THE HARVARD CRIMSON | FEBRUARY 13, 2020
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Editorial The Crimson Editorial board
column
Faculty Want Divestment, Too — What About Administrators?
The New Old Solution to Poverty
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ast week, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences chose to break from the administration’s longstanding position to vote overwhelmingly in favor of divestment from fossil fuels. Their proposal — approved by a whopping 179-20 margin — advises the Harvard Corporation to divest the University’s endowment from companies that “explore for or develop further reserves of fossil fuels.” It will now be brought to the Harvard Corporation for consideration. The vote marks the culmination of a fourmonth-long debate among faculty over the proper role of the University in combating climate change. Regardless of what the Harvard Corporation chooses to do with this proposal, the faculty’s vote is a positive development. We reiterate our stance that divestment from fossil fuels is a moral imperative and reject the notion that our education must be funded through practices that hasten environmental calamity. It is illogical for the University to continue to invest in a future that it is actively working to eliminate. As such, it’s encouraging to see the faculty considering fossil fuel divestment so rigorously, and then electing decisively to champion it. We look forward to seeing their proposal presented to the Harvard Corporation. However, we do so warily. The documented ties Harvard Corporation members have to the fossil fuel industry cause us to question how much their opinion will be swayed by this proposal. Regardless, we urge the Harvard Corpo-
ration to seriously consider this proposal and divest from fossil fuels, especially since this vote has followed years of student-led activism that they have continuously ignored and discounted. It bears note that faculty are discussing this issue in significant part due to the rigorous student activism organizations such as Divest Harvard and others have engaged in over the past few years. If this proposal is not taken into serious consideration, not only will it be deeply disappointing, but it will also be a glar-
If Harvard’s administration has faith in its faculty, then the fact that they voted 179-20 in favor of divestment should mean something. ing sign to faculty and students alike that Harvard truly does not care about what they think. If Harvard’s administration has faith in its faculty, then the fact that they voted 179-20 in favor of divestment should mean something. In debates leading up to this vote, faculty members supporting divestment argued that Harvard, as one of the top universities in the nation, needs to be at the forefront of an international divestment movement. And while it inspires hope to see faculty members fighting for the change that its students have been wanting to see for a long time, the idea
that Harvard is falling behind and that we must be a “leader” in this divestment movement should not be one of the primary arguments for divestment from fossil fuels. Not only is it way too late for Harvard to be a leader in this movement (many universities are already leading this charge), but this type of language and reasoning discounts the struggles of those immediately and disproportionately affected by climate change, particularly already marginalized communities. When Harvard centers conversations on divestment around the optics of how divestment would make Harvard look, it does a disservice to these people. Finally, we urge the faculty to seriously consider and discuss other divestment movements, including divestment from the prison industry, Puerto Rican debt, indigenous landholdings, occupation of Palestine, and any others that are being led by students on this campus. The faculty have shown themselves capable of serious deliberation, and the fate of these other movements stands to benefit from such considered treatment. This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.
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The Double-Edged Sword of Social Justice By Luke t. atkins
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here are two types of social justice. The first one is real, palpable, peaceful change instituted for the benefit of marginalized groups and causes. Therein we find #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, BGLTQ rights, Kaepernick kneeling for the anthem to protest police brutality, Greta Thunberg raising climate change awareness, and so on. The other type is nefarious. It is self-serving and, ironically, unjust. It keeps us from transcending the very barriers that proponents of social justice aspire to overcome. And it manifests in many forms. It’s when people bully and ostracize others under the guise of protecting minority groups. It’s when people actively look for ways to misconstrue a person’s words or actions, demean them, galvanize the masses, and hence promote their own interests (attention, retweets, etc.). It’s when people create a rhetorical peanut gallery of frivolous dialogue while clandestine, truly harmful policies pass with little scrutiny. It’s one of mob mentality. Here at Harvard, we see this latter form as much as the former. And if we are committed to equal rights, we need to change that. A prime example is last year’s decision not to renew Ronald S. Sullivan, Jr. as a faculty dean. Students actively rallied, demonized him, and demanded that Harvard fire him. Why? All Sullivan did was get hired to defend someone in a court of law. This country is founded upon certain prescribed freedoms — one is the right to a lawyer, as well as a fair trial. Nothing like this happened when Harvard Law School’s Professor Emeritus Alan M. Dershowitz represented O.J. Simpson, accused of double murder, in his trial, nor when he was recently hired to represent Donald Trump in his impeachment. Yet when Sullivan represented Harvey Weinstein, social justice advocates promulgated a double standard, going mad
over his decision. Moreover, John Adams himself, a chief intellectual behind the founding of the United States, set a bold precedent in representing British troops after the Boston Massacre. It was an enlightened one, as it ensured the protection of individuals in all cases — publicly perceived to be guilty or not. We can’t suddenly abandon these ideals of benevolence and equal rights; it is contrary to the intent of social justice. A more widespread form of fake social justice — on- and off-campus — is the culture of political correctness. PC culture is something that must be done away with. It hinders free speech, conjures controversy out of things that shouldn’t be controversial (e.g., most comedy), and stifles people from challenging one an-
