The Harvard Crimson - Volume CXLVI, No. 51

The Harvard Crimson The University Daily, Est. 1873 | Volume CXLVI No. 51 | Cambridge, Massachusetts | Friday, April 12, 2019

editorial PAGE 6

Editorial PAGE 6

sports PAGE 8

The University’s labor practices should be called into question.

Op-Ed: Harvard students should slow down.

Senior and his hometown friend will compete in Boston Marathon together.

Tutors Sue Eliot Dean

By SHERA S. AVI-YONAH and aIDAN F. RYAN Crimson Staff Writers

Winthrop House tutors Carl L. Miller and Valencia Miller filed a lawsuit against Eliot House Faculty Dean Gail A. O’Keefe in Massachusetts Superior Court on Thursday, alleging that O’Keefe made defamatory statements both about their “professional reputation” and their response to a confrontation between them and a College student on April 3.

The Millers’ complaint and jury trial demand charges O’Keefe with two counts of defamation resulting from an email she wrote Monday evening to Eliot affiliates and a text she wrote to Winthrop Resident Dean Linda D. M. Chavers earlier this semester.

The Millers are seeking monetary damages and “such other relief as the Court deems just and equitable.”

The first count of defamation in the Millers’ suit alleges that O’Keefe’s text to Chavers included “false and defamatory statements” about the Millers.

Specifically, the Millers claim O’Keefe misrepresented the nature of their decision to leave Eliot, where they previously served as tutors before moving ­

See lawsuit Page 3

Bacow Speaks at Student Divestment Forum By aLEXANDRA A. CHAIDEZ Crimson Staff Writer

In a surprise appearance, University President Lawrence S. Bacow participated in an hourlong forum about fossil fuel divestment Thursday, an event he previously said he would not attend.

The forum — hosted by Divest Harvard and the Harvard Political Union — also included Professor of the Practice of Public Philosophy Cornel R. West ’74, English Professor James T. Engell ’73, Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry James G. Anderson, and a Boston financial advisor Karen Shapiro.

On April 4, Bacow declined Divest Harvard’s invitation to attend the student-led forum through an email from his chief of staff.

Just two days earlier, Bacow agreed to attend a private discussion with faculty members concerned about Harvard’s continued investment in companies tied to the fossil fuel industry.

The same day Bacow declined to attend the student-led forum, roughly 30 protestors from the Divest Harvard and the Harvard Prison Divestment Campaign interrupted a John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum event where he was speaking, forcing the talk to move to a classroom.

At the end of the event, Bacow said he was not encouraged to meet with the protestors again, but he ultimately made an appearance Thursday.

A portion of the forum was dedicated to discussion among the faculty members and Bacow about the possibility of di­

Survey Firm Paid $1.5 Million

By SIMONE C. CHU and IRIS M. LEWIS Crimson Staff Writers

The Association of American Universities released its second national sexual misconduct survey April 2 in collaboration with Westat — a research firm that faced employment discrimination charges in 2014.

The AAU and Westat first collaborated on the Survey on Sexual Assault and Misconduct — which looks at students’ experiences with sexual harassment on college campuses — in 2015.

Harvard participated in the inaugural survey, and its results have heavily influenced Harvard’s approach to combating sexual misconduct.

This year marks the second ­

sexual misconduct survey collaboration between the AAU and Westat, with 33 institutions including Harvard participating.

The discrimination allegations against Westat date back to 2009, when the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs conducted a routine audit of Westat’s employment policies, practices, and record keeping.

The OFCCP found statistically significant hiring disparities for race and gender. In 2014, Westat and the OFCCP entered a conciliation agreement to resolve the violation.

In the settlement, Westat paid $1.5 million in back wages and interest to 3,651

See firm Page 3

Karen Shapiro, James “Jim” T. Engell ‘73, Lawrence S. Bacow, Cornel R. West ‘74, a and James G. Anderson speak at a public forum on fossil fuel divestment on Thursday evening in Sever Hall.. Rachel D. Levy—Crimson photographer

vesting from fossil fuels.

Engell, who said he supports divesting Harvard’s holdings in the fossil fuel industry, noted that the issue of fossil fuel investments has a “stop watch.”

“This is not merely a matter of social change,” Engell said.

“This is a matter of planetary

fate in the long term.”

Bacow spoke about his past work in environmental economics and policy, and advocated for other means beyond divestment for resolving climate change and fossil fuel reliance.

“We need to engage with

Crimson Staff Writers

chased tokens are worth about $11.5 million. The new investment makes up less than 0.05 percent of Harvard’s endowment, which is valued at nearly $40 billion.

Ronald A. Glantz ’62, senior advisor at Bitcoin and digital currency-investment firm Pantera, said that no investment manager should have more than 2 percent of their assets in blockchain — and even that small percentage needs to be diversified across multiple currencies.

“If Harvard believed that blockchain was the future, then they should buy 50 companies because most of them will fail,” said Glantz, a self-described “believer in the blockchain.”

The percentage of female and underrepresented minority faculty at Harvard has remained largely stagnant over the past year, according to the University’s annual Faculty Diversity and Development report released Wednesday.

The report, produced by Senior Vice Provost for Faculty Development and Diversity Judith D. Singer’s office, outlines trends in the number of female and minority ladder faculty within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and across Harvard’s eight professional schools.

Those figures have steadily increased since 2004.

The University’s ladder faculty comprises both tenured professors and those on the tenure track, including assistant and associate professors.

Singer said in an interview Thursday that the goal of the report is to ensure Harvard affiliates are aware of the most current data on faculty demographics.

“If you can measure something, you can hold people accountable,” Singer said. “So part of what we’re doing with these annual reports is we’re hoping this goes up on bulletin boards all over campus.”

The percentage of tenure-track faculty who identify as underrepresented minorities increased this year to 13 percent from 11 percent in 2018, continuing a 15-year trend of gradual growth, starting at 8 percent in 2004, the earliest year

See crypto Page 4

See faculty Page 4

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The Phillip Brooks House in Harvard Yard on Thursday afternoon. The building houses many offices, such as the Phillips Broooks House Association. Michelle h. aye—Crimson photographer

Harvard Invests Millions in New Cryptocurrency Crimson Staff Writers

Harvard Management Company — the firm that oversees the University’s multi-billion dollar endowment — is now investing in a new cryptocurrency, Blockstack, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings released Wednesday, a move some experts have said is still unusual for investors of its magnitude.

Harvard-affiliated investors purchased 95.8 million “stacks tokens” in the firm’s initial coin offering. The purchase price was not included in the filings.

If valued at the average price for all 395.2 million tokens the firm has sold so far — about 12 cents — Harvard’s newly pur­

Harvard University Health Services has a clinic at the Business School open Monday through Friday located at Cumnock Hall. Jonathan G. Yuan—Crimson photographer

News 3

Editorial 6

See bacow Page 3

By JONAH S. BERGER and MOLLY C. MCCAFFERTY

By lUKE W. VROTSOS and CINDY H. ZHANG

Harvard Today 2

divestment from the tobacco industry in 1990 — differ from fossil fuels.

He said that tobacco divestment included a complete ban on interacting with tobacco across all spheres of the

Faculty Diversity Remains Stagnant

SEE PAGE 5

SEE PAGE 4

Inside this issue

those whose behavior we need to change,” Bacow said. “We need to engage with industry.

We do that through our scholarship; we do that through our teaching.”

Bacow also explained how previous instances of divestment — such as the University’s

Sports 8

Today’s Forecast

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THE HARVARD CRIMSON |

APRIL 12, 2019

PAGE 2

HARVARD TODAY

For Lunch Chicken Schnitzel on Multigrain Bread Red’s Best Fresh Catch Farfalle Pasta with Cannellini

For Dinner Mussels with Green Curry Sauce Salisbury Steak Vegetable Potsticker

TODAY’S EVENTS Conversation with Olivia Wilde at Harvard 3-4 p.m.

Head to Queen’s Head Pub from 7-10 p.m. today to hear stories about all the amazing (and maybe less amazing) things that can happen to you while travelling by bike. Refreshments will be provided!

