The Harvard Crimson, Volume CXLVI No. 18

The Harvard Crimson THE UNIVERSITY DAILY, EST. 1873 | VOLUME CXLVI, NO. 18 | CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS | TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2019

ARTS PAGE 3

NEWS PAGE 9

SPORTS PAGE 10

Hasty Pudding show authors discuss gender-neutral casting.

Chinese history Professor Roderick MacFarquhar dies at 88.

Harvard men’s squash team wins a national title.

Former Pressley Protests Trump Border Declaration Staff Files Lawsuit

By DECLAN J. KNIERIEM and KATELYN X. LI CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

Former Office of Technology Development employee Melissa Defay filed a lawsuit against Harvard Wednesday alleging the University racially discriminated against her, failed to accommodate her disability, and retaliated against her when she raised these concerns.

The 16-page complaint — filed in Massachusetts Superior Court — alleges that Harvard Senior Associate Provost and Chief Technology Officer Isaac T. Kohlberg and OTD Director of Financial Operations Marie Letelier directed discriminatory statements and actions toward her. Defay, who wrote in the complaint that she is an African-American woman, described the discrimination as including “race-based comments, a discriminatory and illegal race-based failure to promote [her], and discriminatory actions based upon [her] disability.”

Defay is requesting compensation for damages, legal fees, and other awards that the court “deems just and proper.”

Defay began working at

United States Representative Ayanna S. Pressley (D-Mass.) joined protesters in Harvard Square in condemning President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency to build a border wall and other immigration policies during a President’s Day rally Monday afternoon.

The rally, which took place in front of the Harvard Square Kiosk despite freezing temperatures and light snowfall, was part of a national mobilization effort that saw activists turn out for similar President’s Day protests across the country.

Cambridge Area Stronger Together, a local organization dedicated to social justice and activism efforts, hosted the Harvard Square rally. This year’s event marks the group’s third consecutive President’s Day protest in opposition to President Trump and his administration.

Last Friday, President Trump declared a national emergency to bypass Congress and receive funding for a proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The announcement came after Congress passed a spending bill that did not fully fund the border wall that Trump requested.

Critics denounced Trump’s decision as unconstitutional, arguing that it violates separation of powers and sets a dangerous precedent

SEE LAWSUIT PAGE 7

SEE PRESSLEY PAGE 9

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By ALEXANDRA A. CHAIDEZ and AIDAN F. RYAN CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS ­

U.S. Representative Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass) decries President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency to build a southern border wall at a protest Monday in Harvard Square. KAI R. MCNAMEE—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

A woman holds a sign supporting Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients at a Monday protest. AMY Y. LI—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

Professor Emeritus Supports Weinstein

SEE PAGE 7

By CONNOR W.K. BROWN CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

The move comes after the sign marking the gender-neutral bathroom in Russell Hall was vandalized twice within the past month. The sign — which included three icons intended to represent male, female, and non-binary individuals — had its female icon colored in with black marker. The icons have since been removed, leaving a sign that simply reads, “Restroom.”

The vandalism sparked accusations of transphobia and misogyny against the perpetrator after an Adams House resident sent an image of the sign over the House’s email list, “the Schmooze.” Some students said the vandalism made them feel unsafe, while others debated the vandal’s intent.

The committee’s email praised students’ discussions about the incident, calling it a foundation for their work.

“We appreciate how thoughtful many of you have already been in discussing this topic: over meals in the dining hall, on the Schmooze, and in one-on-one conversations with your peers, tutors, and deans,” they wrote. “These are important conversations that should be had, and we look forward to

Harvard Law School Professor Emeritus Alan M. Dershowitz has joined Harvey Weinstein’s legal defense team to consult on constitutional issues, according to a Feb. 15 court filing.

Dershowitz was granted permission to consult for Weinstein’s defense team on a pro hac vice basis, which allows lawyers to participate in a case outside of their legal jurisdiction so long as they can provide a certificate of good standing for the areas in which they are licensed to practice.

The suit Dershowitz is involved in is a class action lawsuit against Weinstein’s former production companies the Weinstein Company and Miramax; the Walt Disney Company; and Weinstein himself, among others. The lawsuit alleges that Weinstein violated federal sex trafficking laws. The former film producer faces separate criminal charges of sexual assault from two women in a Manhattan case that stem from accusations that he raped one woman and forcibly performed oral sex on another.

Winthrop House Faculty Dean Ronald S. Sullivan, Jr., also a Harvard Law School professor, joined Weinstein’s legal team in the criminal case last month, drawing backlash from students and calls for him to step down from his faculty deanship.

The filings, first mentioned

by New York Daily News reporter Stephen Brown on Twitter, indicate Dershowitz will be consulting on some email exchanges relevant to the case.

“I was retained by Defendant Harvey Weinstein’s

SEE ADAMS PAGE 9

SEE DERSHOWITZ PAGE 7

Starbucks in the Garage will close on Feb. 22, the latest in a string of Harvard Square business closures. CALLIE E. RENNYSON—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

Adams House Reviews Signage

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

In an email to residents Friday, Adams House administrators announced the formation of a committee to review restroom signage following incidents of vandalism of a gender-neutral bathroom earlier this month.

The email — signed by Adams House Faculty Deans John “Sean” G. Palfrey ’67 and Judith “Judy” S. Palfrey ’67, Resident Dean Adam Muri-Rosenthal, and House Committee members Caroline S. Kristof ’20 and Victoria “Tori” S. Tong ’20 — condemned the “distressing” vandalism and distributed an anonymous survey to Adams residents intended to gather feedback about the incident.

“Following the very distressing events last week when the gender neutral sign on the downstairs bathroom was defaced, we convened a committee of students and tutors to discuss the configuration of and signage for our restrooms,” the group wrote. “The committee is charged with determining the ways that we can promote the values that Adams House cares about the most—both in our facilities and in our communication with one another.” ­

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

Harvard Today 2

Arts 3

News 7

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Editorial 8

A crowd gathers to protest President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency to build a wall. AMY Y. LI—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

Gov. Students Discuss Survey, Next Steps at Town Hall Events

By JONAH S. BERGER and MOLLY C. MCCAFFERTY CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

Government students discussed department culture, course offerings, and responses to allegations of sexual misconduct against Government Professor Emeritus Jorge I. Dominguez at consecutive town halls Friday.

The town halls follow the release of a department-wide climate survey that found roughly a third of female graduate students in the department feel their work or study is limited by their gender and 26 percent experienced discrimination.

Students discussed possible solutions to issues highlighted in the survey, and faculty members detailed ongoing initiatives, including the recent effort to hire two female professors.

The Government Commit-

WELCOME TO WELLNESS

TODAY’S FORECAST

tee for Climate Change, tasked with investigating department culture in the wake of multiple accusations of sexual misconduct against Dominguez spanning nearly 40 years, organized the survey and town hall.

The University opened a Title IX investigation into Dominguez in April 2018, which is ongoing.

Since the allegations first surfaced, some government students have said they are frustrated with what they perceive as an inadequate response from the University.

In March and again in October, graduate students sent letters — the second of which was signed by nearly three-quarters of graduate students in the department — demanding an independent, external review of the Dominguez allegations.

Government Ph.D. candidate Reva Dhingra wrote in an email that though the town

hall signaled the department appears to be taking students’ concerns “seriously,” a thorough reckoning with the department’s problems would not come without an independent review.

“The main takeaway from the Domínguez case last year was that, for nearly 40 years, the Government department and Harvard administration failed to protect its students, staff, and faculty from sexual harassment by a faculty member,” she wrote.

“Addressing this decades-long failure requires a clear, thorough, and impartial diagnosis of the problems.”

In progress report released alongside the survey results earlier this month, committee members wrote that they drafted a memo calling on administrators to sponsor an external

SEE TOWN HALL PAGE 9

Students enjoy free food at the Harvard College Events Board’s “Welcome to Wellness” event on Feb. 15. MIA B. FROTHINGHAM—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

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THE HARVARD CRIMSON |

FEBRUARY 19, 2019

PAGE 2

HARVARD TODAY

For Lunch Philly Cheese Steak Sub Roasted Honey Lime Chicken Grilled Chickpea Cakes

For Dinner Fish Taco with Arcadian Red Fish Thai Green Chicken Curry Vegetable Lo Mein with Tofu

TODAY’S EVENTS Plaza WinterFest Science Center Plaza, 12-7 p.m.

IN THE REAL WORLD

Plaza Winterfest continues this week, so roll through to play some fun games with pals on Science Center Plaza (Cornhole! Curling! Ping Pong!). Have fun but stay safe; make sure not to slip on the ice.

Coalition of 16 States Bring Lawsuit Against Trump

A group of 16 states has filed a lawsuit in San Francisco’s Federal District Court following President Donald Trump’s Friday announcement of a national emergency concerning the border wall. The suit alleges that diverting funds to the border wall is outside of the president’s purview and that the border crisis is “manufactured”.

The Majority Makers Littauer L-163, 4:30-5:45 p.m.

Come check out Aisha MoodieMills’s study group at the IOP all about the “Majority Makers,” this week featuring a very special guest: U.S. Representative Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.)! Head to Littauer L-163 (the Faculty Dining Room) if you’re interested.

Free Speech, Open Minds, and the Pursuit of Truth Institute of Politics, 6-7:15 p.m.

Cornel West and Robert George will be leading a talk in the JFK Jr. Forum. It’ll feature big data, the meaning of truth, and some good ol’ Harvard-Princeton friendship.

Possible Absentee Ballot Tampering in N.C. State House

Henry Welsh ’20 goes up for a shot in Harvard’s 75-68 overtime win against University of Pennsylvania on Feb. 16. TIMOTHY R. O’MEARA—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

DAILY BRIEFING Former Office of Technology Development employee Melissa Defay filed a lawsuit against Harvard Wednesday alleging the University racially discriminated against her, failed to accommodate her disability, and retaliated against her when she raised these concerns. The 16-page complaint alleges that Harvard Senior Associate Provost and Chief Technology Officer Isaac T. Kohlberg and OTD Director of Financial Operations Marie Letelier directed discriminatory statements and actions toward her. In other news, United States Representative Ayanna S. Pressley joined protesters in Harvard Square in condemning President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency to build a border wall and other immigration policies during a President’s Day rally Monday afternoon.

Lisa Britt, a key witness in the investigation regarding alleged ballot tampering in a North Carolina congressional race during the 2018 midterm elections, has admitted to being paid to fill out blank ballots in favor of the Republican candidate Mark Harris. Because of this ongoing investigation, the race still remains unresolved.

Iconic ‘Kissing Sailor’ George Mendonsa Dies at 95

The man believed to be the sailor pictured in the “Kiss” photograph after Japan’s surrender in World War II has died at age 95 after suffering heart failure. After years of debate over who was actually featured in the iconic photo, Mendonsa was essentially confirmed as the man pictured, letting his memorable image live on.

AROUND THE IVIES PRINCETON Princeton will host a “Day of Action” on Wednesday to raise awareness about the detainment of Princeton Ph.D. student Xiyue Wang, the Daily Princetonian reported. Wang is a third-year history student who was arrested in Iran for charges of espionage. Although the United Nations concluded that Wang should be released several months ago, he has now been held in Iran for over 900 days. The event in support of Wang will include a call-a-thon, several talks, and a moment of silence.

PENN

According to the Daily Pennsylvanian, former Penn employee Kenya Harris is suing the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Pennsylvania Health System for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act. Harris alleges that she was terminated from her position after asking for an extension to her leave from work for breast cancer treatment. Harris had already received time off under the Family and Medical Leave Act, but her final request was denied. Her lawsuit was filed on Feb. 11, and a Penn Medicine spokesperson declined to comment on the pending litigation.

