The Harvard Crimson THE UNIVERSITY DAILY, EST. 1873
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VOLUME CXLIX, NO. 42
| CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 30, 2022
OP ED PAGE 4
NEWS PAGE 5
SPORTS PAGE 6
My mother tongue is on her deathbed; Harvard can help save her
Arnold Arboretum celebrates 150th anniversary
Women’s tennis wraps up non-conference play with back-to-back victories
Deleted Tweet Hints at Yardfest Star Tuition Case Revived by Judge By VIVI E. LU
CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
Rapper Swae Lee appears in line to perform at Harvard’s first in-person Yardfest concert since 2019 after the artist tweeted — and then deleted — a spring performance schedule that included a Harvard Yard event on the day of the festival. This year’s concert — the first in-person Yardfest in two years — is scheduled to take place on April 10 in Harvard’s Tercentenary Theater. On Saturday, Swae Lee posted a screenshot showing a list of college performance dates with the caption “college dates for this month…” The schedule included events at George Washington University and the University of Mississippi. The post was deleted on Tuesday afternoon. In a statement to The Crimson, Harvard College spokesperson Aaron Goldman wrote, “We look forward to announcing our guest artist for Yardfest in the coming days.” Swae Lee did not respond to a Twitter direct message on Tuesday afternoon. Nicholas E. Kelly ’23 and Nicole T. Rozelman ’23 — the
SEE YARDFEST PAGE 5
By CARA J. CHANG and ISABELLA B. CHO CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
This year’s Yardfest is scheduled to take place on April 10 in Harvard’s Tercentenary Theater.
ADDISON Y. LIU—CRIM-
SON PHOTOGRAPHER
In June 2021, Massachusetts District Court Judge Indira Talwani dismissed a class action lawsuit against Harvard University asking for partial tuition reimbursement for semesters with virtual classes. Nearly a year later, a new judge assigned to the case has revived it. Judge Angel Kelley reversed Talwani’s dismissal of the lawsuit in March, but ruled that the case could only extend to students enrolled at the Law School, the Graduate School of Education, and the School of Public Health during the spring 2020 semester. In March 2020, Harvard moved classes online for the remainder of the semester as it closed its campus due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In the original suit filed in May 2020, plaintiffs across the University called for tuition reimbursement for any semester limited to virtual learning.
Belfer Center Launches Program By MILES J. HERSZENHORN CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
The Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center is launching a new discussion series called Africa in Focus to explore recent political upheaval and significant foreign policy disputes within the continent. The discussion series was created by Natalie O. Colbert, executive director of the Belfer Center, and HKS students Hadja Diallo, Kadijatou “Kadija” Diallo, and Nicholas J. L. Sung. The first event of the series will be held on March 31 and focus on populism in Sudan and Ethiopia. Kadija Diallo said the significance of having programming centered around the continent outshines the actual geopolitical focus of the events. “The importance of this series is less about the topics that it’s covering, and more about just putting a spotlight on the continent,” she said. “And real-
ly putting a spotlight on thinkers coming from the continent, and focusing on the continent, and really engaging with Africa on its terms.” Kadija Diallo, who has family in Senegal, said she was inspired to work on the discussion series because she felt the Kennedy Schools lacked events about Africa. “There’s only one class specifically focused on Africa, which is called Africa in Global Politics,” she said, referring to a course taught by Harvard Kennedy School lecturer Zoe Marks. “This year [the course] was only a half-semester module, so as of right now, there’s no class at HKS for the end of this semester.” “The theme of the series came out of general interest from the student body,” she added. “But the motivation for the work itself was out of
SEE BELFER PAGE 5
By FELICIA HE and JAMES R. JOLIN CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
ly low, Siddiqui told The Crimson she is looking forward to focusing on issues like universal pre-K, a fare-free bus pilot, and affordable housing. Siddiqui also said she hopes to spend more time interacting in-person with residents. Siddiqui touted Cambridge RISE — a guaranteed income pilot program she helped launch — as a pandemic-era policy worth continuing and expanding. Shde also said the pandemic created a greater sense of urgency for responding to inequities in education. “We can look at universal pre-K and the importance of that, and how so much has been exacerbated by the pandemic,” she said. “What is different is that urgency is there.” When the plan for universal pre-K in Cambridge was unveiled last month, some members of the Council and School Committee argued that the
Tender Foods, a food technology startup co-founded by four Harvard-affiliated researchers that produces alternative meats, is preparing for a product launch later this year. The company, which produces plant-based meat spun from liquid polymers, is one of 27 startups launched in fiscal year 2021 to commercialize innovations from Harvard research labs. Tender Foods specializes in products that have a unique texture, structure, and ultimately taste, according to its founders. “A lot of the stuff that tries to mimic meat is textured, but it’s not fibrous, so it’s aligned and it’s a block of stuff, but it’s not individual fibers,” said Luke A. MacQueen, one of the startup’s co-founders and a Harvard postdoctoral researcher in Bioengineering. The Tender Foods’ products will better mimic the texture of real meat, MacQueen said. MacQueen co-founded the company alongside three other Harvard affiliates: Bioengineering and Applied Physics professor Kevin K. “Kit” Parker, Grant M. Gonzalez ’13, and SEAS researcher Christophe Chantre. The fibers in Tender Foods meat are made using technology developed by Parker and his colleagues. The research group studied rotary jet-spinning, which uses centrifugal force to elongate liquid polymers into fibers. MacQueen likened the device to a “cotton candy machine” that works with different kinds of proteins. The technology was initially used for various other purposes, including organ regeneration: in 2017, the researchers managed to spin nanofibers into biocompatible heart valves. Two years later, they showed the same could be done with gelatin scaffolds to hold animal muscle cells. “Every lesson learned from
SEE SIDDIQUI PAGE 3
SEE START-UP PAGE 3
The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs is housed in the Harvard Kennedy School.
MEIMEI XU—CRIM-
SON PHOTOGRAPHER
By KATERINA V. CORR and ELIAS J. SCHISGALL CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui pictured in her Cambridge City Hall office last Thursday for an interview. KATERINA V. CORR—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
Harvard Today 2
News 3
Editorial 4
SEE TUITION PAGE 5
Affiliates Launch Food Tech Start-up
Siddiqui Discusses Her Second Term as Mayor
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
At its core, the lawsuit alleges there was a “breach of contract” between the University and its students during the pandemic: Students enrolled at Harvard had a “reasonable expectation” of in-person classes and amenities but received a virtual education while paying the same fees, it argues. “Indeed, there is no plausible excuse for [Harvard] to retain and continue to charge full tuition and fees when it did not provide—and has no plans to provide—the promised educational services,” an August 2020 filing from the original lawsuit reads, adding that the University’s conduct was “unjust and inequitable.” Altogether, students suffered damages exceeding $5 million, the lawsuit alleges. In October 2020, Harvard asked the district court to dismiss the case, arguing that the University did not breach a contractual promise for in-person education and that Harvard had the right to move instruction
Sports 6
With her second term well underway, Cambridge Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui said in a Thursday interview that she hopes to break out of the mold of “pandemic mayor.” After serving two years on the Cambridge City Council, Siddiqui was sworn into her first term as mayor in January 2020 — a term that was largely defined by Cambridge’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Siddiqui was unanimously elected to a second term by the Council, becoming the first female mayor in Cambridge history to serve two consecutive terms. “When the term started, it felt like déjà vu,” Siddiqui said, referring to the spread of the Omicron variant. “It really did feel like, ‘Oh my God, is this going to be another term as pandemic mayor?’” With Covid-19 case numbers in Cambridge now relative-
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