Can Technology Save us from Death? Great Ideas Debate 5-7:30 p.m.

Head down to the Harvard Undergraduate Legal Committee for a conversation with CNN Legal analyst and Institute of Politics fellow Michael Zeldin about impeachment and the presidency. There will be churros!

Love and Lust HBDT Spring Showcase 8:30-11 p.m.

Show up at Lowell Upper Dining Hall for food, poker, and the chance to win up to $75 of Amazon gift cards.

Absolutely no money is needed to enter, so it’s kind of a win-win situation. Head on over!

IN THE REAL WORLD An End to Omar Hassan al-Bashir’s 30-Year Rule Omar Hassan al-Bashir has managed to exert strong control over Sudan for the last 30 years.

His rule came to an end Thursday when he was unseated by the military in response to extensive protests. He was the first head of state to ever face an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court.

WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange Arrested Dr. Gemma Flynn of the University of Edinburgh discusses the rise and fall of Kanye West in the context of philosophical theories. ALISON CHEN—CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

DAILY BRIEFING Winthrop House tutors Carl L. Miller and Valencia Miller filed a lawsuit against Eliot House Faculty Dean Gail A. O’Keefe in Massachusetts Superior Court on Thursday, alleging that O’Keefe made defamatory statements both about their “professional reputation” and their response to a confrontation between them and a College student on April 3. The Millers’ complaint and jury trial demand charges O’Keefe with two counts of defamation resulting from an email she wrote Monday evening to Eliot affiliates and a text she wrote to Winthrop Resident Dean Linda D. M. Chavers earlier this semester. In other news, University President Lawrence S. Bacow made a surprise appearance at an hour-long forum about fossil fuel divestment Thursday, an event he previously said he would not attend.

Indicted on a charge of conspiring with former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to steal military secrets, Julian Assange was arrested at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London this Thursday. Assange resisted arrest and British police had to resort to physically lifting him into a police van.

First Commercial Flight of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy Is A Success

SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy was successful in its first commercial launch Thursday. The rocket carried a 13,000-pound Saudi telecommunications satellite into orbit and is designed to bring up to 140,000 pounds into low-earth orbit.

AROUND THE IVIES CORNELL

Cornell University’s Student Assembly voted down a resolution Thursday that would have “urged” the school to divest from companies that profit “from the from the occupation of Palestine and human rights violations,” according to the The Cornell Daily Sun. Fourteen Student Assembly members voted for the resolution, 13 voted against, and one vote abstained. The vote was conducted with a secret ballot — which was an atypical procedure.

COLUMBIA

The Columbia Daily Spectator reported that after a year-long investigation, at least four high profile sexual misconduct cases against tenured faculty have not resulted in their complete dismissal.

Some of these professors still maintain access to student areas and apartments paid for by Columbia. When dismissing its faculty, Columbia often uses “mediated negotiation” instead of an adjudication process, which involves “multiple rounds of review by the president and board of trustees,” according to the article.

YALE

Yale’s biannual Title IX report showed a record high number of sexual harassment complaints filed by faculty members, according to the Yale Daily News. The report — which provides data on sexual misconduct from across Yale — disclosed that four faculty members filed complaints from July 1 to Dec. 31, 2o18. Yale Assistant Provost Jason Killheffer wrote in an email to the newspaper that the school “cannot draw conclusions” about fluctuations in the short-term reporting of complaints. “It is very difficult, if not impossible, to derive trends except broad ones from the information provided in the semiannual reports,” Killheffer said.

THE UNIVERSITY DAILY, EST. 1873

The Harvard Crimson Kristine E. Guillaume President Angela N. Fu Managing Editor Charlie B. Zhu Business Manager

STAFF FOR THIS ISSUE

Associate Managing Editor Jamie D. Halper ’20

Arts Chairs Kaylee S. Kim ’20 Caroline A. Tsai ’20

Design Chairs Elena M. Ramos ’20 Akhil S. Waghmare ’20

Associate Business Manager Amy E. Zhou ’20

FM Chairs Norah M. Murphy ’20 Abigail L. Simon ’20

Multimedia Chairs Kathryn S. Kuhar ’20 Kai R. McNamee ’21

Editorial Chairs Jessenia N. Class ’20 Robert Miranda ’20

Blog Chairs Lorenzo F. Manuali ’21 Trula J. Rael ’21

Technology Chairs Nenya A. Edjah ’20 Theodore T. Liu ’20

Sports Chairs Joseph W. Minatel ’21 Henry Zhu ’20

Copyright 2019, 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 Weather icons made by Freepik, Yannick, Situ Herrera, OCHA, SimpleIcon, Catalin Fertu from flaticon.com is licensed by CC BY 3.0.

Night Editor Andrew J. Zucker ’20

Design Editor Matthew J. Tyler ’22

Assistant Night Editors Aidan F. Ryan ’21 Aspen H. Buck ’22

Photo Editors Kathryn S. Kuhar ‘20 Anthony Y. Tao ‘22

Story Editors Caroline S. Engelmayer ’20 Angela N. Fu ’20 Jamie D. Halper ’20 Sonia Kim ’20 Michael E. Xie ’20

Editorial Editor Michelle I. Gao ’21 Sports Editor Henry Zhu ’20

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.

PAGE 3

THE HARVARD CRIMSON | APRIL 12, 2019

LAWSUIT FROM PAGE 1

FIRM FROM PAGE 1

Winthrop Tutors Sue Eliot Faculty Dean

Survey Partner Settled Claim

to Winthrop.

O’Keefe allegedly wrote to Chavers on March 7 that the Millers were asked to leave Eliot at a mid-year meeting in 2012, according to the complaint.

The complaint states that the Millers informed O’Keefe they planned to leave that year and stayed through the rest of the 2012 spring semester “to maintain continuity for the Eliot community and limit undue stress.”

“I’m happy to explain further, but Carl and Valencia were asked to leave Eliot House at their mid-year meeting in 2012,” O’Keefe wrote in the text. “We have plenty of documentation, and indeed, current tutors here who remember quite well the precipitating circumstances.”

The complaint states that O’Keefe’s statements in her text to Chavers “targeted” the Millers “because of the perception that Plaintiffs supported Dean Sullivan’s representation of Mr. Weinstein.” Winthrop Faculty Dean Ronald S. Sullivan, Jr. has recently faced student backlash for his decision to represent Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein in his Manhattan sexual abuse case.

O’Keefe wrote the text to Chavers shortly after Carl Miller called Harvard police to report graffiti on the exterior of Winthrop House, according to the complaint. The graffiti consisted of slogans criticizing Sullivan’s decision, including “Down w Sullivan!” and “Whose Side Are You On?”Hours before the vandal spray painted Winthrop, Danu A.K Mudannayake ’20 — an activist who has been out-

spoken in her calls for Sullivan to step down from his faculty dean position — and a group of other College students distributed flyers in Winthrop. The complaint states that Miller saw Mudannayake and the other students that night and exited the building when they did.

Mudannayake wrote in an online post Tuesday that Miller followed her throughout Winthrop House.Mudannayake, who is also a Crimson design editor, has called for Sullivan to resign in blog posts and at protests, arguing his representation of Weinstein conflicts with the responsibilities of a faculty dean.

Chavers declined to comment on the lawsuit, writing in an email that she is “far too busy supporting and ensuring the personal and academic well-being of the students of Winthrop House to comment on such matters.” The second count of defamation stems from an email O’Keefe sent over the Eliot House listserv Monday. In the message — which the complaint quotes in full — O’Keefe wrote that the Millers acted “unprofessionally and dishonestly” by filing a police report against Mudannayake on April 3.

“The two Winthrop tutors acted totally unprofessionally and dishonestly. Here at Eliot we would never condone nor allow tutors to make a public attack on an undergraduate, let alone in such a blatant and clumsy political way,” O’Keefe wrote Monday night. “The College should be a place where students can protest without fear of retribution, intimida-

BACOW FROM PAGE 1

Straker Appointed New Assistant Dean

­

Bacow Attends Divest Forum University, including barring it from campus and prohibiting research funded by tobacco companies in Harvard labs. He said this sort of full-scale divestment is not possible for fossil fuels.