BROWN

Brown University produced the most Fulbright scholars of any U.S. institution for the third consecutive year in 2018, the Brown Daily Herald reported. Brown has placed among the top ten institutions for producing Fulbright winners for the past decade. This year, the cohort included 35 new scholars — two more than the second place institution, Princeton. The university also had 65 semifinalists this year, a Brown record.

THE UNIVERSITY DAILY, EST. 1873

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

Associate Managing Editors Caroline S. Engelmayer ’20 Jamie D. Halper ’20 Associate Business Manager Amy E. Zhou ’20 Editorial Chairs Jessenia N. Class ’20 Robert Miranda ’20

STAFF FOR THIS ISSUE Arts Chairs Kaylee S. Kim ’20 Caroline A. Tsai ’20

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

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

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

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 Jordan E. Virtue ’20

Design Editor Matthew J. Tyler ’22

Assistant Night Editors Kevin R. Chen ’22 Iris M. Lewis ’21

Photo Editors Sung K. Oh ’21 Callie E. Rennyson ’20

Story Editors Angela N. Fu ’20 Jamie D. Halper ’20 Lucy Wang ’20 Michael E. Xie ’20 Luke W. Xu ’20 Andrew J. Zucker ’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.

THE HARVARD CRIMSON | FEBRUARY 19, 2019 | PAGE 3

ARTS

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Behind the Scenes: The Making of the First GenderNeutral Hasty Pudding Show

the week in arts

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TUESDAY A BRIEF HISTORY OF JAPANESE AMERICANS BY MCTHEPROFESSOR.GOV For the Japanese-American Day of Remembrance, the self-proclaimed “lecture band” MCtheProfessor.GOV, led by local DIY musician and educator James Ikeda, will be performing a piece reflecting on the history of the internment of Japanese Americans.

Pink Noise Studio in Somerville. 7:30-9:30 p.m. Free.

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Wednesday WHEN ANGELS FALL ArtsEmerson will be hosting the New England debut of French circus performer Raphaëlle Boitel’s choreographic piece about human resistance and resilience in a dystopian setting.

Emerson Cutler Majestic Theatre. Begins at 7:30 p.m.

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Thursday

ELI KESZLER, WENDY EISENBERG, ARIAN SHAFIEE Three exciting experimental composers will be performing solo music, presented by the Boston Hassle and Non-Event, local underground music organizations.

School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts.

8:30-11:30 p.m. Student tickets are $10.

CHLOE I. YU / CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

JOY C. ASHFORD CRIMSON STAFF WRITER This past weekend, scores of students, faculty, and alumni packed into Farkas Hall to witness something unprecedented: the first show by the Hasty Pudding Theatricals with female cast members.

Many people in the Harvard community have worked together to pull off “France France Revolution,” from tech and lighting crews, to the seamstresses who produce the cast’s larger-than-life costumes.

But when it came time to bring this idea to life, arguably few were more involved than Michael R. Perusse ’20 and Max R. Weiss ’20.

As the show’s two co-writers, they were responsible for creating a script that maintained the signature Pudding style in a show that is no longer all male.

As Weiss and Perusse described the experience, they said that they could not have been more excited about the opportunity to create the story for this historic show.

“When we heard the announcement at last year’s Woman of the Year show preview, we immediately texted each other: We have to write this show,” Perusse said. “We feel immeasurably honored.”

“We get to do more things, we get a larger talent pool, and it makes for an all-around better show having all genders in the cast,” Weiss added.

According to Weiss and Perusse, the show’s casting may have changed, but the fundamental structure remains. Like in previous years, the production still contains six men and six women — only now, those “men” and “women” can be played by people of any gender.

“In the script-writing process, we wrote the script not knowing what genders would be filling the roles,” Weiss said.

“We wrote six roles that presented as female and six that presented as male. Once we came to casting, it was just like, she is hilarious playing him, he is hilarious playing her.

Which we wouldn’t be able to do if we cast people who identified as males as our male characters.”

Once casting was over, the authors combed back through the script to tailor it to each performer.

“There’s a huge revision process, and any line in the show’s that’s said probably had potentially eight people think it was decent,” Perusse said. They estimated that only 20 percent of their original work made it into the final version, and they continued editing long into the rehearsal process.

“Two weeks leading up to the show we had line edits coming out twice a day, based on things like the length of the script, what set pieces could be made, and what we had

available,” Perusse said. “It was really a lot of optimizing up until opening night.”

This year’s costumes, like the casting process, have many structural similarities to those of prior Hasty Pudding shows.

“Every costume would be the same no matter who is playing the character – the only differences would be the dimensions when it comes to the fitting room,” Perusse said. “The costumer begins working on designs around the same time as casting, as the script starts to become more concrete. There aren’t, as far as we know, any particular changes that are done because of the gender.”

The authors also talked about their relationship with the Pudding’s long tradition of cross-dressing and how it functioned within their story of star-crossed French lovers.

“We usually don’t talk about our cross-dressing as ‘drag,’ because it means something specific and has roots in the LGBTQ+ community,” Weiss said.

“I think that our cross-dressing allows for a couple of different opportunities that make the show special. We’re able with the audience to laugh at the absurdity of gender construction and gender as a social construct because we can blur the lines a ton. And we get to just cast the best actor for the role.”

Cross-dressing has always been a part of Pudding shows, and Weiss and Perusse emphasized the importance of keeping “France France Revolution” true to the Pudding’s original spirit.

“We’ve watched videos of older shows to make sure that we stick to the same style,” Weiss said. “We aren’t doing a different style of show.”

Weiss and Perusse said that they heard positive feedback on their work from long-term Pudding members.

“The opening weekend show is where the majority of the alumni come back. Overwhelmingly, they were saying how excited they were to see this change come true. And also how amazed they were that so much of the ‘feeling’ remained,” Perusse said.

Now that the show has opened, Weiss and Perusse finally have the opportunity to sit back and watch how their final product is received.

“We haven’t touched the script,” Perusse said. After many months of fine-tuning, their job is finally finished.

It’s now up audiences to make up their minds about “France France Revolution” — and the new era it signals in the long history of the Hasty Pudding.

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Friday THE NIGHT IS SHORT, WALK ON GIRL Part of the The Boston Festival of Films from Japan, “The Night Is Short, Walk on Girl” tells the delightfully trippy animated tale of one college student’s all-night bender in Kyoto.

The MFA. 8-9:40 p.m. Tickets $10-13.

Saturday

HALLELUJAH THE HILLS + ARGO ARKESTRA Cult favorite Boston indie rockers Hallelujah the Hills will be performing at the intimate Lilypad in Inman Square with support from Argo Arkestra.

The Lilypad. 10:30 p.m. - midnight. Advance tickets $10 or $12 cover at door.

Sunday

KUSAMA: INFINITY Tells the story of the beloved contemporary artist Yayoi Kusama, known particularly for her mirrored “infinity rooms.”

MFA. 11 a.m. - 12:25 p.m. Tickets $10-13.

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Monday VINCE STAPLES Critically acclaimed California rapper Vince Staples will be performing at the House of Blues in support of his third studio album FM! with openers Buddy and Armani White.

House of Blues. 7 p.m. Tickets from $32.50

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

19 February 2019 | Vol CXLVI, ISSUE Ii Arts Chairs Kaylee S. Kim ‘20 Caroline A. Tsai ’20

Editor Associates Liana E. Chow ‘21 Aline G. Damas ’20 Danielle L. Eisenman ‘21

Iris M. Lewis ‘21 Claire N. Park ‘20 Isabel C. Ruehl ‘20 Allison J. Scharmann ‘21 Caroline E. Tew ’20 Shruthi Venkata ‘22 Lucy Wang ’20

Executive Designer Mireya C. Arango ‘20

Executive Photographers

Design Associates

Kathryn S. Kuhar ‘20 Zennie L. Wey ‘20

Amanda Stetz ‘22

ARTS

THE HARVARD CRIMSON | FEBRUARY 19, 2019 | PAGE 4

MUSIC

If You Think Avril Lavigne is a ‘Dumb Blonde,’ Watch Her Prove You Wrong SHAY Z. PEZZULO CONTRIBUTING WRITER

COURTESY OF AVRIL LAVIGNE/BMG

Alongside Nicki Minaj, Avril Lavigne brings back the sound of mid-2000s guilty pleasure music in her new single, “Dumb Blonde.” With the opening drums unmistakably reminiscent of the cheery, pep rally beat of High School Musical’s “We’re All in This Together” and Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl,” the third single from Lavigne’s comeback album, “Head Above Water,” is both refreshingly nostalgic and rallying, even if the collaboration yields less than expected.

Laden with the same distinctive upbeat vocals as her iconic pop-punk single “Girlfriend,” Lavigne sings during “Dumb Blonde’s” infectious chorus, “I ain’t no dumb blonde / I ain’t no stupid Barbie doll / I got my game on (Just watch me) / Watch me, watch me, watch me prove you wrong.” Relative to the chorus, the verses are anthemic: “Well, there you go again tellin’ me where I belong / You put me on the bench, don’t think that I can play strong / So quick to condescend, well, you think I’m empty, I’m not / You won’t be so confident when I’m crushin’ you from the top.” In a stream of Instagram posts celebrating the song’s release, Lavigne wrote, “We wrote Dumb Blonde as an anthem for anyone who has been stereotyped or talked down to. Keep your confidence and don’t let anyone tell you how to be.”

While the critical activist might condemn a song like “Dumb Blonde” for having a simplistic message, the single’s uncomplicated, peppy style takes on an important feminist role. Fighting the “dumb blonde” stereotype is a classic angle; however, when laced into such an easy, unassuming song, the

lyrics form a strong anthem. Indeed, the song and its handle on feminism perfectly captures the dumb blonde stereotype itself. Although the song, taken at face value, may feel like just another simplistic pop tune, repeated listening reveals that this is a gross underestimation (“you think I’m empty, I’m not”).

In a world where even the word “feminism” evokes controversy, “Dumb Blonde” serves as a very real — if unobtrusive — ode to female empowerment.

The one downside of the song is Nicki Minaj’s potentially forgettable verse. While wellperformed, it feels as though Minaj’s part was added only last-minute. Years of the pop/rap trend have unfortunately produced many songs in which the rap verse seems hardly anything more than an afterthought. With songs like Taylor Swift’s “Bad Blood (Remix),” it’s clear that many pop stars in the industry exploit prominent rap artists for their talent and celebrity. While several of Minaj’s past features break this tendency and actually add a new flavor to each song, Minaj’s feature on “Dumb Blonde” has little substance outside of referencing her past works. Juxtaposed with Minaj’s unapologetic Barbie-esque characterizations on albums like “Pink Friday,” her verse on a single with a chorus featuring the line “I ain’t no stupid Barbie doll” feels disingenuous.

All this being said, Lavigne and Minaj’s radiofriendly single certainly has the potential to be a hit. A salute to songs played on iPod nanos and sang along to in the shower, “Dumb Blonde” is a shameless pleasure with an enticingly subtle feminist theme.

Aching for A New Path

COLUMN

CARLA E. TROCONIS CONTRIBUTING WRITER The clock read 2:08 p.m. and there was a steady, pattering rain hitting the plastic, tent-like roof that stood above El Arepazo’s outdoor seating section. A group of men, all around their late fifties by the look of their weathered faces and worn out tank tops or an errant guayabera, sat around the table and volleyed “panas” and “chamos” around in an attempt to wait out the Florida rain that came and went as quickly as the smoldering flame of their cigarettes. At any given time, there were people outside of El Arepazo. When the sun was out and the humidity hung heavy in the air, the men lingered and leaned back in the metal chairs set out in front of the restaurant, picking at their “cachapas” or throwing back their fourth cup of “café — marroncito, por favor.” Their eyes wandered, hanging on this pair of legs stopping in for a “cachito” or that pair of arms balancing two trays of “arepas” for some community gathering. When no person beautiful or interesting enough for them happened by, their eyes settled, unfocused, on some point in the distance that lay between their lives in Doral and their memories in Caracas. When it rained, they shuffled under cover and waited for it to end, maybe pulling out a pack of cards or set of dominoes or, if one man felt particularly ready to have a little “bonche” right there, a six pack of beer.

