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THE HARVARD CRIMSON | February 13, 2020
Ethnic Studies Faculty Candidate Visits Harvard By james s. bikales and kevin r. chen Crimson Staff Writers
Erika Lee, a history professor at the University of Minnesota and a candidate for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’s ethnic studies faculty search, gave a lecture on her research and met with undergraduates on campus Wednesday afternoon. Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Claudine Gay announced in June 2019 that she will hire three to four senior faculty who specialize in Asian American, Latinx, and Muslim studies by the end of the current academic year. Gay said that each of the potential hires would visit campus as part of an FAS lecture series titled “New Perspectives on Ethnicity and Migration.” Lee researches immigration and Asian American history, as well as directing the Immigration History Research Center at the University of Minnesota. She was the first candidate to speak on campus and came at the invitation of Harvard’s History department. More than 70 people, including students, faculty, and administrators, filed into a theater in Harvard’s Carpenter Center to attend Lee’s lecture, titled “Xenophobia: A Racial History of the United States.” During her lecture, Lee said xenophobia is not just about immigration, but can rather be understood as a form of racism. She also traced the history of anti-immigrant sentiment against various groups in America ranging from Catholics to Latinx people. While other scholars have said xenophobia rises and falls in response to nation
al crises, Lee contended that xenophobia has remained strong throughout American history, calling it a deeply ingrained “American tradition.” Following the lecture, Lee spoke with roughly 20 Harvard affiliates during a question and answer session. The discussion ranged from Lee’s pedagogical approach to Harvard’s lack of a formalized ethnic studies concentration. Addressing a question on how she would navigate what a student called Harvard’s “ideological resistance” to accepting ethnic studies as a legitimate scholarly field, Lee said she would be “pretty forceful” in pushing back against such a view. “I don’t have very much patience for those who would continue to question whether ethnic studies is a legitimate field anymore or not,” Lee said. “I think I’d be ready to take on people with that perspective and provide some data.” FAS spokesperson Anna G. Cowenhoven declined to comment on criticisms raised at the question and answer session. During the discussion, students expressed frustration about the lack of ethnic studies classes. Lee said she shared this feeling when she was in school. “I kept on thinking, someone should be writing more about this and I kept on waiting for someone, like for more stuff to be written,” she said. “Then I realized, ‘I don’t think this is going to happen,’ so maybe that someone should be me.” Lee praised ethnic studies advocates at Harvard for creating “an opportunity” to build the program, but she also pushed them to make specific requests
Erika Lee, a history professor at the University of Minnesota, spoke with undergraduates on Wednesday regarding her candidacy for professorship at Harvard. sara komatsu—Crimson photographer
that the candidates who are chosen could negotiate over during their hiring processes. “It would be helpful to have a clear description of what students’ needs are so that that can be part of the ask,” she said. Gay’s announcement of the ethnic studies faculty search came months after students and alumni protested the departure of two tenure-track faculty specializing in Asian American studies. The University’s Novem-
ber decision to deny tenure to Romance Languages and Literatures Associate Professor Lorgia García Peña — who researches race and ethnicity — reinvigorated student calls for an ethnic studies program at Harvard. Harvard affiliates have lobbied for a formalized ethnic studies program for nearly five decades. Gay declared an “institutional commitment” to the field of ethnic studies in a December email to FAS affiliates
and has said she is “hopeful” that faculty will lead an effort to develop a formal ethnic studies concentration. At least seven more candidates will visit Harvard this semester as part of the lecture series associated with the FAS faculty search. Other speakers will include University of Michigan history and Latino studies professor Jesse E. Hoffnung-Garskof ’93, University of California, Los Angeles sociology and Asian
American studies professor Min Zhou, University of Pennsylvania English professor David L. Eng, University of California, Berkeley ethnic studies professor Raúl Coronado, Stanford sociology professor Tomás R. Jiménez, Yale American studies professor Zareena Grewal, and University of Minnesota American studies professor Martin F. Manalansan. james.bikales@thecrimson.com kevin.chen@thecrimson.com
Harvard Law School Welcomes New Faculty Members By Kelsey J. griffin Crimson Staff Writer
Harvard Law School welcomed two new faculty members this semester — election law expert Nicholas O. Stephanopoulos ’01 and former Federal Reserve Board Governor Daniel K. Tarullo. After graduating from Yale Law School in 2006, Stephanopoulos worked as an associate at Jenner & Block in Washington, D.C. focusing on redistricting, campaign finance, and federal litigation. He then taught courses on election law, constitutional law, and administrative law at the University of Chicago Law School, where he served as a professor of law and the Herbert and Marjorie Fried Research Scholar. Stephanopoulos also co-founded PlanScore, a website that scores and assesses redistricting plans in all 50 states. Tarullo previously taught courses in international law and financial regulation at the Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, Princeton, and the University of Basel in Switzerland. He also worked for the Clinton administration and the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. In addition to his role on the Federal Reserve Board, Tarullo served as the chair of the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council and a mem
ber of the Federal Open Market Committee. Tarullo now serves as the Norman Professor of International Financial Regulatory Practice and teaches Regulation of International Finance. “Dan Tarullo is one of the country’s leading thinkers on financial regulation and international economic policy,” Law School Dean John F. Manning ’82 said in a press release. “Dan has also shown himself to be a superb teacher and colleague!” Stephanopoulos is teaching a course on election law at the Law School this semester. He said he thinks his field sits at a unique intersection between politics, democratic theory, political science, and the study of the Constitution. “As a politics junkie I’ve always been interested in elections and politics, and then what law gives the table is democratic theory and the legal protections for certain political rights,” he said. “I think it’s so interesting how all these different fields sort of collide these together and shorten the field of election law.” He noted the Law School faculty has lacked an expert in election law for several years, and he hopes to use his professional experience to revive the study of the field. “Harvard hasn’t had an election law specialist on the faculty for quite a while — at least 16 years,” Stephanopoulos said. “I think that’s such an import-
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The Harvard Law School recruited multiple new faculty members this semester, including election law expert Nicholas O. Stephanopoulos ’01 and former Federal Reserve Board Governor Daniel K. Tarullo. kathryn s. kuhar—Crimson photographer
ant offering for Harvard Law to have for students and for, you know, the institution as a whole.” Manning emphasized the significant contributions of Stephanopoulos’s work to election regulation in a Jan. 28
press release. “I am thrilled that Nick Stephanopoulos has decided to join our faculty,” he said in the press release. “Through his work across multiple disciplines, Nick has helped to identify simultaneously creative
and thoroughly grounded ways to improve the functioning of our electoral system and our democracy.” Law School professor Holger Spamann similarly praised Tarullo in an emailed statement.
“He is far and away the best person in the field of financial regulation,” Spamann wrote. “Nobody else even comes close in terms of experience, sophistication, and thoughtfulness.” kelsey.griffin@thecrimson.com