A more widespread form of fake social justice — on- and off-campus — is the culture of political correctness. PC culture is something that must be done away with. other when they subject themselves to perpetual “safe spaces.” Holocaust deniers are, even as absurd as their beliefs prove, protected with free speech and a right to assemble. But when a comedian makes a petty joke, people often look to take offense to it so they can try to “cancel” that comedian’s career. A recent example of cancel culture in the Harvard area is when conservative commentator and writer Ben Shapiro gave a speech at Boston University. Protestors met this with vengeance; they tried to “cancel” it, just because they disagreed with him. I’m no fan of Shapiro, but I can’t stop him simply because he “offends” me. Legally, I can protest his free speech, but that doesn’t mean I should; he spreads his message peacefully, with os-
tensibly benevolent intentions. Granted, if someone is making threats or causing harm, it totally makes sense why one would want to address such a problem to protect powerless or otherwise marginalized people. But, in general, we can’t simply bully people with whom we disagree; sometimes, they just haven’t been properly exposed to enough culture and education to rid themselves of stereotypes. Attacking people won’t change their minds. What can change people is empathy, shared experience, and demonstration that we’re more alike than we think. When someone is being racist, sexist, homophobic, or xenophobic, don’t meet it with hate. That’s just reciprocal prejudice. Meet them with an open heart; show why you disagree with their views in a constructive way. Show that we’re all human — with the same fears, joys, frustrations, tastes, and hobbies. We even have the same memes. It may not work, but you’ll serve society more than you would by meeting ignorance with organized hate or ostracization. If you hear students’ classroom discussions here at Harvard, see what’s on social media, or notice campus rhetoric, you will see that there is a degree of intolerance for conservatives, Christians, Republicans, and others of minority political and religious stances. This is antithetical to liberalism and multiculturalism, which are all-inclusive concepts. I dream of a world wherein everyone has the same platforms and privileges to express themselves and live in a truly egalitarian world. To quote Evelyn B. Hall’s summary of Voltaire: “I disagree with what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it.” So don’t be judgmental, quick to conclusions, or hateful. Be respectful, empathetic, open to interpretation, and constructive. —Luke T. Atkins is in his second year at the Harvard Extension School.
Matthew B. Gilbert A time for new ideas
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he United States is stuck. Mainstream political discourse in this country seems less and less likely to have answers for the problems facing us today. In many cases, it feels incapable of even identifying these problems. There is a palpable feeling that the status quo cannot hold for much longer. In an era of unprecedented change, it is time for new ideas. I want to offer a few of them. But to do that, we need to go back in time. As the U.S. established itself in the late 1700s, founding father Thomas Paine, who authored the pamphlet “Common Sense” that helped spur the colonies to revolution, was advocating another
Paine argued that all citizens should receive a payment at age 21 and a pension every year starting at age 50 as recompense for the loss of common ownership of the Earth. revolutionary idea in “Agrarian Justice.” Paine argued that all citizens should receive a payment at age 21 and a pension every year starting at age 50 as recompense for the loss of common ownership of the Earth. Centuries later, Martin Luther King Jr. advocated for a guaranteed minimum income, a payment to all people linked to the median American income, in order to end poverty and ensure dignity for all Americans. In the late 1960s early 70s, a bill called the Family Assistance Plan, which would have provided poor families with a basic income (over $10,000 in present-day money to a family of four), was endorsed by over 1,000 economists and passed the U.S. House of Representatives twice before failing in the Senate. What all these plans have in common is the recognition that the most effective tool to rectify economic injustice is money. If we are going to seek the abolition of poverty in this century, we must understand that education, jobs, and other programs can only do so much. To quote author Rutger Bregman, “Poverty is not a lack of character. Poverty is a lack of cash.” The most effective, simple, and direct way to address poverty is to give people money. Sadly, this kind of thinking has been absent from the mainstream for the past half-century. That brings us to the present day. Former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang brought this idea back into the spotlight by making a universal basic income, which he called the Freedom Dividend, the centerpiece of his campaign. But Yang is not the only proponent of UBI out there. The movement behind basic income is bigger than any one person, and after all these years, decades, and even centuries, this movement may finally be nearing the mountaintop. I invite you to join us. First, we should understand what UBI is. Let’s go letter by letter. The I is for Income: a UBI is a monetary payment. The U is for Universal — that means it goes to everyone; rich or poor, young or old; black or white, it doesn’t matter — every legal adult gets the exact same payment. Next is B, for Basic: it should be enough to cover basic needs, such as food, water, and shelter. Various basic income advocates across the political spectrum have proposed their own particular versions, but those three conditions are generally agreed upon (although MLK was advocating for more than just a basic income — but that’s worth discussing at a later time). Is UBI the solution to poverty, or is it unworkable and a pipe dream? There’s nothing wrong with being skeptical of new ideas. I became convinced of the importance of UBI after discovering a 1970s experiment in Canada. A program called
In an era of record-setting economic growth but also rampant inequality we are long overdue for some policies that would make people’s lives better. Mincome gave a basic income to a few thousand Canadians in Manitoba from 1974 to 1979 before funding was cut. The data was ignored for decades before finally being unearthed and then published in 2011. The results are astonishing. Most recipients were lifted out of poverty. Hospitalizations, injuries, and rates of teen pregnancy decreased while high school graduation rates improved and there was a dramatic drop in mental health issues. The money made people’s lives better. In an era of record-setting economic growth but also rampant inequality we are long overdue for some policies that would make people’s lives better. Few people in the media, and maybe not even Yang himself, fully understood how radical of an idea he was proposing. UBI fundamentally alters our relationship with work and survival. It ensures a basic right to exist for all Americans. It frees ordinary people from the need to take any and every job offered just to get by. It gives everyone the chance to worry a little less and to take ownership of their own lives. UBI is not about the money; the money is a means to an end. It’s time for new ideas. It’s time for universal basic income. —Matthew B. Gilbert ’21 is a Computer Science concentrator in Adams House. His column appears on alternate Thursdays.