The languid lingering of the men outside transformed into a watering hole when you entered the restaurant, strangely contained by the two glass doors yet exuberantly active at most times of the morning and afternoon. Right now, however, at 2:08 p.m., the restaurant’s interior resembled its exterior a bit more than usual. A few customers sat scattered throughout, nursing coffees in little cups or indulging in a late lunch of “pabellon criollo.” The usual din was absent and the silence seeped into everything so even the “empanadas” resting in their glass cases looked deflated, like the cheese inside of them had hardened despite the stubborn heat and their puffed layers sagged with only empty air to support them. At all hours of the day, the six televisions mounted on the walls were on, usually playing some soccer or baseball game. On days like this, however, there were no men in jerseys to be seen. Instead, a newscaster with glasses on was talking to the camera, voice straining above the roar of the crowds behind her. The newscaster, who seemed like six different people as I sat in the middle of the crowd of tables and let myself be surrounded by the screens, was cutting in and out as she talked to the cameraman. She turned to the man next to her and thrust the microphone forward so he could speak. Together, the two of them were a sharp blur of red, yellow, and blue, no part of their body not covered in one of the three, if not all at once with a set of stars scattered on top. A flag with the same colors trembled in the man’s clutch, jerking in the wind so violently it blended it in with his shirt — a living, breathing “tricolor.” The camera jostled as he leaned forward, so close, and yelled.

“Today we have won! No turnout, complete abstention. It is a day of victory for Venezuela.”

His smile was large, teeth perfectly straight. As I watched his six reflections play back on the screens, a dizzying hall of political mirrors, I thought he might be an attractive man if I had seen 1

him on any other day, in any other place. But today, in all his vibrancy and forced victory, he ached to believe his words too much.

In one word, he was desperate.

*** On May 20, 2018, Venezuela held long-awaited presidential elections between Nicolas Maduro, incumbent dictator of Venezuela, Henri Falcon of the Progressive Advance party, and Javier Bertucci of the Hope for Change party. The latter two candidates, through their own labels and those of the regime in power, were considered the opposition. In the mind of the diaspora, however, neither were candidates to be voted for. Both Bertucci and Falcon were accused of being “enchufado,” or plugged into the system — corrupt. Though these claims were difficult to corroborate due to the general lack of reliable information systems in Venezuela and the complicated nature of tracing money trails, there was widespread anger at the participation of Falcon and Bertucci in elections that were clearly rigged from the beginning. Feeling as if there was no other option to internationally demonstrate this broken system, Venezuelans in the interior and abroad agreed to abstain from the election in a historic break from previous opposition tactics.

There had not been an opposition-wide call for abstention since the 2005 parliamentary elections, when this tactic backfired against the opposition and turned out a National Assembly with all 167 seats won by President Hugo Chavez’s Fifth Republic Movement and allied, pro-government parties. However, after election after election going to the ruling party (PSUV) despite robust and active opposition, the populace agreed on abstention to delegitimize Maduro’s regime and remove any false trappings of democracy still being used by the government. Venezuelans, weathered by decades of fighting against increasingly skewed electoral playing fields, decided to go with a cynical but effective tactic that would send a clear message.

In a way, what I heard the man tell newscaster Carla Angola that day was correct. It was a day of victory for abstention, with a record low turnout rate of 32.3 percent by the time the polls closed, showing that the vast majority of Venezuelans were against Maduro and his fraudulent elections. May 20 and the spark of hope it ignited within the opposition internationally would become a crucial turning point in the current movement by interim President Juan Guaidó and the majority of the Venezuelan population to oust Nicolas Maduro. The energy put in place by the diaspora that day will continue to linger all throughout the community, invigorating hubs like El Arepazo from Doral to Caracas.

A “guayabera” is a men’s summer shirt traditionally worn in the Caribbean, throughout northern Latin America, and in South Florida in Latinx communities.

“Pana” and “chamo” are Venezuelan slang words for “friend” or “buddy.”

3 “Bonche” is a slang word for party.

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COURTESY OF CARLA E. TROCONIS

ARTS

THE HARVARD CRIMSON | FEBRUARY 19, 2019 | PAGE 5

FILM

‘Roma’ A Remarkably Beautiful Masterpiece LANZ AARON G. TAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

COURTESY OF NETFLIX

When you think of prolific, tentpole directors that anchor awards season darlings, like Steven Spielberg or Martin Scorsese, you’ll be forgiven if Alfonso Cuarón isn’t the first name to come to mind.

Part of that is likely due to the rarity of his big screen projects: “Roma” is only Cuarón’s fourth film over the past fifteen years, his previous three being “Gravity” (2013), a sweeping outer-space spectacle, “Children of Men” (2006), a dystopian science fiction thriller, and “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,” the third installment in the fantasy series (2004). Needless to say, that leaves Cuarón with an extremely varied — perhaps even fantastical — filmography in recent years. But his latest release returns to earth with the grounded reality of “Roma,” much of which Cuarón has based on his own childhood memories. Even working on a comparatively smaller scale than he has in his other films, Cuarón breathes life into the titular Mexico City suburb by giving “Roma” a vibrant, beating heart.

The beauty of “Roma” lies with its powerful performances, stunningly detailed cinematography, and emotionally rich narrative, elements that are at times undermined by scenes verging on melodrama.

The film revolves around both the hardships faced by domestic worker Cleo Gutiérrez, played

by Yalitza Aparicio in her feature film debut, and her relationship with the upper class family she works for — in particular, the matriarch of the family, Sofia (Marina de Tavira). At the core of this film are stunning portrayals of strength and resilience by these two characters with jarringly different socioeconomic backgrounds, as they make tough decisions after being abandoned by the men in their lives. Cleo faces difficulties with her boyfriend, Fermín (Jorge Antonio Guerrera), and Sofia’s irresponsible husband, Dr. Alexander (Fernando Grediaga), is on a vexingly prolonged “business trip.”

“Roma” centers on Cleo’s perspective, and even when her character faces adversity, Aparicio brings a careful generosity to her performance. It feels so natural that her gentle warmth is almost infectious. Cleo deals with Sofia’s children so well that they are perhaps more emotionally attached to her than they are to their mother. Nothing portrays this dynamic better than an early scene in which the family watches television with their arms around each other, and Cleo, after collecting used plates, sits on the floor next to the children on the sofa. An arm reaches out to her before Sofia calls for her service: There is a clear affectionate bond here, but class hierarchy takes precedence over

Cleo’s personal relationship with the children. Cuarón interweaves some important socioeconomic context to illustrate this relationship to the audience, namely the stark divisions along class lines and the subsequent political tension between the employers and the employed. With a film already packed tightly with emotional baggage, this context often takes a backseat to the domestic struggles faced by these two characters (mainly Cleo), but is appropriately subtle to give the audience sufficient background.

Cinematography elevates the degree of realism in the film and allows for deep emotional connections with the characters. “Roma” is simply beautiful to look at. Cuarón shot the film in widescreen grayscale, and it’s all too easy to find oneself immersed in his luridly detailed scenes. The camera pans seamlessly through the rooms of the house, weaving in between columns and connecting long scenes of dialogue in takes that seem so natural and visceral that at times, it can feel as if one is encroaching on the privacy of the characters. Cuarón turns the commonplace into spectacle. From the meticulously constructed opening shot of a treacle of soapy water spilling over tiles to reveal in its reflection a window of light, to one of the most unique, cinematic car parking scenes, Cuarón focuses on unquestionably mundane objects and scenarios. Yet there is never a pedestrian shot in the film’s 135 minute runtime.

Many of these carefully crafted moments are so gut-wrenching and painfully resonant that they can be difficult to watch. One scene in particular tackles the theme of loss so intimately that it’s difficult to avert one’s eyes as Cleo tries helplessly to brave through not only a physically taxing struggle but also a grievous bereavement. As the film draws to its conclusion, Cuarón runs the risk of oversensationalizing Cleo’s heroism in a particularly dramatic scene involving the children under her supervision. Ultimately, however, Cuarón compensates for this minor misstep with the final cathartic moments that wrap up the film, which are more than fulfilling. “Roma” is a poignant experience that will be imprinted in one’s memory for years to come.

“Roma” was released on Netflix in December 2018, has won two Golden Globes, and has been nominated for 10 Academy Awards.

TV

‘Sex Education’ Finally Brings Depth to Teen Dramas LINDSEY B. BOULDIN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

COURTESY OF NETFLIX

In its first episode, “Sex Education” seems to harken back to the traditional high school drama series: A big, bad bully terrorizes the school’s social loner, while his best friend is in love with a girl who is seemingly out of his league. Even the jocks roam the school with their green and yellow letterman jackets. However, what at first seems cliché instead turns into an engrossing TV series about the lives of students at Moordale Secondary School.

Netflix’s new eight episode series follows the lives of highschool students Otis Millburn (Asa Butterfield) and his best friend Eric Effiong (Ncuti Gatwa). Taking inspiration from his mom’s career as a sex therapist, Otis teams with social outcast Maeve Wiley (Emma Mackey) to create a career for himself giving advice to his peers about their sex lives (or lack thereof) at their school.

Despite being one of creator Laurie Nunn’s first works, her show twists overdone and overplayed character tropes through sharp, clever subversions. The show masterfully mixes humor with serious moments, producing a work that is insightful, captivating, and heart-warming.

Otis and his mother Jean (Gillian Anderson) have a dynamic relationship that is hilarious, but still relatable. While Jean is a sex therapist (and thus no stranger to uncomfortable conversations), Otis is sexually repressed, disgusted even by the idea of masturbating. Time after time, Jean pushes Otis to talk about his sexual issues, fracturing Jean’s relationship with her son by blending her professional job with her role as a mother. Despite the unique circumstances of their relationship, Otis and Jean

are relatable because many experience similar issues of teenage independence and the infringement thereof. Regardless, this dichotomy is refreshing from the usual parent-child relationship characteristic of teen dramas.

Adding depth to the plot, Otis’s best friend Eric is one of the most compelling characters on television at the moment. As one of two openly gay kids at his school, Eric stands out. Known for being loud, Eric loves dancing and wearing fun, bright clothes. In his spare time, he practices applying makeup in his room, much to the chagrin of his overprotective father. Because of his family’s religious background, one would imagine that this parent-son relationship would be strained and unhealthy. Though there is strife in the relationship, Eric’s father does not push his son to change, instead he aims to protect his safety in a world still riddled with homophobia.

Maeve Wiley is another of the main characters, played compellingly by Emma Mackey. Despite the fact that this is the actress’s first role on the screen, she portrays her character comfortably. Even though the character builds a wall between herself and the world around her, small mannerisms, such as her constant nail biting, clue the viewer to her true psyche as a nervous and sensitive person. Her story makes her a particularly moving character. Her dad abandoned both her and her brother, leaving them in the care of her drug-addicted mother who eventually leaves as well. After her brother skips town due to a drug deal gone bad, Maeve is forced to fend for herself, turning to shoplifting and

doing homework for others for money, and eventually running the business end of Otis’ sex clinic. The show focuses on her battle between survival and school, where she is a silent over-achiever.

Unfortunately for new viewers, the first episode does not uphold the quality of the overall show. The accents are the only clue for the setting, which is a vague mesh of America and England.

