The Harvard Crimson THE UNIVERSITY DAILY, EST. 1873 | VOLUME CXLVI NO. 109 | CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS | WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2019
EDITORIAL PAGE 6
NEWS PAGE 7
SPORTS PAGE 8
Jokes about sexual harassment should not be made
Professors win lifetime achievement award in neuroscience
Women’s soccer falls to Brown in a battle of the Ivy League’s best
Harvard Rejects Union Merger By RUOQI ZHANG CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
Some members of the Harvard University Security, Parking, and Museum Guards Union hold posts in the Harvard Art Museums. SOUMYAA MAZUMDER—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
SEAS Admissions Benefits Students White Applicants Divided on Move By CAMILLE G. CALDERA CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
Forty-three percent of white admits to Harvard College are athletes, legacies, children of faculty, or members of a hand selected list curated by top administrators, according to working papers by Students for Fair Admissions-hired expert witness Peter S. Arcidiacono. The papers — accepted to the National Bureau of Economics Research last month — use data that the College made public as a part of its ongoing lawsuit with SFFA, an anti-affirmative action advocacy group. SFFA sued Harvard in 2014 alleging the College discriminates against Asian American applicants. Arcidiacono — an economics professor at Duke University — co-authored the papers, which focus on admissions preferences for applicants to the College who are legacies or recruited athletes. Neither paper has been
By RUTH A. HAILU and AMY L. JIA CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
A s the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences prepares to expand into the new Science and Engineering Complex in Allston — which is slated to open in June 2020 — current and prospective SEAS concentrators are conflicted about the expansion. In an interview with The Crimson earlier this month, Dean of SEAS Francis J. Doyle III said the new complex will house several collaborative spaces — including active learning labs and a maker space — designed to foster exchanges of ideas between students and faculty members. Several students said they are excited to take advantage of the new building’s state-of-theart facilities. Electrical Engineering and Government joint concentrator Victor L. Qin ’21 said the building’s size — reportedly four times that of the Northwest Labs — will provide fast-growing concentrations with the necessary space to develop. “Mechanical engineers, electrical engineers — we need more lab space, we need more storage space for different clubs,” Qin said. “Allston provides us that space to grow in.” Rushi A. Patel ’21, a Biomedical Engineering concentrator, said the increase in space will incentivize students to work on long-term projects that require storage — something he said he finds difficult given the current space constraints. He added that the complex’s proximity to resources like the Harvard Innovation Lab — a center for creative ventures next to the Harvard Business School — will foster an “interdisciplinary view of engineering” that lends itself well to innovative work. Other students, however, said they were concerned that the geographical distance between Harvard’s Cambridge and Allston campuses would make taking certain courses less appealing. “It sounds like it’s going to be a pain, especially for people in
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Harvard Today 2
peer-reviewed; working papers are typically made public to engender discussion and feedback prior to formal publication. The first paper revealed that 43 percent of white admits to the College are athletes; legacies; on the Dean’s or Director’s lists, which contain relations of donors and high-profile figures; or children of Harvard employees — together referred to as “ALDCs.” In contrast, less than 16 percent of African American, Hispanic, and Asian American admits are ALDCs. “That kind of blew my mind a little bit,” said Harvard Graduate School of Education professor Natasha Kumar Warikoo. The authors found that a white, non-ALDC applicant with a 10 percent chance of admission would see a five-fold increase in their chance of admissions if they were a legacy; more than a seven-fold increase if they were on the Dean’s List;
SEE BENEFITS PAGE 3
Harvard plans to reject for a second time a proposed merger between its largest and smallest unions, more than three years after the two groups first sought to combine forces, according to University spokesperson Jonathan L. Swain. In late September, the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers formally requested that the University allow them to merge with the Harvard University Security, Parking, and Museum Guards Union, an independent, unaffiliated union with roughly 80 parking monitors and museum attendants. HUCTW boasts a 5,200-person membership across the University, the largest of any union. Nearly a month after the request was filed, however, HUCTW Executive Director Bill Jaeger said Harvard has yet to acknowledge or respond to it. The Sept. 25 request letter was addressed to Harvard Director of Labor Relations and
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Khurana Agrees With SFFA Ruling By SHERA S. AVI-YONAH and DELANO R. FRANKLIN CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
Dean of the College Rakesh Khurana said in a Friday interview he agrees with the verdict in the Harvard admissions lawsuit asserting that the College’s admissions processes are not perfect. Federal judge Allison D. Burroughs ruled on Oct. 1 that Harvard’s admissions processes do not illegally discriminate against Asian American applicants, as anti-affirmative action group Students for Fair Admissions charged in its 2014 suit. Days later, SFFA appealed Burroughs’s decision, meaning the two parties will argue again before the First Circuit Court of Appeals. Despite clearing Harvard of any wrongdoing, Burroughs recommended a number of improvements to the College’s admissions policies. She suggested Harvard provide admissions officers with implicit bias train
ing, keep clear guidelines on the consideration of race in the admissions process, and monitor statistics for potential racial disparities. Asked about Burroughs’s suggestions, Khurana singled out the value of implicit bias training. He noted that Harvard currently offers similar training for teaching fellows, faculty, and staff. “We are far from a perfect institution,” he said. “I think figuring out how all of us become aware of the biases, stereotypes, and taken-for-granted assumptions that we have, and continually finding ways to be aware of that is something that has to happen at all levels of the institution.” The lawsuit brought a national spotlight onto previously secret details of Harvard’s admissions process. Documents that became public included internal emails describing how administrators sometimes give
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SEE PAGE 3
As the 55th Head of the Charles Regatta welcomed thousands of athletes and spectators to Cambridge over the weekend, business in the Square boomed. AIYANA G. WHITE—CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
Seven Receive Annual Du Bois Medal By AMANDA Y. SU CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
Oscar-nominated actor Queen Latifah, Pulitzer Prize winning-poet Rita Dove, and five others received the annual W. E. B. Du Bois Medal before a packed crowd in Sanders Theatre Tuesday afternoon. The medal is Harvard’s highest honor awarded to those who have made contributions to African and African American history and culture. In addition to Latifah and Dove, this year’s recipients include co-founder of Black Entertainment Television Sheila C. Johnson; Andrew W. Mellon Foundation president Elizabeth Alexander; artist Kerry James Marshall; entrepreneur and philanthropist Robert F. Smith; and Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution
SEE MEDAL PAGE 4
News 7
Editorial 6
University professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. spoke at the W.E.B. Du Bois Award Ceremony Tuesday. AMANDA Y. SU—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
Sports 8
TODAY’S FORECAST
Dana Elaine Owens, known by her stage name Queen Latifah, was awarded the W.E.B. Du Bois Medal Tuesday. AMANDA Y. SU—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
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