The Harvard Crimson - Vol. CLII, No. 6

The Harvard Crimson

New Protest Rules Leave Lines Blurred

‘UNTENABLE.’ In December, Cambridge officials voted to shutter the Kennedy-Longfellow School, citing underenrollment and underperformance. But the elementary school’s planned closure was years in the making.

UPSET. The Harvard men’s basketball team handed Yale — previously undefeated in the Ivy League — its first loss on Saturday in a 74-69 win at Lavietes, leaving the Crimson in contention for postseason play.

PAGE 18

ACROSS THE AISLE. The night before Rep. Nancy R. Mace (R-S.C.) came to Harvard, she described its campus as enemy territory, mocked its students, and promised to discuss “all the hot button issues.” But after her visit, which concluded without confrontation, she said her opinion of Harvard students had changed for the better.

Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra told faculty on Tuesday that she has instructed FAS officials “to prepare for significant financial challenges” and “build financial capacity” as President Donald Trump ramps up threats to Harvard’s funding.

Her warning came in response to new annual budget guidance sent by the University to all 13 of Harvard’s schools. The guidance — issued earlier this year — directed administrators to cut costs and explore new revenue sources, according to FAS spokesperson James M. Chisholm.

University officials have long treated research cuts and proposed increases to the endowment tax as a serious threat. But Hoekstra’s comments, made at the FAS’ monthly meeting, show Harvard is now readying itself to weather a storm.

“We are experiencing times of uncomfortable uncertainty,” Hoekstra said of universities across the country.

She told professors that the FAS would need to tighten its purse strings.

“We need to find ways to build financial capacity by reducing expenses and thinking about building new sources of revenue,” Hoekstra said. “Can we be more efficient? The answer is simple: yes.”

Hoekstra said the FAS has provided budget guidance to divisions in recent weeks and is working directly with divisional deans and department chairs to “set clear, principled priorities” to “invest in the strength of our core academic mission of research and teaching.”

Hoekstra added that more details on the FAS’ budgeting strategy would be shared in future FAS meetings.

According to Hoekstra, shoring up the FAS’ financials has been a goal for her ever since she assumed the deanship in 2023, well before the University’s funding came under threat from Washington.

“Even before recent events, we were organizing to address the challenge of long-term sustainability,” Hoekstra said.

Though the FAS is Harvard’s richest school, it continues to face a “structural deficit.” In fiscal year 2024, FAS’ expense growth outpaced its revenue growth due to “increased operational costs” caused by inflation and a full return to post-pandemic activities, according to the 2024 FAS Annual Report.

“The FAS must remain disciplined in managing our expenses,” the report stated, adding that it will continue reviewing the FAS’s administrative functions, investing in technologies to “operate more efficiently,” and working to “continue efforts to unlock restricted funds.”

Though increases in expenses outpaced revenue growth, the FAS ended last year with a $3 million surplus. However, this figure represented a steep decline from the school’s $62 million surplus in 2023 and its lowest surplus since 2020.

The University has also faced financial headwinds amid its worst leadership crisis in recent memory and criticisms of its response to campus antisemitism complaints, experiencing a more than $150 million decline in endowment contributions in fiscal year 2024.

Hoekstra said she hoped the FAS would emerge stronger — but she told faculty to brace for the worst.

“Let me be clear: it will be difficult. But I know when times are tough the FAS steps up,” Hoekstra said.

Boston Mayor Holds Her Ground in House Oversight Committee Hearing

BY MEGAN L. BLONIGEN AND FRANCES Y. YONG CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

As congressional Republicans grilled Democratic mayors over their cities’ sanctuary policies in a Wednesday hearing, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu ’07 remained firm in her message: Boston is the safest major city in the country, and its sanctuary policies help keep it that way. Wu arrived at the Capitol with her baby daughter on her hip and an ash cross on her forehead, prepared to face questions from the Committee on Oversight and Government Reforms alongside the mayors of Chicago, New York City, and Denver. Over the next five hours, congressional Republicans repeatedly accused the mayors of preventing local and state law enforcement officials from collaborating with their federal counterparts. But Wu denied the accusations, saying that the Boston Police Department routinely works with federal immigration officials when criminal offenses are involved.

The federal government is responsible for immigration enforcement, but often asks local governments for assistance. Local governments are only legally required to assist with the execution of criminal warrants. But the unauthorized presence of undocumented immigrants does not, in itself, constitute a criminal offense.

“Whenever there’s a criminal warrant from any agency, Boston police enforce it,” Wu said. “We follow all state, city, and federal laws in Boston.”

Boston currently prevents local law enforcement from detaining residents based solely on their immigration status or assisting federal immigration enforcement, except on matters of “significant public safety.” Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) honed in on those policies, calling Wu “a hypocrite” and accusing her of tolerating violent crime.

Mace was one of the many Republicans who demanded yes-or-no answers to complex questions — mirroring the strategy former-Rep. Elise M. Stefanik ’06 used when

she grilled former Harvard President Claudine Gay in 2023. Other Republicans — including Harvard critic Rep. Virgina Foxx (R-N.C.) and Rep. Byron Donalds (R.-Fla.) — pressed mayors on how much their cities spent on emergency services for undocumented immigrants.

“I don’t need a speech, just a number,” Foxx said.

While other mayors volunteered exact figures, Wu responded that Boston does not “ask about immigration status in giving emergency services.” Donalds pushed Wu for a specific amount in an exchange which quickly devolved into crosstalk as the mayor did not elaborate on her previous statement.

“If you don’t have a hard number, you’re not running your city well,” Donalds said. “Mayor Wu, do you manage your budget or not?”

“I manage my budget, I have a triple A bond rating dating back 10 years,” Wu responded before Donalds cut her off.

discussion, titled “From the Boardroom to

BROWN STUDENTS REINTRODUCE BILL TO BAN LEGACY ADMISSIONS, TESTIFY AT STATE HOUSE

The

co-introduced by Brown’s Students for Educational Equity and Rep. David Morales (D-Providence), would prevent both public and private universities in the state from giving admissions preferences to students with family members who attended the school. The bill is SEE’s second attempt at introducing legislation to end legacy admissions in Rhode Island.

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN PRINCETON WILL NOT PURSUE DISSOCIATION FROM ISRAEL, RESOURCES COMMITTEE SAYS Cornell-affiliated users can now access a

A proposal submitted by Princeton Israeli Apartheid Divest calling for the University to cut financial ties with Israel will not move forward in Princeton’s Resources Committee, the Daily Princetonian reported Wednesday. The committee, which makes dissociation recommendations to Princeton’s Board of Trustees, cited the lack of campus consensus — one of the committee’s three criteria for dissociation, alongside campus interest and University values — as the rationale for the decision.

.Sunday evening, the Hasty Pudding Institute awarded Angela Bassett and Courtney B. Vance ’82 with the 8th Order of the Golden Sphinx at Farkas Hall. BY MAE T. WEIR—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER SURREAL

What’s Next

Start every week with a preview of what’s on the agenda around Harvard University

TRUMP DELIVERS ADDRESS TO JOINT SESSION OF CONGRESS

U.S President Donald Trump delivered his fifth Presidential address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night. In his speech, which was the longest address to Congress in modern history, Trump defended his policy of tariffs, praised Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency for making sweeping cuts to government services, and celebrated the removal of “woke” programs from public schools. Congressional Democrats protested throughout the speech. Many Democratic representatives held up signs protesting Trump’s policies, some walked out, and a large group of Democratic women wore coordinated pink outfits.

WHITE HOUSE IMPOSES

TARIFFS ON CANADA, MEXICO, CHINA

on Tuesday at midnight. The tariffs levy a 25 percent tax on all imports from Canada and Mexico, and a 10 percent tax on imports from China, on top of the 10 percent that was already in place. These are the largest tariffs the U.S. has imposed in decades and caused shockwaves in the U.S. and around the world. The stock market fell sharply on Tuesday, erasing its gains since President Donald Trump’s election in November. Economists have predicted that the tariffs will lower economic growth in the U.S., but even more so in Canada and Mexico whose economies rely heavily on exports to the U.S.

U.S. HOLDS DIRECT TALKS WITH HAMAS OVER HOSTAGES, CEASEFIRE

The U.S. held direct talks with Hamas officials in Qatar about the American and Israeli hostages still held in the Gaza Strip. This was a significant departure from previous American policy which has avoided engaging in direct negotiations with designated terrorist organizations.

PRINT CORRECTIONS

The article “Following the Money Behind Harvard’s State Rep.,” which ran in The Crimson’s Feb. 28 print issue, incorrectly stated on two references that State Rep. Marjorie C. Decker’s campaign spent more than $11,000 at the University of Massachusetts Club. In fact, Decker’s campaign spent slightly less than $11,000 at the club. The correct amount was stated elsewhere in the article. The article also misspelled Act on Mass executive director Scotia M. Hille’s surname.

The article “Harvard Received $151 Million From Foreign Governments Since January 2020,” which ran in The Crimson’s Feb. 28 print issue, incorrectly referred to some contribution totals that included contracts, in addition to gifts, as donations.

This list may not be comprehensive. For the most up-to-date versions of articles in The Crimson, please visit thecrimson.com.

Friday 3/7

UPDATE FROM KYIV

CGIS Knafel K232, 2:30-4 p.m.

The Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies is hosting a discussion on the current situation in Kyiv and what a potential peace deal for the ongoing war with Russia might look like. The talk will feature two scholars from the Kyiv School of Economics. The event is free for all attendees.

Saturday 3/8

HARVARD UNIVERSITY MEN’S BASKETBALL VS. DARTMOUTH

Lavietes Pavilion, 2 p.m.

Come out and support Harvard Men’s Basketball in their final game of the regular season against Dartmouth at Lavietes Pavilion, located at 45 N Harvard St. in Allston. It’s senior day, so show up to celebrate the graduating players.

Sunday 3/9

FILM SCREENING: ‘EDVARD MUNCH,’ WITH INTRODUCTION BY BEN RIVERS

Harvard Film Archive, 7-11 p.m.

The Harvard Film Archive is screening “Edvard Munch,” a television bio-pic of the eponymous artist directed by Peter Watkins at the Harvard Film Archive in the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts. The screening will be introduced by experimental filmmaker Ben Rivers, and is free for Harvard students.

Monday 3/10

READ TO A DOG

Cambridge Public Library O’Neill Branch, 3:30-4:30 p.m.

The O’Neill Branch of the Cambridge Public Library is bringing trained therapy dogs for readers up to age 14 on Monday. The dogs will be available for 10-minute reading sessions which participants must register for in advance.

Tuesday 3/11

LANDSCAPE, GARDEN AND A COLONIAL LEGACY

Piper Auditorium, Gund Hall, 6:30-8 p.m.

Jala Makhzoumi — a Landscape Architecture professor at American University of Beirut and acting president of the International Federation of Landscape Architects, the Middle East Region — will be giving a talk on cultural context and architecture.

Wednesday 3/12

THE MAKING OF BLACK HOLE IMAGES CGIS South S216, 12-1:30 p.m. Laurent R. Loinard, a visiting professor at the Black Hole Initiative, will be explaining how scientists have managed to capture the celestial objects in photos through ray tracing. The technique was used by the Event Horizon Telescope in 2019 to produce the first photos of a supermassive black hole.

Thursday 3/13

Friday 3/14

PAVAN V. THAKKAR — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

MARINA QU — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

LABOR

Students Leave Class to Protest Time Caps

UNION EFFORT. Hundreds joined a campaign against time caps on nontenure-track employment.

More than 200 Harvard affiliates rallied outside University Hall on Tuesday afternoon to protest time caps for non-tenure-track faculty, amid an extended campaign by the campus academic workers’ union to end the practice.

While bargaining for a first contract, organizers for the Harvard Academic Workers Union-United Auto Workers delivered a petition against time caps with almost 1,400 signatories to University officials. At the rally, union leaders said the University did not respond to their petition.

For the new union — which represents 3,600 lecturers, preceptors, and postdoctoral researchers — the large rally in Harvard Yard represented an escalation of their push to end time caps for lecturer and preceptor positions. Such appointment limits cap employment at two, three, or eight years depending on the position.

When contract negotiations began in September, HAW-UAW asked for a moratorium on timecap related turnover to keep current faculty in their positions until a contract is agreed upon — a request the University rejected. But in early February, Harvard negotiators offered to remove time caps from preceptor positions, contingent on the union accepting its discipline provision. The petition, and the accompanying rally, represented a show of public support for the non-tenure-track faculty demands ahead of their next bargaining session on Thursday.

“We were doing it through the usual path in negotiations, but we asked at the very beginning for a moratorium on this policy that keeps turning out people who love teaching at Harvard, and so far, we’ve got nothing in response

to that moratorium except a blanket no,” said Sara M. Feldman, a bargaining committee member and Yiddish preceptor in the department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. “A group of students, faculty and staff went to their offices to drop off these petitions and ask again for the moratorium so that we don’t lose a single good teacher this year due to time caps,” she added. “They have not responded.”

Organizers from the union and the Student Labor Action Movement called on students to walk out of class at 2:30 p.m. on Monday to support the union as it negotiates the contract.

During the rally, multiple speakers — including students, non-tenure-track faculty, and tenured faculty — climbed the University Hall steps to rail against Harvard’s time-cap policy.

“Harvard’s motto is Veritas,” History professor Kirsten A. Weld said in a speech to the crowd. “Veritas is the Latin word for truth, and signifies the relentless pursuit of truth without fear or favor in three- or eight-yearlong increments only.”

“We’re all doing great jobs, otherwise we wouldn’t be here,” said Salma Abu Ayyash, an eighthyear preceptor at the School of Engineering and Applied Scienc-

es. “The fact that we’re here till the end of our contracts means that we’re performing well in our jobs, and it doesn’t make any sense what they’re doing.”

Germanic Languages and Literatures department chair Alison Frank Johnson called on the University to treat non-tenuretrack faculty members’ jobs as “a vocation and not a way station.”

“One preceptor, three lecturers, half a dozen teaching assistants,” she said, describing the non-tenure-track members of her department. “When we lose them, we lose all Scandinavian Languages and Literatures, we lose German classes, we lose our film evening, we lose our writing

sessions, we lose our director of undergraduate studies, sometimes we lose amazing classes, we lose freshman seminars, we lose Gen Ed courses.”

“We lose the beating heart of our department,” Johnson added. Student speakers — including SLAM member Juan I. Pedraza Arellano ’25-’26 — said a nontenure-track faculty member had been an important mentor and convinced him to pursue a citation in Portuguese.

“I fell in love with Portuguese because of my non-tenure-track professor,” Pedraza Arellano said in a speech. “Without her, I would have never found out how much

Charleston wrote in her email that the poster’s removal violates the University’s rules on the use of campus spaces. The rules, released in August 2024, prohibit “tampering with or removing” approved displays.

The incident took place during a Monday Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine rally, in which protesters moved from the Science Center Plaza into Harvard Yard after several counterprotesters attempted to drown out the rally’s speakers with loud music.

In her email, Charleston described the poster’s removal as

an “affront” to free expression on campus in her email.

“The response to speech with which we disagree is more speech, not less; it’s more listening, more dialogue,” Charleston wrote. “It disparages those in our community when their perspectives or experiences are negated by destructive acts like these.”

“Let us stand united in condemning acts that undermine the fabric of our community,” she added.

On Tuesday, University spokesperson Jason A. Newton wrote that the Harvard University Police Department is current-

ly investigating the matter as a “as a bias-related incident.” Monday’s events follow a March 2024 incident in which a man contracted by the University to do groundskeeping work was filmed removing posters of Israeli hostages from a bulletin board outside Thayer Hall. The contracted worker was ordered to leave campus and barred from returning to Harvard, and the University condemned his actions in a statement to The Crimson at the time.

BY WILLIAM C. MAO AND VERONICA H. PAULUS CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences voted overwhelmingly to amend the Harvard College student handbook with new language explicitly prohibiting grading based on political beliefs, instructing students to prioritize academics, and enforcing a non-attribution policy for classroom speech during a Tuesday FAS meeting.

The amendment, which was proposed in a recent FAS committee report on classroom norms, passed with all but one faculty member assenting. The new language and policies will go into effect on July 1 and will be reviewed by the Faculty Council within five years.

“A Harvard College education is defined by the pursuit of knowledge,” the amendment reads. “The classroom forms the center of a Harvard College education, and students are expected to prioritize their coursework.”

History professor Maya R. Jasanoff, who co-led the FAS committee that produced the report alongside Economics professor David I. Laibson ’88, said on Tuesday that the amendment’s recentering of academics addressed “a peculiar gap” in the University’s explicit statements of its values.

“At present, there is nothing in the Handbook for Students establishing the centrality of their academic work,” Jasanoff said.

The FAS report, which was released in early February, found that many students report self-censoring during classroom discussions on controversial issues. The committee recommend-

ed that the FAS adopt the Chatham House Rule, a non-attribution policy that allows classroom participants to share the contents of class discussions but not attribute them to speakers. The recommendation was codified by Tuesday’s vote.

At the last FAS meeting in February, professors praised the report but raised questions about whether class discussions protected under the Chatham House Rule could be exposed by congressional subpoenas — a growing threat under a Republican-led Congress.

“I’m curious about the extent to which we can actually protect students’ names and our own names from subpoenas,” History professor Alison Frank Johnson said in February.

History professor Robin Bernstein raised similar concerns, specifically pointing out that students with accommodations for disabilities can receive permission to record courses — and that these recordings could be exposed by subpoenas.

At the time, Laibson said he could not give a definitive answer but would raise the issue with the University’s Office of General Counsel.

On Tuesday, however, Jasanoff said that the committee recommended that the University adopt standard procedures for periodically deleting class recordings after students with disability accommodations finished courses and no longer required the videos.

The new handbook language also addresses concerns in the committee’s report that students write essays designed to align with their instructors’ political beliefs. The amendment stipulates that while students can be graded for the strength of their argument or factual accuracy, a “student’s sta-

I love learning this language, and it’s not just me.”

Several speakers argued that Trump administration funding cuts, challenges to diversity programs, and immigration crackdowns should drive Harvard officials toward cooperation with the union.

“We’re the ones on the front lines of this escalated assault on the academy,” History & Literature lecturer Jules Riegel said. “We’ve been fighting back this whole time, and we want the University to join us.”

Former Social Studies lecturer Tracey A. Rosen was the rally’s final speaker. Rosen, one of HAW-UAW’s founding members, “timed out” at the end of the 202324 academic year. She had been giving a visiting lecture on Freud for Social Studies 10b: “Introduction to Social Studies” when the walkout began, and joined the demonstration alongside her students.

“I came here to give a Social Studies lecture,” she said. “I spent seven years here. They kicked me out and then they asked me to come give a Social Studies lec-

wrote in October.

“Turnover within a unit during bargaining is not unusual and has occurred during negotiations for other Harvard union contracts,” they added. Several time-capped workers’ contracts expire June 30, and organizers say departments are already in the process of hiring their replacements.

hugo.chiasson@thecrimson.com

amann.mahajan@thecrimson.com

tus in a course, including their grades, will not be affected by their political or ethical point of view.” The FAS report also found that students frequently prioritize their extracurricular commitments over their academics and recommended that the FAS strengthen course attendance requirements, discourage phone use in classrooms, and standardize grading across divisions. The language aimed at recentering academic studies comes amid a wider push for greater curricular rigor and focus on academics at Harvard. In October, the Harvard College Program in General Education updated its guidelines to standardize grading across courses and mitigate grade inflation.

Just minutes after the FAS approved the new handbook amendment, Psychology professor Fiery Cushman ’03 and Anthropology professor Jason A. Ur — who cochairs the Gen Ed program — presented a proposal to phase out the option for students to take one of their four required Gen Ed courses on a pass-fail basis.

And later in the meeting, Statistics professor Joseph K. Blitzstein, who chairs the Quantitative Reasoning with Data Committee, presented a proposal that would similarly eliminate the pass-fail option for courses that fulfill the QRD requirement.

At the meeting, Jasanoff said the amendment addressed a widespread desire to define Harvard’s academic mission.

“We sense a hunger for meaningful statements about the value of our academic enterprise,” Jasanoff said.

BY HUGO C. CHIASSON AND AMANN S. MAHAJAN CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

Before Visit, Nancy Mace Mocks Harvard

SETTING THE STAGE.

Rep. Nancy Mace called Harvard students “proHamas kids” before her study group event at the IOP on Thursday.

BY ELISE A. SPENNER CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

ne day before Rep. Nan-

Ocy R. Mace’s planned talk at Harvard’s Institute of Politics, the firebrand South Carolina Republican was still lacing into the University online and in an interview with The Crimson. Mace claimed in the Wednesday evening interview that Harvard failed to tamp down on campus antisemitism in the aftermath of Oct. 7 and harbored pro-Hamas student groups.

