019 The strike begins
Oct 2019 HGSU voters authorize its bargaining committee to call a strike Matthew J. Tyler—Crimson Designer
Profs Discuss Fossil Fuel Divestment Protesters Rally
University President Lawrence S. Bacow faced protestors on his way to a faculty meeting Tuesday. Protesters decried Harvard’s denial of tenure to Professor Lorgia García Peña. kathryn s. kuhar—Crimson photographer By jonah s. berger and molly c. mccafferty Crimson Staff Writers
The Faculty of Arts and Sciences mulled a proposal to call on Harvard to divest from its holdings in the fossil fuel industry at its monthly meeting Tuesday. The meeting, the last of the
Inside this issue
Harvard Today 2
semester, marked the third time this fall that faculty members have discussed climate change and the University’s response to it. In October, faculty outlined the scientific and historical underpinnings of the issue; in November, they delved into a debate on the merits of divest-
News 3
Editorial 6
ment. The proposal calls on the Harvard Corporation — the University’s highest governing body — to instruct the Harvard Management Company to “withdraw from, and henceforth not pursue” investments in companies that explore and develop further fossil fuel re-
Sports 8
serves or support such development. It also asks the Corporation to eventually extend that policy to advisers of the endowment’s investment vehicles, and to replace HMC investment advisers “unwilling or unable to comply” with others who are willing to do so. The five professors who spoke in favor of divestment at Tuesday’s meeting are part of a group of hundreds of faculty members who have indicated their support for the effort via an online petition. Senior Corporation Fellow William F. Lee ’72 attended the meeting. Lee noted that Tuesday’s discussion of divestment marked the first time in his 44year stint at the University that he has attended a faculty meeting. Lee said he will convey the faculty’s remarks to the entire Corporation, which has the final say on divestment. He thanked them for their passion about the issue and the “good faith” with which they presented their views, adding that, even if the Corporation reaches a decision faculty members disagree with, its members “want to hear you and listen to you.” “It’s not because we’re worried about ceding control to the
Today’s Forecast
See faculty Page 3 cloudy High: 41 Low: 28
Over Tenure Denial
Protesters lined the walls of Emerson Hall outside of a faculty meeting on Tuesday. kathryn s. kuhar—Crimson photographer By jonah s. berger, molly c. mccafferty, and amanda y. su Crimson Staff Writers
A n individual protesting Harvard’s decision to deny tenure to Romance Languages and Literatures associate professor Lorgia García Peña stood silently inside the Faculty of Arts and Sciences meeting Tuesday while dozens of students demonstrated outside. The protester held a sign which reiterated demands students first raised in a letter to
administrators and a sit-in at University Hall yesterday. The sign called on Harvard to reverse García Peña’s tenure decision; publicly release correspondence about that decision between Bacow, Gay, and department chair Mariano Siskind; and open an investigation into García Peña’s case for “procedural errors, prejudice, and discrimination.” “You have 24 hours,” the sign read. The University informed
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