“The day after, if we were to divest, we’re still going to turn on the lights,” Bacow said. “We would still be dependent on fossil fuels.”

Other faculty members on the panel discussed recent decisions by other institutions of higher education to divest from the fossil fuels as well as the political consequences of Harvard’s divestment from fossil fuels.

“When are the moments in which Harvard can have immense influence in society and decide to be an ethical thermostat rather than apolitical thermometer?” West said.

Ilana A. Cohen ’22, a member of Divest Harvard who moderated the panel, said it was an “invaluable night.”

“I think that that was an unparalleled kind of opportunity that I’m very appreciative that we had the chance to see out in real life tonight,” Cohen said of Bacow’s presence on the panel.

After the moderated portion of the forum, Harvard affiliates asked questions of the panelists. HPDC member Salma Abdelrahman ’20 accused Bacow of prioritizing dialogue with the fossil fuel divestment movement over the prison divestment movement.

“I just wanted to call out what racism looks like,” she said.

In response, Bacow said that he had met with the prison divestment group “multiple” times but that “civil conversation” ended when the activists laid out their demands.

In a March meeting with the group, Bacow told HPDC members that he responds to “reason,” not “demands.” Bacow also said that Harvard faculty and affiliates have produced prominent scholarship about mass incarceration.

“This is something that, unlike the fossil fuel divestment issue, which has been on the agenda of the Corporation and the University for a long time, to my knowledge, has not been before us previously,” Bacow said. alexandra.chaidez@thecrimson.com

By SAMUEL W. ZWICKEL CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

Nekesa C. Straker will serve as the new senior assistant dean of residential life and first-year students starting next fall, Associate Dean of Students Lauren E. Brandt announced in an email to undergraduates Thursday afternoon.

“In her new role, Nekesa will be responsible for leading the First Year Experience (FYE) office, which will include everything from managing the Resident Deans of First-Year Students, overseeing residential life initiatives to help orient and support the incoming class, and coordinate housing assignments for first-year students,” Brandt wrote.

Straker’s responsibilities will include training residential staff, overseeing pre-orientation programs, planning freshman Convocation, coordinating undergraduate advising, and sitting on the Administrative Board, according to Brandt’s email.

Straker wrote in an emailed statement that she is excited to bring her “enthusiasm” to the job.

“I am excited to bring to the Yard my enthusiasm for supporting students throughout their first-year residential experience and it’s an honor to be joining such a talented team,” Straker wrote. “I am looking forward to beginning in June and getting to know the students that make up the Harvard College community.”

Straker currently oversees ­

tion or bullying. Eliot House is a place where we stand by your right to be heard.”

The complaint states that O’Keefe’s email over the Eliot listserv also “targeted” the Millers “because of the perception that Plaintiffs supported Dean Sullivan’s representation of Mr. Weinstein.”

Mudannayake — who also filed a police report April 3 — and the Millers offered divergent accounts of what happened in the Winthrop dining hall that evening. Mudannayake said Carl Miller photographed and videotaped her as she ate dinner with a friend; the Millers wrote in emailed statements that Mudannayake harassed them and their child.

The Millers’ suit comes two days after their lawyer — George J. Leontire — sent a letter to Dean of the College Rakesh Khurana and University President Lawrence S. Bacow, among other University administrators, to criticize O’Keefe’s email to Eliot residents. In the letter, Leontire wrote that the Millers planned to file a Title IX complaint about the confrontation with Mudannayake.

“To my knowledge, no Master/Faculty Dean has ever used his or her superior faculty platform to publicly attack and defame a tutor,” Leontire wrote.

“Dean O’Keefe’s actions represent an affront to the norms and values that Faculty Deans strive to uphold.”

O’Keefe declined to comment on the suit. shera.avi-yonah@thecrimson.com aidan.ryan@thecrimson.com

residential life for undergraduates at Boston College as its director of residential education, a job she began in 2015.

“In that role she has been responsible for managing the dayto-day experience of residential life for 7,600 residents spanning across 14 residential communities,” Brandt’s announcement reads.

Before her work in Chestnut Hill, Straker held related administrative positions at Seattle University, DePaul University, and New York University — where she concentrated especially on freshman life — and worked for the admissions office of a private K-12 school system in Seattle.

Straker — who is originally from New York City — completed her undergraduate degree at Vassar College and graduate coursework at Seattle University.

She is currently finishing a doctorate in higher education leadership at Regis College.

The new hire follows a year of major administrative restructuring at the College. The Dean of Student’s Office, led by Dean of Students Katherine G. O’Dair, formed as the result of a July 2018 merger between the Freshman Dean’s Office and the Office of Student Life. Administrators said they decided to make the changes to centralize administrative oversight of residential and social life for College students.

Straker will begin her tenure June 17.

a ffected applicants. The firm also agreed to make 113 job offers to the original people impacted by the former hiring practices as positions became available.

Westat Senior Study Director Susan Chibnall — the project director for both the 2015 and 2019 AAU surveys — wrote in an email to The Crimson that Westat has since modified its procedures to operate in accordance with guidance from the OFCCP. “Westat is a majority female company with a strong representation of minorities. Our policies and actions are, and always have been, in conformance with Equal Employment Opportunity and our Affirmative Action Plan,” Chibnall wrote.

Pedro Ribeiro, the AAU’s vice president for communications, wrote in an email to The Crimson that the AAU had engaged in a “competitive openbid process” when it selected a research firm to partner with.

Ribeiro wrote that Westat’s previous successes in largescale survey projects, its ability to deliver a lower overall cost, and its option for customized questions for each institution played into the AAU’s selection.

“We believe that the issues raised by the settlement have been resolved, including the payment of restitution,” he added.

Harvard played no role in hiring Westat to administer the survey, University spokesperson Jonathan L. Swain wrote in an emailed statement.

“While Harvard was not responsible for the selection of Westat as the vendor to administer the survey, it is our understanding that the matters resolved by the 2014 Department of Labor settlement predate the administration of the 2015 survey by several years,” Swain wrote.

“Harvard students should have every confidence in the impact they can have through participation in the 2019 AAU survey that is currently underway,” Swain added.

Swain, Chibnall, and Ribeiro all stated that Westat’s settlement with the OFCCP is a thing of the past — and they all encouraged students to take the AAU survey in 2019, citing the importance of the data collection in informing efforts to combat sexual misconduct.

Since the 2015 survey was administered, Harvard has seen several changes to its sexual harassment prevention efforts, including increased staffing within the University Title IX Office and the Office of Sexual Assault Prevention and Response; the separation of the Title IX Office and the Office for Dispute Resolution, which investigates formal Title IX complaints; and new school-specific trainings for students, faculty, and staff.

The latest on student life.

­

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THE HARVARD CRIMSON |

CRYPTO FROM PAGE 1

APRIL 12, 2019

PAGE 4

FACULTY FROM PAGE 1

HMC Diversity Efforts Invests Stagnate Widely in New Crypto Robert J. Shiller, a professor of economics at Yale and Nobel Laureate, said blockchain-related investments are in vogue at the moment, but may be overhyped.

“You can’t prove they were wrong for doing it. As people who take risks in investing, they might be right. I just have a sense that the enthusiasm for blockchain is a bit out of proportion,” he said.

New York University professor and former Managing Editor of The Crimson David L. Yermack ’85, said the decision to invest in cryptocurrency is relatively new for a large institutional investor like Harvard.

Both Shiller and Yermack said the investment, even if it may be risky, is a step toward increased diversification of Harvard’s portfolio. In addition to Harvard, Yale has also reportedly recently invested in a cryptocurrency fund. Both Yermack and Glantz said others would follow.

“You’re going to see more and more of this from the leading schools,” Yermack said, though he also noted that it might be “decades” before investing in cryptocurrency became standard practice for university endowment managers.

HMC spokesperson Patrick S. McKiernan declined to comment, citing the company’s policy of not commenting on specific investments.

Blockstack was founded in 2017 under the umbrella of Blockstack PBC, a company founded in 2013. The firm filed with the SEC Wednesday morning, laying out the details of its planned offering.