The town is more forest than buildings, the school is Americanized with lockers and letterman jackets. Even the decade isn’t clear until PornHub is mentioned. It is also a fairly shocking work of television, to say the least. Though the viewer can expect sex to be featured, most viewers aren’t prepared to see a man’s genitals on their screens. Fortunately, the show’s unique concept and its humor is enough to keep a person invested.

Despite the hiccups of the first episode, complex relationships make “Sex Education” different from other shows of its genre. The viewer wants Otis to find his strength and ask the girl out. The viewer want Jean to break habits fostered by her failed marriage.

The viewer wants Eric to feel comfortable in his character even while the world challenges him. Regardless of the character, the viewer wants them to succeed. This multidimensionality of the characters creates an interesting situation where this show does not have a “villain,” so to speak. Just as in real life, people are more complex than they seem to be on the surface, which the show reflects. More than anything, the characters are a reflection of the 21st century rather than worn out ideas of the past, and “Sex Education” gives hope to the future of teen dramas.

ARTS

THE HARVARD CRIMSON | FEBRUARY 19, 2019 | PAGE 6

FILM

‘Dear Ex’ Navigates Grief In a Complex Love Story JENNA X. BAO CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

With a premise that revolves around loss, family, betrayal, love, and healing, “Dear Ex” had the potential to go just about anywhere in terms of tone and artistic direction — from introspective to melodramatic to comedic.

Disappointingly though, in reality, Chih-Yen Hsu and Mag Hsu’s Taiwanese Netflix film ends up touching on all these and more in presenting an emotional journey through grief, but without quite tying them together cohesively.

“Dear Ex” starts with a confrontation between the newly widowed Liu Sanlian (Ying-Xuan Hsieh) and Jay (Roy Chiu), the longtime gay lover of her late husband Zhengyuan (Spark Chen) and the unexpected beneficiary of his life insurance. Song’s teenage son Song Chengzi (Joseph Huang) rounds out the main cast and narrates with the fittingly moody and confused voice of a middle school student whose family has been wholly upended several times over. In an act of rebellion and in an effort to better understand his father, Chengxi leaves home to stay with Jay. The film follows these three characters as they come to terms with the loss of a man they all loved and the mess he left behind.

This film had massive potential to develop compelling characters with wildly complex relationships, but it falls short. The film’s standout performance comes from Chiu’s Jay, an over-the-top mess of a character whose callousness barely conceals the love and grief he never had permission to express openly. In particular, Jay’s unshed tears and expressions of longing, together with the gorgeously filmed flashbacks of his relationship with Zhengyuan, flesh out both men in a truly heartbreaking fashion.

Unfortunately, the directors do not explore Chengxi with nearly as much depth, and he seems at times more like a plot device meant only to anger his mother. In theory, a young teen trying to understand his late father as an individual ought to make for a poignant narrative. While Huang delivers a reasonably compelling performance, Chengxi’s long, contemplative bouts of silence are not illuminating enough to justify his character’s supposed development.

Finally, Sanlian is a bit harder to empathize with despite the initial impression that she is in the most pitiable situation. As her own son states in the film, she lives her life as if everyone in the world owes her something, and

COURTESY OF NETFLIX

at first viewing, her near-constant yelling is unbearably abrasive and gratuitous. Her shouting matches with Jay are also frustratingly irrational, even given her blatant homophobia. She insists that Jay return her husband’s life insurance despite making it so that he cannot actually take advantage of it. Then, she demands that he takes care of her son after Chengxi starts staying with Jay, all while threatening and insulting him. Yet, once Sanlian reaches her lowest point and breaks down in front of her son’s therapist, it becomes clear just how devastated she is over the fact that the family to which she has devoted her life is a lie. Her husband has chosen someone else even in death, and her son clings to the very man that symbolizes everything she has lost. Her near-constant outrage is a reaction to her total lack of agency in her most critical personal relationships. Her character may not be likeable — perhaps due to a performance that simply lacks nuance — but she is overwhelmingly human in her dramatic outbursts and is therefore compelling.

Despite the shortcomings in some of the actors, “Dear Ex” is beautifully filmed and directed. Chih-Yen Hsu and Mag Hsu frame each of the main characters right in the

middle of long shots that make them seem isolated even when they are in scenes with others. Often, characters — Jay in particular — have their backs to the camera, their postures reflecting the shameful and hidden nature of the relationships at the center of this drama. The directors integrate frequent flashbacks through the narrative, and ironically, these hazy, warmly-lit romantic moments are the saddest of all because what could have been contrasts starkly with the messy reality of what has happened.

Just like its characters, “Dear Ex” is imperfect, yet emotionally gripping, as it presents broken individuals seeking resolution for their messy and interwoven pasts.

Despite the film’s jagged edges, the storyline is quietly beautiful, and ultimately holds itself together with love instead of being fragmented by grief.

Staff writer Jenna X. Bao can be reached at jenna.bao@thecrimson.com.

BOOKS

‘Bicycle in a Ransacked City: An Elegy’ Is A Heartbreaking and Youthful Confession TADHG G. LARABEE CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

Andres Cerpa’s first collection of poetry is intense and devastating. Titled “Bicycle in a Ransacked City: An Elegy,” the collection has much to elegize: a father, a place, a family, a childhood. Always at the center of the ruminating, confessional poems is Cerpa himself, a young poet from Staten Island who is forced to care for his ill father, while dealing with drug abuse and depression as he enters adulthood.

Cerpa’s voice is reminiscent of an adolescent Sylvia Plath writing Rainer Maria Rilke poems. To read this collection is to step into Cerpa’s mind — to enter a ransacked world, bleak yet beautiful.

In the final line of the collection, Cerpa writes, “I have learned the world’s secret: that all is lost, even the losing.”

Much is lost in “Bicycle in a Ransacked City.” Most visible, however, is the loss of Cerpa’s father, who developed Parkinson’s disease at 44. Cerpa’s father is a figure of both love and horror in the collection. In “Seasonal without Spring: Autumn,” Cerpa says his father “became distant with disease the way a boy falls beneath the ice / before the men that cannot save him— / the cold like a forever on his lips.”

Audible in these lines are Cerpa’s contradictory feelings towards his father. Facing the once brilliant man who now wears Depend diapers, Cerpa is both the scared boy of “At the Tree Line” and the helpless caretaker of “Portrait & Shadow” and “Fear of Intimacy.”

But Cerpa’s poems are about much more than his feelings.

Behind Cerpa’s raw confessional poems is a careful symbolic structure that gives his free verse a sense of psychological unity. Death appears in many forms throughout the collection, often accompanied by birds. “Seasonal without Spring: Winter” finds the poet depressed, with “the page open to the forest of Dante’s suicides / while a blue bird cocks its head on the sill.” And “Buried in Darkness, Light” shows us the poet in a heroin haze on a train, watching “the light of decay” breathe “through its yellow teeth, clear as birdsong.”

The origin of this association between birds and death becomes clear when Cerpa’s father describes Parkinson’s to him by saying, “This is what it does to you,” and gesturing, with trembling hands, to “so many birds rising in unison.”

In many ways, this pairing is apt: Birds herald the new day,

COURTESY OF ALICE JAMES BOOKS

and Cerpa’s anxiety about the loss of time is never far from his fear of death.

The most evocative era in Cerpa’s life seems to be his childhood, as evoked by the ever-present bicycle symbolism.

Bicycles bookend the collection, appearing in the title, on the

front cover, and in an image of the poet’s father printed after the last poem. Yet the symbol of the bicycle is only alive in Cerpa’s memory: “Portrait & Shadow” contains a childhood flashback in which his father “lifts me onto the back of his bicycle / he pedals while I glide above the city in wonder.”

Present bicycles appear decayed and battered: In “So Close to an Ending,” “the buried half of a wheel” represents the remnants of a bicycle left to rust, and in turn, Cerpa’s tumultuous relationship with adulthood. Cerpa is barely a young adult, and disease has destroyed his childhood, just as weather has rusted the bicycle. Throughout the collection, Cerpa struggles to build an adult identity from this wreckage of a childhood erased.

Cerpa’s search for maturity is compelling, but it is also one of his collection’s greatest weaknesses. The parts of “Bicycle in a Ransacked City” not about Cerpa’s father read like the work of a young poet. While this is understandable, it is also limiting. Cerpa seems to be interested in all the subjects young writers are supposed to find interesting.

He smokes spliffs and walks around the city at night. He drops street names from Paris, Berlin, and New York. He gets blackout drunk and asks someone if they love him. He is enthralled by a bird tattooed on a girl’s back. These are all honest sentiments, and Cerpa articulates them well, but together they reduce the poems to an unusually high-quality specimen of the often cringy genre of verse about alienated young artists.

That said, Andres Cerpa is a poet with potential. His next collection, The Vault, is scheduled to come out in June 2021. Cerpa recently published three poems from The Vault in The Offing magazine, and they are promising. Light yet weighty, the three poems develop motifs from Cerpa’s first collection in more abstract, yet still lyrical verse. Every poem in “Bicycle in a Ransacked City: An Elegy” takes something from you. Each breaks your heart in its own surprising and sophisticated way. If Cerpa can write about new subjects with the same emotional power, he will cement his place as a poet to watch.

Staff writer Tadhg G. Larabee can be reached at tadhg.larabee@thecrimson.com.

PAGE 7

THE HARVARD CRIMSON | FEBRUARY 19, 2019

LAWSUIT FROM PAGE 1

Employee Sues Harvard for Discrimination Harvard in 2003 as a financial assistant for Harvard University Dining Services. She then joined OTD in 2005 as a financial coordinator and assumed the role of Senior Financial Administrator in 2016, according to the complaint.

Kohlberg also appointed Defay to work as Director of Financial Operations on an interim basis on several occasions, the complaint states.

The complaint also notes that Defay suffers from nummular headache syndrome, a neurological disorder similar to migraines, and that her son has been diagnosed with a form of autism.

During her time working at Harvard, her employers were allegedly aware of this disorder and for nearly 10 years had granted her accommodations, including flex time to attend medical appointments and permission to work remotely on Mondays.

Defay applied to the permanent position of Director of Financial Operations in September 2016, according to the complaint. At the time, Kohlberg asked her to assume the director position on an interim basis in addition to her role as a financial administrator, along with another employee in the department.

In the complaint, Defay lists several instances in which Kohlberg allegedly did not treat her equally to other candidates vying for the position. Shortly after Letelier was hired as the new director, Defay also charges that she was not accommodated for her disability.

University spokesperson Brigid O’Rourke declined to comment on the suit in an email Saturday.

“I can’t comment on any ongoing litigation, however, I can assure you that Harvard is deeply committed to fostering and maintaining an inclusive, diverse, and safe work environment for all,” O’Rourke wrote.

Kohlberg and Letelier referred to the University’s statement when asked for comment.

Shortly after being appointed interim director, Defay brought concerns to Kohlberg that she would be working two full-time jobs without sufficient compensation, according to the suit. Kohlberg allegedly responded by saying that Defay was “focused on minutiae” and that she should be “grateful someone like her” was given the position.

Kohlberg also allegedly told Defay that she “would not be meeting with any other OTD directors in the interim position,” a move that Defay saw as racially motivated. The complaint also states that Kohlberg made racist statements when he “en-

gaged in a loud conversation” with a former colleague near Defay’s desk, saying he was an “elitist” and does not believe in “social equality.”

The lawsuit also points to instances in which Defay alleges she was excluded from the hiring process for the director position.

The suit states that Defay had not been contacted by the hiring committee for an interview when they began interviewing candidates in October 2016.

Defay was informed at that time that Kohlberg had said he was concerned about Defay’s “physical presence” serving as

“While Ms. Defay separated from Harvard in June of 2017, her damages persist .”