And on her personal X account, Mace adopted a mocking tone for her nearly half a million followers, deriding the students she was preparing to visit.

“I’m talking to Harvard students tomorrow night,” she wrote Wednesday evening. “Some of them wouldn’t last two seconds with Hamas. They would get their heads chopped off before they could even say their pronouns.” Mace told The Crimson she was hoping for “civilized discussion, civilized debate.” She wanted to hear what Ivy League students thought about “the current environment, politically,” she said.

And she said she was eager to talk with students about “all the hot button issues” — though, she said, she doesn’t script her speeches in advance.

“I’ll probably talk about Israel a little bit,” she said. “I’ll probably touch on immigration, for example. I’ll touch on the Middle East. I’ll touch on antisemitism. I’ll touch on women’s issues.”

Mace will appear at an IOP study group Thursday to speak with students at an undisclosed location. She was invited to join the off-the-record talk with IOP spring resident fellow Joe Mitch-

ell, who co-founded a nonprofit to mentor up-and-coming conservative leaders. Mace made her political name with a keen eye for capitalizing on media attention. In 2023, The New York Times described her as a “fiscal conservative” who “leans toward the center on some social issues.” Until last year, she was perhaps most famous for her feud with then-House Speaker Kevin O. McCarthy, whom she voted to oust from his role.

But Mace, a self-styled “maverick,” has made a home for herself within the hard right. She has sought to bar transgender women from using women’s restrooms in the Capitol and slung anti-trans slurs during a House committee meeting. And while she once condemned President Donald Trump for his role in the Jan. 6 attacks, she has trans-

formed into an ardent defender of his presidency.

Mace’s public statements did not endear her to Harvard’s largely liberal student body. Students floated plans on social media platforms to boycott her upcoming appearance at the IOP. Some suggested attending a concurrently scheduled event with Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.). Many warned against protesting, arguing that disruptions would give Mace exactly what she wanted.

In her interview with The Crimson, Mace said she accepted the invitation because Harvard was an “Ivy League school with a lot of smart students and a wellknown political center.”

Though Mace did not say she was hoping for a face-off with disgruntled students, she has seized opportunities for confrontation. Hours before her Wednesday in-

a series of yes-or-no questions on

city

And in her interview with The Crimson, she laid out a laundry list of grievances with Harvard and higher education. She accused American colleges of fostering “disgusting” antisemitism, comparing pro-Palestine student protests to Nazi Germany.

“There have been groups on college campuses like Harvard that have promoted the ideology of Hamas, that have prevented Jews from going to class,” she said. “This is not 1942 Germany. That will not stand in Donald Trump’s America.”

A Harvard spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday evening.

Mace backed Trump’s plan to revoke visas for international students who are “Hamas sympathizers” or “pro-jihadist.”

“I want to see them deported from every single college campus across America,” Mace said. “We need to have people that are going to be safe.” Mace also doubled down on her anti-trans statements, saying cisgender women were being pushed out of college life by trans classmates. Harvard is currently facing a lawsuit over the participation of a trans woman swimmer in a 2022 championship tournament held on its campus.

“Men should not be hijacking women’s sports,” she said. “Men shouldn’t be hijacking the achievements of women and girls that are coming through academia.”

After Trump signed a Feb. 5

executive order banning transgender women from participating in women’s sports, Harvard Athletics removed its Transgender Inclusion Policy. Mace issued across-the-board endorsements of Trump’s slew of executive orders targeting higher education and stripping down the administrative state.

“We should defund DEI, we should defund USAID,” Mace said. “We should defund all foreign aid except to Israel.” Before her visit to Harvard on Thursday, Mace embraced the prospect of some verbal sparring: “I love tough questions. I love feedback. I love criticism. I welcome any question that anyone has from any side of the aisle.”

“You can ask me anything,” she added.

elise.spenner@thecrimson.com

Tamara K. Lanier, who is suing Harvard for emotional distress over its possession of daguerreotypes of her enslaved ancestors, repeated her demand for Harvard to return the photographs and admonished the University for allegedly failing to reckon with its legacy of slavery at a Tuesday talk.

Lanier claims Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology owns 19th century photographs of her greatgreat-great grandfather Renty and his daughter Delia. Lanier, who published her book “From These Roots: My Fight with Harvard to Reclaim my Legacy” in January, spoke at a book talk hosted by unrecognized student group AFRO, short for the African and African American Resistance Organization.

The University denied Lanier’s request for the daguerreotypes on the grounds that they could not verify that she was descended from the individuals in the photographs. Lanier, however, alleged during the talk that “to this day, they have never looked at my research.” When asked for comment, Harvard spokesperson Sarah E. Kennedy O’Reilly directed The Crimson to a 2023 statement to ProPublica that said internal and external genealogists had examined Lanier’s family tree on the University’s behalf. Lanier situated her fight to reclaim the photographs as part of Harvard’s broader reckoning with its legacy of slavery. During the talk, she — and the event’s organizers — suggested

that the Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery initiative was merely “a great PR stunt.”

“If they believed what they were saying,” Lanier added, referring to the initiative, “They wouldn’t be fighting me in court.”

Kennedy O’Reilly wrote in a statement that the Legacy of Slavery initiative is “entirely separate” from the Lanier case.

Lanier initially filed her suit in 2019, alleging emotional distress and that Harvard had violated copyright law by holding and indirectly profiting from images of her ancestors. In 2022, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court threw out the copyright suit, deeming Harvard professor Louis L.R. Agassiz the copyright owner as the creator of the images, but allowed Lanier’s emotional distress suit to proceed.

“Despite its duty of care to her, Harvard cavalierly dismissed her ancestral claims and disregarded her requests, despite its own representations that it would keep her informed of further developments,” the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court wrote at the time.

Agassiz commissioned the images in 1850 as part of his infamous effort to prove that Black individuals were biologically inferior to their white counterparts. During the event, Lanier argued that Harvard’s possession or display of the images is therefore “tarnished by the ugly history of how it was acquired.”

Lanier said during the talk that the daguerreotypes are rare tangible evidence of the life of a man whose “oral history defines him.” According to Lanier, Renty taught himself

how to read using “a Webster’s Blue-Backed Speller” and went on to educate other enslaved individuals at a time when doing so “would have imperiled his life.”

“What I hope to see in the very near future, are these daguerreotypes at a place like the Afro-American Museum in DC, where they celebrate them for the amazing people that they were, and they tell of this fight to get them there,” she added.

In her reply, Kennedy O’Reilly pointed The Crimson to the University’s 2023 statement to ProPublica, which said the University has “long suggested placing the daguerreotypes — all 15 of them — in another institution that would allow them to be more accessible to a broader segment of the public, to be understood in an appropriate historical context, and to tell the stories of the enslaved individuals they depict.”

As of now, however, the daguerreotypes remain in the University’s possession. In 2023, the University told ProPublica that it was difficult to “arrange for such a transfer” while Lanier’s suit was ongoing.

“There is a legacy of love, respect and reverence for this man. So the images are important, because it is a part of who I am, and so that is one of the reasons why I have persisted for the last 15 years,” Lanier said.

In the interview, Lanier said she remained “cautiously optimistic” that Harvard might voluntarily return the daguerreotypes, though Harvard has not done so in the six years since she first filed her suit.

BY ELISE A. SPENNER CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

The night before Rep. Nancy R. Mace (R-S.C.) came to Harvard, she described its campus as enemy territory. But after her visit, she said her opinion of Harvard students had changed for the better, according to three people who attended her Thursday event at the Institute of Politics.

In the week before her Harvard appearance, the South Carolina congresswoman framed the event as a confrontation in posts on X, telling her followers that she was “bringing America First to Harvard” and taunting students as “blue haired ProHamas kids.”

But she took a different tack in her Thursday study group, the attendees said, touting her bipartisanship and curbing her attacks against the University.

The off-the-record event was held on the fifth floor of the Kennedy School’s Taubman Building — a last-minute location change to accommodate increased interest, according to a student familiar with the IOP’s plans. Details of the event, including its new location, were restricted to registrants selected to attend. Even so, three police cars and five officers stood outside the Taubman Building prior to the start of the event, and two security guards idled inside the lobby throughout the speech.

In the lobby, two IOP staff members restricted access to the elevator to confirmed registrants. Staff said the room could hold 50 people and registration numbers were “at capacity,” although students estimated there were around 40 attendees and said there were empty seats.

Those attendees spanned the political spectrum, students said. One attendee even prefaced their comments by acknowledging they were a “registered Democrat.”

Mace leaned into what she described as her bipartisan track record. She and conservative mentorship nonprofit founder Joe Mitchell — a spring 2025 IOP resident fellow and the host of Thursday’s study group — opened the conversation by touting Mace’s status as the 22nd most bipartisan member of Congress, said Irati Evworo Diez ’25, who attended the event.

That bipartisan emphasis set the table for what was an acrossthe-board polite conversation, attendees told The Crimson.

Mace, who entered Congress in 2021, has a record of bucking the Republican party line on some social issues. She is a well-known proponent of gay marriage, supports legalizing marijuana and has urged Republicans to moderate their views on abortion — positions she leaned into on Thursday, according to attendees.

But on many topics, Mace is also a vocal spokesperson for President Donald Trump and the right wing. She has led the fight against transgender rights and backed Elon Musk’s efforts to gut the federal bureaucracy. And just a day before she came to Harvard, Mace crusaded against sanctuary cities in a Wednesday congressional hearing, attacking Boston Mayor Michelle Wu ’07 with a sequence of rapid-fire questions.

In a Wednesday interview with The Crimson, Mace espoused similarly combative views, calling for “pro-Hamas and pro-terrorism” students

to be “deported from every single college campus” and saying transgender college athletes were “hijacking women’s sports.”

She gave no signs that Thursday would be any different, saying that she planned to touch on “all the hot button issues” — including antisemitism, immigration, the Middle East, and transgender rights.

While students said those topics did come up, they said that Mace was not defensive and did not antagonize Harvard or its student groups — an aboutface from her provocative comments Wednesday.

“There have been groups on college campuses like Harvard that have promoted the ideology of Hamas, that have prevented Jews from going to class,” Mace said Wednesday. “This is not 1942 Germany. That will not stand in Donald Trump’s America.” Whether or not Mace came to Harvard looking for a fight, she didn’t get one: the event concluded without protest or disruption.

In the only clip Mace posted from the off-the-record study group, she seems to be advising students on how to effect change in Washington.

“Less is more,” Mace says in the video. “The more simple the bill is — one line, one paragraph, one page, maybe a handful of pages, the fewer the pages — the better.”

Some attendees said they appreciated the dialogue.

“I’m vehemently of the mind that it should happen as much as possible,” Evworo Diez said. “TL;DR — I think it’s valuable.”

terview, she bombarded Boston mayor Michelle Wu ’07 with

Boston’s sanctuary

status.

Nancy R. Mace (R.-S.C) spoke at Harvard’s Institute of Politics on Thursday. JAMILA R. O’HARA — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

As Harvard Updates Protest Policies, No Easy Answers

conduct policies, “the devil’s in the details.”

BY SAMUEL A. CHURCH AND CAM N. SRIVASTAVA CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

Former Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers took to X on Monday to argue in a string of outraged posts that certain University-hosted events might be considered antisemitic under Harvard’s newly adopted definition of antisemitism.

Summers suggested Harvard officials would need to take action. But in doing so, he also brought an uncomfortable tension in Harvard’s free speech policies back to light — that the policies themselves don’t necessarily prohibit antisemitic speech in classrooms or at protests, regardless of its definition.

That fact has been at the heart of an extended publicity crisis for top University officials, caught between defending the right to free speech and presenting a forceful front against antisemitism after the University’s response to Hamas’ October 2023 attack on Israel convinced people across the globe that Harvard was a hostile place for Jewish students.

Former Harvard President Claudine Gay paid a particularly steep price for acknowledging that reality before Congress, telling U.S. Rep. Elise M. Stefanik ’06 (R-N.Y.) in a now-famous December 2023 exchange that calling for the genocide of Jews could violate University policies, but that it “depends on the context.” She resigned less than a month later. While Gay quickly apologized, writing that calls for violence “have no place at Harvard,” Harvard’s policies then and now say that discriminatory speech must meet a series of additional conditions — some stated, some not — to be punished.

After Harvard adopted the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, which classifies certain criticisms of Israel as antisemitic, both those who celebrated the decision and those who saw it as a crackdown on criticism of Israel said speech newly classified as antisemitic could become cause for disciplinary action. And yet, according to more than a dozen First Amendment and academic freedom experts who reviewed Harvard’s policies, the rules remain mostly vague, based on conduct rather than speech itself, and heavily dependent on context.

Timothy J. Heaphy, a former U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia, said when it comes to campus speech and

“You just can’t take words by themselves and say that they’re wrong, or that they’re not protected,” Heaphy said. “It all depends on the context.”

Changing Rules

Since becoming interim president 14 months ago, Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 has repeatedly updated protest and speech policies amid criticisms and confusion over what conduct is technically allowed — and, separately, what speech the University condemns.

The first and most far-reaching update was to the University-wide Statement on Rights and Responsibilities, a document originally released in 1970 that serves as Harvard’s foundation for protest policy.

Garber reinterpreted the USRR two weeks into his interim tenure to restrict protests to outdoor spaces that do not block “pedestrian traffic” and event spaces that are reserved in advance.

Columbia University law professor David E. Pozen said Garber’s administration interpreted a few key but ambiguous statements in the original 1970 document in “a manner that tends to limit the scope of permissible protest.”

Then, three months later, a group of Harvard’s pro-Palestine protesters staged a 20-day encampment in Harvard Yard, breaking several rules posted on gates around Harvard Yard but remaining mostly compliant with the USRR — even taking care to keep the Yard pathways clear.

When more than 20 encampment participants were later informed they had been placed on probation and five students were suspended, administrators largely relied on a clause in the USRR prohibiting the “interference with members of the University in performance of their normal duties and activities,” according to disciplinary records subpoenaed and published in September by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

New restrictions were added a second time over the summer, when Harvard officials rolled out Campus Use Rules that largely prohibited encampment staples like the use of tents and tables and raising flags.

Bradford Vivian, a free speech expert and professor at Pennsylvania State University, said Harvard’s policies were consistent with a trend among universities nationwide — especially at more elite, private institutions — to further narrow permissible protest.

“I was thinking, ‘What would these policies have looked like three or four years ago?’” Vivian said. “I assume that they would

have been much shorter.”

When students returned to Harvard’s campus last fall, they were met with additional warnings about protest from Garber and Harvard Executive Vice President Meredith L. Weenick ’90 stating that the University was prepared to hold violators of its policies accountable.

“Where there is substantial disruption of the normal operations of our campus, University police may remove or remediate the disruption,” Weenick wrote in an email. “Participants should be prepared to be held accountable for their actions.”

In line with Harvard’s new campus use rules, Weenick’s words focused on the nature of campus disruptions rather than the content of their speech.

Conduct policies were updated a final time in January, incorporating Harvard’s newly adopted IHRA definition of antisemitism. Harvard officials updated the Frequently Asked Questions web page accompanying the University’s Non-discrimination and Anti-bullying Policy to clarify that its restrictions also applied to anti-Zionist conduct.

Robert Cohen, a professor of history and social studies at New York University, said the timing of Harvard’s adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism and NDAB clarifications was no coincidence.

“The University is not in any position to be objective about free speech,” Cohen said. “Congress and now the president and donors are holding a gun to its head, so it has to suppress speech.”

‘Context Matters’

Despite Garber’s promise to crack down on antisemitic speech on campus, the changes to University policies since Gay’s testimony have introduced substantial limits on speech beyond restrictions that existed well before her presidency.

Harvard’s NDAB policies, first announced in 2022, stipulate that policy violations occur when an individual engages in “discriminatory disparate treatment” or “discriminatory harassment.” As defined by Harvard, both require targeting individuals based on protected categories — which include race, religion, and political beliefs.

Regardless of the form discrimination takes, Harvard’s policies limit discipline based on the content of speech to that which is targeted at individuals and either results in “less favorable treatment” or is “so severe or pervasive, and objectively offensive” that it “denies the individual an equal opportunity to participate in the benefits of the workplace or the institution’s programs or activities.”

Duke University Law School

Professor Amanda Martin said

Harvard’s definition of harassment includes “some qualifiers that are extreme.”

“It would be a higher bar or a more difficult thing to prove that someone was being harassed at such a level that it fundamentally changed the workplace or the educational or living environment,” Martin said.

That means that speech — including antisemitic, racist, sexist, or otherwise hateful comments — is normally permissible unless it specifically targets or heavily impacts individuals.

It also might explain why protest speech that enraged affiliates and external observers alike, including well-known chants like “from the river to the sea” and “Israel is an apartheid state,” has not triggered disciplinary action from the University.

The FAQ page accompanying Harvard’s NDAB policies lists several examples of potential conduct violations — including the use of slurs, physical assault, advocating genocide, and accusing an individual of supporting genocide based on protected characteristics. But the list is not exhaustive — and not everything on the list necessarily constitutes a policy violation.

Howard H. Schweber, a First Amendment expert and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who reviewed Harvard’s NDAB policies, said the updates to the FAQs did not alter the requirement that, to be restricted, speech must be directed at a specific individual.

“Context matters in a number of ways,” Schweber said. “It makes a difference whether a statement is directed at a person or made generally.”

After the University announced its decision to adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism, Harvard Law School Professor Noah R. Feldman made the same point in defense of the decision, pointing out that speech — whether considered antisemitic or not — would still have to “come in the context of an act of harassment or bullying” to warrant discipline.

But Harvard Corporation Senior Fellow Penny S. Pritzker ’81 had a different interpretation of Harvard’s policies.

In an August interview with the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, Pritzker said she understood the repeated use of hate speech to violate Harvard’s speech policies, and believed “from the river to the sea” met that requirement.

While the interview was conducted five months before the NDAB updates, Pritzker said she believed policy updates earlier that year had already been changed to conclusively prohibit the repeated use of unambiguous hate speech.

And some politicians and Harvard affiliates have argued that strident language and prom-

inent protests, like the spring 2024 encampment, created an atmosphere of intimidation for Jewish students. In a Wednesday interview with The Crimson, Rep. Nancy R. Mace (R-S.C.) said student groups at Harvard and elsewhere had “prevented Jews from going to class.”

Despite the confusion, Harvard officials and representatives have declined to say whether provocative or offensive phrases, used repeatedly, violate the policies on their own. They have also declined to answer questions about what conduct would have to accompany antisemitic language to trigger discipline.

A University spokesperson also declined to provide such clarification for this article. Where Harvard officials have moved to discipline protest activity, they have cited actions that clearly violated conduct-based policies, either outlined in the Campus Use Rules or Garber’s 2024 interpretation of the USRR. Those rules specifically banned unauthorized temporary structures, displays, disruption of study spaces, or blocking of pathways as prohibited protests, in addition to other actions.

In the case of library demonstrations, classroom disruptions, and a building occupation, administrative action has been swift. Harvard doled out dozens of library suspensions in the fall, though large-scale protest activity was more limited than in the spring. And — even in the absence of punishment — administrators have, at times, publicly censured speech they deemed offensive or discriminatory.

Gay condemned the phrase “from the river to the sea” in November 2023, and Garber condemned an antisemitic cartoon posted to social media by pro-Palestine student groups. After a protester tore down a poster on Monday of Israelis held hostage by Hamas, Harvard’s chief diversity officer decried his actions as “hateful” — and said they violated campus rules prohibiting the removal of approved displays.

‘Chilling Effect’ University critics, and freespeech proponents alike worry that Harvard’s policies remain ambiguous in ways that could restrict expression. American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts Attorney Rachel Davidson wrote in a statement that she is worried the lack of clarity on permitted speech would favor less speech.

“Uncertainty will cause many students to self-censor rather than risk discipline,” Davidson wrote. “This sort of chilling effect detracts from the kind of open inquiry and debate that is so essential on college campuses.”

“If an institution needs a

lengthy FAQ to explain its various speech policies, then those policies likely aren’t clear enough,” she wrote. Multiple Harvard protesters, for their part, believe they already violate the NDAB policies. And they do not plan to stop.

Violet T.M. Barron ’26, an organizer with Harvard Jews for Palestine, said several of their chants — including variations of “Israel is a racist state” — are considered antisemitic by Harvard. Since the January updates to the NDAB policies, pro-Palestine protesters have compared Israel’s war in Gaza to the Holocaust, accused Zionists of supporting a genocide, and explicitly labeled Israel as a racist state. They have not faced disciplinary action from the University.

“I think they’ve actually backed themselves into a corner where people could call them out for viewing things as antisemitic but not disciplining for them, which looks bad on Harvard’s end,” said Barron, a Crimson Editorial editor.