At least one member of Blockstack’s board of directors is a Harvard alumnus — Albert E. Wenger ’91 studied economics at the College. This may not be the first time Harvard has invested in cryptocurrency — last October, a report in The Information, citing an anonymous source, said that HMC and several other university endowments had invested in a cryptocurrency fund. ­

cindy.zhang@thecrimson.com luke.vrotsos@thecrimson.com

include in the report.

The percentages of tenured women and underrepresented minorities at the University remained constant from last year at 27 percent and 8 percent, respectively, though both of those figures have risen since 2004.

The University has not set out to grow the ranks of its ladder faculty since the 2008 economic crash decimated Harvard’s endowment, freezing faculty salary raises and halting searches.

That lack of overall growth poses difficulties for the University as it attempts to diversify its faculty, according to Singer.

“When you’re increasing in size, it’s a lot easier to diversify, because you’re not only just hiring to replace, you’re hiring because you’re increasing in size,” she said. “When we were growing, there was real opportunity, but we weren’t necessarily as deeply committed to it. Now, we’re deeply committed to it, but we’re not growing.”

The report uses 2004 as a baseline to examine longer-term trends in faculty diversity, which Singer said may appear slow year-to-year.

“We will change this University one hire at a time, one promotion at a time,” Singer said.

“That’s how we make change.”

Ultimately, Singer said her primary concern with the report was that faculty could be “too satisfied” with the increases in women and underrepresented minorities over time.

“If I have any concern, it’s that people will look at these numbers and say, ‘Gee, we’re doing so well. We don’t need

to worry about this anymore,’” Singer said. “In fact, I had somebody say that to me, and I had to explain why that was not the case.”

The report also contains information about initiatives each school has undertaken during the current academic year to diversify its faculty. The Harvard Kennedy School, for instance, implemented training to help faculty “identify” unconscious bias in order to understand how it can lead to “biased decision making.” The School of Public Health held a series of professional development events to support tenure-track underrepresented minority faculty. Despite the new initiatives, Singer argued that the University still has “more work to do.” She said administrators, including University President Lawrence S. Bacow and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Claudine Gay, remained “deeply committed” to diversity efforts.

In March, Gay said that finding prospective faculty from underrepresented minorities can sometimes require “more work,” but that efforts are necessary to prevent minority and female professors from leaving the profession due to a lack of mentorship and support.

“There are probably some fields where progress will be slower, but I think progress is still possible if we’re willing to put our shoulder to the wheel and actually get this work done,” Gay said. molly.mccafferty@thecrimson.com jonah.mcberger@thecrimson.com

HUHS Business School Clinic to Close By End of May

By MICHELLE G. KURILLA and SAM E. SHARFSTEIN CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

The Harvard Business School satellite health clinic is slated to close on May 31, Harvard University Health Services director Paul J. Barreira said in an interview last week.

The Business School’s satellite clinic is located at the heart of its campus, roughly a mile away from the the Harvard Square clinic in the Smith Campus Center.

The Square clinic will now serve as the only University health center for Business School students.

Barreira said conversations about the move took place between the Business School and HUHS this past fall and winter. ­

We have now have 10 percent of our student body doing joint degrees and they are taking classes all across campus.

Jana Kierstead Executive Director of MBA and Doctoral Programs

He cited the increased number of services offered in the Smith Campus Center location and also the growing connections between the Business School and the University as two of the main reasons for moving the clinic space.

“Several reasons contributed to this decision, including increasing space constraints

at HBS, the wide array of services available at the Smith Campus Center, and the growing diversity of joint degree and cross-registered HBS students who are traveling throughout Harvard,” Barreira wrote in an email statement to The Crimson.

Jana Kierstead, the executive director of the MBA and doctoral programs, also credited the rising number of joint degree students as part of the reason for the satellite clinic’s closing.

“We have now have 10 percent of our student body doing joint degrees and they are taking classes all across campus,” Kierstead said.

Located in the Smith Campus Center, the Harvard Square clinic acts as the hub for HUHS. It currently offers primary care and internal medicine, counseling and mental health services, behavioral health, as well as other speciality services.

The Harvard Square clinic also houses Urgent Care — a 24/7 service open to Harvard affiliates in need of immediate medical attention.

The Business School clinic, however, is limited to providing services Monday through Friday.

Business School patients have been informed of the the different steps they can take in order to maintain their care in the midst of the clinic’s relocation.

They are provided with “opportunities to connect” with HUHS Chief Medical Officer Soheyla Gharib if they need medical advice when deciding on new primary care providers under the new system, accord-

ing to HUHS Spokesperson Michael Perry.

“We have every confidence that patients will experience a seamless transition of care from the HBS clinic to the Harvard Square clinic,” Perry

We have every confidence that patients will experience a seamless transition of care from the HBS clinic to the Harvard Square clinic.

Michael Perry HUHS Spokesperson

wrote in an email to The Crimson. Despite the closure of the HBS satellite clinic, the two other satellite clinics — located at Harvard Law School and Longwood Medical Area — have no plans to close anytime soon.

“When the HUHS Law School Clinic was renovated a few years ago, the space for the clinic was thoughtfully planned and a significant investment was made by the Law School to support an HUHS presence on their campus,” Perry wrote.

“The Medical Area Clinic serves three schools in the Longwood area: the Medical School, the Dental School, and the School of Public Health, and is heavily utilized.”

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PAGE 5

THE HARVARD CRIMSON | APRIL 12, 2019

Paintings Bloom Public Service Dean Search Begins in Leverett

By SHERA S. AVI-YONAH and DELANO R. FRANKLIN CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

Oscar Araripe talks about his art exhibit “Flowers for Harvard,” which is currently on display in Leverett House. AMY Y. LI—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

By AMIR K. HAMILTON and AMY Y. LI CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Brazilian artist Oscar Araripe discussed his bright and colorful collection of paintings “Flowers for Harvard” — on display in Leverett House this week — Thursday night at Leverett Library Theater.

Araripe’s friend Peter B. Rodenbeck ’61 also spoke at the event, which was part of programming organized by Leverett House Faculty Deans Brian D. Farrell and Irina P. Ferreras to foster interaction between Araripe and Leverett students.

At the talk, Araripe said he had previously studied at Harvard in the 1960s to escape political persecution at the hands of the Brazilian military, which controlled the government at the time. He had been elected to the student union at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and was vocal in his opposition for the government. Araripe was not allowed to attend classes and feared arrest or death, according to a pamphlet distributed to audience members.

Reflecting on his return to Harvard, Araripe said he received two scholarships to study at the University, which “saved” his life.“These scholarships was very important in my life,” he said. “It saved my life because at that time I was punished by the dictatorship in Brazil.”Though Araripe was not a full-time artist at the time, he said his experience at Harvard shaped his appreciation for painting. He said he visited the Fogg Museum frequently.

“The first time I saw the great masters in painting was here at Harvard,” Araripe said.

Araripe added he believes art is important in all areas of life.

“I think that art gives the direction and the solution for all kinds of things — political, economical, social. I believe strongly in this. I work in this, in solutions through art,” he said. “I believe in the government of the poet.”

Leverett resident Luke G. Melas-Kyriazi ’20 said he appreciated the addition of Arar-

ipe’s art to the House.

“The hallway downstairs has always been kind of drab and just not very exciting. And now it’s really nice to have lots of stuff in it. Especially, the paintings are kind of colorful and they really liven up Lev[erett],” he said.

Lincoln J. Craven-Brightman ’20, another Leverett resident, also said he believed the new art enhanced the House environment.

“I’m super for bringing more art into the house life,” he said.

“It’s nice to have some environment where I feel less stressed.

It adds something. I don’t know if its quantifiable.”

The weeklong programming on Araripe’s art is part of a new artist in residence program

by Farrell and Ferreras, who stepped into the roles of faculty dean in July 2018. Farrell said he hopes to prioritize the arts and international culture in Leverett House.

“We thought, we have this beautiful gallery space, it was designed to hang art, and we just immediately thought this was a good way to start our series of residences, of artists-in-residence in the House,” Farrell said in an interview Thursday.