John F. Tocci Defay’s Attorney

an impediment during meetings with university officials and high-level executives.

Several weeks later, a human resources department recruiter interviewed Defay over the phone, unlike other candidates, who initially met with the hiring committee, according to the complaint.

Defay eventually conducted two interviews with two members of the committee. Other candidates, however, met with all eight committee members, according to the suit.

Kohlberg informed Defay that she had not been chosen as the new director on Nov. 23, 2016.

According to the complaint, Kohlberg told Defay that Marie Letelier — the new director — had “superior credentials,” but Defay later learned Letelier only had a bachelor’s degree even though a master’s degree was required for the position.

Defay was one semester short of receiving her master’s degree at the time.

Defay also states that Kohlberg ordered her to train Letelier.

Defay found Letelier to be “incompetent” as she allegedly was unable to perform multiple essential tasks to the job such as performing “royalty distributions” and working with “complex spreadsheets.” Defay states in the complaint that Harvard’s decision to hire Letelier, who she described as a white woman, over herself constituted racism.

Letelier allegedly began questioning Defay’s disability accommodation in December 2016 and told Defay that she

could “get another job.” Letelier then required Defay and another African-American employee, Leota Smith, to attend a meeting where Letelier explained a new department-wide assessment into flex time.

Defay and Smith were the only African Americans in the finance department and the only two employees invited to the meeting, according to the complaint.

In a March 2017 meeting, Letelier allegedly accused Defay of failing to inform employees in OTD that she used a flexible schedule, despite having used this modified schedule for many years.

Letelier further stated that she “was not going to accommodate Ms. Defay” and if she wished, Defay could appeal for these accommodations, according to the complaint.

Defay then took a threemonth leave from OTD as her health declined. During her leave, Defay’s colleagues were allowed to keep their flex schedules and Defay’s personal belongings were either rearranged or thrown away, according to the complaint.

Defay later returned to work but alleged Letelier grew even more hostile toward her, leaving Defay out of staff emails and closely monitoring her lunch breaks.

The “most egregious” part of Letelier’s hostility was continuing to deny Defay of her flex schedule, a move that forced Defay to resign, the complaint states.

Defay alleges that she suffered “severe emotional distress and an exacerbation of her neurological condition.” Furthermore, the complaint states she continues to suffer due to the actions of Kohlberg, Letelier, and other Harvard employees.

John F. Tocci — an attorney for Defay — wrote in an email Friday that the complaint is “fairly extensive and clear.”

Tocci also said that in the state of Massachusetts, “a discrimination complaint must file a charge of discrimination with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination or the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission before proceeding to court,” which suggests that his team filed a charge with either commission.

“While Ms. Defay separated from Harvard in June of 2017, her damages persist and she looks forward to challenging Harvard’s illegal acts in this litigation - for herself and other Harvard employees who have faced institutional discrimination outside of the limelight of academia,” Tocci wrote. alexandra.chaidez@thecrimson.com aidan.ryan@thecrimson.com

A Grande Problem: Garage Starbucks to Close Its Doors

By ELLEN M. BURSTEIN and SYDNIE M. COBB CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

After more than 20 years in business, the Starbucks in Harvard’s Square’s Garage is set to close Friday at 9:30 p.m., the most recent in a string of closings sweeping through the Square.

The upcoming Garage closure marks the second Starbucks location to leave the Square in recent months. Another store in the Seattle-based franchise, previously located on Church Street, shuttered its doors in late 2018. In a letter addressed to customers, Starbucks district manager Bridget Cortese and store manager Jennifer Mau thanked the store’s clientele for their business.

“We would like to thank you for being part of our store community; you are the heart of who we are at Starbucks. It has

been a great pleasure to connect with you every day since 1996,” Cortese and Mau wrote.

With the departures of both the Garage and Church Street coffeehouses, the chain’s Harvard Yard location near the Harvard Square Kiosk is the last Starbucks outpost near the river.

For some Harvard College students, the Starbucks in the Garage doubled as a “social space.”

“This is a central hub for all the students who live along the river and even for the people who come from the Quad,” Yuki M. Zbytovsky ’20 said. “A lot of the time we run into a lot of our classmates, so this is also a good social space for us. I’m really, really bummed.”

Lauren A. Sierra ’19, a former Crimson editor, said the slew of closings in Harvard Square have caused her “heartbreak.”

Sierra called the Garage Star-

bucks her “safe haven.”

“When they come for my Starbucks, they come for me on a personal level,” she said.

Clea F. Schumer ’20 said the Garage Starbucks was a good location to avoid crowds of tourists.

“That other Starbucks is the one where all the tourists are,” Schumer said, referring to the Harvard Yard location. “If I wanted to get a quick drink, this has always been the spot for that. Plus, it has the nicest study vibes of all the coffee shops.”

If students are still looking for Starbucks lattes to satisfy their caffeine cravings, they can chose from the Harvard Yard location along Massachusetts Ave. or venture outside the Square to the franchise’s Shepard Post or Broadway Marketplace locations. ellen.burstein@thecrimson.com sydnie.cobb@thecrimson.com

College Announces New Diversity Working Group

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

Harvard College announced the creation of a new working group charged with examining how spaces and symbols on campus impact the student body and exploring new avenues for diversity-related programming on Tuesday morning.

Ali S. A. Asani ’77, a professor of Indo-Muslim and Islamic religion and cultures, will chair the group, called the Working Group on Symbols and Spaces of Engagement.

He will work with undergraduates alongside other faculty and staff to “examine how our campus spaces, symbols, and programming advance an inclusive learning environment,” according to its stated mission.

In an emailed statement, Asani highlighted the educational goals of the working group, saying he hopes to increase students’ engagement with issues of diversity.

“What I am hoping for the College to develop is an ethos where students come to respect and celebrate one another precisely for their differences,” Asani wrote. “In this regard, the process is not about papering over differences, but to use these differences as opportunities for education.”

Asani also pointed to developments at the College since he first came to Harvard as a freshman in 1973.

He said the changes of the ­

past several decades are evidence of progress on issues of diversity at Harvard.

“I have witnessed the gradual dismantling of these structures of segregation. The randomization of undergraduate housing has really improved the situation, as there is much more mixing of the student population,” he said. “The intake of students is also far more diverse than ever it used to be.”

The creation of the group comes in response to a report issued by the Presidential Task Force on Inclusion and Belonging in March 2018. The report — centered on eight goals — encouraged administrators to consider two faculty-designed centers, one focused on “identity, politics, and culture” and the other on “higher education, inclusion and belonging, and organizational change.”

Dean of the College Rakesh Khurana said the group will work to identify and fill gaps in the College’s diversity-related programming.

“I think one of the things that’s really important to understand is what it is that people feel is missing and how can we best deliver on that,” Khurana said in an interview.

In response to feedback gathered from Harvard affiliates last year, the report also encouraged schools across the University to consider how implicit “social norms” affect people of color of campus. “[They] said that encounters with tacit social norms are often experienced as privileging

particular identities — typically white, male, secular, and politically liberal,” the report read.

At the time, some undergraduates criticized a draft version of the report because it stopped short of endorsing an Ethnic Studies program or a multicultural center — two longtime asks made by student activists.

As recently as this month, students sent letters to University President Lawrence S. Bacow calling for a dedicated program in Ethnic Studies and demonstrated outside an alumni event where he spoke.

It is unclear whether the new working group will explore the possibility of establishing a multicultural center or an Ethnic Studies program on campus.

When asked about the prospect of the group getting involved in plans for a multicultural center, Khurana emphasized the importance of analyzing what students’ needs and desires for on-campus spaces are.

“Without that analysis of what we hope for our spaces, what people feel is missing, we can end up creating spaces or re-allocating spaces in ways that doesn’t necessarily achieve the hoped-for goal,” Khurana said.

The group’s work will culminate in an “guiding document” aiming to evaluate Harvard’s history with diversity and opportunities for programs and spaces to address student concerns. shera.avi-yonah@thecrimson.com delano.franklin@thecrimson.com

UC Fails to Pass Amendments to Change Caucus System

By KEVIN R. CHEN and LAURA C. ESPINOZA CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

The Undergraduate Council failed to pass two amendments to its caucus system that would have either redefined the purposes of a caucus or eliminated the system entirely at the body’s weekly general meeting Monday.

UC President Sruthi Palaniappan ’20, UC Vice President Julia M. Huesa ’20, Mather House Representative Sanika S. Mahajan ’21, and Kirkland House Representative Ajay V. Singh ’21 proposed an amendment to “further clarify purpose and definition of caucuses and communities of interest.”

Huesa said the original intention of the caucus system — instituted in April 2017 — was to represent the UC’s marginalized communities and ensure

attention was paid to the “needs and interests” of those groups.

“We felt that people were starting to abuse this system in terms of what its original purpose was to be on the UC,” Huesa said.

The amendment would have redefined communities of interest as “groups that have been historically underrepresented and marginalized on Harvard’s campus,” more narrowly defining what types of caucuses could exist within the Council. According to Huesa, the amendment would not have allowed certain types of caucuses — such as politically-affiliated ones — to form at all.

“I think that when the legislation was originally created it was understood that this is what we were talking about,” Palaniappan said. “Only in the recent past couple months, we’ve seen the buildup of cau-

cuses that are kind of not surrounding these purposes.”

Dunster House Representative Gevin B. Reynolds ’19 then suggested further changes to the amendment, aiming to allow the UC to dismantle current caucuses that do not conform to the proposed narrowed definition.

The Council accepted that alteration before voting on the overall amendment, which was rejected in a narrow 11-12-5 vote.

Dunster House Representative Janani Krishnan-Jha ’20, a proponent of the amendment, argued that the existence of some causes diminishes the issues faced by marginalized communities She cited the “problem-solvers” caucus, a group of self-declared creative thinkers who abide by current caucus definitions.

“You don’t want to have the students believe that the UC thinks that being a problem-solver on this campus has the same weight as being African-American,” she said.

Opponents of the amendment argued that the legislation was specifically intended to target the conservative caucus. Oak Yard Representative A. Blake Barclay ’22 and UC Secretary Cade S. Palmer ’20, a former Crimson Sports Chair, both said members of the executive board antagonized the conservative caucus.

“This legislation is a direct attack against the conservative caucus,” Barclay said. “This is not to compare the experience of a conservative to any other groups at all.”

Eliot House Representative Maxwell A. Gillmer ’21, the newly appointed director of belonging and inclusion for the

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Council, originally supported the amendment but changed his vote after hearing concerns about the conservative caucus.

“As the director of belonging and inclusion, I want people to feel that they are included, especially within this space, so I don’t want there to be legislation that makes someone feel excluded,” he said.

Following the defeat of the caucus redefinition amendment, Palmer proposed the Caucus Removal Act to entirely remove the caucus system from the Council.

Liaising with underrepresented groups, if the act had passed, would instead have fallen under the purview of the director of belonging and inclusion.

In a vocal vote, the UC overwhelmingly rejected the Caucus Removal Act. Gilmer said he did not think

@thecrimson on Twitter.

one person could handle the responsibility the caucus system currently supports.

“Do you know how many cultural organizations there are on campus?” Gilmer asked.

“There are 77, and a lot for only one person to have direct contact with, so that’s why the caucuses are especially important.”

Krishnan-Jha said she felt the notion that the caucus system had no benefits was incorrect.

“I think it holds us accountable for representing the interests of this student population,” she said. “If we get rid of it, there’s no accountability. There’s no metric by which we can say we’re doing something for these communities of interest.” kevin.chen@thecrimson.com laura.espinoza@thecrimson.com

THE HARVARD CRIMSON | FEBRUARY 15, 2019

PAGE 8

EDITORIAL THE CRIMSON EDITORIAL BOARD

OP-ED

A Farewell to the Divinity School Oak Tree

Why Love a Tree

T

he planned removal of a century-old red oak tree near Andover Hall on the Harvard Divinity School campus due to renovations has sparked important debates over the necessity of protecting trees on the school’s property and across Cambridge.