“By adopting the definition, they now officially consider such a wide range of things antisemitism,” Barron, who is Jewish, added. “I say right now, ‘Israel is a racist state.’ What Jewish person am I hurting?”

A University spokesperson declined to comment on Barron’s interpretation of the rules, or if the speech constituted policy violations.

Olivia G. Pasquerella ’26, another HOOP organizer, added that the public presentation of policy updates has appeared different from the actual disciplinary action.

“Their word is one thing and their action is always another,” said Pasquerella, a Crimson Magazine editor. “I don’t think that it is really productive to sit around and be like, ‘What does Harvard really mean with this policy, and what exactly can I say, and what is the line I can toe?’ because at the end of the day, the guidelines are always meant to clamp down upon student action.”

Protesters say they will not stop using phrases that say Harvard considers antisemitic — a label they dispute. And prominent professors also have concerns that the policies as written could limit academic debate on Israel and Palestine. But without clarity on where the lines between speech and conduct are drawn, student protesters and professors alike are left guessing.

“It’s up to the enforcer to decide when to enforce,” said Martin, the Duke Law professor.

“That means that favored speech may be allowed and disfavored speech may be punished,” she added.

ELYSE C. GONCALVES — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

FREE SPEECH

Harvard Says Speech Is Safe

REASSURANCES. Harvard told faculty new anti-bullying guidance won’t interfere with speech.

BY ELISE A. SPENNER AND WILL P. COTTISS CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

n the wake of Harvard’s de -

Icision to extend its non-discrimination policies to Zionists, University leaders assured professors who study the Israel-Palestine conflict that their speech will “ordinarily” be protected.

Harvard’s new Non-Discrimination and Anti-Bullying Policies and Procedures, updated in January as part of two antisemitism lawsuit settlements, outlines extensive protections for Zionists — and lists both “advocating genocide” and “accusing an individual of supporting genocide” as potential policy violations.

In conversations with University officials, History professor Derek J. Penslar — who also directs Harvard’s Center for Jewish Studies — was told the policies would not usually restrict academic freedom in the classroom around the conflict.

According to the NDAB “Frequently Asked Questions” webpage, “ordinarily, it will not violate the NDAB Policies for members of the Harvard community to make controversial statements” in academics, disagreements over political beliefs, or in criticizing political leaders.

“That’s the key word that the guidelines use: ‘ordinarily,’” said Penslar, who is currently teaching a class titled “One Land, Two Peoples: The Modern History of Israel/Palestine” and is a co-chair of Harvard’s task force on antisemitism.

“That does keep the door

BENNETT FROM PAGE 1

open, though, for cases where there might be some limitation,” he added.

In separate discussions, Harvard Kennedy School professor Tarek E. Masoud, who directs the school’s Middle East Initiative, was told invited speakers could still strongly criticize Israeli leaders under the new policies. A University spokesperson declined to comment on the private conversations.

“To accuse Netanyahu of genocide in the context of a public event, or in the context of a discussion about whether the current campaign in Gaza constitutes genocide or not, that discussion is not covered by the policy,” said Masoud, who frequently invites polarizing figures to discuss Israel and Palestine as part of the Middle East Dialogues series.

At a Harvard Law School talk on Wednesday, Paul O’Brien — the executive director of Amnesty International USA — did just that, presenting findings that Israel was committing a genocide in Gaza.

When asked if he was concerned about the scope of the antisemitism definition, O’Brien said he remained confident that Harvard would “protect reasonable evidence-based debate around international law.”

“I’m here in that spirit,” O’Brien said, of his HLS talk. “If we can’t do that in a law school, it’s not just a threat to the individuals that are impacted, it’s a threat to the protection of rights.”

But Dalal Saeb Iriqat, a professor at the Arab American University Palestine whose speaking role in a March 2024 Middle East Dialogues event sparked controversy, said she found the new policy “very worrying” and “very alarming.”

Iriqat, who was condemned by former HKS Dean Douglas W. Elmendorf before the event for describing Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel as a “normal” freedom struggle, said there needed to be a clearer line drawn between antisemitism and anti-Zionism.

“The definition of antisemitism has come to the level of to criticize the right-wing government, then you’re antisemitic,” Iriqat said. “This is totally wrong.”

HKS spokesperson Daniel B. Harsha wrote in a statement that the school’s “unwavering commitment to non-discrimination” would not conflict with its protection of free speech and academic expression.

“No matter the context, antisemitism or any other form of harassment on the basis of religion or political belief is unacceptable at HKS and all of Harvard University,” Harsha wrote, declining to comment on Iriqat’s criticisms.

Harvard’s language now aligns with the International Holocaust Remembrance Al -

liance’s definition of antisemitism. The new definition also includes IHRA’s examples of antisemitism, which state it is antisemitic to call Israel’s existence a “racist endeavor” or draw comparison between Nazis and contemporary Israeli policy.

In substantial updates to the NDAB policies, University leadership wrote that they encourage “reasoned dissent and the free exchange of ideas, beliefs, and opinions, including on controversies such as the Arab-Israeli and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts.”

Penslar warned that in interpreting the policies, people should distinguish between “academic freedom” and “absolute freedom,” clarifying that he did not believe the policy would let you “say whatever you want to whenever you want to.”

“What happens if a professor starts to rant at their students?” Penslar asked. “Would that be protected free speech?” In his view, “perhaps not.”

elise.spenner@thecrimson.com will.cottiss@thecrimson.com

Marchers Protest Israeli PM’s Harvard Visit

the World Stage,” was moderated by HBS professor Paul A. Gompers ’86.

HOOP organized the rally with Jewish Voice for Peace, the Palestinian Youth Movement, and Boston’s Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions Movement, according to an emailed statement. The demonstration included protesters from MIT, Boston University, Northeastern University, and Emerson College.

The demonstration was announced as a rally in John F. Kennedy Memorial Park, but organizers mobilized the crowd after 15 minutes — leading the crowd for nearly one mile around the HBS campus.

Bennett served as prime minister of Israel from 2021 to 2022 after he led a political coalition to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Throughout the march, Bennett was repeatedly criticized by organizers for his past statements and actions on Palestine.

During a 2013 Israeli Cabinet meeting, Bennett said, “I’ve already killed a lot of Arabs in my life — and there is no problem with that,” according to reports in the Hebrew-language Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot. Bennett’s office later said his comments were misinterpreted. While serving as Israeli Defense Minister under Netanyahu in 2020, Bennett pushed for the annexation of large parts of the West Bank. Earlier in the day, Bennett attended a conversation at Harvard Chabad, a Jewish student organization. Harvard is just one of many stops in Bennett’s tour of elite university campuses across the country. Bennett spoke at Yale on Jan. 21 and at Columbia on Tuesday.

Bennett’s speeches at Yale and Columbia also drew protests, which were accompanied by heavy security and police responses and blockades. During the march at Harvard, protesters led chants of

“Hey, Naftali, what do you say, how many kids did you kill today?”

“He’s a genocidaire. He’s a war criminal. He’s brought about thousands of people’s deaths, Palestinian deaths,” said Kojo Acheampong ’26, a pro-Palestine organizer and co-founder of the African and African American Resistance Organization.

In an emailed statement to The Crimson, Bennett attacked the protesters for criticizing his position regarding the war in Gaza.

“I pity people who protest in support of savage murderers. I certainly will not be silenced by anyone, when I’m fighting for my people,” Bennett wrote.

“Missiles didn’t silence me, so certainly misguided protesters will not,” Bennett added.

At the initial rally in JFK Park, the pro-Palestine demonstrators were met with resistance from a small cohort of counter protesters, including members of Moms Against College Antisemitism — a national Facebook group with more than 61,000 online members.

The protesters carried signs that read “Hamas Go Home” and “You Support Hamas Rape/Murder. Are You Proud of It?”

Though most counter protesters did not directly engage with the demonstration, two approached the organizers as they addressed the crowd, chanting, “Rape, terrorism, that’s what you support.”

In a speech, Acheampong argued that the University violated its own institutional neutrality policy and for reinvesting $150 million in Booking Holdings Inc., a company criticized for its operation in Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Harvard cut its shares in Booking by 46 percent at the end of 2024.

Acheampong said the abrupt cancellation of a Jan. 21 Harvard Medical School panel with patients from Gaza receiving care in Boston was a “contradiction” of the University’s institutional

neutrality policy.

“The University has the audacity to bring a man like this to this campus. Meanwhile, they can’t even do an event on Palestinian death at the medical school,” Acheampong said.

“We understand that it’s a front by the University. They’re not neutral in anything,”he added.

University spokesperson Jason A. Newton declined to comment on the organizers’ criticisms of the University.

After his speech, Acheampong and HOOP marshals led the protesters across the Anderson Memorial Bridge into Allston. While the counterprotesters gradually dispersed as the march went further towards HBS, a majority of the pro-Palestine demonstrators stuck through the cold rain until the end of the protest.

Harvard University Police Department and Securitas officers barricaded five separate entrances to the business school campus on North Harvard Street, stationing officers and placing metal fences at each entryway.

“I think that’s a testament to the fact that they were afraid,” HOOP organizer Violet T.M. Barron ’26 said.

Harvard ID holders who were not involved in the protest were allowed to enter HBS campus through the barricades. Securitas guards, HUPD officers, and HBS staff stationed at the barricades distributed written notices of HBS’s demonstration policy as they entered.

But HUPD only barricaded entrances on North Harvard Street. Protesters were able to quickly reroute, winding through a parking lot across from the Science and Engineering Complex and reemerging on Western Avenue.

“In the heat of the struggle, you got to reroute, quite literally, both politically and physically,” Acheampong said. When marchers arrived in

Summers Accuses Harvard of Inaction

BY DHRUV T. PATEL AND GRACE E. YOON CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

Former Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers accused the Harvard Corporation, the University’s highest governing body, of being “ineffectual” in addressing campus antisemitism in a Monday statement on X.

Summers’ thread was an extraordinary broadside against Harvard — not just a rebuke of the University’s sitting leadership by a former president, but also a wide-ranging attack against individual instructors, academic programming, and professional schools that Summers termed “redoubts of the far left.”

The posts indicated that Summers, who was among Harvard President Claudine Gay’s most prominent critics during her short tenure, was growing frustrated with her successor. Though he stopped short of calling for the resignation of President Alan M. Garber ’76, he wrote that Garber “lacked the will and/or leverage” to combat antisemitism.

While Summers said in an interview with The Crimson that he had “huge respect” for Garber, whom he once described as a “superb choice” to replace Gay, he suggested Garber had either slow-walked or been hamstrung in his efforts to address antisemitism.

“I don’t understand why the response to various problematic and likely antisemitic episodes has been so limited,” he said in an interview with The Crimson.

“I wish the Corporation was taking a stronger hand in encouraging vigorous responses to antisemitism — both because it’s morally right and practically important, given the broader pressures the University is experiencing,” Summers added.

the HBS parking lot in front of Klarman Hall, HUPD was nowhere to be found.

One HBS staff member attempted to collect IDs as protesters entered the parking lot, but was overwhelmed by the large crowd walking past.

While HBS’s demonstration policy only allows Harvard University ID holders and HBS affiliates to participate in protests on its campus, non-Harvard affiliates still joined the entirety of the march. Organizers from MIT delivered speeches once the crowd gathered in front of Klarman Hall.

The policy was updated in June 2024 to introduce bans on face coverings and the use of amplified sound.

HOOP organizers used a microphone and speaker, as well as megaphones, to amplify their speeches and chants during the march and once on the HBS campus. Organizers also distributed disposable face masks to attendees, many of whom wore keffiyehs and balaclavas to cover their faces.

In a shift from past regulations, which required that individuals had Harvard University IDs in order to register protests, the updated demonstration policy requires that all attendees of protests on HBS’s campus are Harvard ID holders and HBS affiliates, except if explicit exemptions are granted.

As the sun set on the rally feet away from where Bennett was speaking, many of the protesters distributed dates to break their fast in observance of Ramadan.

Barron, a Crimson Editorial editor, said that though Bennett still spoke at the event, their efforts were not made in vain.

“Our protest didn’t stop him from coming,” Barron said. “However, there is documentation of the fact that he did not come without dissent.”

elyse.goncalves@thecrimson.com saketh.sundar@thecrimson.com laurel.shugart@thecrimson.com

In his Tuesday post, Summers expressed impatience with Garber’s Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism, one of two task forces that Garber created in the first month of his interim presidency to combat antisemitism and Islamophobia on campus.

Summers criticized the task force for failing to issue its final recommendations despite being established more than one year ago.

“It is by the way shocking and I think outrageous that months after the Harvard’s abject failures after Oct 7, the Task Force hasn’t even reached a conclusion,” he wrote.

Since releasing a preliminary report in June, both of Garber’s task forces have provided no further updates on the status of their heavily-anticipated follow-up reports.

Harvard spokesperson Jason A. Newton wrote in a statement that the University is “committed to ensuring our Jewish community is embraced, respected, and can thrive at Harvard.”

But Summers also suggested that Garber and the Corporation should have taken action or spoken against faculty for statements or events he called antisemitic.

Summers argued that a February panel event at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies with three non-Harvard scholars focused on the “past and present” of “Israel’s war in Lebanon” was “very likely” antisemitic under

the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, which the University adopted as part of a settlement agreement in January.

The post seemed to suggest the settlement terms should limit Harvard’s academic programming — something that University leaders have explicitly told some faculty they will not do. The panelists and the CMES did not respond to requests for comment.

Summers wrote that it was not “tenable” for History professor Derek Penslar to remain a co-chair of the task force on combating antisemitism unless Penslar renounced his affiliation with the CMES — and reiterated his accusations that Penslar did not take campus antisemitism seriously.

“The task force reports are forthcoming,” Penslar wrote in a statement. “Anyone who has doubts about the seriousness with which I have treated antisemitism at Harvard should withhold judgment until they read the report.”

He added that he had urged the CMES to hold events presenting Israeli perspectives on the aftermath of Oct. 7 and had not been involved in the center’s recent programming.

Summers also condemned a convocation address delivered by Harvard Divinity School dean Marla Frederick, in which she used the term Nakba, which refers to the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and the subsequent displacement of Palestinians, and placed the war — which led to Israel’s founding – alongside the Trail of Tears, the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and the Holocaust. Frederick did not respond to a request for comment, and Harvard Divinity School spokesperson Jonathan G. Beasley declined to comment on the convocation address.

While Summers accused Harvard of maintaining a “complacent attitude” toward antisemitism, he cautioned on X that the Trump administration’s threat to strip the University of its federal funding was “wildly unreasonable.”

“Cutoffs of any kind of Harvard’s funding would be terrible for the University, and more important, terrible for the country, because of opportunities denied, scientific progress prevented, international understanding limited,” he said in an interview. “So I certainly pray that things will never come to that.”

“But I do think that the University has a moral and a practical obligation to enhance its efforts to call out and resist antisemitism beyond what has happened to date,” Summers added.

Summers’ remarks come just days after the Department of Justice’s task force on antisemitism announced that it would visit Harvard and nine other colleges and universities to investigate antisemitism allegations.

Since the Trump administration won back the White House in January, it has kept Harvard in its sights, launching an investigation into pro-Palestine messaging displayed by Harvard Medical School students and threatening to revoke the University’s federal research funding.

dhruv.patel@thecrimson.com grace.yoon@thecrimson.com

Leaders assured professors who study the region that their speech will ‘ordinarily’ be protected. JULIAN J. GIORDANO — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

Harvard, Union Clash Over Open Bargaining

Negotiations for the Harvard graduate students union’s third contract got off to a rocky start last week, when University officials canceled the first bargaining session just hours before it was scheduled to begin over a dispute about meeting attendance.

The Harvard Graduate Students Union-United Auto Workers, which represents roughly 5,000 teaching and research assistants, had encouraged all union members to attend the session days before, while University officials had not agreed to allow observers.

“When we have more members attending these sessions, Harvard feels more pressure to hear our demands,” they wrote on Instagram three days before the scheduled session.

According to bargaining committee member Alexis R. Miranda, the union did not plan to allow observers in the bargaining room itself until an agreement over attendance was reached. University officials told the union they were planning to address attendance procedures in closed-door committee-only negotiation over ground rules, according to Miranda.

After a back-and-forth email exchange between the two sides left Harvard officials unconvinced the union would not bring hundreds of unit members into negotiations, they canceled the Feb. 28 session.

University spokesperson Jason A. Newton wrote in a statement to The Crimson that “the University feels negotiations should be conducted through in-person, confidential sessions between the two parties’ authorized bargaining teams.”

“Harvard is committed to good-faith discussions on topics the HGSU-UAW will put forward,” Newton added. The next HGSU-UAW bargaining session has been scheduled for March 14. Harvard is currently in the process of negotiating two other contracts with UAW-affiliated unions — the academic workers’ union for non-tenure-track faculty, and the union for students

working in non-academic campus jobs.

In negotiations with both, organizers for Harvard Academic Workers-UAW and Harvard Undergraduate Workers UnionUAW say members that are not part of the bargaining unit have been allowed to observe, though few attend the bargaining sessions. National labor law only requires employers to bargain with unions’ designated bargaining representatives.

“It makes sense to want that process to be transparent, so that it can be democratic,” said Bea Wall-Feng ’25, president of HUWU-UAW. “We want everyone to have a say in how the contract turns out.”

“It feels unnecessary to me to try and limit who can be involved in — or even be aware of — what happens,” she added.

While Harvard negotiators proposed rules in March 2024 to allow “support members” from both the University and the union to provide testimony on particular issues given advance notice, HUWU-UAW rejected the proposal.

Wall-Feng, a former Crimson magazine editor, wrote in a statement that the University’s proposal was “unnecessary and potentially restrictive.”

The sides have been negotiating without comprehensive ground rules for in-person bargaining ever since. And accord-

ing to Wall-Feng, the University has not prevented rank-and-file members from occasionally observing bargaining sessions.

For HAW-UAW contract negotiations, union members that are not part of the 10-person bargaining committee can attend in-person with advanced notice or observe the sessions online.

The union’s website advertises “open negotiation sessions” and includes a link to RSVP.

Organizers post updates to the website tracking proposals and counterproposals from both parties after each bargaining session. HUWU-UAW also launched an online bargaining tracker last month.

HGSU-UAW representatives said they have not decided how to publicly communicate bargaining updates, and will update the bargaining page of their website in the near future.

According to Newton, while rank-and-file members may occasionally offer testimony during negotiations — contingent upon mutual agreement between the parties — Harvard does not usually open bargaining sessions beyond the committee itself.

At graduate union contract negotiations in 2018, rank-andfile HGSU-UAW members were occasionally allowed to provide testimonials on specific issues during negotiations after providing advance notice.

Marisa Borreggine, a climate researcher at Georgetown University who served as vice president of HGSU-UAW during the 2021 negotiations, wrote in a statement that “the bargaining committee would have an open invite for representatives from different departments to come and stand behind the committee in support” for the first contract

negotiations.

“We literally just stood there silently with signs saying our department names and witnessed the process of bargaining a couple times,” Borreggine.

Then, in 2021, when HGSU-UAW negotiations took place on Zoom, the sessions were opened to consistently allow observers in the bargaining unit.

“They were not meant to be reactive or anything,” Borreggine said in an interview, adding that observers had to stay muted. “They were just there to listen.”

William B. Gould IV, former chair of the National Labor Relations Board, said that external observers may not always aid the “political, sometimes theatrical process” of collective bargaining.

“The traditional view of the private sector here is that the idea of word-for-word transparency just is not always consistent with making the collective bargaining process work well,” Gould said.

In a separate statement to The Crimson, Newton reiterated the University’s push for confidential bargaining.

“The University thinks it is more productive to engage in good-faith discussions and negotiations with HGSU-UAW’s bargaining team at the bargaining table rather than through the media,” he wrote. “Labor negotiations at the table have proven effective in reaching agreements that are beneficial to both parties, and the University is committed to pursuing that path with all of its unions, including HGSU-UAW.”

Harvard Athletes Balance Travel, Classes as Faculty Tighten Rules

BY ELYSE C.

Amid a push by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences to increase class attendance by students, Harvard athletes already trying to balance their courses with travel for athletic competition may soon face greater difficulty in doing so.

FAS Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra endorsed the committee’s recommendations in a letter to its chairs.

The Harvard College student attendance policy currently states that athletes are not exempt from

In a February report, an FAS committee recommended instructors mandate class attendance, adding that professors are “under no obligation to provide make-up opportunities” for students who miss class for athletic events.

completing coursework when they participate in competition, but does not explicitly mention attendance requirements.

Even before the report, athletes have long dealt with individual professors’ rules in the absence of any official policy from Harvard about missing class for sports. Weekend athletic competitions often require travel on Thursdays and Fridays, which can result in conflicts with classes.

For volleyball player Zach T. Berty ’26, this means being more careful about excused absence days, which are often built into his courses’ syllabi.