This past fall, Leverett hosted saxophonist Bill Pierce. Ferreras said the duo hope to host a new artist every semester, giving students the opportunity to engage with artists through lectures, workshops, and casual interactions in the dining hall.

“The idea mostly is to bring the people that visit Harvard to the houses too,” said Ferreras. “Because normally these people visit and they get advertised, but they don’t go to the houses...you’re at Harvard but you can be close to the students by going to the houses, not just in a big auditorium.”

“Our hope is that it gets to be embraced by the students and it’s all about making connections,” Ferreras added. “I don’t know if it’s something that’s being done in other houses. It’s something that came out of our passion.”

Harvard launched its search for a new public service dean last week, nearly a year after the former assistant dean for public service, Gene A. Corbin, left the post.

In an April 5 online job posting, the role is now titled “Assistant Dean for Civic Engagement and Service.” College Dean for Administration and Finance Sheila C. Thimba — who has served as Interim Dean of Public Service since Corbin’s departure — wrote in an emailed statement that the College plans to also hire a “faculty director” for public service who will oversee the assistant dean’s work.

During Corbin’s 15 years at

Harvard — first as the executive director of the Phillips Brooks House Association, then as the public service dean — he piloted a series of initiatives aimed at encouraging undergraduates to pursue service during the school year, on breaks, and after they graduate.

In the months following Corbin’s decision to step down last spring, administrators announced a review of the College’s public service initiatives.

At the time, Thimba said the position needed some updating after Corbin’s long tenure.

Thimba wrote in her statement Thursday that the review produced several changes to the way the College approaches public service initiatives, chief among them the addition of an additional administrative role.

The “faculty director” will oversee the Phillips Brooks House Association and the Mindich Program in Engaged Scholarship; the assistant dean will direct the Center for Public Interest Careers and the Public Service Network.

“We are eager to meet with both external and internal candidates who can bring a broad range of experience that will help guide new and innovative programming to meet the needs of our students,” Thimba wrote.

The search comes at a time when few Harvard undergraduates pursue careers in public service after graduation. Only 3.5 percent of the Class of 2018 annual senior survey respondents indicated they were going to pursue post-graduate work in public service.

CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

Five Democratic presidential candidates will participate in a town hall co-hosted by CNN and the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School, the IOP announced Thursday.

Presidential candidates Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Senator Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), and South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete P. Buttigieg ’04 will take part in the event on April 22. Beginning at 7 p.m., each candidate will have one hour to receive and answer questions from a live student audience at St. Anselm’s College in Manchester, N.H. CNN anchors Anderson Cooper, Chris Cuomo, and Don Lemon will moderate the event. Lemon recently visited the Harvard IOP to speak about race, media, and politics. Warren is a Harvard Law School professor emeritus, and Buttigieg attended the College and visited the IOP last week to meet with students.

Harvard IOP Director Mark D. Gearan ’78 said in a press release that the opportunity for young voters to interact with presidential candidates is important, and that he looks forward to “the exchange of ideas.”

“The votes of young Americans could be the determining factor ­

in this election,” Gearan said.

“Young voters are eager to be engaged and speak directly to those seeking the presidency.”

The event is a collaboration between Harvard’s IOP and the New Hampshire Institute of politics.

The audience will include 500 youth voters, more than 200 of whom are expected to be Harvard University students, according to the release.

Student President of the Harvard IOP Anna L. Duffy ’21 said the event is a valuable chance for candidates to demonstrate their ideas to young voters.

“Young voters across the country are looking for presidential candidates to address the most pressing issues that are important to our generation,” Duffy said in the press release. “This is an opportunity for candidates to share their policy platforms, showcase their values, and make the argument for why young voters should support their candidacy.”

The results of the biannual Harvard IOP Youth Poll will be released the same day as the CNN town hall event, according to the release. The survey includes questions about climate change, economic inequality, and gun violence among other salient issues. It is directed at votes ages 18 to 29. jania.tumey@thecrimson.com

shera.avi-yonah@thecrimson.com delano.franklin@thecrimson.com

The T closes. We don’t.

Breaking news, 24/7.

IOP to Co-Host Presidential Forum

By JANIA J. TUMEY

The year before, 6.0 percent said they planned do the same.

The assistant dean job posting lists a host of responsibilities, from fundraising to meeting regularly with directors of public service fellowships.

It also requires that candidates have at least eight years of “progressively senior leadership roles in a non-profit, educational, or public-serving organization.”

The College will begin reviewing candidates’ resumes on May 13, according to the job posting.

Until administrators select a candidate, Thimba wrote she will continue to serve as interim dean.

The Crimson thecrimson.com

THE HARVARD CRIMSON | APRIL 12, 2019

PAGE 6

EDITORIAL THE CRIMSON EDITORIAL BOARD

OP-ED

Clarifying Harvard’s Labor Practices

Traveling at the Speed of Light

H

undreds of students and alumni recently signed a recent letter addressed to top University officials calling into question Harvard Divinity School’s decision to deny Ahmed Ragab tenure. The letter claims he would have been the first Muslim faculty member at the Divinity School accorded that status, and that he is the first faculty member in a decade to be denied full professorship without the review of an ad hoc tenure committee.

This incident should sound familiar.

In February, three student and alumni groups wrote letters to University President Lawrence S. Bacow calling into question the coming departure of two faculty members who specialize in Asian-American Studies. One of those professors accepted a position elsewhere, while the University declined to put up the other for tenure.

It’s difficult for us to opine on any of these incidents specifically, shrouded as they are by the mystery of academic politics and processes, especially as they relate to employment.

But we can say with confidence that these incidents reflect a moment on our campus in which students and their allies are calling the University’s labor practices into question.

The graduate student unionization process has been symbolic of this broader discontent. The negotiating process — nearly six months old with no end in sight — has been plagued by slowdowns and roadblocks. Discontent with the pace of negotiations, among other issues, led some 150 supporters of the burgeoning union to rally outside Massachusetts Hall in March to deliver a petition de-

manding more frequent bargaining sessions and a third-party arbitration process for cases of discrimination and sexual misconduct.

As students rally behind Ragab and the two Asian-American Studies professors, they draw upon this activist energy.

In particular, they seem to suggest that tenure decisions have seemed — though bureaucratic opacity prevents any concrete conclusions — to run counter to a strong desire to increase the diversity of specialities and faces on Harvard’s faculty. The University must respond in earnest to this growing tide of activism and discontent. As such, we call on the University to take three broad actions.

The calls of students, too, represent an idea: an admirable commitment to seek justice and call out injustice, no matter the source.

It’s time for the University to listen.

First, the University needs to take stock of its labor practices and think critically about the way they affect those who make this University the intellectual powerhouse it is. Certainly, this is not the first time community members have asked the University to consider these issues. But now, today, the range and volume of students’ voices on this topic should ring loudly in the ears of administrators.

Second, the University should make

its labor practices more transparent. The University’s approach to unionization should be clear to the student body. We should not wonder where the University stands on the majority of the 80 proposals brought by the union, while only two articles appear to have been publicly agreed on.

And the University should lead the way in making academic employment practices, especially tenure, more transparent.

Third, the University should directly and specifically address the petitions, protests, and statements students and other community members make about labor practices openly and honestly.

In a moment of heightened student activism and unrest — the drivers of which go beyond labor movements to include divestment campaigns, condemnation of faculty behavior, and the continued interest in the introduction of an ethnic studies department — the University needs to respond to students openly and with good faith.

Veritas may be only a word, but it represents a powerful idea. The calls of students, too, represent an idea: an admirable commitment to seek justice and call out injustice, no matter the source. It’s time for the University to listen.

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.

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How America’s Empire Got the Upper Hand Henry N. Brooks SOCIALLY LIBERAL, FISCALLY LIBERAL

I

recently rediscovered “The Two Faces of American Freedom” by Aziz F. Rana ’00, and I have to say, it makes for fascinating reading. Fundamentally a history of American democracy, Rana’s book probes a central question of our national past: How have we straddled the line between republic and empire?