But in the wake of professional arborists’ assessments that the oak is in “irreversible decline” and poses severe risks to passersby if it were to fall, we accept the expert diagnosis of its health, and must sadly bid farewell to it.

We have been heartened by the thoughtful protestation that has accompanied the proposal of cutting down the tree. Preserving areas of nature in an increasingly urbanized world fosters community around those spaces, and we must always be aware of actions — such as the removal of this tree — that may threaten conservation of green spaces in our city.

This is an opportunity for the Divinity School, and the University as a whole,

We have been heartened by the thoughtful protestation that has accompanied the proposal of cutting down the tree. to reaffirm its commitment to responsible development on its campus. Given our strong predisposition to keep as many trees as possible, we call on Harvard to provide comprehensive justification for actions like these.

As the open forums hosted by the Divinity School show, significant actions like the oak’s removal often have massive effects on the surrounding communities and residents. The University must focus on actively listening and responding to concerned parties as well as laying out thorough, transparent plans for building and maintaining a natural, beautiful campus. This process must take place not merely for affiliates of the University, but also for the communities in the broader Cambridge area.

Moreover, the tree’s religious importance to some affiliates of the Divinity School remind us that tree canopies, green spaces, and scenes situated within nature have held great significance to people of all cultures, traditions, and religious denominations throughout history.

Though the oak may not be on the Divinity School’s campus for much longer, we cannot understate or ignore the deep importance of environmentalism.

While we regret that this century-old oak may soon be no more, we ask Harvard to consider planting or providing a new tree in its place, among the other slated renovations on the Divinity School’s campus. Given the school’s commitment that Andover Hall “enrich” students’ spiritual lives, we believe the new tree can serve as a symbolic gesture showing respect for and perpetuation of these values.

To the University’s credit, it has already contributed significantly to the tree canopy around campus — officials have cited that Harvard has planted over 120 trees across its campus in the last de-

cade. In that time, Harvard has only removed four, citing safety reasons. These

Harvard should demonstrate thoughtful plans to expand natural spaces in and around campus in the future. efforts are commendable: not only do they make our surroundings more beautiful, but they illustrate the University’s commitment to environmentalism and sustainability.

In continuing with these efforts, Harvard should demonstrate thoughtful plans to expand natural spaces in and around campus in the future. While the planting of these trees is an admirable first step, the University must remain vigilant in its pursuit of green spaces, especially as the SEAS campus expansion in Allston nears completion.

While this red oak may leave our campus, we are hopeful that its significance will not be lost, and that the conversation sparked by this issue continue far into the future – far beyond the lifespan of any single oak.

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.

Submit an Op-Ed Today!

The Crimson

op-eds@thecrimson.com COLUMN

When’d You Start Caring About Immigrants?

Zoe D. Ortiz and Ruben E. Reyes Jr. BORDERLANDS/LA FRONTERA

R

uben: I spent the summer in a small museum archive in El Salvador reading page after page about Salvadoran refugees fleeing U.S.-funded death squads, the persecution of union workers and teachers, and the conditions that led thousands of Salvadorans to flee for the United States in the 1980s. Writing a thesis on Salvadoran immigration, I knew the histories in those archives were critical. But I didn’t spend long, stomach-churning hours reading horror stories exclusively because it was an intellectual pursuit. Both my parents are immigrants from El Salvador and my motivation came from an intimate place.

Zoe: Broken. That’s how I’d describe the U.S. immigration system. A brokenness that labeled my friends as trespassers on land that wasn’t even rightfully American. A system that blamed immigrants for fleeing problems that were completely “Made in the USA.” Problems born from a legacy of U.S. intervention that supported coups, trained military dictators, and always made sure sovereignty was out of the reach of black and brown hands. I wanted the world to recognize that immigrants had existed before Donald Trump got elected — they had always existed.

R: I’d witnessed how immigration shaped my parents’ lives. Mami would have to buy expensive international call cards to speak, for just a few minutes, with her mother. When a relative died in El Salvador, my parents made last minute travel plans. When it came time to decide on a thesis topic, I chose

I worry about the day when progressives protected by their citizenship, will close their eyes and look back at Trump as one small blip in an otherwise perfect world.

Having woken up from the political nightmare, they’ll sigh in relief. to explore the relationship between immigration and cultural exclusion, an academically rigorous topic but also a phenomenon I’d seen all around me my

whole life.

Z: When I told people my thesis was about immigrants from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala, they’d look at me and say, “Wow, that’s really timely.”

As if immigration hadn’t existed before 2017 and wouldn’t exist after 2020. The President called it a crisis and progressives had found their new cause. I mean, how could it not be? The man in office was just so horrible, right? He was the first president to vilify immigrants from the Oval Office and blame them for all the wrong in the world, right?

R: Immigration is an increasingly hot topic of conversation and of academic study. But migration is as old as mankind and people’s critiques of immigration control have been consistent.

Though many turned a blind eye to it, activists constantly criticized then-President Barack Obama for deporting more people than any president before him.

The academics I cite have been studying Salvadoran immigration for decades — showing the pernicious, harmful effects of our immigration system. Well-meaning, self-identified progressives decry the Trump’s treatment of children in detention centers, and I can’t help but wonder if they noticed the photographs of kids in cages, laying on mats, covered in shiny emergency blankets back in 2014.

Z: There are memories I can’t forget.

Memories of begging Harvard institutions to fund events for undocumented students on campus in the pre-Trump world. Memories of rejection, when they told me that we just weren’t “inclusive” enough. They’d act like my friends had to sell their stories, just to get support the university should’ve been providing. As if their identities were so easy to reveal when Obama, the “Deporter-in-Chief,” was in office. In the same breath, those Harvard students and the institutions they represented claimed progressive politics and rejected giving us the only help we could have hoped for.

It wasn’t fair.

R: If the current buzz has finally motivated folks to genuinely start talking about immigration, that’s great. But they’ll have to acknowledge that immigration is complex. Approaching it, whether in academic spaces or day-today conversations, requires hours of sustained reflection. Those of us whose lives have been shaped by immigration have — out of necessity — spent hours re-

flecting on our present and imagining alternatives to our current immigration system. Individuals with the luxury of ignoring the effect of U.S. immigration policies run the risk of treating immi-

It’s simple to claim to care about immigration or develop an ideological stance on the topic when it’s nothing but a timely, flashy thoughtexperience. gration as an abstract issue, putting themselves at such a distance that they forget the very real implications of their stances. It’s simple to claim to care about immigration or develop an ideological stance on the topic when it’s nothing but a timely, flashy thought-experience. A real, long-standing commitment to the cause is much, much harder.

Z: I grew up with my grandparents passing down pieces of a México I had visited three times. Their world painted in a Spanish, that many Americans, simply wouldn’t understand. Americans who’d wonder, “How could those people still not speak English, even after forty years?” When I see the range of videos illustrating rampant xenophobia in this country, I think of my grandparents, my mother. They all sacrificed so much for me to be born here, to have a “better life.” For me, forgetting their story of migration, forgetting its significance, is akin to erasing my family tree.

Yet, I worry. I worry about the day when progressives protected by their citizenship, will close their eyes and look back at Trump as one small blip in an otherwise perfect world. Having woken up from the political nightmare, they’ll sigh in relief. Then, they’ll move onto the next “hot” issue, learning all the lingo, and readying to be the heroes in a new story. They’ll leave 10.7 million lives in limbo and remember that time when they used to be really into immigration in college, when they used to care.

—Ruben E. Reyes Jr. ’19, a former Crimson Editorial Chair, is a History & Literature concentrator in Leverett House. Zoe D. Ortiz ’19, a former Crimson Associate Editorial Editor, is a Social Studies concentrator in Mather House.

By ISAAC O. LONGOBARDI

T

he arborists have spoken. And they have decided that a red oak tree, greeting visitors to Andover Hall for over a century, is in “irreversible decline” and a threat to campus safety.

The decision bodes well for the Divinity School administration, which has sought since the fall to remove the tree in order to expand the school’s main building. Students, however, many of whom share a spiritual bond with the tree or just appreciate its friendly umbrage, have protested the school’s decision. And so a red oak, which before November I doubt many outside the Divinity School had ever taken serious note of, has become at once Harvard’s and perhaps the greater Boston area’s most controversial and most beloved tree.

But the University plows on as it so often does, dead set on a project the community seems to have increasingly little interest in: a café, a conference center, a multi-faith chapel (as spiritually meaningful as the last of these certainly is). These are certainly valuable goals for the institution, but at what cost? And is the language of cost really the one we should be using here? Or is that sort of language, that paradigm of institutional reasoning, precisely the problem?

Cambridge may be losing 31 acres of tree coverage per year due in part to construction, but surely this oak is not statistically significant in the struggle against environmental collapse. After all, the school has promised to plant more trees – healthier, younger, better-located trees – in place of this one. True, some students may express a sacred bond with this tree. But a multi-faith space is a far more important resource for these students, especially if they are feeling marginalized as pagans. The multi-faith chapel, moreover, serves as a clearly defined step toward a more inclusive future for an institution steeped in the history of religious elitism. Students, no doubt, will learn to value these new spaces, leaning into their educational utility, and the potential they provide for a tighter-knit community. These are the undeniably noble aims of a 21st-century educational institution committed to diversity and inclusion, environmental change, and a strong community. It would seem then that the oak impedes the institutional progress of the Divinity School. But there is a greater symbolic value to the tree, and it shocks me that one of the world’s preeminent institutions of semiotic thought seems so unable to grasp it.

The battle between American institutional expansion and locally rooted spiritual practice has for centuries been waged over national landmarks. The debate came to a head when protestors blocked the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline not merely for environmental reasons but for the sake of the Native American sacred sites it threatened. We should not forget that trees have often been at the heart of these confrontations.

In 2015, for example, the U.S. Forest Service cut down a small grove of eastern red cedars in Shawnee National Park, named for a local tribal group which has long considered this cedar the “Tree of Life.” While the Forest Service had intended to improve the trail for visitors, opening up a magnificent vista, they were in fact cutting down the very trees which had drawn the sites first visitors.

The red oak is perhaps symbolic of Harvard’s illiteracy in the history of this destruction. Who knows how truly sacred this tree is? But that’s not really the point. Rather, the crux of the matter is that the oak is just another instance of institutions like Harvard prioritizing one set of collective interests over a smaller, more fragile, less heard, but still meaningful cluster of human experiences.

The way the tree over many years has built itself into the sacred landscape of the Divinity School is beyond beautiful; the school should want to protect that for as long as it can.

Trees have long stood at the forefront of student and youth protests to protect the environment. Tree sitting is a well-established practice of civil disobedience, in which protestors occupy a tree in order to prevent its removal. In the summer of 1990, dubbed “Redwood Summer,” students and activists occupied redwoods in order to prevent loggers from cutting them down.

Forty-four were arrested.However many trees the school promises to erect in its stead, the red oak should remind us of the many trees to which students have been so literally attached. Environmentalism is not merely about planting more trees, but rather about respecting the place of existing ones. After all, the root of our environmental irresponsibility has always been the insidious notion that somehow our environment is replaceable, that four trees are better than one.

Like so many universities, Harvard continues to struggle with its relationship with student interests, often claiming a paternalistic position of knowing what is best for students over and against the spoken desires of students themselves. I wrote an op-ed at the beginning of this month describing the University’s planned removal of the HOCice, a nearly one-hundred-year-old student office space, which has served as a social safe haven for generations of students. Like the U.S. Forest Service at Shawnee, the University has a list of very good reasons to remove the office, not least house renovation and the elimination of locked-door social spaces. But that’s not what students want, and it’s certainly not what fills them with a sense of belonging.