“A person who doesn’t play sports, if they’re sick, they use it, and if someone does play sports, and they just use it for that,” Berty said. “You have to use it more wisely when you play a sport.”

In her time at Harvard, Mfoniso M. Andrew ’26 — a sprinter on the track team — said she has learned how to get her work done when she has meets, even if it means missing out on social events.

Andrew said she prioritizes notifying her professors ahead of time if she’ll miss class, often providing instructors with a “general landscape” of when she’ll be unable to attend her courses throughout the semester.

Andrew added that she schedules office hours with her professors ahead of time so she doesn’t fall behind in classes.

While some athletes on Harvard’s 42 teams travel more than others, all athletes have to anticipate how travel will affect their schedules — and how their professors will respond to absences.

In an October interview with The Crimson, Director of Athletics Erin McDermott said faculty who don’t allow students to miss class have every right to do so.

“There may be those that take a harder line, and that’s their prerogative,” McDermott said.

Harvard athletics spokesperson Imry Halevi wrote in a statement that Harvard holds the same requirements for its student athletes as it does for the rest of its stu-

dent body. “While athletics is a part of the education of student-athletes, it is complementary to the classroom experience. At times, the athletic schedule may put strain on student-athletes’ academic life, but the priority system at Harvard remains the same — academics always come first,” Halevi wrote.

Volleyball player Brian C. Thomas ’26 said missing class time for travel hasn’t been a problem for him. Most course assistants and professors, in his experience, have been flexible and allowed him to attend a different section after he or his coach emailed them.

While Thomas said most of the time athletes he knows don’t face much pushback, he added that some teammates have had to complete “additional assignments to get their participation grade” for missed sections. The National Collegiate Athletic Association requires that all athletics departments have a Faculty Athletics Representative respon-

sible for helping balance academic and athletic life and serve as a liaison between the faculty and the athletics department. In the October interview, McDermott said if athletes receive pushback from faculty, Harvard’s FAR Michael D. Smith can provide support by speaking with athletes or their professors.

Athletes said their coaches can also play a role in optimizing travel schedules so they don’t miss class — making sure to schedule flights around student course schedules or school breaks. Still, as athletes work to balance their schedules, something often has to give. Andrew said she’s learned to accept when she needs to take an extension on work because of a meet in order to be a good athlete and put her best work forward. “Traveling is hard, but everything’s gonna get done,” Andrew said. “If it’s not, the next day you try again.”

elyse.goncalves@thecrimson.com

Emma A. Lucas ’27 said Passio GO! is “one of the worst” navigation apps she has used and described it as “unreliable.”

“I’ve been late to class several times because I check on the app and the bus is late or delayed or it says it’s coming, but it’s actually out of service,” Lucas said.

Alan Huang ’27 said the app is “never really accurate” and “feels like someone threw it together in two minutes and called it a day.”

Dinan H. Elsyad ’25 said when the app glitches, she will often opt to walk instead.

“I’ve had to walk out when I’m not necessarily fully dressed or things like that, so it’s sacrificing my comfort and, arguably, my health over being late,” she said.

Elsyad added that the unreliability of Passio Go! adds to a sense of separation between stu-

Harvard Transportation Services is assessing options for an alternative shuttle tracking service amid criticisms from students who say Passio GO! — a third-party application that tracks bus schedules and arrival times — is unreliable and inaccurate. While Passio GO! is the current app used by students to commute across campus, the University’s contract with the service is due to expire by the end of 2025, according to a Harvard Transportation Services spokesperson. Students who use Passio GO! to track shuttles that travel to and from the Radcliffe Quadrangle said that the app is subject to constant malfunction and inaccurate arrival times. Several students recounted moments when they were late to class or inconvenienced because of inaccuracies in the app.

dents living in river houses and in the Quad.

“People make jokes that you don’t really see people in the Quad and vice versa, but there’s a lot of truth to that,” she said. “I think it’s a shame for two sides of campus to be so disconnected because there’s not a reliable way to get from one end to the other.”

Harvard Transportation Services spokesperson Cassidy Kasper wrote that the team is “committed to providing reliable and safe shuttle services to the university community” in a Tuesday email statement.

“We understand the critical role of timely and dependable transportation in our students’ academic success and daily lives,” Kasper wrote.

In an attempt to address student concerns, Harvard Undergraduate Association’s Residential Life Officer Sophia F. He ’27 said she brought the complaints

and potential solutions — such as students coding their own shuttle tracking apps — to the Dean of Students Office.

But in her conversations with Associate Dean of Students Lauren E. Brandt ’01, He said she was told that the University’s third-party contract “does not allow for that” and that Passio GO! was “the best out there.”

College spokesperson Alixandra A. Nozzolillo declined to comment on conversations between HUA officers and the DSO.

Concerns and complaints about Passio GO!’s reliability have reached all the way to Cambridge, where residents have used the app for the past year to track the Charles River Transportation Management Authority’s free EZ Ride shuttle that connects North Station to Cambridgeport.

On Monday, the Cambridge City Council voted on a policy order to request that the City Man-

ager “exert all appropriate influence on EZ Ride and Passio to take immediate and concrete steps to fully resolve tracking deficiencies and improve real-time transit accuracy for riders.”

The city noted that reliable tracking of the shuttle has result-

ed in “degradation in the accuracy, consistency, and usability” of shuttle tracking services, which has created “significant confusion and inconvenience for riders.”

No ‘Quiet Life’ Yet for Interim HLS Dean

Just nine months before John C.P. Goldberg became interim dean of Harvard Law School, he wrote in an email to The Crimson that he was still “trying to return to the quiet life of a legal academic” after a previous stint in the school’s administration.

But no such “quiet life” was in the cards for him.

On Jan. 2, 2024, Harvard President Claudine Gay resigned following a winter of scandal over an appearance in Congress and allegations of plagiarism. Then-Provost Alan M. Garber ’76 took her place and, in March, Law School Dean John F. Manning ’82 left the school to replace Garber as interim provost. In his place, Goldberg — who had served five years as a deputy dean at HLS, ending in 2022 — took the helm.

It was a sequence of events that Goldberg couldn’t have — and hadn’t — planned for.

Now, the Law School is five

versity Law School, where he served as editor-in-chief of the Law Review and graduated in 1991.

University of Notre Dame law professor Roger P. Alford, who edited the Law Review alongside Goldberg, remembered Goldberg as “super thoughtful, care -

il recourse theory — which argues that torts are not best understood as an instrumental way to advance social goals nor to repair the wrong. Instead, torts are a means for victims to confront and make a demand on the persons who wronged them, they argued.

months into its search for a new permanent dean, and, with a year of experience under his belt, Goldberg is widely seen by his colleagues as a prime candidate for the position. Over the last year, HLS officials have navigated conflict with their own student body over library study-ins, divestment referenda, and the fallout from the Supreme Court’s decision to ban race-based affirmative action.

So far, in public, Goldberg has been quiet — even as his tenure has been anything but. In interviews with The Crimson, many HLS students said that his leadership hasn’t been on their radars. But faculty have praised his year in office, and some endorsed him for the permanent deanship.

HLS spokesperson Jeff Neal declined to comment on whether Goldberg was under consideration for the permanent role.

‘Go Ask JG’ Goldberg was born on Long Island, the son of an English professor who specialized in the novels of 18th century satirist Henry Fielding. In 1983, he graduated from Wesleyan University with high honors. After Wesleyan, he received an M.Phil. in politics from Oxford University and an M.A. in politics from Princeton University. Soon after, he began attending the New York Uni-

ful, erudite.” Alford recalled being particularly impressed with one of Goldberg’s articles on former Supreme Court justice Benjamin N. Cardozo, which argued that Cardozo’s writings — seemingly fragmented and contradictory — formed a systematic theory of common law. That article, Alford said, struck Goldberg’s peers with its sophistication.

“Everyone knew at the time that he was destined for greatness,” Alford said.

City University of New York Law School professor Donna Lee, who worked with Goldberg at the NYU Law Review, recalled that he often worked on the New York Times crossword puzzle while sitting in the review’s basement offices.

After graduating from NYU, Goldberg worked briefly as an associate at Hill and Barlow, a Boston-area law firm, before joining the faculty at Vanderbilt University Law School in 1995. In 2008, he arrived at Harvard. Goldberg’s area of legal expertise is tort law, a subject on which he has written extensively with his co-author, Benjamin C. Zipursky. The two have become the most-cited scholars in the field, a branch of civil law that deals with compensating individuals for harms inflicted on them by others.

Goldberg and Zipursky worked together to develop civ-

Tort law “makes real the principle that for every right there is a remedy,” they wrote in a 2010 article.

Classmates and colleagues said Goldberg wasn’t just a sharp legal thinker — he also had a knack for dealing with people.

Michael W. Dowdle, a professor of law at the National University of Singapore who worked with Goldberg at the NYU Law Review when they were both students, remembered that he went to Goldberg after a constitutional law class to complain that the professor said something wrong.

“I’m just gonna let it slide,” Dowdle recalled telling Goldberg. “I’m not going to challenge it.”

But Goldberg presented an alternative: Challenge the professor, but with tact and a little flattery.

“Just be obsequious,” he said, according to Dowdle.

Arthur Ripstein, a professor of law at the University of Toronto who has known Goldberg since 1991, said Goldberg had a sense of fairness — and skill at mediating disputes — that prepared him well for the interim deanship.

“He is a very effective advocate, but he’s also very good at being fair-minded with people who disagree with him,” Ripstein said. “Being a dean of an American elite law school — basically your job consists in dealing with

extremely smart people with very strong advocacy skills.”

Dowdle, who sat on the NYU Law Review with Goldberg, said he recalled Goldberg as “very good with people.”

Dowdle said he himself was “a little bit of an eccentric” at NYU — but Goldberg, he recalled, handled the awkward moments with aplomb.

“We all felt he handled some difficult situations very competently,” Dowdle said.

Harvard Law School professor Maureen Brady, who currently serves as one of HLS’ deputy deans, wrote in a statement that Goldberg is “a bedrock of this institution.”

“Even before he was Interim Dean, if I was facing a complicated problem in the school or the profession, someone would inevitably say: ‘go ask JG,’” Brady wrote. “We are incredibly lucky to have him serving in this position.”

Conflict on Campus

Though many of Goldberg’s colleagues say he has a steady hand, his leadership has been tested by repeated confrontations between the HLS administration and student leaders.

Haas Lounge, located in the Caspersen Student Center, has been a theater of student protests for years. Last October, 200 students met in the lounge — nicknamed “Belinda Hall” in 2016 by students to honor Belinda Sutton, a woman enslaved by the prominent Royall family of Massachusetts — to discuss student activism on campus.

A month before that, HLS administrators decided to restrict the space. The dean of students and assistant dean for community engagement, equity, and belonging sent out an email to students banning “planned, organized, or coordinated gatherings that preclude or interfere” with individual or small-group study in the lounge.

Administrators also announced that Goldberg had formed a “Haas Lounge Advisory Group” to decide whether to modify rules governing the space’s use.

The HLS Student Govern-

ment fired back against the restrictions in September by passing a resolution stating that the administration “should not create any barriers to free speech, dissent, protest, organizing; or other normal and long-standing uses of the space.”

Timothy M. Barbera, a thirdyear HLS student, said the conflict made him skeptical of Goldberg because he did not know how closely the interim dean was involved in the protest limits.

“It’s not clear to me which decisions made with regard to the Lounge are made by him versus are made by the dean team or someone else,” Barbera said.

“And so I don’t really know who’s to blame for things I don’t necessarily agree with,” he added.

Neal, the HLS spokesperson, wrote in a statement that Goldberg’s Haas Lounge Advisory Group has “been meeting with a wide range of students and faculty and has received an equally wide range of feedback.”

Student activists and administrators have also clashed over a referendum condemning disciplinary action for study-in protestors.

After HLS students staged silent “study-ins” in the Langdell Hall library to protest the war in Gaza, they were temporarily banned from the library. In response, the Law School Student Government decided in November to hold a school-wide referendum condemning the library suspensions — but the administration and student government have yet to administer the vote.

Dean of Students Stephen L. Ball initially stalled the effort in November, and since then, administrators and the student government have still not settled on voting dates.

According to a member of the HLS Student Government, Goldberg met with the Student Council in early January to inform them that the administration would not administer the referendum as drafted. According to the student, Goldberg said he objected to language in the referendum — but did not specify what language or why.

“The only thing that I know about Dean Goldberg is that a bunch of students tried to have a referendum on library ban suspension, and that he and his administration refused to administer the vote or cooperate in that,” said Reilly A. Johnson, a firstyear HLS student.

“I just really would prefer a dean that is more aligned with student interests and has a passion for what we care about,” she added.

Neal, the HLS spokesperson, wrote in a statement that Goldberg has met regularly with students, faculty, and staff, including more than 50 leaders of registered student organizations.

But Goldberg drew broad praise from faculty — including Andrew M. Crespo ’05, who was temporarily banned from Harvard’s main library after joining study-ins there. Crespo wrote in a statement that Goldberg “has always been a scholar’s scholar.”

“What I have come to admire most about his leadership in this difficult moment for higher edu-

cation is that he brings the same broad spirit of curiosity and collaborative engagement to the complicated job of helming the Law School,” Crespo wrote. Rosalie S. Abella, a visiting professor at HLS and a former justice of the Canadian Supreme Court, praised Goldberg’s handling of campus events.

“I’ve admired his ability to be strongly protective of the integrity of the Law School and its mandate, at the same time that he was protective of the well-being of the students and the faculty,” she said.

‘All Figured Out’ Goldberg stepped into the HLS interim deanship to fill the sudden vacuum left by Manning’s appointment as interim provost — and many faculty at the school said he was the right man for the moment.

“John stepped up in the middle of a crisis when Harvard and HLS were under enormous pressure, and he was not afraid to risk his personal capital to help the institution,” HLS professor Jody Freeman wrote in a statement.

“And he did it for all the right reasons,” she added.

Goldberg has issued no public statements on whether he wants to keep his seat in Griswold Hall. But with a year in interim office, he could be a natural fit for the permanent deanship.

“Nobody other than Dean Manning has played a more central role in administering the Law School in my 16 years on the faculty than John Goldberg,” HLS l professor Michael J. Klarman wrote in a statement endorsing Goldberg for the role, pointing to Goldberg’s service as deputy dean and on a committee overseeing HLS’ hiring of faculty from other universities. Klarman argued that it was generally unwise for the Law School to tap external candidates for the position, unless there were no strong internal candidates or an internal pick would divide the faculty. No HLS dean since 1910 has been appointed from outside the school’s faculty. But dozens of HLS students said in interviews with The Crimson that they still do not know enough about the interim dean to come to a judgement.

“As far as substantive policies go, I’m not really sure what he’s done,” Matthew J. Rocha, a firstyear law student said.

“He seems like he’s acting a bit as a holdover, maybe until a permanent dean is found,” he added. But, as the Law School waits for Garber to tap a permanent dean, Goldberg has said he’s settling into his interim role. In May, two months after his appointment, Goldberg addressed the Law School’s 2024 graduating class.

“I’ve learned that we come closest to getting things right when we approach every person and every issue with an open mind,” Goldberg said in his speech.

“Now, I’ve been dean for two months, so I’ve got this all figured out,” he joked.

Interim HLS Dean John C.P. Goldberg has remained relatively quiet during his eventful tenure as dean.

Faculty Time Caps Hurt Harvard’s Students

The way Harvard treats its non-tenuretrack faculty can best be described by the immortal words of Thomas Hobbes: “nasty, brutish, and short.”

There are many great reasons to oppose time caps — arbitrary limits on how long certain nontenure-track faculty can remain at the University — including the inherent instability for those who accept these positions, mental health burdens, and outright unfairness for faculty who know they will be fired, regardless of job performance. However, rather than relitigating those subjects, as time-cap negotiations between the University and non-tenure-track faculty approach a tense zenith, I want to remind students that ending time caps is not only the right thing to do for faculty — it’s also the right thing to do for us students.

Simply put, we, the students, deserve good teachers. By refusing to end time caps, the University won’t let us keep them. Contrary to claims that time caps inspire new pedagogy or allow fresh blood to enter the classroom, consistency is good for teaching.

First, consistency allows faculty to build relationships with students. A critical mass of Har -

vard’s teaching staff is on the non-tenure track, including preceptors, lecturers, and others. Thus, much of a student’s academic experience at Harvard is defined by interactions with such faculty.

Many of the best teachers we encounter during our four years at Harvard are on the non-tenure track. These faculty members are our seminar leaders, our advisors, our mentors, and — perhaps most importantly to some Harvard students — our letter-of-recommendation providers.

When non-tenure-track faculty are confined to such short terms, students’ relationships with them are artificially, unnecessarily, and prematurely terminated.

Requiring these faculty members to begin their next job search essentially as soon as they arrive at Harvard surely contributes to a feeling of ephemerality. Under the status quo, non-tenure-track faculty know that it is entirely impossible for them to stay beyond the length prescribed in their contract. In effect, the University gives them no strong incentives to invest deeply in the Harvard community or students during their time here.

Nonetheless, non-tenure track faculty continue to provide outstanding teaching and mentorship, despite incentives to do otherwise; the least

we students can do is selfishly follow our own interest in supporting them.

Furthermore, retaining faculty for longer periods allows them to improve their teaching skills.

While every faculty member has a unique field of study, they all practice one especially difficult profession: teaching. However, the skills that make someone a great teacher are not necessarily coincident with being a great researcher. There are many techniques that faculty can use to become more effective teachers — but these skills can only be developed through experience.

Time caps arbitrarily cut off the time available for faculty to improve their teaching abilities. Indeed, it is a cruel irony that just when many nontenure-track faculty members have amassed years of experience, Harvard forces them to leave — depriving students of experienced and readily available teachers with whom they have already developed relationships.

Other universities — including the University of Michigan and Rutgers University — understand the obvious benefits of consistency and have abandoned many counterproductive time caps. Some Harvard schools also recognize the pointlessness of time caps; Harvard Medical School and the T.H. Chan School of Public Health, for example, allow many lecturers’ con -

tracts to be renewed indefinitely. In current negotiations with academic workers, Harvard even appears to be somewhat willing to acknowledge the pitfalls of time caps, offering to end term limits for preceptors across the University. Most ironically, of course, is the fact that any arguments made in favor of time caps in the name of better teaching practices would surely cut against the policy of lifelong tenure for professors. Whatever pedagogical benefits that may result from cutting short the terms of some faculty would surely be furthered if Harvard expanded this practice to all faculty. If it’s good for some teachers to be limited to eight years, why shouldn’t professors be too? While Hobbes’s words may aptly capture the current situation, I would suggest that we turn to the words of a time-capped lecturer to describe this conundrum: Time caps make one feel as if they “have to be, quite frankly, really thankful to get bare minimum things.” Harvard’s non-tenure-track faculty shouldn’t accept the bare minimum from the University — and neither should Harvard’s students.

–Matthew R. Tobin ’27, a Crimson Editorial editor, is a double concentrator in Government and Economics in Winthrop House.

Neither Silence nor Compliance Will Save Harvard From Trump.

BY WALTER JOHNSON AND VINCENT A. BROWN

Let us begin by making one thing clear: There is no such thing as “woke ideology.” That’s a fantasy.

Popularized by Erykah Badu’s 2008 track “Master Teacher,” the phrase “stay woke” entered widespread usage around 2014, during the Ferguson uprising, as a slogan urging activists and others to maintain focus in spite of the inevitable set of temptations and distractions that would emerge in the wake of the struggle in the streets. There is not and never was a “woke” policy platform. Ironically, the idea that there is has become the biggest distraction of all. Here are some things that do exist: racial inequality, economic precarity, and gender-based entitlement and animus. As critics both within and outside the University hunt for witches, we must protect the individuals, academic units and bodies of knowledge devoted to rectifying these injustices. If we do not, it seems almost certain that we will all go down together. Not long ago, it appeared as if universities would lead an effort to reckon with these problems. In response to uprisings inspired by high-profile killings of Black people from 2012 to 2020, universities began to acknowledge their historical legacies of slavery and admit some responsibility to redress the downstream effects of the wrongs from which they had benefited. These efforts were consequential for the way that many of our colleagues and students felt about their lives and work at Harvard. But they rarely seemed to reach beyond the walls of the institution; they were generally limited to the imperatives of inclusion in the existing forms of university life rather than the transformation of the role of the university in society more broadly.

Instead of addressing the fundamental problems that had been brought to light by the demonstrations in the streets, institutions, including our own, chose to pursue a form of “diversity” that looked more like corporate personnel management. And yet, even as universities were moving one way, the mood among many politicians was shifting decisively in the other direction. Numerous states passed laws restricting teaching on gender studies, race, and racism. These attacks continued after the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard barred the use of racial identity as a factor in college admissions.