In the book, we learn that it was by splitting our focus between internal and external objectives. The internal focus of American power, Rana argues, was always on securing economic independence and political equality for members of the civic community — an idea that he calls “freedom as self-rule.” It was our common commitment to this kind of liberty that produced some of the most radical political innovations in our history.

The founders, for instance, weren’t just rejecting monarchy. They were declaring a right to equal membership in the political community — a right that, in theory, applied universally. This idea, Rana shows, would prove bountiful later on. Before the close of the frontier in 1890, non-citizen immigrants could vote in over 20 states and receive land grants from the federal government — both ideas almost unthinkable in President Donald Trump’s America.

We have become mesmerized by the fruits of our global police power, even letting it corrupt our core commitment to liberty as self-rule.

The gifts of liberty, though, were always limited to the narrowly defined political community. Rana emphasizes how economic independence and participatory power in politics historically went hand-in-hand with the evacuation of American Indians, the enslavement of Africans, and the conquest of foreign land — Mexican, Hawaiian, and for shorter stints, Cuban and Filipino. This is what Rana calls our external commit-

ment: a pattern of projecting our collective power on those deemed outsiders.

This tension — between a robust sense of liberty internally and a disregard for that principle externally — frames Rana’s diagnosis of our present-day political illness: that we have become mesmerized by the fruits of our global police power, even letting it corrupt our core commitment to liberty as self-rule. Rana’s phrasing is especially compelling: “empire, so to speak, has become the master rather than the servant of freedom.”

As Americans, we navigate a unique political culture in which our civic language of rights, checks, and balances seems to contradict our historical record of interventionism abroad. The cultural consequences are often vexing, as when Democratic presidential candidate Pete P. M. Buttigieg ’04 — the mayor of South Bend, Ind. — tweeted, “I did not carry an assault weapon around a foreign country so I could come home and see them used to massacre my countrymen.” Our norms of internal liberty and civic responsibility remain tied to our experiences of war abroad.

We might lend our concerted critical attention to this relationship as the 2020 election approaches. This means staying alert to the way that terms like “national security” have started to replace ideas of freedom and rights-bearing — since George Washington’s time, our most important national gifts.

This doesn’t mean scrapping — as some on the left might envision — our entire political inheritance. I have written before in these pages on the exceptionalism of our American experience.

I, like Rana, stand by the idea of liberty as self-rule (an original American invention). That idea welcomed millions of immigrants to American shores, promising land and a vote.

It is worth studying today, when both parties still agree that such policies are incompatible with our national security and labor standards. Our challenge is not to punish ourselves for the sins of our past but to rein in the empire, to make it the servant of liberty and then phase it out.

There is certainly reason for optimism. Politicians are paying more critical attention to our foreign military

commitments now than at any time after 9/11. The recent vote in the Senate to end U.S. support for the war in Yemen was an important symbolic shift, even if Trump may veto the measure. The exit of U.S. troops from Libya this week may mean the tide is turning, that we are finally reining in the empire.

Our challenge is not to punish ourselves for the sins of our past but to rein in the empire, to make it the servant of liberty and then phase it out.

We can extend these gains into civic and social life too, by ending “catch-anddetain” tactics at the U.S.-Mexico border and limiting our appeals to police power in interpersonal disputes, where we often rehearse old settler habits against racial minorities. These kinds of encounters are the vestiges of our empire, which exerted force upon outsiders even as it protected the freedom of insiders. To universalize the promises of settler liberty, we need to part with those imperial vestiges.

I maintain that Rana’s reading of history is a powerful one for the present day, when politics forces us to choose, falsely, between two visions of America: one that ignores our national sins and another that cannot forgive them.

In “The Two Faces of American Freedom,” we find that America has always been both a safeguard of liberty and a rogue conquistador, a land-hungry slave power and a democratic deliverer. This is something like Bill Clinton’s famous view, that “there is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.”

What is wrong with America today is our imperial thinking, which has captivated the public mind with foreign wars and security concerns. If anything can cure that thinking, it will be a radical love for liberty, extended beyond the settler society to all.

—Henry N. Brooks ’19 is a Social Studies concentrator in Currier House. His column appears on alternate Fridays.

By ADAM E. HARPER

S

ometimes I feel like I’m a passenger on a train traveling at the speed of light. I’m stuck barreling towards the end of the semester, at high risk of crashing but perfectly incapable of slowing down or getting off.

Keep reading if this resonates with you.

What seemed like every morning before high school, my mom would look down at me as she poured boiling water into my instant oatmeal.

“Adam,” she would caution, “you have to learn how to slow down. You’re spreading yourself too thin.”

I knew I was overextending myself, but what else was I supposed to do? As a student in this high-pressure world, I had by that point internalized the idea that the only way to succeed was to do everything.

When’s the last time you read something and really digested it?

The last time you took a second to learn about something your friend is passionate about, or took time to tell someone about something you find meaningful?

When I arrived at Harvard, a microcosm of the eager high school go-getters, nothing really changed.

We here at Harvard pride ourselves on being hopelessly overcommitted.

Yesterday, I texted a friend taking a much-needed semester off. She is — as expected — thriving.

I laughed to myself as I casually remarked to her, “It is so dumb, the speed at which we live our lives.”

It’s true: Looking out the window on our train, can we not help but notice how fast the world is going by? When’s the last time you read something and really digested it?

The last time you took a second to learn about something your friend is passionate about, or took time to tell someone about something you find meaningful?

When’s the last time you called your mom?

The last time she picked up the phone and asked what you needed, and you just replied, “Nothing, just wanted to say hi.”

It’s hard (and quite unrealistic) for me to write an op-ed about slowing down the train.

After all, central to the ocular metaphor I opened with was the fact that the train can’t be slowed down. You can’t just “hop off.” You’ve picked your classes, made your extracurricular commitments, scheduled your phone interviews, and replied “going” on Facebook RSVPs. I know what you’re thinking: It is well within our ability to flake on friends, call in sick to extracurriculars, and skip classes.

But, we all know that flaking isn’t really fixing the problem.

After I have a bout of “free spiritedness” and impulsively shelve my schedule for the day, after I skip working on a problem set in favor of blacking out for the night, or after I push off texting a friend back about “catching a meal,” I still struggle to find some relief from the immense pressure of life at Harvard.

Frankly, that’s because being “hopelessly overcommitted” is part of our reality here at Harvard. Even if I swear that next semester will be “better,” I will probably find myself on the same high-speed train next semester.

Before I knew it, my seven semesters left at Harvard turned into five, turned into three, and will soon turn into one. I’ll be barreling towards a destination that is in fact the end of a chapter in my life.

As graduation becomes all too real, I’ll have cause to reflect on what I really saw as I watched the world speed by outside my window.

The people I met, the routines I lived, and the transformations I underwent for four years will be but a blur as I prepare to reframe my life for the real world.

So, pay more careful attention to the world passing by outside your window.

Capitalize on the moments you have to take in the world around you. Instead of scrolling through your Instagram feed as you walk to class, take a second and observe the vibrancy of life in Harvard Square.

Sacrifice a few minutes before bed to ask how your roommate’s day was, and actually pay attention when they answer you. Call your parents and check in on them when you’re taking a break from your problem set.

Capitalize on the moments you have to take in the world around you. Instead of scrolling through your Instagram feed as you walk to class, take a second and observe the vibrancy of life in Harvard Square.

And for God’s sake, if you’re going to be drunk at El Jefe’s at 2 a.m. on a Saturday night, crack jokes with the other drunk burrito-eaters and maybe you’ll make a new friend.

Treat your time here at Harvard as an end in itself: as a chapter in your life that doesn’t have to be but a stepping stone to the next best thing.

If you can’t slow down the train, you can at least take a deep breath and ask yourself how you can be a better witness to the beautiful experiences you’re presented with every second of every day.

—Adam E. Harper ’20 is a Social Studies concentrator in Mather House.

ARTS

The Harvard Crimson | April 12, 2019 | page 7

FILM

‘Shazam!’ Is Among DC’s Best Courtesy of Steve Wilkie and DC Comics

Lanz Aaron G. Tan contributing writer From director David Sandberg, whose feature filmography consists solely of horror movies (“Lights Out” and “Annabelle: Creation”), comes an unlikely bundle of superhero joy. “Shazam!” marks a clear change of tone for the D.C. Extended Universe (DCEU), which came into existence with gritty, colorless films like Zack Snyder’s “Batman V. Superman.” With a charismatic lead actor in Zachary Levi, a springy, lighthearted tone, and a solid emotional arc, this film is exactly what the DCEU needs.