The red oak is no different. As students rally around this tree, the University lists off the reasons why it must go, why in fact cutting it down will serve everybody better in the long run: more new trees, more multi-faith spaces, the general safety of passersby.

Ultimately, I wonder if they’ve really heard these students at all. Students don’t love the tree for its added value; they don’t really love it for anything at all. Students love the tree just for the sake of loving. And that should be enough.

—Isaac O. Longobardi ’21, a Crimson Associate Editorial Editor, is a Social Anthropology concentrator in Eliot House.

PAGE 9

THE HARVARD CRIMSON | FEBRUARY 19, 2019

PRESSLEY FROM PAGE 1

Pressley Leads Square Protest for future presidential administrations.

At the rally, Pressley criticized President Trump’s rhetoric and actions, which she said marginalize immigrant and refugee communities. She argued that the effects of Trump’s policies are not simply limited to those at the border.

“The impact of this hurt has trickled all the way down to the Massachusetts’ 7th, a district that I am proud to represent that is 53 percent people of color, 40 percent foreign born,” Pressley said.

She said the United States is currently facing real emergencies — including the Flint water crisis, Puerto Rico’s ongoing struggle to recover from Hurricane Maria, unaffordable drug prices, voter suppression, and climate change — but not a security threat at the southern border.

Pressley said she is a co-sponsor of a recent congressional resolution that would block Trump’s national emergency declaration.

Cambridge Mayor Marc C. McGovern also spoke to the crowd, urging them to “keep the resistance going” and to speak out against injustices he sees in the current administration. He said he believes Trump’s actions in office are “bent on hatred and racism and division.”

“When Trump was elected, many of you heard me say that

I would not call him ‘President Trump’ until he started behaving like one,” he said. “Well, I’m still waiting.”

The rally attracted dozens of participants from the Greater Boston area, many of whom carried signs and passed out leaflets.

Karen L. Uminski, a resident of Arlington, Mass., called the prospect of a national emergency on the Mexican border “absurd.”

“Hopefully, with this protest, we can show our representatives in Congress, and also other people who couldn’t come out on this snowy day, why this is a problem,” she said.

Organizers led the crowd in several rounds of chants including, “Stand up, speak out, protect our communities” and “No ban, no wall, we welcome all.”

The organizers also held up signs with phone numbers for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s offices and encouraged participants to call and leave messages.Pressley ended her address by vowing to continue her resistance against the Trump administration.

“This is a fake emergency, this is constitutional vandalism, this is an overreach, an over-authority, and an abusive power, and we will do everything to stop it,” she said. declan.knieriem@thecrimson.com katelyn.li@thecrimson.com

DERSHOWITZ FROM PAGE 1

Dershowitz Joins Weinstein Team counsel to consult with them regarding constitutional issues concerning certain e-mail correspondence,” Dershowitz’s court filings read.

Dershowitz said in an interview that the defense counsel retained him in an official capacity after plaintiffs in the case moved to block Weinstein from releasing certain email correspondence between him and his accusers.

“Weinstein has not hired me. I was retained by his original lawyer, Ben Brafman, to consult with Brafman on the constitutional issue around the case,” Dershowitz said.

“It is an issue I have litigated in a number of contexts and one I feel very strongly about; and that is that he should be getting all the tapes, all the information, and then let the judge, the jury, the public decide.”

Dershowitz said he is working for Weinstein’s defense team because he believes in providing due process regardless of who is being accused of a crime.

“I am a criminal defense lawyer. My role is to help to anybody who is charged with a crime no matter how serious, no matter how heinous, no mat-

History Professor Roderick Gov. MacFarquhar Dies at 88 Dept.

TOWN HALL FROM PAGE 1

ter how unpopular,” Dershowitz said.

“I have represented O. J. Simpson, Mike Milken, Anatoly Shcharansky, Bill Clinton. Of course I am going to accept a role in helping to provide due process and constitutional protections to anyone charged with a crime.”

Dershowitz also defended Sullivan’s decision to represent Weinstein in the Manhattan criminal proceedings. He said Sullivan was “doing the right thing” and that the students protesting “should be ashamed of themselves.”

“They should go back and read the Constitution, and be ashamed of themselves,” Dershowitz said. “The one thing I will never, ever be pressured by students.”

Following Sullivan’s decision to join Weinstein’s legal team, Sullivan sent an email to students addressing criticisms of his participation in the case and defending his decision.

Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Claudine Gay said in an interview that the way Sullivan handled student concerns was “insufficient.” connor.brown@thecrimson.com

By REBECCA S. ARATEN and SONIA F. EPSTEIN CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

­ oderick “Rod” L. MacFarquR har, a professor of history and political science renowned for his close study of Chinese communism, died of heart failure on Feb. 10 at the age of 88.

A professor at Harvard since 1984, MacFarquhar was one of the leading scholars on the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Chairman Mao Zedong’s decade-long attempt to violently purge China of lingering anti-communist forces from 1966 to 1976.

MacFarquhar served as director of the Fairbank Center for China Studies from 1986-1992 and 2005-2006, during which time he was celebrated as a great fundraiser for the center and a supporter of its library, which he helped transform into a leading resource for China Studies scholars around the world.

Between his directorships, from 1998-2004, he chaired Harvard’s Government Department.

Michael A. Szonyi, a history professor and director of the Fairbank Center, said MacFarquhar’s study of the Cultural Revolution was of “enormous importance” because “only limited research could be done [on the subject] from within China.”

MacFarquhar’s path into academia was untraditional: he received a master’s degree from Harvard’s Far Eastern Regional Studies Department in 1955, founded the China Quarterly — a leading scholarly journal in the field — in Britain in 1960, worked as a journalist, and then entered British politics, where he served as a member of Parliament for five years during the 1970s.

Both experiences informed his scholarship. Working from the materials available to him — documents, interviews, and other classified accounts — MacFarquhar wrote his seminal three-volume book, “The Origins of the Cultural Revolution” (1974, 1983 and 1997), which Szonyi called “the most masterful analysis we have of the Cultural Revolution.”

“He approached the study of politics not as a theoretician, but as a former journalist and as a former practitioner of politics,” his son, Rory A. MacFarquhar said.

This sensitivity to China’s po-

litical atmosphere shaped MacFarquhar’s work in other ways as well. According to Szonyi, MacFarquhar helped Chinese scholars continue their studies at Harvard after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.

“Rod said it was incumbent on the community of China scholars to provide support for intellectuals, for students, and professors, who were being persecuted. He made a home for many of them at Harvard,” Szonyi said.

One such figure was Wang Dan, a protest leader who spent seven years in prison in China during 1990s. After Wang was medically paroled, MacFarquhar helped facilitate his acceptance into the History Department as a one-year special student. With MacFarquhar’s support, Wang continued to study at Harvard, ultimately earning a master’s degree and a Ph.D. “After knowing Professor MacFarquhar for now more

“Rod said it was incumbent on the community of China scholars to provide support for intellectuals, for students, and professors, who were being persecuted.”

Michael A. Szonyi Fairbank Center Director

than two decades, I have come to very much appreciate his determined adherence to basic human values and his steadfast opposition to despotism,” Wang wrote in an email. “He was a true public intellectual role model.”

MacFarquhar left a legacy in the classroom as well, where his undergraduate course on the Cultural Revolution attracted as many as 600 to 700 students per semester.

“Rod, very famously, would go up to the lectern and lecture for an hour without any notes, just holding the class spellbound,” said Steven M. Goldstein, a professor emeritus of government at Smith College and a long-time friend of Mac-

Farquhar. “He was trying to get people to understand the Cultural Revolution, but also understand how a society can go mad.”

According to Michael G. Forsythe, a former teaching fellow for the course, MacFarquhar would accomplish that goal by dressing his teaching fellows as Red Guards and having them carry copies of the “Little Red Book,” a collection of writings

by Mao that was widely distributed during the Cultural Revolution. He would have the class on its feet, shouting phrases like “10,000 years for Mao!” in Chinese.

“It gave the students taking the course a real visceral feeling for the fervor of being in China, in the Cultural Revolution, and being in a rally,” Forsythe said.

Forsythe, whose master’s thesis MacFarquhar advised, went on to be a New York Times correspondent in Hong Kong.

These immersive educational methods were characteristic of MacFarquhar’s style, according to Szonyi.

“He was a model for how to be a scholar, how to deal with the challenges of working on a society which is very different, which you respect, but which you also have some fundamental disagreements with,” Szonyi said. He did so “with honesty, with courtesy, and with tremendous wit. He was always able to find humor in something.”

Goldstein also recalls MacFarquhar’s good-humor. The two professors would frequent the sparsely-populated movie theater at Fresh Pond Mall together and entertain themselves by watching “bad science fiction films.”

“The thing about Rod is that he was totally unpretentious,” Goldstein added. “There was nobody who was too unimportant that he wouldn’t take time to see.”

Forsythe echoed those sentiments. “He was so charming, so thoughtful and considerate,” he said. At dinners, MacFarquhar would often raise a glass to his students and colleagues and give them “the most eloquent, heartfelt toasts.”

“Those small gestures,” Forsythe said, “are the things that stick with you for the rest of your life.” rebecca.araten@thecrimson.com sonia.epstein@thecrimson.com

ADAMS FROM PAGE 1

Adams House Reviews GenderNeutral Bathroom Signage t ranslating this dialogue into clear next steps.”

In addition to gathering survey results, the committee also plans to partner with the Office of BGLTQ Student Life to offer resources for students, according to the email.

Judy Palfrey wrote in an email to The Crimson that the committee will help Adams ­

administrators respond to the vandalism in a way that is consistent with Adams House’s values.

“The defacing of our gender neutral signage was an act of desecration and of disrespect that is not acceptable,” she wrote. “We called the committee together to suggest ways that we can underscore our

Harvard, from the Law School to Longwood.

The Crimson

message of inclusivity through the signage, facilities, decorations, and activities the house promotes.”

Palfrey added that the committee plans to regularly update students on the progress of its work. shera.aviyonah@thecrimson.com delano.franklin@thecrimson.com

Holds Forums review of “Harvard’s collective failure to respond to problems of alleged sexual harassment.”

They wrote that administrators responded positively to the memo but will not take “public steps” towards an external review until the University completes its investigation of Dominguez.

But with department faculty and students in the dark about the progress of the investigation, some students say they are growing impatient.

“They have tied this review to the completion of the Title IX investigation into Dominguez, a process which is highly opaque with an unclear timeline,” Dhingra wrote.

“Nearly a year after the Domínguez story broke, there has therefore been no concrete progress on understanding and preventing sexual harassment and gender-based discrimination in the department.”

FAS spokesperson Anna G. Cowenhoven declined to comment on the investigation. ­

“There’s a need for more faculty in the arena of gender ... sexual orientation, race and ethnicity.”

Jennifer L. Hochschild Government Dept. Chair

Government Ph.D. candidate Manuel A. Meléndez-Sánchez ’15-’16 wrote in an email that graduate students’ efforts have been and will continue to be “critical” in order to effect change in the department.

“A handful of faculty—including Professors Cammett, Enos, Hochschild, and Levitsky—have been largely proactive in addressing the concerns of students,” Meléndez-Sánchez wrote.

“Their efforts have been laudable, but the main impetus for change has come from dozens of graduate and undergraduate students who have worked tirelessly over the past year.”

Undergraduates at the town hall also took issue with the department’s lack of identity-centered course offerings.

Government department chair Jennifer L. Hochschild said she decided to again teach a course focusing on race, ethnicity, and immigration after hearing students’ concerns.