This decision seemed to be a death knell for the role of “diversity” in institutional decision-making and social transformation in the United States. One might have expected the race panic would abate. Instead, it intensified.

Since the 2025 presidential inauguration, attacks on “DEI” have sought to reverse the gains of the twentieth-century Civil Rights Movement. This assault has absolutely nothing to do with restoring merit, talent, experience, or even competence in hiring practices. Instead, as has been pointed out by journalist Adam Serwer, among others, these executive orders clear the way for “policies intended to sustain a de facto segregation that is more durable and less overt, one in which Black access to the middle and elite strata of American life will be ever more rare and fleeting.”

Black progress has been the measure of civil rights gains since Reconstruction. Its reversal augurs not just resegregation, but along with it, a dangerously misogynistic, homophobic, and transphobic political culture. By demonizing a set of institutional practices in educational institutions — practices that, according to many legal experts, remain lawful under Federal Civ -

il Rights Law and Supreme Court precedent — Trumpism has given itself license to attack the most vulnerable among us. Not a small measure of this recent history, it must be said, was made at Harvard. In the wake of Oct. 7, 2023, a growing chorus blamed student protests for associating Israel with the history of colonial racism. Criticism of Israel, they argued, resulted from a simple-minded “oppressor/oppressed” worldview or “identity politics” that “have too often had the effect of driving discrimination against groups whose members have been most committed to the values of rigorous study and intellectual inquiry.” Accusations of insufficient institutional support of Israel and Jewish students were then projected onto Harvard’s beleaguered soon-tobe ex-president Claudine Gay. The proxy attack on Gay soon broadened into an attack on Black women at Harvard more generally and has now been swept up in the tide of Trumpist derogation and retaliation. Throughout all of this, the University administration has remained largely silent, while its bureaucracy has subtly shifted to the goal of fostering “understanding across differences” (i.e. intellectual diversity). Yet Harvard’s repeated efforts to pacify its critics over the past fifteen months, including the failure to defend Black women on the faculty from unprincipled attacks on their scholarship and its embrace of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, have only yielded broader attacks and a hostile Department of Justice investigation along with the threat of jailing pro-Palestinian activists participating in “illegal protests.”

Cowering does not stop bullying, and no matter how much we wish it were otherwise, Harvard and other universities are not going to be able to hide in plain sight. That’s why the Amer -

ican Association of University Professors has been fighting back.

On Feb. 21, the AAUP successfully joined several other organizations in challenging the constitutionality of two executive orders targeting DEI practices. The U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland granted a preliminary nationwide injunction, preventing the Trump administration from using federal grants and contracts as leverage to force colleges and universities to comply with their agenda, for the time being. It is possible to resist the purges, spiteful persecution, and racist social engineering ordered by the Trump administration. We know because we are doing it. As members of the executive committee of the AAUP’s Harvard Faculty Chapter, we urge the Harvard administration to forthrightly join us in defending all of our colleagues from racist, sexist, homophobic, and transphobic (and just plain uninformed) thought policing.

Sacrificing the principles and independence of the University in the short-term hope of pacifying the administration will not work. By abandoning our most vulnerable and stigmatized colleagues, we would simply invite further threats and the eventual destruction of things that are worth fighting for. Now is the time for the richest University in the world to live by its principles, to draw a line and stand its ground, while it might still make a difference.

–Vincent A. Brown is the Charles Warren Professor of American History and a professor of African and African American Studies. Walter Johnson is the Winthrop Professor of History and a professor of African and African American Studies. They are members of the executive committee of the American Association of University Professors-Harvard Faculty Chapter.

COLUMN

BY MATTHEW R. TOBIN

HUGO C. CHIASSON— CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

Worried About Foreign Influence? Us Too.

—

eign donations — the White House has missed a major target: itself.

In recent years, Harvard’s critics have placed the University under a microscope.

Their latest target? Foreign funding. Recent disclosures revealed that between January 2020 and October 2024, Harvard received over $151 million from foreign governments.

Facing down congressional proposals to stem the flow of international contributions, the University should not be bowed into rejecting foreign funding indiscriminately.

Harvard is in the midst of a financial squeeze that shows no signs of abating. Last year — in the aftermath of the University’s leadership crisis — philanthropic donations declined sharply. Now, just months into the second Trump administration, the White House has already brandished threats to cut millions in federal funding for operations and research. With the possibility of a punitive endowment tax lurking on the horizon, Harvard can hardly afford to dismiss foreign donations out of hand — nor should it. Rather, as we’ve argued before, donations from abroad — like all contributions — should be assessed not by their origin, but by their terms.

The University ought to remain open to a wide range of funding sources as long as they don’t come

with unacceptable strings attached. In other words, the positive benefits of donations must be weighed against donors’ ulterior motives.

This dilemma isn’t new, nor is it unique to foreign contributions. Every major donor, foreign or domestic, conservative billionaire or national government, carries a level of influence. The question, then, isn’t whether Harvard should accept money from foreign governments, but whether the funds they offer sufficiently advance our academic mission without granting undue sway over it.

Adjudicating these conundrums isn’t easy. But thankfully investigative efforts so far — including a recent review from University lawyers of donations from the Middle East and a 2020 Department of Education report — haven’t uncovered much in the way of shocking malfeasance.

We’re glad that these investigations haven’t brought to light alarming evidence of undue foreign meddling at our University. But if Congress is truly concerned about outside influence in American institutions, it should turn its sights from University Hall to the White House.

By the end of his presidency, Donald Trump and his family amassed hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of gifts from foreign governments — including Saudi Arabia — which he failed to disclose, according to a house oversight report. All the while, many of those very states were jockeying for US government support. The hypocrisy is glaring. As lawmakers obsess over Harvard’s finances, they have largely ignored

Dissent: On Tyrannical Middle Eastern Regimes, Editorial Wavers

BY CHARLES M. COVIT

In an editorial blasting Congress for looking into Harvard’s foreign funding sources without scrutinizing Trump’s benefactors, the Board makes the assertion that Harvard should accept foreign donations — as long as they come with no strings attached. Such a viewpoint is not only deeply naive; it is

As such, I dissent. Harvard has taken millions of dollars from countries with reprehensible human rights records, including Bangladesh, Qatar, and others. Does the Board truly believe Qatar sends Harvard money simply because of a benevolent urge to support academia and research in Cambridge? It is not conspiratorial to say that repressive regimes are actively seeking to influence American universities. According to a former U.S. Diernment sought to inflame anti-Israel protests in

the United States in the aftermath of Hamas’s terrorist attacks on Oct. 7; clerics in Iran have called demonstrations on college campuses “the export of the Islamic Revolution to America.”

At Harvard’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies, endowed professorships are named after Khalid Bin Abdullah Bin Abdulrahman Al Saud, a Saudi prince; Ziad Mohammed Ali Shawwaf, a Saudi diplomat; and Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal (of which there are numerous).

Just two weeks ago, CMES held an event entitled An Ongoing Threat: Israel’s War on Lebanon, Past and Present – an absurdly distorted description of the war that started when Hezbollah, unprovoked, began launching missiles at Israel on Oct. 8, 2023 (Former University President Lawrence H. Summers went so far as to call the talk potentially antisemitic).

It is impossible to establish a causal link between cash from the Middle East and an intense anti-Israel bent at CMES, but the influx certainly begs the question. Regardless of whether or not donations come with the implication of influence, accepting money from oppressive regimes is still morally dubious. Even if we were to assume, for example, Egypt’s intentions in sending money to Harvard are innocuous – perhaps it merely seeks to promote its standing in the West – I would nonetheless be alarmed by the Board’s passivity. Egypt has been called “one of the world’s biggest jailers of journalists.” As budding journalists ourselves, we should seriously consider whether we

want Harvard’s name anywhere near those of the world’s worst oppressors.

And finally, I would be remiss to refrain from calling out the Board’s hypocrisy considering its 2022 endorsement of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement against Israel. At Harvard, much of Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine’s campaign centers on tens of thousands of dollars invested by the Harvard Management Company in companies linked to the Israeli military (a tiny proportion of Harvard’s multibillion dollar endowment). They also take issue with investments such as Booking Holdings, an online travel agency, because of its 24 listings in the West Bank (out of some 28 million worldwide). Presumably, the Board understands Harvard’s investments do not single handedly prop up the State of Israel. Instead, it is simply because they seem to view any association with Israel as inherently unethical.

To adopt such an approach on Israel while remaining all but blasé on tyrannical Islamist regimes is blatant hypocrisy.

BY KAWSAR YASIN

The first class I ever attended at Harvard was UYGHUR A: Elementary Uyghur. Walking into the language center as a wide-eyed freshman for my class at 9 a.m., I was greeted with a warm smile and a comforting phrase: “Yakhshimusiz (How are you)?” Although the entire class occupied one small table, my heart could not have been more full. For me, that Elementary Uyghur class was more than an academic exercise. It is an affirmation that despite everything, the Uyghur language lives, and it will continue to live in the voices of those who speak it. However, Harvard must do more than merely offer Uyghur as a language course — it must commit to being a center of Uyghur scholarship. The Chinese government has been waging an all-out war against the Uyghur language. Today, it’s been “banned in schools, hospitals, and government buildings,” according to Abduweli Ayup, an Uyghur linguist and poet who was arrested after starting Uyghur language programs in 2013. He recalled his fellow Uyghur inmates in prison secretly writing the language on the walls to be able to fully express themselves. United Nations experts have described Uyghur children being taken from their families and forced into state-run boarding schools. Students have reported being punished for speaking their mother tongue.

As the Chinese government cleanses Uyghur culture and language from East Turkistan, an entire generation is growing up without the language that once shaped their identity — a language that has been spoken for over a thousand years now finds itself deliberately silenced. As these children lose the means to communicate with their families, they lose values, traditions, and customs that root them to their histories.

Besides language, Uyghur names are being erased and even criminalized. A report from Human Rights Watch notes that the culturally significant names of 630 Uyghur towns and villages were changed between 2009 and 2023, often replaced with generic terms associated with Chinese Communist Party propaganda. HRW has also documented bans on traditional Muslim baby names. These forms of Uyghur dispossession represent a dangerous loss of agency, religion, history, and collective memory.

The Uyghur language program at Harvard is thus important — but it’s also rare. Our University is one of the few institutions in the entire United States where the Uyghur language is formally taught. Undergraduates are able to obtain a formal language citation in Uyghur, an extensive learning plan that grants fluency and a deep knowledge of a language. As a result, students become able to speak, read, and engage with a language that needs speakers now more than ever.

The Uyghur language program is not only about language acquisition; it is an opportunity to stand in solidarity with a community whose voice is being systematically silenced.

This University has long positioned itself as a leader in academia and policy. But leadership demands a greater responsibility. Harvard must invest in Uyghur cultural and historical studies, fund research, and create spaces for Uyghur students and scholars to thrive. By strengthening its Uyghur program, Harvard can send a powerful message: that the Uyghur language — and by extension, the Uyghur people — are worth preserving, studying, and protecting. Moreover, the case of Uyghur is not an isolated one. Whether it is Tibetan, Rohingya, or Indigenous languages across the Americas, languages are disappearing at an alarming rate due to struc-

tures like colonization and genocide. Institutions like Harvard have both the means and the moral imperative to act as custodians of these languages, ensuring they are not lost to history and occupation.

It’s been over two years since my first Uyghur lesson, and I continue to come back to the classroom in the Science Center basement.

Since that class, biweekly Uyghur language tables have helped me connect more with the local Uyghur community in Boston. From enjoying home made Uyghur laghman cooked by my professor, Dr. Gülnar Eziz Yulghun, to learning from the most influential Uyghur leaders of our time, I’ve been able to engage in vital and active cultural preservation.

vard’s halls, is a testament to the resilience of a people fighting to keep their voices alive. As Elementary Uyghur is being offered again in the fall, the mere act of registering for the course is resistance against the systems that seek to erase, displace, and colonize Uyghur existence. As I learn the words my people are being punished for speaking and recall the histories that are being rewritten and erased, I am reminded that beyond simple words, language is identity, memory, and resistance. –Kawsar Yasin ’26, a Crimson Editorial editor, is a joint History and Anthropology concentrator in Eliot House and the Founder and President of Harvard Undergraduates for Uyghur Solidarity.

JULIAN J. GIORDANO— CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

AMANDA Y. SU— CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

NINA A. EJINDU— CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

Cambridge Awaits Brothel Hearings

RELEASING THE NAMES.

Probable cause hearings will reveal alleged customers of brothel network.

BY MATAN H. JOSEPHY AND LAUREL M. SHUGART

More than a year ago, three individuals were arrested for allegedly operating a network of high-end brothels spanning the Greater Boston Area and eastern Virginia.

Now, after all three alleged ringleaders have pleaded guilty in federal court, the spotlight is shifting to the network’s alleged clients. The 28 implicated individuals — including elected officials and professors — are preparing for probable cause hearings the month in the Cambridge District Court.

“Pick a profession,” said then-U.S. Attorney Josha Levy said in a 2023 press conference when the original arrests were announced. “They’re probably represented in this case.”

Though probable cause hearings are typically private, the Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the hearings for the alleged clients must be public after a protracted court battle, in which media outlets like the Boston Globe and WBUR argued that open hearings would be in the public interest.

The probable cause hearings — scheduled for March 14, 21, and 28 — will disclose the identities of the alleged customers for the first time, as the judge reviews evidence to determine whether the case will move to the Superior Court. Here’s what you need to know about the case ahead of next Friday’s hearing.

What Is the Brothel Network?

Han Lee, Junmyung Lee, and James Lee were arrested in November 2023 and charged by federal prosecutors with operating “sophisticated high-end brothels in greater Boston and eastern Virginia,” with locations in Cambridge and Watertown, Mass., as well as Fairfax and Tysons, Virginia. The three were indicted by a grand jury in Feb -

The brothel network was active from at least July 2020 to November 2023 according to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts.

ruary 2024. The brothel network was active from at least July 2020 to November 2023, according to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts.

According to prosecutors, the three persuaded and induced mostly Asian women to travel to Massachusetts and Virginia “to engage in prostitution.”

In addition to renting “highend apartment complexes” as locations for the brothels, prosecutors charged the three defendants with advertising the network online, using two professional nude photography websites as fronts for prostitution.

James Lee was also charged with money laundering for illegally obtaining more than $580,000 in Covid-19 relief funds that were used to support the brothel network, according to

With all charges combined, the defendants face at least 25 years in prison and up to $1 million in fines.

a statement from U.S. Attorney Leah B. Foley’s office.

James Lee fraudulently applied for the funds using the names of businesses that did not exist. To support the loan applications, he submitted fake tax documents in the name of the third party and a lease between himself and his fake identity.

In an attempt to hide the money earned from the brothel network, the three conspirators deposited hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash into bank accounts. Prosecutors also wrote that conspirators simultaneously used money orders to pay for rent and maintenance expenses at the apartments where the brothels were housed.

Han Lee is set to be sentenced on March 19. Junmyung Lee and James Lee will be sentenced at the end of April.

All three defendants face one count of conspiracy to coerce the women “to travel in interstate or foreign commerce to engage in prostitution,” which carries a five-year prison sentence and up to a $250,000 fine. The three also all face one count of money laundering, which carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison and a fine of $500,000 or twice the amount laundered, whichever is greater.

James Lee is also charged with one count of wire fraud, which carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 or twice the loss from the scheme, whichever is greater.

Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and statutes which govern the determination of a sentence in a criminal case. With all charges combined, the defendants face at least 25 years in prison and up to $1 million in fines.

‘Federal Funding Cliff’: Cambridge Prepares for Possible Cuts

BY SHAWN A. BOEHMER AND JACK B. REARDON CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

The City of Cambridge receives $23 million in federal funding — with millions more going to independent programs like the Cambridge Housing Authority and Cambridge Health Alliance.

But city officials in a Monday City Council meeting warned that this funding could be threatened by the Trump administration, preparing residents for an uncertain future.

“We don’t know what path we are on, or how fast events will unfold, but there is growing and strong evidence that the federal administration’s actions are going to cause incredible harm and that the pain will grow going forward,” City Manager Yi-An Huang ’05 said.

Huang warned the Council of potential cuts to the nearly $1 billion city budget, as slahes to the distribution of National Institute of Health funding endanger Cambridge’s vast education and biomedical industries.

This comes after Cambridge officials expressed concerns about the Trump administration’s impact on the city in last week’s State of the City Address, warning of a challeng-

Who Are the Clients?

The identities of the clients are not public — yet.

Probable cause hearings, which will decide whether there is enough evidence to charge the network’s clients with crimes, will be open to the public and held throughout March in the Cambridge District Court. Those hearings will offer the first public glimpse of who may be charged with paying for sex through the network.

Though prosecutors have not released the names of the clients, the U.S. Attorney’s office wrote in a November 2023 press release the list of alleged sex-buyers includes “elected officials, high tech and pharmaceutical executives, doctors, military officers, government contractors that possess security clearances, professors, attorneys, scientists and accountants, among others.”

Probable cause hearings are a process unique to Massachusettts, and have previously come under scrutiny by media outlets as opaque. The Boston Globe filed a 2018 lawsuit with the Supreme Judicial Court for increased transparency in the process — leading the SJC to issue sweeping changes mandating increased data collection at the hearings.

The Globe petitioned the SJC Magistrate in 2024 to open the hearings of the alleged clients to the press, arguing that the public has a right to know their iden-

Probable cause hearings, which will decide whether there is enough evidence to charge the network’s clients with crimes, will be open to the public and held this month.

tities. The SJC first ruled in February 2024 that conducting the hearings in public “promotes transparency, accountability, and public confidence.”

But lawyers for many of the alleged clients appealed, arguing that the reputations of the accused would be damaged if a hearing were held in public even if they did not end up being charged with crimes.

The SJC ruled again last November in favor of public hearings, writing that closed-door hearings for the alleged sex-buyers could bring concerns of “potential favoritism and bias.”

The probable cause hearings will be open to the public and the media at the Cambridge District Court on a first-come first-serve basis.

matan.josephy@thecrimson.com laurel.shugart@thecrimson.com

ing and uncertain future.

Huang said that the potential loss of regular federal funding streams under the new administration has coincided with the loss of temporary grants the city received from the American Rescue Plan Act.

“We are already facing a drawdown of federal dollars as ARPA programs expire, and so we are potentially facing a second federal funding cliff,” Huang said. Huang informed the Council that Cambridge currently receives $10 million for human service programs, $7 million in education, and $6 million in community development from the federal government. Though there are no current changes to the city’s federal funding, Huang listed numerous instances of federal funding cuts — such as the NIH reducing research and innovation funding by billions of dollars and federal agencies facing significant layoffs — as evidence of rising precarity.

While Cambridge may be at risk of losing direct funding, Huang also addressed the need to monitor and assist Cambridge’s nonprofit partners who receive significant financial support from the federal government.

“I also want to emphasize that the impact is not only on the city di-

rectly — many of our community institutions and nonprofit organizations also depend heavily on federal dollars,” Huang said.

“Changes to different voucher programs could have a tremendous effect on everything from homeless services, residents in affordable housing, and existing affordable housing projects — with even small changes resulting in millions of dollars of cuts,” he added.

Vice Mayor Marc C. McGovern expressed concern about the potential loss of funding to the city and its independent partners.

“Inevitably, when folks are going to see those cuts that are impacting them and hurting them, they’re going to turn to us,” McGovern said. “They’re going to turn to the city, who traditionally has been able to bail out a lot of these programs, and we’re just not going to be able to do that to the same extent.”

As Cambridge officials attempt to chart a path forward, McGovern said they have faced a wild ride since Trump took office.

“It’s amazing that it’s only been a few months because it’s like drinking out of a fire hose,” he said.

“Buckle up.

jack.reardon@thecrimson.com

City Council Approves New 4-Year Contract for City Manager

BY SHAWN A. BOEHMER AND JACK B. REARDON CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

The Cambridge City Council voted unanimously to renew its contract for City Manager Yi-An Huang ’05 for an additional four years on Monday, despite previous internal disagreements about the length of the contract.

While the final vote to ratify Huang’s contract was unanimous, four City Councilors voted to reduce Huang’s contract by a year in a closed-door executive session. Councilors Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler, Sumbul Siddiqui, Ayesha M. Wilson, and Mayor E. Denise Simmons reported that they voted for the three-year duration.

The renewal comes after Huang earned high scores from the council on his annual performance review in December, also marking the start of negotiations on his contract. In the December meeting, Councilors were in favor of at least a two-year extension.

Councilor Patty M. Nolan ’80 also pointed to the City Manager’s reviews from city staff, which showed broad support.

“Staff at every level showed that they appreciated the city

manager’s leadership,” Nolan said.