The story unfolds in Philadelphia, centering on the experiences of foster child Billy Batson (Asher Angel) as he settles into his 24th foster home. He befriends his foster brother Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer), a physically disabled superhero fan, who is frequently singled out and bullied at school. In one instance, Billy stands up for Freddy, but tries to escape when he gets outnumbered, jumping on a train: Here, his journey takes a sudden turn towards the supernatural. The train transports Billy to a prehistoric lair where he is confronted by the ancient wizard Shazam (Djimon Hounsou), who selects Billy as his champion to protect the world against the demons called the “Seven Deadly Sins.” Billy takes up the wizard’s mantle by saying “Shazam!” and is magically transformed into an adult superhero, Shazam, played by Levi.

The premise behind Shazam, his appearance, and powers stay relatively faithful to the DC comics from which he originates: He shoots lightning bolts from his fingers, possesses superhuman strength, and wields the power of flight. Ironically, DC initially

named “Shazam” as “Captain Marvel,” a name that Marvel eventually gave to an entirely different character — Captain Marvel — who just last month just last month made her feature film debut.

“Shazam!” is at its best when it focuses on Billy’s journey as he learns to control his superhero alter-ego. This phase in the film is played for multiple laughs: Some memorable scenes include a faceoff in a convenience store between Shazam and armed robbers and the montages where Freddy helps Billy test his newfound abilities.

After a while, though, some of the comedic moments begin to feel formulaic.

In some instances, one could guess exactly what happens next from the way earlier jokes were set up. However, these predictable moments are few and far between, and they don’t take much away from the utter hilarity of Levi’s performance. While the concept of playing a 14-year-old trapped in a superhero body sounds silly, Levi really pulls it off. “Shazam!” soars when it does because of Levi’s genuine energy: He bounces with excitement when he discovers new powers, is awestruck when he defies the odds, and otherwise brings a boyish charm to the role.

Mark Strong plays the villainous Dr. Thaddeus Silvana, but his serious character feels out of place in a film that’s intrinsically selfaware of what it’s trying to be — a fast-paced superhero comedy. A one-note, off-the-assembly-line style villain, Silvana isn’t much to write home about. Aside from partaking in one particularly gory scene, he doesn’t comes across as particularly fearsome either.

Sandberg establishes his paper-thin backstory early on in the film, making his motivations seem flimsy and inconsequential. As a result, moments he has on screen drag the film’s pace far more than they provide tension in the plot.

Moreover, some visual effects don’t look as polished as one might expect from a tentpole superhero film. In particular, some of Silvana’s sidekicks look like poorly rendered adaptations of “Zuul” from “Ghostbusters.” But for the most part, these computer graphics aren’t too distracting; when Levi is flying high above the city, cracking jokes, shooting lightning bolts, and taking the audience on a joyous ride, it’s easy to forgive shortcomings in the visual department.

“Shazam!” works so well because of the way its emotional core can stand on its own. The overarching theme of the film is the search for belonging: Billy has been searching for that feeling ever since he was separated from his mom at a carnival when he was little, Freddy is alienated by his classmates at school, and even Silvana is driven to some extent by this need for belonging.

The emotional payoffs build off these character arcs and work well, in part due to how effectively the foster family has been cast: The parents (played by Cooper Andrews and Marta Milans) are warm and comforting and the other foster children are cheerful (if slightly forgettable) additions. With its solid narrative structure, “Shazam!” rejuvenates the magic and wonder in the often cliched superhero genre.

MUSIC

Ben Platt Breaks Out of Broadway with Debut Album ‘Sing To Me Instead’ Joy C. Ashford Crimson staff writer Courtesy of Atlantic Records

The music video for Ben Platt’s song “Bad Habits” begins with an empty room and a few vintage photographs. Platt — a Tony winner and newly minted Broadway hero — shuffles into the room and hunches over the piano, his shoulders slowly creeping up. He leans into the keys. “You always said that I’d come back to you again,” he starts, with an air of almost uncomfortable familiarity. In a few moments, the persona of the larger-than-life Broadway star melts into something decidedly different.

He is no longer tens (if you’re lucky) of rows of theater seats away. On his debut album “Sing To Me Instead,” Platt is right next to you, sitting at his living room piano with a visceral kind of honesty.

Platt is an unusual kind of Broadway star. Known for playing the titular teenager Evan in the musical “Dear Evan Hansen,” he projects vulnerability and comes across as a little more down-toearth than many of his artificially illuminated peers. As a character defined by insecurity, Platt’s Evan never seemed quite comfortable.

The “discomfort” that so many “Dear Evan Hansen” fans saw and related to in Platt’s on-stage character is just as present on his album. But unlike other Broadway stars who have unsuccessfully tried to launch mainstream pop careers, Platt’s music is rooted in his personal fears, hopes, and insecurities, not just his powerhouse voice. This intimacy, combined with the lyrical specificity of the songs, turns “Sing To Me Instead” from a vocal showcase into a compelling narrative.

The songs ache with tension and heartbreak, painstakingly retold in break-up ballads like “Bad Habit” and “Better.” Meanwhile, “Ease My Mind” and “Share Your Address” show a lighter side of love — still strained and complicated, but made meaningful and necessary against the backdrop of

individual darkness. The album as a whole is a unique piece of art. It’s not quite dramatic indie, easy coffeehouse, or pop ballad, but somewhere in between. Whether augmenting his searing high notes with a full choir on “Temporary Love,” or stripping back for a ghostly falsetto on “Grow As We Go,” Platt commits to off-Broadway realness. That raw, even strained, sense of vocal and lyrical intimacy ground his more melodramatic tendencies and cement his status as a serious pop artist.

Platt describes the songs as deeply personal — which necessitated, for him, the album’s role as an unofficial kind of coming-out announcement. As he told People Magazine, “If I was going to write about people I loved, I wasn’t going to pretend they weren’t men just because I hadn’t talked about that before.” The album is Platt’s first time addressing his identity as a gay man publicly, weaving it naturally into his narratives of love and loss.

But “Sing To Me Instead” is, first and foremost, about Platt holistically. The album is not just, as he put it to USA Today, a “coming-out album.” It’s about the holistic ups and downs of love, with Platt’s sexuality as a fundamental part of his identity, but not his entire story.

On “Sing To Me Instead,” Ben Platt succeeds in balancing the talent and theatricality that made him famous with the vulnerability that helps him tell a story. His debut album may or may not end up topping pop charts, but it nevertheless feels indisputably comfortable — in all of its artist’s discomfort — in a music world behind the scenes of the big stage.

Staff writer Joy Ashford can be reached at joy.ashford@thecrimson.com.

SPORTS

IN OTHER NEWS

BASEBALL

MEN’S LACROSSE

Winners of three straight series to start the Ivy League season, 16-7 Harvard will look to keep rolling at home against Cornell, who have lost four straight league games and is 2-7 overall.

A week after Harvard’s three-game winning streak was snapped, the team has a tough home game against nationally ranked Penn.

MARATHON

Lifelong Friends to Compete as Tandem in Marathon

By DEREK SCHAEDIG CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Every third Monday of April, approximately 30,000 runners from around the world flood the streets of Boston in order to accomplish a lifelong goal years in the making—participating in the Boston Marathon.

As the world’s oldest annual marathon, the race attracts many hopefuls. This year’s competition received 30,458 applicants who had met the qualifying times for their respective age groups. Of the 30,458 qualifying applicants, 23,074 were accepted, while the remaining 6,926 slots were filled by those running on behalf of a charity.

Of the 30,000 fortunate enough to be able to take part in the race, only 10 were allowed to be accompanied by a teammate in a wheelchair.

This year, Jacob Russell ‘19 and Edinboro University senior Patrick Dewey will be among these select few.