Hochschild acknowledged that more long-term solutions, such as increasing the diversity of the department’s faculty, would take years, if not decades.

She said the department recently offered jobs to two early-career female political scientists — though one has declined the offer and the other has not yet accepted — and that their gender was “part of the consideration” in the decision.

“There’s a need for more faculty in the arena of gender, in the arena of sexual orientation, race and ethnicity, immigration, class, first-generation,” she said. “I totally, completely agree with that.”

Undergraduates at Friday’s town hall also called for more cross-listed courses — classes jointly offered by more than one department — to allow students to engage with identity-related topics that would ordinarily require forgoing concentration credit to pursue.

“If you’re a gov concentrator and you want to study issues of identity, issues that speak to you, and there’s not that offering in the gov department, you’re conflicted between fulfilling requirements and taking a course that speaks to you,” said Sarah S. Fellman ’18-’19, a member of the Committee for Climate Change.

Hochschild added that many of the suggestions that students offered at Friday’s event “weren’t new,” indicating that steps the department has taken so far — including those implemented by the subcommittees to the Climate Change Committee itself — were not sufficient.

“That’s an indication that we haven’t really done our work yet efficiently and effectively,” she said. jonah.berger@thecrimson.com. molly.mccafferty@thecrimson.com.

SPORTS

IN OTHER NEWS

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

MEN’S HOCKEY

After falling short of a comeback against Princeton Friday night, Harvard upset previously undefeated Penn in double overtime.

Storming back in the third period, Harvard knocked off St. Lawrence but settled for a split in the North Country with a loss to Clarkson.

MEN’S SQUASH

Harvard Captures National Title, Sweeping Trinity

By LUCY CONNOR CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

The Crimson men’s squash team ended its undefeated season with a dominant 9-0 win over Trinity in the National Championship to claim its 26th Potter Cup on Sunday.

After losing to Trinity the past two years in the championship game, Harvard was finally able to avenge its previous defeats.

The Crimson’s strenuous weekend ultimately proved successful. It defeated Dartmouth 7-2 on Friday, Penn 8-1 on Saturday, and Trinity 9-0 on Sunday.

The team dominated the entire season, with its closest match being a 6-3 regular season victory over Penn. Sophomore Samuel Scherl and junior Timothy Brownell both attributed their dominance to a focus on “the little things.”

“We just worked hard this season and have been putting in the hours since September and we trained all over winter break so it was just about the little things,” commented Scherl.

“There was a lot of talent, but talent doesn’t really go anywhere if you are not willing to put in the hard work. This season we had the combination of talent and hard work.”

Brownell came to a very similar conclusion about the team’s resounding performances this season.

“It’s all about the little things; they make such a huge difference in squash,” Brownell said. “We really took care of our bodies: eating well, sleeping well, hydrating. Everyone was really good at focusing on all of the little, kind of boring things that are easy to slack off on. I think that’s why in the end we were so good in the finals.”

Brownell has been on the team the past three seasons, ­

and thus experienced the past two heartbreaking losses to Trinity in the Championship Finals. This team’s ability to obtain the title was especially satisfying for him.

“We’ve been here before, so it was really cool to be in my position, playing in the National Finals the last two years and coming up short,” Brownell explained. “So to be here again, feeling really confident in our abilities, it was just amazing and beyond cool to win today.”

The long journey began with the first match in mid-November in a long four month campaign.

To maintain the dominance throughout the entire season takes determination and perseverance, according to members of the team.

“I think a lot of it comes down to discipline,” Brownell said. “In the fall, it is harder to put in the work when the finals are so far away. This year we put in all the work and it really paid off later on.”

For Scherl, the weekend was about proving the team is deserving of the top spot.

“The regular season can be inconsequential because it really all comes down to Nationals where we got to show that we deserve the top spot,” Scherl said. “It was about unfinished business and avenging the losses from earlier and acknowledging the Harvard victory in the Harvard-Trinity rivalry.”

Though the team is used to high-intensity situations, the proximity to Trinity fans made the Championship venue at Yale all the more pressure-filled.

Even though the Crimson was familiar with the finals pressure, the pregame routine was just as important as any regular season match.

“I need to separate and do some sprints away from the

OUT ON TOP The Crimson avenged its previous losses to Trinity to take home its 26th Potter Cup. The championship game, played in New Haven, was a 9-0 sweep in front of a packed crowd TIMOTHY R. O’MEARA—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

crowd and put the match out of my mind before I go on,” Scherl explained. “I get in the zone and just try to separate from the pressures because it can be very intense.”

The team thoroughly goes through all of its opponents’ strengths and weaknesses to solidify each court’s gameplan.

For the final match against Trinity, a focus on complete dominance was key.

“We really wanted to come out with a 9-0 decisive win,” said Scherl. “Every match is a National Final match; there are no expendable matches… I think that speaks to the focus of the program.”

Marwan Tarek secured the win for Harvard in a five-game match against Thoboki Mohohlo, 9-11, 11-6, 9-11, 11-4, 114. The team stormed the court - respectfully, after Mohohlo

exited - to celebrate the win.

However, the Crimson remembered its original gameplan and recognized its job was not complete, even though the overall win was certain.

“Even once we had the win there was no let up of intensity; everyone was working just as hard because this is what we’ve trained for,” said Scherl, who was in the middle of his match when his team stormed

Tarek’s court. “When it was already 8-0, our final player, George Crowne, beat his opponent in a game in which his opponent didn’t score any points, which is incredibly hard at this level of squash. I think that demonstrates what the goal of today was: to not only win, but win with a statement and vengeance.” lucy.connor@thecrimson.com

MEN’S BASKETBALL

Amaker Earns 400th Career Win in Overtime Penn Thriller

By AMIR MAMDANI CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

With a minute left, and Harvard trailing by six points at the Palestra in a rematch of the 2018 Ivy League Championship, the writing appeared to be on the wall for Harvard men’s basketball. But someone forgot to tell Bryce Aiken that, and what ensued was a performance that left the over five thousand Penn fans in attendance in utter disbelief, as the visitors stormed all the way back to a 75-68 overtime win at the Cathedral of College Basketball.

At some point, words fall short of describing Bryce Aiken’s heroics. Two threes in the final minute of regulation, in-

cluding a jaw-dropping 30-footer with five seconds left, knotted the game at 61 and sent what had already been an incredible contest into overtime. Just 55 seconds before, Aiken had knocked down a triple to cut the deficit to three points, but he was hardly done, drilling a three-pointer that will likely go down as one of the greatest moments of the season — capping a weekend sweep for the visitors.

Once the Crimson (13-8, 6-2 Ivy) entered the extra period, momentum was firmly in the its hands.

Harvard never trailed in the five overtime minutes, as the Quakers (15-9, 3-5) showed signs of fatigue in their second overtime contest in as many

nights. The Crimson were able to complete the comeback, winning at the Palestra for the first time in five seasons. Saturday night’s game was more than just another game for Harvard, as the team was able to avenge its Ivy League Championship loss from last season.

“This was a big game for us, this was a redemption game, we had a lot of pain in this building last season,” said sophomore forward Danilo Djuricic, who cited the highlight video playing in the Palestra pregame as extra motivation, which prominently featured clips from last season’s championship game.

“We really wanted to come out, play hard, and represent our program, and this was a huge

END TO END A cross-court lob pass from Aiken landed in the hands of classmate Henry Welsh, who finished for an easy two points. TIMOTHY R. O’MEARA—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

win for us.”

A night after scoring 33 points at Princeton, Aiken tallied a crucial 25, none bigger than the final six points of regulation. Perhaps most impressive about the Randolph, N.J., native’s performance, was the 40 minutes he played, to lead all Harvard players. Just a matter of weeks after returning from injury, there can be no doubt that No. 11 is back to his vintage self, playing with the same swagger and moxie that earned him Ivy League Rookie of the Year two seasons ago.

“Not just all the basketball plays that he makes and obviously they are all key, we have seen that, but his presence gives our team a great deal of confidence,” said Coach Tommy Amaker of having Aiken back in the lineup. “He’s a very confident player and carries himself like that and deservedly so.

But it rubs off and becomes contagious with other players and I think that’s as big of a deal in that regard as any.”

Saturday night marked history for Coach Amaker, who registered his 400th victory at the collegiate level. Amaker’s head coaching career has taken him from Seton Hall, to Michigan, and finally to Cambridge.

The victory had to be especially sweet for Amaker, who quickly deflected any added emphasis that might be placed on beating Penn.

“Everything’s different you move on to the next situation, next game, next situation,” Amaker said. “There are memories of moments here we have had, we have had some good ones too. Certainly the most recent one last year was not very pleasant one to have.”

Amaker’s 400th victory was in large part due to the Crimson’s three-point shooting, as Aiken and Justin Bassey combined to shoot 11-of-17 from deep, helping the team to a 46 percent mark from three-point

territory. Not to overlooked was an absolutely heroic performance from junior wing Justin Bassey, who drilled a remarkable 6-of-8 three-pointers, two more than his previous career high. Bassey also led the team with 11 rebounds, hardly a surprise as he has cemented himself as the team’s most versatile player. “JB does everything for us, Coach says he’s our most valuable player,” Djuricic said of Bassey. “Like you see tonight, he can have some great offensive nights, he was lights out tonight.”

Just as Harvard excelled from deep, Penn faltered in one of its most important games of the season. With the Quakers entering play at 3-4 in Ivy play, in fifth place in the conference, they were let down by their three-point shooting, which has bailed them out so many times before.

Despite boasting a series of excellent three-point shooters, including Bryce Washington, Devon Goodman, Jake Silpe, Michael Wang, Antonio Woods, and even big man AJ Brodeur, Penn was only able to convert on 7-of-28 triples. Many of the Quakers’ three-point looks were wide-open, and the cold shooting from the field allowed the Crimson to hang around and pull off the comeback.

Washington had a particularly difficult night for Penn.

Despite shooting over 40 percent from deep this season, the freshman from Southfield, Mich., was unable to enter the score-sheet, and went 0-of-7 from beyond the arc. More than making up for Washington’s performance, however, was the resilient play of junior AJ Brodeur.

Brodeur’s 23-point performance on Saturday night was almost enough to give the Quakers a crucial second win on the homestand. Were it not for Aiken’s heroics, Brodeur would probably be a shoe-in for

Ivy League player of the week -the Northfield Mount Hermon product scored 36 points Friday night against Dartmouth, and was practically unguardable for much of Saturday’s contest.

“Brodeur was so tough to defend in the post, we had no answers for him,” Amaker said. “I thought we did as best we could to give ourselves a chance and I’m very pleased with the effort that we put forth.”

Brodeur’s matchup with junior forward Chris Lewis was one of the focal points of the duel between the Ancient Eight’s two best teams last season. Lewis started Saturday night slowly, but came into his own in the final minutes and in overtime, scoring several crucial baskets and ultimately finishing with 12 points in 28 minutes.

The statline wasn’t all pretty for the visitors, who incredibly, tallied just four assists. And as Harvard has become well-accustomed to, the four assists accompanied an eye-popping 19 turnovers. Nevertheless, the Crimson was able to persevere on another classic night in the Ivy League. Resiliency, and a willingness to fight back in a game that meant more than just another win in the standings, were what carried Harvard to victory Saturday night. o “It’s been a tremendous weekend for us, with the effort that you need to fight back and claw on the road,” Amaker said. “It’s not easy, but our kids, they deserve a lot of credit.”

The truth of the matter is, the Crimson are two ridiculous Bryce Aiken shots away from a 4-4 Ancient Eight record.

But as the old adage goes, the league is won on Saturday nights, and in a results oriented business, the Crimson will happily take the two victories and speed off on I-95 into the night. amir.mamdani@thecrimson.com