In his new contract, Huang is set to earn $327,000 in the first year and $349,000 by the last. If the contract is terminated by the council without cause, the city would be required to pay Huang 6 months salary.

Councilor Burhan Azeem largely focused on the contract’s implications for the city’s budget. He highlighted that Huang will “not really see a pay increase” when adjusting his new salary for inflation.

“In this process, by prioritizing budget, we were able to say that in the fourth year, for example, we only have a 1.2 percent raise, which is lower than most raises in the city and certainly lower than inflation,” Azeem said. “That is something that we were able to achieve with the longer contract length,” he added.

Vice Mayor Marc C. McGovern said he favored the four-year contract to ensure stability in city leadership amid turmoil at the federal level.

“The federal administration is going to be throwing all kinds of junk at us over the next four years. So I think having the city manager here for that length of time and having that position be stable is

important,” McGovern said.

“You don’t see huge turnovers in City Council, but the Council is not necessarily stable,” he added.

Simmons said she originally opposed the four-year contract, as the three-year term gives the next council more leeway to choose the next city manager at the start of their tenure.

“I hope it’s not going to be problematic if the council were to change radically,” Simmons said of the four-year term. “It would be three, maybe, people voting on a contract on someone that they don’t know as well, and that’s my concern.”

Sobrinho-Wheeler said he also originally voted for the threeyear contract to “ensure that the city manager is responsible to the residents and to the folks who elect them.”

But despite original disagreement on the term length, officials repeatedly emphasized that they voted on what would be best for the residents of Cambridge.

“We will do all we can to make sure that we do the best for the citizens of Cambridge because at the end of the day, that’s what this vote is about,” Simmons said.

shawn.boehmer@thecrimson.com jack.reardon@thecrimson.com

City Councilors Disagree Over Central Square Rezoning Proposal

BY SUMMER E. ROSE AND DIEGO GARCÍA MORENO CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

Cambridge City Councilors voted to prioritize the rezoning of northern Massachusetts Ave. and of Cambridge St. over that of Central in a committee meeting on Tuesday amid disagreement on whether Central Square is ready for rezoning.

The disagreement followed a presentation by the Community Development Department to the Neighborhood & Long Term Planning, Public Facilities, Arts & Celebration committees, outlining its progress on drafting rezoning proposals for corridors and squares across the city.

Councilors agreed that the rezoning of Central Square has been discussed for years, but some Councilors in the joint committee meeting said that the drafting of a rezoning for Central Square lacked sufficient public engagement established by a policy order years ago for rezoning of Mass. Ave.

Vice Mayor Marc C. McGov-

ern said the City established a working group for North Mass Ave., but that “I don’t think we followed that same process for Central Square.”

“I wonder why we didn’t when we did it in these other neighborhoods,” he added.

Councilor Patty M. Nolan ’80 and Councilor Catherine “Cathie” Zusy said they were disappointed that other areas will now take precedence over Central Square.

“We had promised the community that we would move forward on Central Square – in fact when we took on the multi-family work there was some concern that we had once again put off Central Square zoning,” Nolan wrote in an email.

“It just seems like poor Central Square is stuck in time,” Zusy said. “What is it out of our lack of courage to actually have to make the hard decisions about tradeoffs that keeps us from bringing that study to conclusion?”

Councilors were not the only ones who disagreed on which neighborhood was more ready for rezoning. When asked by Nolan whether Central Square rezoning would

be the most ready, zoning and development director Jeff Roberts said “I think that’s the correct reading of what we put together.” Yet city staff said that the process with Cambridge Street was further along, following the city’s publication of a plan for the area in February of 2023. The Cambridge Street rezoning would run from Inman Square to Lechmere Station, and is considering an increase in the allowable height of residential buildings while limiting that of commercial ones. The northern Mass Ave. rezoning plan would affect a twomile stretch from Cambridge Common to Alewife Brook Parkway, at the northern edge of the city. A current draft recommends zoning to allow at least eight-story residential buildings “with potential for density bonuses.” Despite the disagreement, all councilors in the committee voted in favor of a motion to direct the city to prioritize North Mass Ave. and Cambridge St.’s zoning and then proceed as soon as possible with Central Square.

The Cambridge District Court is located in Medford. This month, 28 alleged clients of a brothel network face probable cause hearings at the court. IKE J. PARK — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

Draper Labs Eyes Far-Side Moon Landing

TECHNOLOGY. Cam-

bridge-based Draper Labs plans to launch their CP-12 mission to the far side of the moon in 2026.

BY STEPHANIE DRAGOI AND THAMINI VIJEYASINGAM

STAFF WRITERS

Cambridge-based Draper Labs is set to launch their NASA-funded CP-12 mission in 2026, racing Texas-based Firefly Aerospace to complete the United States’ first landing on the far side of the moon.

Draper’s mission, which was originally slated for later this year, is funded by a $73 million award through NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. Draper and Firefly are leading NASA’s only CLPS missions targeting a far side lunar landing.

“I’m hoping we’ll be first. But crazy things can happen,” said Alan R. Campbell, Draper’s Director of Growth and Capture for Space Systems.

Firefly’s Blue Ghost Lander, also part of the CLPS program, became the second private spacecraft to make a soft landing on the moon’s surface on Sunday. The first was Intuitive Machines of

Houston, which landed its Odysseus probe in February of last year.

Draper is working with space robotics company ispace technologies and contractor Karman Space and Defense. Their CP-12 payload will land in the moon’s Schrödinger basin and will contain seismometers, heat flow and electrical conductivity probes, and electric and magnetic field sensors that will help scientists better understand the moon’s structure and tectonic activity.

Draper will handle the probe’s descent, navigation, and control — often the most challenging and delicate part of such missions. Their leading role in this mission harkens back to their essential work on the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing.

“It’s based on technology that we’ve been working on all the way back to Apollo for the descent guidance,” Campbell said. “The terrain-relative navigation, hazard detection are research that we’ve done both internally and with NASA for about the last 15 years,” he added.

In Kendall Square, which is a hub for startups and a coveted destination for biopharmaceutical giants, Draper stands out as an established national research and development company that

has called Cambridge home for decades.

Draper was founded in 1932 by Charles Stark “Doc” Draper as MIT’s Aeronautical Instrumentation Laboratory, a teaching lab focused on military instrumentation and navigation technology.

But the company shifted to space technology in the late 1950s, securing a NASA contract for the Apollo mission after developing an idea for a Mars probe that would take a flyby picture of the planet.

Draper improved on its Mars probe computer to create the guidance, navigation, and control system for the 1969 Apollo moon landing. In 1963, 60 percent of US integrated circuit production was going to Draper’s Instrumentation Lab as it worked on the Apollo computers.

“The result was a computer that never failed,” said Philip D. Hattis, who has been with Draper since 1974.

“It was absolutely critical for crew survival that it worked, but it never failed on the ground, never failed in the air,” he added.

Now, the CP-12 mission represents the latest in Draper’s long and storied partnership with NASA. But as CLPS missions like Draper’s far-side lunar land-

ing look ahead to approaching launches, some worry that the Trump administration will shift away from sending US missions to the moon.

The Artemis program — which funds CLPS — was established by President Trump’s Space Policy Directive 1 in 2017. But in his second term, Trump has been influenced by Elon Musk’s criticism of the program as a distraction from missions to Mars.

The president highlighted his goal to “plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars” in his inaugural address, to fist pumps from Musk. And earlier this year, the president sent back the moon rock displayed in the Oval Office to NASA.

Campbell said that no matter the Trump administration’s policies, Draper will continue to work successfully with NASA.

“Our mission at Draper is to solve our customers’ most challenging problems. And so whether that’s going to be lunar focused or Mars focused, we see a large role for us — an important role for us — because they’re both really hard problems,” he said.

Campbell acknowledged that Jared Isaacman, the recently-nominated NASA administrator, has a “different perspec-

tive.” But he added that he looks forward to seeing how the billionaire businessman and former SpaceX astronaut maintains “funding for continued NASA inspiration for the US, and for the world at large.”

Hattis said that missions to the moon are an essential step towards — not a deviation from — an eventual focus on Mars, as well as being essential in the ongoing international space race.

“You’ve also got the geopolitical consideration that the Chinese have said they’re going to get humans to the Moon by 2030,” he said. “Just about everything they’ve said in the last 10 years they’re going to do in space, they’ve accomplished.”

“It’s in the national interest to prevent a lunar land grab where the water resources are,” he added. “So there’s a lot of reasons why the Moon probably remains a waystation.”

Campbell said that the diversity within the US space industry — spanning startups, larger private companies like SpaceX and BlueOrigin, and public organizations — will ensure the sector’s resilience.

“It’s definitely got to be part of a broader ecosystem just to maintain resilience in case something

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu Defends Hometown in D.C.

Though she dodged some questions, Wu presented a calm and collected front throughout the hearing, defending Boston as the “safest major city in the nation” and maintaing a consistent line in her responses.

“We are going to continue to keep our policies in place that have been working for the people of Boston,” she said. All four mayors seemed to avoid the congressional spectacle that proved Gay’s undoing in 2023. But Wu, in particular, managed to stay above the fray. And as the hearing drew to a close, she largely escaped the sustained questioning that dogged two of her colleagues, Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson and Denver mayor Michael C. Johnston. Wu also forcefully denounced statements by Trump “border czar” Thomas D. Homan’s threats to “bring hell” to Boston at the Conservative Political Action Conference. In a February speech, Homan accused BPD commissioner Michael A. Cox of resisting col-

laboration with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, saying he “forgot what it’s like to be a cop.”

“Shame on him,” Wu said.

“Shame on him for lying about my city, for having the nerve to insult our police commissioner, who has overseen the safest Boston’s been in anyone’s lifetime.”

Members of the Massachusetts delegation, including Rep. Stephen F. Lynch (D-Mass.) and Rep. Ayanna S. Pressley (D.-Mass.), repeatedly praised Wu’s leadership. Lynch attempted to change the tone of the hearing, offering an opportunity for the mayors to explain how their local policies align with federal law. In response, Wu welcomed the possibility of “comprehensive” federal immigration legislation.

“Please, pass comprehensive immigration law that is consistent and compassionate that will make our jobs possible,” she said. “We would so appreciate that partnership.” Pressley, who represents the

majority of Cambridge, praised Wu as a “dedicated leader.” She used her time to criticize President Donald Trump’s approach to immigration.

“We have a man who thinks he is king, screaming anti-immigrant slurs from the Oval Office,” she said. “America has a problem, and it is Donald Trump.”

Wu expressed similar concerns, accusing the administration of “making hard working, tax-paying, God-fearing residents afraid to live their lives” in her opening remarks.

“We are the safest major city in the country because our gun laws are the strongest in the nation, because our officers have built relationships over decades, and because all of our residents can trust that when they call 911 in the event of an emergency or to report a crime, help will come,” Wu said. “This federal administration’s approach is undermining that trust.”

unexpected happens within the broader environment,” he said. “You can just see a ton of companies — from startups, to legacy primes, to independent nonprofits like us — playing a key role in a lot of these missions.” Draper plans to continue its more than 50-year legacy as a key player in the nation’s forays into space.

“We’re very proud of how closely we’ve worked with NASA over the years, and we are expecting to continue that as long as possible — as long as NASA is still NASA and Draper is still Draper,” Campbell said.

Labs, based in Cambridge

‘Set Up To Fail’: The Path to K-Lo’s Closure

EDUCATION. CPS staff and parents say the district’s controlled choice system failed the elementary school.

BY AYAAN AHMAD AND CLAIRE A. MICHAL CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

When Cambridge resident Kara Keating Bench decided which elementary school to send her kids to, she was originally skeptical of the Kennedy-Longfellow School’s underperformance on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System exams.

“I remember going to look at the data back in 2015 when we’re probably making this decision, and being like, ‘Oh, wow, it’s a really low MCAS score compared to the other schools.’”

Despite her original hesitancy, she decided to send her child to the school because of its proximity to her family home — a decision which she now looks back on fondly.

“All of the teachers we’ve had have been really wonderful and absolutely invested in the students,” she said.

In December, the Cambridge School Committee voted unanimously to close K-Lo because of its persistent under enrollment and underperformance, describing the school’s situation as “untenable.”

As CPS moves to transition students to new schools, K-Lo parents and CPS staff said that the district’s controlled choice system — which allows parents to rank preferences for their chil-

dren’s school— failed K-Lo. Even as K-Lo parents reported positive experiences with teachers and staff, they said the underenrollment created a negative perception of K-Lo, causing families to not rank the school.

CPS Interim Superintendent David G. Murphy said that it is impossible to find the “determinative factor” behind K-Lo’s historical struggle. But CPS parents and staff repeatedly said the system perpetuated K-Lo’s problem with under enrollment.

“The school itself is actually a lovely little secret of a school, but it was set up to fail,” Bench said.

‘A Vicious Cycle’ CPS has used controlled choice to sort its students since the 1980s, when the Cambridge School Committee voted to move away from a previous neighborhood model to desegregate the district.

According to the CPS website, the program has since shifted to emphasize “socioeconomic integration,” using data on students’ qualification for the federal free and reduced lunch program to determine their placement, alongside parent preferences.

“School assignments first aim to match families to their choices of school; however family choice is balanced against the district’s interest in creating equitable schools,” the website reads, citing gender and enrollment size balance as other factors considered.

But Paul Reville, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, said that school choice systems often result in underenrollment at schools that

do not meet the “needs” of many Cambridge residents.

“Your customers are voting with their feet and are saying that there isn’t a sufficient number — there isn’t a quorum, if you will — of residents of Cambridge who find this school to meet their standard,” he added.

Despite the system’s aim to achieve diversity in schools, Dan Monahan — the president of the Cambridge Education Association who has taught at CPS since 1997 — said the control choice system was not effective for K-Lo, exacerbating the school’s issues as enrollment declined.

“The failure of the control choice system is that it was supposed to keep all the school’s demographics similar, and it has not done that,” he said.

The school primarily serves students of color, as well as English language learners, low income students, and individuals with disabilities. Nearly 90 percent of students classify as “highneeds” — the highest proportion of any school in the district.

Murphy said in an interview that the controlled school choice system is just “one variable in a complicated formula,” that impacts “almost all aspects” of CPS.

Murphy emphasized that while some of K-Lo’s issues can be pointed to the controlled choice system, that very system is also part of all of the high-performing CPS schools.

“We have schools that are really, truly thriving instructional communities who serve diverse populations,” he said. “I think that’s one of the things that’s sort of been lost in the broader conversation.”

But Monahan said the system created a “vicious cycle” for K-Lo, with under enrollment and low test scores contributing to Cambridge’s negative perception of the school, discouraging families from ranking the school.

Bench, the parent of a current first grader at K-Lo, agreed. She said that K-Lo has long suffered from a “reputation problem,” that “made it so that the people who lived in the neighborhood didn’t want to choose the school.”

“That just kind of became a vortex of people avoiding the school,” Bench added.

‘Equity Versus Equality’ Even as the under enrollment trend at K-Lo perpetuated, CPS continued to invest heavily in the school.

According to enrollment data and the summarized budget for the 2025 Fiscal Year, the district spent one of the largest amounts of money per pupil, as compared to other elementary schools in the district.

Despite this, parents and staff felt the district did not provide enough support.

Vice Mayor Marc C. McGovern said K-Lo’s persistent underperformance boils down to an issue of equity. He said that schools serving a high-needs population, like K-Lo, deserve increased support from the district.

“Equal is treating everybody the same way,” he said. “Equity is giving everybody what they need to be successful.”

“Some schools are going to need more support than others,” he said. “I think there was a feel-

ing that maybe K-Lo didn’t get as much support as it warranted, given the population that it was serving.”

According to Monahan, the district failed to provide an equitable amount of support for K-Lo teachers and students.

“Their students were highneeds, and that’s just overwhelming,” he said, noting that the CEA previously filed grievances with the district to get more support. While he said the district attempted to address the grievances, “it clearly has never been adequate.”

“They deserve much more support than they have gotten over the past several years,” Monahan said.

While Murphy said he could not speak to K-Lo’s historical issues, he said the district needed to be “vigilant about finding appropriate instructional synergies within school communities” when assigning programming.

K-Lo, which has the capacity to house 700 students, only serves 215 pupils in the current school year. According to data from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary education, the school has consistently fallen under its 700-student threshold for the past 30 years.

Murphy said that as CPS transitions K-Lo students to new schools, the district aims to put “the most students possible in positions to succeed, with a particular emphasis on students who qualify as high-need.”

“We have to be more thoughtful about how and where we organize programming to support

our most vulnerable and high need students,” he said.

‘A Beacon of What Education Should Be’ Even as K-Lo struggled to meet district expectations on paper, families reported overwhelmingly positive experiences at the school.

Jia-Jing Lee, the parent of a K-Lo third grader, wrote in an email that “KLo stands as a beacon of what education should be.”

“It could have achieved even more with proper resources, yet despite challenges, its educators have gone above and beyond to support every student,” she added.

McGovern also spoke very highly of the education his kids received at K-Lo, saying that they “had a very good experience there.”

“I thought they received a quality education. The teachers were very caring and supportive,” he added.

Murphy emphasized that the closure of K-Lo does not reflect an issue with the individual school, but an issue in the district, saying that “the data does not speak to the level of care, of concern, of love that certainly our educators have for students,” he said.

“But the data does speak to how the school has been performing as an institution, and that’s something that as a district, we have to hold ourselves accountable for,” he added.

ayaan.ahmad@thecrimson.com

Cambridge City Clerk Diane LeBlanc Will Not Seek Another Term

Cambridge City Clerk Diane P. LeBlanc will not seek another term and will leave at the end of her term on May 31.

In an interview, LeBlanc said she will be retiring in May but is thankful for the opportunity to serve Cambridge since her tenure began in May 2022.

“I am so grateful for having had the opportunity to serve as the city clerk here in Cambridge,” LeBlanc said.

The City Clerk is the official record keeper for Cambridge, maintaining and filing business, professional, and vital records like birth certificates and marriage documents. The position has the official custody over all the city’s documents and records, and also keeps record of all council meetings.

As she reflected on her time, LeBlanc cited her work preserving the city’s archives as a major achievement of her term with the city.

“One of the things that I think proudest of during my tenure is we have made great headway in advancing the focus on the records management function and archives function of the city clerk’s office,” LeBlanc said.

“I think it’s important that the city, the citizens of Cambridge, know that the records are being protected,” she added.

LeBlanc reflected on her 50year career as a public servant, saying that after working at the federal and local levels, she decided it was her time to retire.

“I’ve done 37 years with the federal government. I served 10 years in my home community of Waltham as a city councilor. I ran for mayor; that was quite an adven-

ture. I served as a city clerk in Lawrence, and another wonderful assignment in Cambridge,” LeBlanc said.

LeBlanc said that she hopes to use her retirement to spend more time with her family and her dog, work on home improvement, garden, and volunteer.

“I’ve been very fortunate here. I have had a wonderful staff that I will truly miss, but I did decide this was a good time to move forward to whatever the next chapter holds,” LeBlanc said.

LeBlanc was well-liked in the city and among city officials.

In a statement to The Crimson, City Manager Yi-An Huang ’05 wrote that he “deeply appreciated” LeBlanc’s “leadership, professionalism and expertise as City Clerk.”

“She has a genuine passion for providing high-quality customer service and has spearheaded critical work that has preserved and protected important histor-

ical documentation across the city,” he wrote. “We are grateful to Clerk LeBlanc for the transformative work and impact she has made throughout her time in the City.” The City Council elects the City Clerk, who serves a threeyear term, in May. LeBlanc’s retirement gives the city about two months to seek out a new clerk in time for the new term. In the past, the council was given a nine-month notice to find a new clerk when ex-clerk Anthony Wilson announced his retirement. While LeBlanc was unsure what the future would look like after retirement, she jokingly talked about one possibility.

“My two sisters retired from Harvard, so you know what? If I get bored, maybe I’ll check out the job opportunities there,” she said.

The Kennedy-Longfellow Elementary School, which the School Committee voted to close in December, is located at 158 Spring

8TH ORDER OF THE GOLDEN SPHINX

THIS YEAR, THE INSTITUTE AWARDED ANGELA BASSETT AND COURTNEY B. VANCE ’82

BY JACKIE CHEN CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

Shortly before 5 p.m. on March 2, students and faculty gathered in the lobby of Farkas Hall dressed in black-tie evening wear, chattering with excitement at the return of a performing arts award unseen for the last five years: the Order of the Golden Sphinx. This year, the Institute awarded Angela Bassett and Courtney B. Vance ’82 with the 8th Order of the Golden Sphinx. The pair are the first dual recipients of the honor. Bassett and Vance chose Heartfelt Education through the Arts, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit performing arts company abbreviated as the H.E.ART., as the recipient of the $50,000 donation associated with the award.