Russell, 21, and Patrick Dewey, 22, began their journey to the Boston Marathon in elementary school. Both from Cooperstown, New York, the two first met after being placed in the same kindergarten class. Upon learning of their mutual passion for classic rock music, the two bonded immediately.

“We might have been two of the only five year olds into classic rock,” Russell jokingly recalled.

A passion for music initially sparked their friendship, but it was a decision by their kindergarten teacher that would create a lifelong bond.

Dewey was diagnosed at an early age with cerebral palsy, a disability which permanently impairs muscle coordination.

His diagnosis also required him to use a wheelchair for mobility.

Of his classmates in kindergarten, only certain members were permitted to transport Patrick from class to class: Dewey made certain Jacob was the first classmate allowed to do so. ­

“The teacher knew that we were really good friends,” Dewey commented. “She knew this would be a good way of forming a bond.”

The two remained close throughout the years, yet their relationship became more difficult to maintain as the two entered high school. Russell began taking part in varsity athletics including sports such as wrestling, track and field, tennis, and cross country. Due to Patrick’s disability, he was no longer able to be with Jacob during these activites—a barrier the two had not yet encountered.

Jacob was determined to find a way to be able to include his childhood friend in his new endeavours. It was in this pursuit that he stumbled upon the story of “Team Hoyt” in an article written by Sports Illustrated. A father and son team, Rick and Dick Hoyt have competed in 72 marathons together, 32 of those being Boston Marathons, despite Rick’s cerebral palsy.

Jacob was inspired.

“When I read about Team Hoyt, I just thought it would be a great way for us to do something together and for Patrick to be able to experience competition,” Russell said.

The pair have since competed in 15 races and two marathons together. The transition from individual racing to competing as a team has had its bumps, though.

The team raced their first marathon together on a sweltering 90 degree sunny day in Poughkeepsie, New York. Midway through the race, Dewey’s footrest on his wheelchair began to come loose. Russell managed to trek on a few miles before the footrest began sparking against the ground. Upon multiple stops in order to repair the wheelchair with a roll of duct tape, Russell began cramping.

Under normal circumstances, Russell might have let his physical limits get the best of him, but he pushed on for his best friend.

“Normally, if I was running by myself and my legs were in the condition they were due to the cramps and spasms, I might have just quit,” Jacob said. “It’s easy to say I can fail myself and cut my losses, but I couldn’t let Patrick down.”

Jacob, though, doesn’t rely on Dewey just for motivation.

Still embracing their love for classic rock, during their races, Dewey hums hits from the pairs’ favorite artists such as Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, and Deep Purple in order to help Jacob endure the intense mental strain a marathon imparts on runners.

Russell has become so accustomed to running with his childhood companion that doing so without him feels unnatural. Due to the limited number of wheelchair racing tandem spots, Russell ran the Boston marathon without Dewey last year. While he remains proud of this accomplishment, he knew it wasn’t complete without his best friend by his side.

“It’s so much better to run with Patrick than individually,” Jacob said. “It [the Boston Marathon] was cool to do and I got to say I did it, but I wasn’t satisfied with it in the end.”

The team is able to compete in this year’s marathon largely due to their support from The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp foundation, a program that provides fun, engaging camping excursions for children with disabilities. Dewey has been a part of the program since he was seven. Despite the team raising $10,000 for the charity, Dewey argues it is The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp that has given him the most.

“We really owe it to Hole in the Wall to allow us to be on their fundraising team and on their race day team,” Patrick said.

When searching for a charity to race for, the team discovered that The Hole in the Wall Gang was the ideal match for them.

Not only did the team look to

ROLLING AHEAD Jacob Russell ‘19 and his lifelong friend Patrick Dewey will run the Boston Marathon as a tandem on Monday. Photo Courtesy of Jacob Russell ‘19

give back to an organization that has provided Patrick with so many opportunities, but both believe the foundation’s mission aligns with their own.

“It worked out really well with our mission which is to show that disabilities can’t stop people’s will for competition,” Russell said.

While running a marathon is an incredible feat for anyone

to accomplish, Russell found a way to go above and beyond, running with a deeper purpose.

“Some people say that success in racing is just a blue ribbon,” Jacob said. “But running with Patrick has taught me that success is more than just a blue ribbon. It’s doing something that is meaningful and that we can do together through persistence.”

Dewey will receive a degree in communications from Edinboro University, while Russell will graduate with a degree in history and government from Harvard University. For now though, accompanied by the sweet sound of Aerosmith, the two are just looking forward to completing the journey they began in kindergarten class so many years ago.

FENCING

Column: We Should Learn From the Athletics Scandal

By JAMES JOYCE CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

We were so close, guys. USC. Stanford. Hell, even Yale – as if last weekend’s bashing from the batter’s box wasn’t enough. In the midst of the largest admissions bribery firestorm in collegiate history, it seemed like ­

Harvard would emerge from the ashes scot-free, our sole offense being that one of the paid test-takers at the center of the scandal was a Harvard alum.

But alas, our innocence was fleeting. Just as the Crimson was ready to saunter away from the quagmire that is Operation Varsity Blues, we were hit with

an admissions scandal on our own front piste.

Now, nothing is definitive, and Harvard’s independent review into the allegations is still ongoing – but here’s what we know. In 2016, Crimson fencing coach Peter Brand’s Needham, Mass. home was bought by businessman Jie Zhao for al-

most $1 million, $400 thousand over its market value. Zhao’s son, a fencer, was subsequently accepted to Harvard’s Class of 2021, where he proceeded to join the Crimson fencing team.

Zhao then sold his newly-acquired home at a $325K loss, having never lived in it himself.

A sketchy story? Certain-

THE BUILDING WHERE IT HAPPENS The Murr Center is home to several Harvard athletic facilities, including tennis and squash courts. Photo: THOMAS W. FRANCK —CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

ly. Definitive proof of bribery?

Perhaps.

Regardless of whether or not the real estate irregularity was carried out with malicious intent, the situation points to a much larger systematic concern – the victimization of college students, especially student-athletes. According to The Boston Globe, Zhao’s son had no clue about his father’s home transaction; he was left completely in the dark. Sound familiar? To anyone who’s been keeping up with the Varsity Blues news of the past few weeks, it certainly should.

Almost all of the cases being brought forth by federal prosecutors follow the same pattern: a wealthy parent solicited the help of a notorious college counselor, who then, without their child’s knowledge, rigged testing results or bribed coaches to get that high schooler into college. Now, whether these students’ claims of ignorance are true is anyone’s guess – but regardless, they were victimized, their names forever blacklisted because of their parents’ actions. And if you are finding it difficult to feel bad for these wealthy students, keep in mind that because of the wrongdoings of authority figures, the names of these students will always be associated with the wrongdoings of their parents.

This fact may well overshadow any academic achievement, any victorious fencing bout, any accomplishment that these implicated students achieve.

And then there’s the athletic side of things – not only does this scandal victimize students, but it speaks to a much larger pattern of coaches’ disregard for their most valuable assets: college athletes. Rick Piti-

no’s funneling of money from Adidas to his basketball players. The existence of “paper classes” for athletes at UNC. The Rajin’ Cajun’s falsification of its football players’ standardized testing scores. Yes, in all of these cases, student-athletes ended up on the wrong side of the scandal – but it was their coaches, their administrators, and their parents that put them there. This newest fencing controversy is the same story that has been told time and time again, in which a coach or other authority figure, in what are disguised as actions meant to benefit college athletes, end up instead marring students’ names.

Unless steps are taken to hold college coaches to a higher standard, this story is one that is destined to be repeated many more times. In the words of FAS Dean Claudine Gay, “where there are opportunities to clarify practices and strengthen procedures, we must act on them, and do so with a sense of urgency.”

Harvard has already announced that its coaches will undergo training on the university’s conflict of interest policy – certainly a step in the right direction, but one that must be followed by a stride ten times as long. It is high time that authority figures, rather than the athletes over whom they wield authority, face the consequences of their actions. Until coaches become the standard bearers for, rather than victimizers of, college athletes, the somber sound of the varsity blues is a harmony that will continue to play on every field, every court, every piste. james.joyce@thecrimson.com.