Established in 2013, the Order of the Golden Sphinx is the Institute’s highest honor and recognizes performing artists for their extraordinary contributions to the field with a donation to a charitable arts organization of their choice. Bassett and Vance are a Hol-

lywood power couple and entertainment legends in their own right. Bassett is an Academy Honorary Award recipient, Emmy Award-winning actress, director, and executive producer known for her dynamic, moving performances in iconic films like “What’s Love Got to Do with It,” “Malcolm X,” and “Black Panther” as well as television shows like “9-1-1.” She has also received a SAG Award and 17

“

“Lovecraft Country.” He has also received 2 NAACP Image Awards and serves as President and Chairman of the SAG-AFTRA Foundation. Before the ceremony, audience members eagerly awaited the opportunity to hear from the iconic duo, who have touched the hearts of countless viewers.

“I believe this event would ground me in my own artistic

Bassett also affirmed the importance of self-confidence, especially in pursuing one’s passions. She warned the audience against becoming cynical.

NAACP Image Awards, and has appeared on Women of the Year lists for both Time and Glamour magazines.

Vance is an Emmy, Tony, and Critics’ Choice Award-winning actor, author, and executive producer with a prolific cinematic career spanning films like “The Hunt for Red October” and television shows such as “The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story” and

Yuja Wang and Víkingur

BY XINRAN (OLIVIA) MA CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

On Feb. 21, Symphony Hall broke into applause as world-renowned pianists Yuja Wang and Víkingur Ólafsson entered the stage. The duo presented a two-piano and piano four hands recital, hosted by the Celebrity Series of Boston. The concert included a range of classical and contemporary pieces from Sergei Rachmaninoff’s “Symphonic Dances, Op. 45” to John Adams’ “Hallelujah Junction.” Their performance was a musical feast that transcended styles and conventions. Wang’s fiery energy was well-complemented by Ólafsson’s articulation of nuances, creating a unique musical duality of both tension and harmony. Wang and Ólafsson sat in front of two opposing Steinway pianos, arranged so the keys visually formed one long line, and opened the concert with Luciano Berio’s “Wasserklavier” (“Water Piano”). Their hands floated above the keyboard, gliding over keys as if brushing through a stream.

Smooth and light as their movements were, their notes were crystal clear, echoing throughout the filled Symphony Hall. The fluidity of “Wasserklavier” gradually transitioned into Franz Schubert’s “Fantasie in F minor, D. 940,” a piece characterized by its detached notes, percussive chords, and staccatos — bouncy and sharp attacks on the keys. As the two pianos constantly shifted between light melodies and powerful, percussive passages, the performance was at once harmonious and dissonant. As one piano grew stronger, the other died down; as one reached the deeper notes, the other went higher. At this poetic dissonance, Wang’s and Ólafsson’s distinctive styles began to diverge. Wang, dressed in her iconic gown and stiletto heels, added a unique personal flair that defied conventional perception of a piano concert, just like her piquant musical style. She sat closer to the audience, hiding Ólafsson behind with her silhouette. Her strokes were expressive, powerful, sharp, and intense, forming a much more fiery presence on stage. Ólafsson, on the oth-

practice by cultivating community within and across artistic disciplines,” said Salome P. Agbaroji ’27. Agbaroji is a performing artist herself, a spoken word poet who served as the 2023 National Youth Poet Laureate of the United States. Bassett and Vance’s own production company — Bassett Vance Productions — drew audience interest from a business perspective.

“I would love to hear how [Bas-

Ólafsson:

er hand, often echoed Wang’s percussive chords with smoothened and elongated notes, as opposed to leading. Nonetheless, he still projected a strong stage presence with his introspective style, adding an emotional depth to Wang’s sharp and piquant style. Their distinctive style became further magnified in the fifth piece of the night, John Adams’ “Hallelujah Junction.” Wang’s rapid and powerful movements, complemented by Ólafsson’s fluid scales, brought the frenetic and ceaseless nature of the piece to life. As the piece intensified in speed and tempo, it grew into a series of increasingly more percussive chords and more abrupt stops, reaching some of the highest and lowest notes of a piano. Wang and Ólafsson visibly moved in sync with the dissonance of the music. They moved so rapidly across all 176 keys of the two pianos that their hands became shadows. Wang, in particular, seemed on the verge of jumping from her bench, leaving one in awe of the power of her playing and the variety of sounds two pianos could make. Wang and Ólafsson also tack-

sett] navigated the entertainment industry as a Black woman. I think her experiences would resonate with me as a woman of color as well,” said Gowri Rangu ’26, who attended the event with Harvard Undergraduate Women in Business. The event itself kicked off with ensemble performances by the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, composed specifically for the event and rehearsed over two days. Pudding members clad in their signature suits, dresses, and bird costumes serenaded the awardees with whimsical, energetic singing and dancing.

Andrew L. Farkas ’82, Graduate Chairman of the Hasty Pudding Institute, then led a Q&A session between the awardees and the audience. Bassett and Vance offered insight into discovering their passions and building successful careers.

Vance emphasized college as a time for exploration, encouraging undergraduates to take advantage of the freedom to pursue their interests. He provided an anecdote from his early acting career, encouraging the audience to “not be ashamed” of a lack of knowledge when approaching something new.

“When I was cast in ‘Fences,’ I didn’t know upstage from downstage,” he said, standing up

and walking around the stage to demonstrate the directions.

Bassett also affirmed the importance of self-confidence, especially in pursuing one’s passions. She warned the audience against becoming cynical.

“Keep the joy-stealers at bay.

Maintain your joy,” she said.

The pair also credited each other’s support throughout their lives.

“We’re a team,” said Vance. “She’s my inspiration.”

The donation’s recipient, Heartfelt Education through the Arts, is a multicultural performing arts company that empowers actors, dancers, and singers of all ages to cultivate their confidence and talents. Eartha Robinson, the H.E.ART’s founder and instructor, taught Bassett choreography for her portrayal of Tina Turner in “What’s Love Got to Do with It.”

“She did it with such love, since I was like ‘I’m no triple threat! I’ve got to sing and dance!’ but she encouraged me every step of the way,” Bassett said.

Bassett and Vance were also honored with a golden sphinxshaped trophy, presented by their twin children, Bronwyn G. Vance ’28 and Slater J. Vance.

“I’m grateful, and thank you, thank you so much,” said Bassett upon the ceremony’s conclusion.

jackie.chen@thecrimson.com

A Piano Duet of Ice and Fire

led a wide range of styles in the two-hour performance. Apart from Schubert’s “Fantasie in F minor, D.940,” the duo presented a piano version of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s “Symphonic Dances, Op. 45,” exploring the breadth of the Romantic period. Yet the concert was not devoid of more contemporary and exploratory pieces, further demonstrating the duo’s wide repertoire and skills. In particular, Conlon Nancarrow’s “No. 6 from Studies for Player Piano” added a sense of playfulness to the concert. An étude exploring the complex rhythmic variations of a pianist, “No. 6 from Studies for Player Piano” mimicked the sound of amateur pianists practicing scales and stumbling. Once again, Wang and Ólafsson set their style and notes in effective juxtaposition with each other. The former focused on playing a disjointed and punctuated staccato bassline, while the latter focussed on a rapid and higher-pitched melody that was at times off-beat from the bassline. As the two world-renowned pianists deliberately stumbled upon notes and simple scales, the au-

dience giggled at the lightened mood. A piece about building up experiences in playing the piano, “No. 6 from Studies for Player Piano” was a joyful and retrospective nod to the name of the previous piece, John Cage’s “Experiences No. 1.” Behind Wang’s and Ólafsson’s experiences and expertise were years of practicing scales, stumbling upon notes, and experimenting with techniques and styles. As the two-hour concert came to an end, Symphony Hall again bursted into applause. Perhaps in part due to the audience’s enthusiasm, Wang and Ólafsson generously returned to the stage again and again. From Johannes Brahms’ “Sixteen Waltzes, Op. 39, No. 2 & 3” and “Hungarian Dance No. 1 in G Minor” to Antonín Dvořák’s “Eight Slavonic Dances, Op. 72, No. 2” and Schubert’s “Marche Militaire in D. Major, Op. 51, No. 1,” they performed a total of four short encores, rounding off the concert with a focus on the Romantic-era pieces. Each of their entrances was welcomed with waves of applause, cheers, and excited mur-

murs of “No way!” And at the end of each piece, Wang responded to the cheers with her iconic bow, ending each encore piece on a powerfully confident note. Wang did insert a much stronger stage presence throughout the performance, from her percussive style to the bow. Nonetheless, the duo certainly deserved all the applause in the Symphony Hall with their stellar performances and immense talent. For the entirety of the concert, Wang and Ólafsson kept the audience members on their toes. With a setlist that spanned two centuries of music, they presented a variety of pieces that challenged the conventions of a traditional piano recital. Wang’s fiery and powerful emotions both contrasted with and were complemented by Ólafsson’s smoothened and elongated artistry. The duo was constantly at tension in their distinctive styles, as if ice were meeting fire. This particular tension, coupled with their artistry and collaboration, defined their captivating performance.

xinran.ma@thecrimson.com

wo chairs, two garment racks, two souls — in the Loeb Drama Center, the doors to the dimly-lit Ex provided a gateway to the exploration of the lives of two fatefully intertwined characters, each with their own scars that never seemed to fully fade.

Growing up has never looked so painful, yet it was that exact conveyed pain that made this Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club production so enthralling. Directed by Texaco U. M. Texeira-Ramos ’26, “Gruesome Playground Injuries” is not a conventional love story. Written by playwright Rajiv Joseph, the play follows Kayleen (Lauren E. Mei ’27) and Doug (Andrew A. Spielmann ’25), whose bond builds through their shared attraction to pain and the resulting emotional journey of navigating life’s complexities. A unique, non-linear look at the stages of their lives foreshadows Kayleen and Doug’s relationship, ensuring that the gravity of their connection is understood from the first mo -

ment the characters lock eyes. In the black box venue, the limited space allowed for little error during productions. For Mei and Spielmann, this was no concern. With palpable chemistry and effortless line delivery, their commitment to the characters made each of the eight scenes appear more like a recalled memory: simple yet mesmerizing. The intimate space made the journey more personal, the waves of emotion more immediate. From Kayleen and Doug’s first encounter in the school nurse’s office at age eight to their most recent at age 38, Mei and Spielmann carefully guided audiences through the depth of their character’s magnetic relationship, all while flawlessly using the entirety of the stage to engage all sides of the house.

Mei’s acting deserved its

flowers — the range within her portrayal of Kayleen, from the little girl fidgeting in her chair to a grown woman returning from her father’s funeral, was pure magic. Transitioning to each phase of life with ease, Mei provided an immersive experience, enticing the house to fall into her character’s world. Spielmann, too, deserved applause. With quick, witty delivery, comic timing, and endless charm, his portrayal of Doug gave viewers no choice but to root for his success, despite the character’s inability to give up fireworks for his own good. Amongst their many strengths, Mei and Spielmann’s authenticity sold the production. With subtle mannerisms, sharp exchanges, and nonstop vulnerability, they fruitfully provided the different perspectives of each character, driving home the raw connection the two share.

The characters are not the only ones being vulnerable — so are the actors. Between scenes, Mei and Spielmann changed clothing in front of the audience members. Returning to an even dimmer stage than before the play began, the actors

Artist Profile: Haden Guest on the Harvard Film Archive

BY EUNICE

As the current Director of the Harvard Film Archive and Senior Lecturer in Harvard’s Department of Art, Film, and Visual Studies, Haden Guest naturally has a keen interest in film. Guest’s exploration of film archival work stretches back decades — after spending time in New York’s George Eastman Museum and working as an intern at two of Mexico City’s major film archives, Filmoteca UNAM and the Cineteca Nacional, he was hooked. Film was no longer just an interest, but a vocation to dedicate himself to.

“It was there as an intern [that] I learned about what it means to care for motion picture films, to archive them, to organize them, to make them accessible, and to program them,” Guest said. “UNAM has an amazing film cinematheque program, and that was one of the reasons why, when I realized I wanted to continue to study film, I decided to go to UCLA — because they have an archive as well.” Now, Guest has an extensive repertoire of global cinema under his academic belt: America, Mexico, Japan, Argentina, and many others. He believes this broader perspective on cinema is necessary to understand and recognize the constant innovation in film.

“True cinema can be found —

is found — all over the world,” he said.

While film is a worldwide, enduring industry, there is something fundamentally ephemeral to its art — it is a product of its time and its creator’s vision of the world. Guest believes that it is this very ephemeral quality that makes cinema a powerful historical tool.

“I feel like the great cinemas exist for just a limited period of time. Italy in the ’60s, Japan, also in the post-war period, I think is absolutely incredible. You know, the U.S. cinema of the ’70s, Portuguese cinema of the ’60s,” Guest said, listing on his fingers. “American independent cinema of the ’80s.” He described what makes these cinematic periods interesting.

“These are moments that [are] finite,” Guest continued.

“And they define, kind of, sensibility, and the specific position of film and the relationship to the world around it. And filmmakers in relation to the world around them. So in studying those moments, one can learn a lot about that place, about that time, but also about the ways in which film continues to evolve as an art form.”

Guest also offered his thoughts on the rules and conventions of cinema.

“If you look at mysteries in the ’30s, they’re really interesting conventions — a mixture of comedy and suspense, for instance. That’s a tradition that continues to sort of linger in re -

ally interesting ways. So I think there’s a real value in tradition, but there’s also real value in innovation,” he said.

This delicate tension between tradition and innovation is also one that extends to his work as the director of the HFA, one of the largest university-based film collections. Guest presents a possible quandary of archival work: facing a sole print copy of a film that bears heavy damage and deterioration.

“How far do you go into cleaning up that, right? And so this is a similar question to restoration of painting. How far do you go to clean up a painting? Can you go too far? You can, like they did to the Sistine Chapel, where they made it incredibly bright, and there’s a lot of discussion, debate about that,” he said.

These questions around painting restoration, he explained, could be applied to film as well.

“When you digitize a film,” Guest continued, “even if it’s called a digital restoration, you’re altering the film. When you’re digitizing an analog film, it just changes in nature. And so it becomes brighter, and it usually becomes sharper, and so that’s a distortion of the original.”

It’s a balancing act that Guest navigates with his colleagues. The team behind the HFA is relatively small — UCLA, the largest, has a staff “about 10 times larger” than the HFA’s, Guest

made the most of the space they had by visibly changing into the younger and older versions of their characters. Besides the wardrobe change reflecting the passage of time in a more tangible way, the process almost felt like an ode to the openness of Kayleen and Doug. By inviting audiences into a typically private act, Mei and Spielmann further blurred lines between the vulnerability of the characters not just within themselves, but with those watching from afar, too. In the same vein, the decision to have a subtle music track play in correspondence with each scene in the back -

Transitioning to each phase of life with ease, Mei provided an immersive experience, enticing the house to fall into her character’s world.

ground of the venue further brought audience members into Doug and Kayleen’s world. Amongst several captivating moments, one of the most striking examples of Texeira-Ramos’ directing came from Scene Four, “Age Twenty-Eight: Tuesday.” When Kayleen finds herself visiting an unconscious

Doug in the hospital, her three props — the hospital chair, her lotion, and her bag — are all that’s alongside her when she explicitly expresses what has been lingering the entire time: she deeply cares about Doug. Working with lighting designer Jodie Y. Kuo ’25, Texeira-Ramos’ decision to keep Spielmann hidden behind a blurred screen added to the weight of the scene. When Kayleen reached for Doug’s hand, despite the lack of physical response, his shadow sat up behind the screen, noticeable because of a backlight to symbolize his presence and awareness of the situation. While simple, the addition made all the difference in understanding the soul tie that inevitably built over the years. There is no doubt that the Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club is chock-full of talent, and “Gruesome Playground Injuries” was a testament to that craftsmanship and commitment. With a little introspection, one may find ghosts within them that haunt their thoughts, their livelihoods, and relationships with others, whether from childhood or not. It is how we advance through life in spite of the scars, however, that we grow the most, and for Kayleen and Doug, their journey was only just beginning.

remarked — but close-knit and passionate.

Guest is able to work on every aspect of film preservation in his role, archiving the physical materials and presenting those films to new audiences through the HFA cinematheque.

The cinematheque hosts regular screenings of curated films every week, Sunday to Monday, and frequently features special groupings of those films in various aptly named series.

Just last semester, the HFA hosted a series dubbed “Psychedelic Cinema” that focused on the many sub-genres within psychedelic film — from acid Westerns to hallucinatory dreams -

capes. The series spawned from a conversation between Guest and Michael Pollan, the Lewis K. Chan Arts Lecturer and Professor at Harvard, the latter of whom is very interested in the study of psychedelics.

“In terms of thinking about the programs, there are a number of different strands, let’s say,” Guest said. “There are those that are very like a passion product. Well, first of all, I’m passionate about everything we show — I mean, that’s the main criteria as curator of the cinematheque program. So there are some dream projects that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time, and we can finally

do them.” Above all else, Guest hopes to bring more students to the HFA. He points to the Student Cinematheque, which he is a faculty advisor of. Through the program, students can directly learn more about the art of film programming, create a weekly film series held in the theater, and get more involved with the Harvard Film Archive.

“I hope students can at least come and experience the HFA at least once during their four years,” Guest said. “The one thing I don’t want to hear is ‘I didn’t know about the archive.’

eunice.chae@thecrimson.com

S. CHAE

CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

FIFTEEN MINUTES 17

Leslie J. Fernandez is the Program Director for the Committee on Ethnicity, Migration, Rights and Lecturer of Asian American Studies. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

FM: What piqued your interest in AI and the intersection between technology and culture?

LJF: Growing up, I was a huge sci-fi fan from as young as I can remember. This is something I share in my classes. I’ve always felt like I related to robot characters or related to AI characters — and as I grew older, I started noticing that that was not necessarily a universal experience.

Q&A:

LESLIE FERNANDEZ ON TECHNO-ORIENTALISM, AI ETHICS, AND ETHNIC STUDIES

THE PROGRAM DIRECTOR FOR THE COMMITTEE ON ETHNICITY, MIGRATION, AND RIGHTS sat down with Fifteen Minutes to discuss their favorite sci-fi novels, multiculturalism, and Blade Runner.

[Edward] Said, and how do you see Asian American popular culture and representation evolving in the future?

LJF: Traditional Orientalism is a lot about Asian primativity and savagery, or not being as developed as the West or other parts of the world. And techno-orientalism is almost the flip side of that. It is projecting Asia into a mythical future rather than a mythical past. But nevertheless, there’s a lot of continuum on the ways in which Asia is never allowed to be in the present.

FM: You have been a strong proponent of creating an Ethnic Studies concentration. Why is an Ethnic Studies concentration needed, as opposed to current

type of futurity.

But you also have these negative fears of China being the future or threatening the future of the West. So it plays out in a lot of different ways. But this kind of preoccupation — what is the future, and whether Asia is the future — is one that is very prevalent in the discourse.

FM: Do you feel like there’s a trend towards humanities scholars trying to relate their fields to AI?

LJF: Yes, especially with the current explosion of AI as being such a prevalent, predominant form of our lives. A lot of people are increasingly, in the humanities, looking at the ways in which this is now a necessary part of the field that we need to wrestle with and engage with.

A lot of my work is on how does the public understand AI? And that has a lot more to do with understanding social discourse, understanding pop culture, fiction, than it necessarily has to do with understanding science and engineering.

FM: Are you a pessimist or optimist on AI?

LJF: I think definitely a pessimist at this point. Unfortunately, it’s getting increasingly clear that a lot of contemporary AI technology development isn’t necessarily leading to the sort of freedom from labor that is universally applicable to everyone.

It’s very reliant on exploitation, both in terms of the data that goes into building a lot of these new AI models, as well as in who’s actually doing the work of training these models.

Contemporary AI, a lot of it — at least for me personally — I have not found all that useful in my everyday life. It’s not something I turn do very often outside of my own kind of research.

FM: What scares you the most about AI?

LJF: Right now there’s a lot of issues, particularly around the ways it’s being integrated into our everyday lives without necessarily having the proper safeguards in terms of things like bias

and discrimination.

I think increasingly, the fear for me would be how much this new turn towards AI is really pushing us further towards climate disaster and ecological disaster. The energy costs, the water costs for a lot of the current AI boom are pretty astronomical.

Considering how pressing climate change is, that is probably the thing that I would fear the most in terms of AI.

FM: How does pop culture shape AI and vice versa?

LJF: Pop culture, particularly on the level of public reception, is probably one of the most important things in terms of how the public receives AI. You can see this increasingly in the ways that a lot of tech moguls or people in these AI fields will routinely refer to things like Skynet from “The Terminator” series or the androids in “Blade Runner.”

A lot of the times, the references — in terms of warning of the potential apocalyptic futures of AI or the ex-

istential crisis that AI might prompt — are reliant on being sold in relationship to pop culture.

This is one of the reasons why it’s so easy to actually be convinced that AI is conscious, or is able to have these intelligent conversations with you. We are predisposed to expect that as our future. We’re brought up in a milieu where all of our stories about that feature AI or have robots, particularly conscious robots. They act like humans.

But it also, in subtle ways, determines how researchers approach these things. A good example of this is Isaac Asimov’s “Three Laws of Robotics.” It’s something that’s pretty regularly invoked and used as an example in actual computing spaces.

So much of science fiction is crucially the working out of the social repercussions of the science. And so the science offers this raw material of what might happen. And then the fiction, the pop culture, is really working out what is the social repercussions of that.

FM: How have we moved beyond

The concentration proposal we have is going to be continuing the focus not just on ethnic studies, but also border migration studies and our approach to global indigeneity — which I think is how the field of Ethnic Studies has developed. It’s consistently moved towards this transnational frame-

It has been a long-standing request from the students, something around over 40 years since the first proposal for an Ethnic Studies concentration was given at Harvard.

So Harvard is a little bit unusual, actually, in not having a fullfledged concentration focused on Ethnic Studies. So I’m hopeful that we’re close to finally getting that

FM: You also study critical race theory, and in light of the events at Harvard in the past year and also recent policies under the Trump administration, where are initiatives like DEI and critical race theory going to be

I’m not sure how things are going to move in terms of the larger frameworks — especially on a political front. But for us, for me in my classroom, I think these are always going to be things that are extremely important, that are going to be relevant to the things that we study, and particularly necessary in this moment.

FM: What was it like working at the Singaporean Air Force? As a Singaporean, I had to do a mandatory two-year stint in the Air Force or in the Army in general, and I was posted to the Air Force to do media coverage. And so I was a writer and photographer for the Singapore Air Force. It was, on a practical level, very useful for my skills, both especially as a writer and editor, which is a lot of the work that I did. And I made a lot of great friends.

FM: Did growing up in a multicultural country make you become interested in EMR?

One of the things that often distinguishes America from other spaces is its multiculturalism. And I happen to come from a country where that’s also a major part — it’s an inherently multicultural space. I’ve always been able to compare the experiences, the differences between these two multicultural spaces. And also for me, I was Indian and in Singapore, that’s one of the minority groups. And so I’ve always been a sort of minority, both in my homeland in Singapore and in my adopted homeland, here and now in America.

Fifteen Minutes is the magazine of The Harvard Crimson. To read the full interview and other longform pieces, visit

Crimson Splits Games with Penn, Princeton

Harvard women’s basketball (21-4, 10-3 Ivy) split its final home stand of the season, falling to Princeton (20-6, 11-2) in a battle for second place in the Ivy 70-58, then quickly turning the page and downing the University of Pennsylvania (15-11, 6-7) on senior night 62-44.

The weekend’s results clinched the third seed in Ivy Madness for the Crimson and set up a third matchup against the Tigers in the first round. The team also earned its first season sweep over the Quakers since the 2011-12 season.

Harvard 58, Princeton 70

In a pivotal matchup for Ivy seeding, the Princeton Tigers emerged victorious over the Crimson, cruising to a 70-58 victory. All Princeton starters notched double figures in scoring while senior Harmoni Turner and junior Saniyah Glenn-Bello, who missed last week’s game with a knee injury, led the Crimson with 15 and 11 points, respectively.

The pivotal matchup earned Harvard its first sell-out crowd of the season with 1,636 rowdy fans in attendance, though Harvard women’s basketball head coach Carrie Moore viewed the crowd as a distraction for the team.

“It’s an unfortunate loss because I think that we are a better basketball team than what we displayed,” said Moore. “It’s tough for me to watch our performance at home in front of our

best crowd all year. I think it was more of a distraction than anything for us unfortunately.” Turner immediately set the tone for the raucous crowd, stripping Princeton’s Parker Hill and taking it coast-to-coast for the opening layup. The Tigers responded with a 13-2 run that silenced Lavietes Pavilion.

Following a Harvard timeout, Glenn-Bello took charge of the Crimson offense, knocking down two three pointers and a floater from the free-throw line. Junior captain Katie Krupa utilized a vast array of spin moves, putting defenders in a blender for backto-back fall away post jumpers.

Despite the offensive success, the vaunted Crimson defense could not slow the Tigers as the team trailed 22-16 after the first quarter.

After the teams traded baskets to start the second quarter, sophomore Karlee White drove baseline for a floater that cut the deficit to four, the closest the Crimson came to overtaking the Tigers. Princeton’s Fadima Tall drained two three-pointers that kickstarted an 11-3 run. Senior Elena Rodriguez drove into the paint, hitting a floater high off the glass to cut the deficit to 40-29 at halftime.

“We’re just getting shredded in ball screens,” Moore said. “We have to figure that out, that’s on me. They were driving it and we didn’t have consistent rim help. They got a lot of shots that were very comfortable for them.”

The Crimson failed to make any progress in the third quarter, with the team’s senior duo of Turner and Rodriguez failing to register a point in the period. The Tigers took advantage of the Crimson stars’ third quarter lull, extending its lead to 53-40 heading into the fourth quarter.

The Tigers remained in control to start the fourth quarter, pushing its lead to a game high 15 points. With the team’s back against the wall, Turner displayed her resilient fight, scoring nine points that ignited a 12-3 run and cut the deficit to 60-54 with three minutes remaining.

The Crimson offense ran out of gas, as the Tigers closed the period strong on a 10-4 run, reaching the final score of 70-58.

“We showed great fight in the second half but unfortunately were not ready to play in a way that allows us to beat a good team,” said Moore. “It’s hard to beat a team three times. There’s a lot on film that we can watch and get better.”

Harvard 62, Penn 44

On a night commemorating Harvard’s three seniors, Harvard bested Penn in a blowout 62-44 victory. The Crimson was led by senior duo Turner and Rodriguez, scoring 24 and 17 points, respectively.

a game-high 11 rebounds.

“I’m really happy for Harmoni and Elena,” said Moore. “They really led us tonight, they came alive and that gave our team a lot of lift. I challenged them after yesterday to play well. We go as they go and we need them to lead us.”

Moore also shared love to her unsung locker room glue, senior Mona Zaric.

“Her coming into the game and having an immediate impact is so deserving of someone that is so consistent with her approach, so selfless and is there for all her teammates even when things are difficult,” she said. “She’s a great example for what this program should be about.”

The offense started slow for both teams, closing out the first quarter with the Quakers leading 12-8. Towards the end of the first quarter, the Crimson’s defense showed signs of hope with two quick steals from White.

The Crimson defense came alive in the second quarter, tallying a pair of steals and blocks from Rodridguez and junior Gabby Anderson.

Nearing midway in the second quarter, Turner ignited the Lavieties crowd with an and-one turn around layup. She kept the Crimson in striking distance, closing Penn’s lead to a single point, delivering several no-look assists. Turner then drove and dumped off a dime to Rodriguez for a last-second layup to tie the game at 26-26 to close the half.

The third quarter saw an increase in defensive aggression from both teams, leading to more baskets from the post. The two teams traded buckets at the start, but two treys stretched the Crimson’s lead to six. A layup by sophomore Abigail Wright paired with a triple from Turner stretched the lead to 45-34 heading into the fourth.

The fourth quarter was defined by Turner and Rodriguez’s farewell performance with both seniors leaving it all out on the floor, hitting a pair of threes.

The Crimson’s pestering fullcourt press produced a turnover that ignited the Lavieties crowd and the team took command and never looked back, stretching the lead to 18 with two minutes left af-

ter an and-one by Turner. In the final minute the three seniors checked out to a standing ovation and hugs from coaches and teammates. The Crimson rode the rest of the game out, arriving at the final score 62-44.

“We had the mindset that we were not losing this game,” said Turner. “Unfortunately, we had to learn through a loss, but we were intentional about the bounce backs. I felt we did a really great job towards the end of the game.”

“We know we’re not losing two games in a row,” Rodriguez said. “We’re much better than what we performed yesterday so everyone came with that mentality. We turned the page, Penn was hungry for a win, and we had to go out there and take the win.”

The Crimson will travel to New Hampshire for its final regular season matchup against lastplace in the conference, Dartmouth College. A win would earn the team the best overall record in the Ivy League, and potentially an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament.

oscar.mercado@thecrimson.com

Harvard Stuns Yale, Ends Bulldogs’ Streak

The Harvard men’s basketball team (11-15, 6-7 Ivy) handed an undefeated Yale (19-7, 12-1 Ivy) its first loss on Saturday in a 74-69 win at Lavietes, in an upset that leaves the Crimson in contention for postseason play in Ivy Madness. The loss ends the longest win streak in the nation and hopes for an undefeated Ivy season for the Bulldogs, whose star senior guard John Poulakidas was held to just 12 points on a night he shot five-for-16 from the field. Following a tough loss against Brown on Friday, which saw Harvard give the Bears the lead with just seven minutes left in the game, Harvard fended off continuous attacks from a talented Yale team — the heavy favorite heading into the matchup — to hold a steady single-digit lead.

“It’s not easy against a team as physical and as tough as they are, and that’s their game plan, which is to kind of assault us in the paint,” said Harvard coach Tommy Amaker. “We had different plays and players to step forward to make tough plays, and we had to kind of keep scoring.”

Up by two with a minute left, freshman guard Austin Hunt held the ball at half court searching for an opening. With the shot clock expiring, Hunt drove in and heaved up a three against Yale junior forward Nick Townsend.

Banking in the shot at the buzzer, Hunt shifted momentum back to the Crimson to extend their lead to five with 21 seconds left in the game. After a foul during Harvard’s next attack, Hunt sank both his free throws.

“I saw a little space and just let it go,” said Hunt in a postgame interview with ESPN. “It’s the confidence that I get from my guys around me.”

“We’ve been grinding it out, and we’ve got some ups and downs all year, but just us coming together for this game right now means a lot,” he added.

In a game marked by physical play on both ends of the court, Harvard battled in the paint down the stretch, with strong defense from junior guard Chandler Piggé and free throws from Hunt that extended Harvard’s lead in the final seconds.

A packed home crowd — featuring Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray — exploded as the clock ran out and Harvard pulled away with the victory. With their sixth win in conference play, the Crimson stays in the race for one of the final seeds in the Ivy Madness tournament,

needing a couple of league games to go their way heading into the final weekend of conference play to ensure a path stays clear. They are tied with Brown for fifth place in the conference, with the top four invited to Ivy Madness.

Following conference play today, each team will have one more game next weekend — for Harvard, one more prayer that they can make their way to the top four seeds.

The Crimson finished the first half up 38-27, following strong interior defense from freshman guard Tey Barbour and senior

guard Evan Nelson who had two steals each. Senior guard Louis Lesmond held Yale’s Poulakidas — who has averaged 19 points per game this season — to seven points and a net minus five on the court in the half.

After a slow start from Harvard, two baskets from Piggé and Lesmond tied the game at nine apiece. The Crimson continued to play physically while shooting well from the floor, amassing a 30-19 lead midway through the first half after a couple of made threes from freshman guard Ben Eisendrath and Barbour.

In the final minutes of the half, Harvard continued to play tough inside, getting key steals from Barbour and Piggé to add to the 10 points off turnovers the Crimson scored in the first period. Harvard ended the half shooting 15-for-28 from the field and four-for-eight from three en route to a 38-27 lead over the regular season Ivy League champions.

The second half opened with missed shots on both ends followed by a quick five points from sophomore forward Thomas Batties II, setting the tone for a half marked by stretches of missed shots and electric scoring. Piggé continued to produce on the offensive and defensive ends, with crafty footwork around Yale defenders and physical defense in the paint despite Harvard’s smaller size. After threes from Hunt and

Nelson, Yale fired back with a steady stream of jumpers and layups, cutting the lead to five with seven to go. Both teams had trouble shooting down the stretch, but rebounding from freshman Robert Hinton and tough layups through contact from Nelson kept Harvard’s lead steady. On Yale’s end, senior Bez Mbeng led the Bulldogs’ attack in the paint, finishing with a game-high 20 points. Meanwhile, Townsend continued to penetrate, knocking down much-needed jumpers for 18-points. Throughout the game, guidance from veterans Nelson and Piggé allowed cooler heads to prevail, preventing a repeat of last night’s collapse as Harvard held the ball steady and avoided fastbreak play. While 49 of Yale’s 69 points were made by three players, Harvard saw balanced scoring across the board, having five players in double-digit scoring. Wrapping up with Hunt’s pair of clutch plays, the Crimson finished the game strong, breathing a sigh of relief as they completed the upset against Yale. “Composure and confidence is what carried us through here this afternoon,” Amaker said. Harvard hosts Dartmouth next Saturday, with a win necessary to keep postseason hopes alive for the Crimson.

Turner sealed her second double-double of the season, tallying

Glenn-Bellow shoots against Princeton. SAMUEL A. HA — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

Senior Harmoni Turner shoots against Penn. The Crimson won out over Penn in a split weekend. SUDHISH M. SWAIN — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

SPORTS 20

‘On

a Mission’: Rugby’s Fitisemanu Reflects on Faith and Teamwork

When the Harvard women’s rugby team — coming off a championship winning season in the fall — began preparing for the upcoming sevens season, it started with captains elections. As each member of the team cast their vote one by one, a consensus was immediately reached: the team wanted junior Nafanua “Nafi” Fitisemanu.

In the 15s season this past fall, the Crimson flew to a 9-0 regular season victory in the NIRA National Fall 15s championship. Fitisemanu was crucial to the Crimson’s success this past season, with her resilience and grit on the field contributing to the team’s championship.

Although Fitisemanu is an academic junior, last fall was her first semester with the current Harvard team. And her path at Harvard has been anything but linear, both athletically and academically.

Fitisemanu matriculated in the fall of 2020, but her freshman season was canceled due to the Covid lockdowns and the Ivy League’s decision to cancel all competition. In a conversation with The Crimson, Fitisemanu looked back and reflected on a very different Harvard. Only freshmen were on campus, dining halls had a limit of four to a table, and all classes were on Zoom.

Fitisemanu recalled it being hard to connect with classmates and teammates alike. Rugby practices looked unrecognizable.

“It was crazy, because we didn’t have an athletic season, and so we would just have practices, but it was literally just four players on campus and you still had to be six feet apart,” Fitisemanu said. “You still had to practice in masks, and so we were running outside six feet apart in masks, and passing this ball.”

Sports at Harvard returned in Fitisemanu’s sophomore year. It marked the first time she stepped foot into the women’s rugby locker room. Now with a gratitude for the fragility of time at the College, she was more motivated than ever to get

out on the field and compete.

“I think I just grew so much gratitude for an actual season,” she said.

The women’s rugby program was able to reach the national semifinals in both 15s and 7s that year, with Fitisemanu being named to the All-National Intercollegiate Rugby Association First Team. After her sophomore year, Fitisemanu made a life-changing decision.

She informed her coaches that she would be stepping away from Harvard for the next two years.

The reason for this untraditional break in college: reaching a point in her spiritual journey that called her to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Fitisemanu said the LDS Church has had a profound impact on her upbringing and how she interacts with the world.

“I think my great grandparents were the first converts to the church,” Fitisemanu said.

“I’ve seen so many blessings from the different family values and our family dynamics. And so having that kind of implemented into my other relationships, I find more intentionality, wholesome interactions with other people.”

Having grown up in the church, this break in college was something she had always strongly considered, especially seeing the fulfillment her three older siblings felt after serving their missions.

Women in the church can serve a mission when they turn 19 years old, and Fitisemanu had originally planned to undertake this experience after her first year in college.

“I think when it came to that first year, it was just like, I don’t feel as capable, strong enough in myself in order to share that with everyone else,” Fitisemanu said of her spiritual journey and deciding to serve her mission. “And so I have to work more on my own personal spiritual journey first. And then afterwards, it was like, ‘Okay, I feel strong enough, and I feel like that desire is there.’”

Fitisemanu told Head Coach Mel Denham she was sure of the benefits this time away from rugby and college would provide.

“I was like, ‘I promise you, this will better myself in order

for me to serve the team later on,’” Fitisemanu said.

Fitisemanu added that Denham and the team were supportive of her decision to leave the team for an extended period of time, and understanding of other religious values she holds such as not competing in games that are on a Sunday.

“I received a text from Coach Mel, yeah. And she was like, ‘Nafi, thank you so much for telling me. Just so you know, me and the team, we have your back,’” Fitisemanu said. “So the team has been really awesome in supporting me and my religious kind of values.”

Before embarking on her mission, Fitisemanu recalled writing an application to church leaders.

“You’re gonna write down the different languages that you know, different spiritual questions of, ‘Who is God to you? Who is Jesus Christ to you?’” Fitisemanu said. “So you write that all down, and you send your application, and then the leaders of the church receive inspiration from God to then assign you to a place.”

Fitisemanu was assigned to the Spain Madrid North Mission. So with a little high school Spanish, Fitisemanu boarded a plane that would see her spend 18 months across Madrid, the Basque region, and the Canary Islands.

For Fitisemanu, “discipline” is the word that sums up the entire experience. She abided by an “eight-eight-eight” schedule each day: Eight hours dedicated to rest and sleep, eight hours for self-preparation and study, and eight hours for “proselyting.”

She met new companions every six weeks, with whom she was required to spend 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Since Fitisemanu was only able to contact her family once a week and didn’t consume music, movies, television, books, and most pop culture or media-related activities, she absorbed and dedicated herself to the task at hand.

To fulfill this purpose, daily activities included “walking in the street and talking to a lot of different people, knocking on doors, using social media as well to reach out to those interested.”

She also spent time “studying in scriptures or studying

for the different lessons that you would have,” conducting lessons on the gospel and also baptisms.

Fitisemanu said she enjoyed the people she met and her experiences in Spain.

“So many amazing people. And then also sharing what is foundational in your life, and what brings you happiness. And so it’s just a great experience,” she said.

It wasn’t always easy, though.

“I think that was the hardest thing for me,” Fitisemanu said, reflecting on the intensity of the experiences with companions and having to spend every day with someone she previously had not met.

But Fitisemanu said even the challenging moments helped her develop new skills, “especially having hard conversations, bringing up difficulties in the relationship, and trying to see where you guys can be better.”

After 18 months, Fitisemanu returned home to Utah and then, shortly after, to campus. Fitisemanu laughed remembering the “culture shock” of returning to Harvard. An open and bustling campus — free of Covid-19 — coupled with all new classmates and teammates would be challenging for most. Fitisemanu also had to quickly adapt to topical conversations on memes, movies, and celebrities after being away from campus for two years.

She said she took a positive approach to rejoining the team as somewhat of a veteran player, where her original class had now graduated.

“I don’t know these people, but I’m gonna get to know them, I’m gonna see where they need me, and see where I’m gonna help out, where I can serve,” she said. She credited this mindset to her mission, which she described as a “very selfless act.”

She attributed her smooth transition to the team culture — and rugby culture more generally — as a space that is “so accepting, so loving, so welcoming.”

While in Spain, she was only able to spend 30 minutes a day exercising and therefore was not able to play rugby for all 18 months. But fans who watched her play this past season wouldn’t be able to tell she’d had a long absence from

the field. She posted 133 total tackles in the fall and was clearly winning the support of her new teammates in the process.

Having felt leadership skills brewing within, two years away and a brand new team did not stop her becoming a respected figure once again after returning to the Crimson.

Of the strengths she gained from her time away from the rugby field, her newfound “ability to see potential and opportunity in everyone” is what stands out for Fitisemanu.

Fitisemanu recalled becoming emotional during her captain’s speech and cites her passion as the reason she felt she was nominated as a captain.

“Coming to the captain elections, I was very nervous. I’m not a good public speaker, and so when it comes to these very formal speeches, I get really nervous. And I feel very passionate with rugby, with the girls, with the team. So I sometimes get emotional,” Fitisemanu said. When it came to the previous captains tallying the votes, Fitisemanu’s name was the first announced.

“I was just like, ‘No way.’ I was so excited,” Fitisemanu said. “I was proud of myself.”

“It’s been one season like, I didn’t know three-fourths of the team, and you see that they have that trust in me was really beautiful to see,” Fitisemanu added.

Now leading the Crimson out for the first time in just a few weeks, Fitisemanu said she’s excited for what is to come. She hopes to recreate that “last season mindset of not falling into complacency,” and to “cultivate more leaders on the team” as the team attempts to win another 7s national championship.

With her senior year on the horizon, Fitisemanu said she is unsure where rugby will fit into her life post-college, but she “definitely wants to still be included in the rugby community.”

Away from the pitch she talks of aspirations of pilot school. Wherever Fitisemanu sets her sights, she said she is sure that both rugby culture as well as the Church and lessons gained from her mission will help her soar.