The Harvard Crimson - Vol. CLII, No. 23

The Harvard Crimson

the University.

Harvard Runs Deficit After Difficult Year

WHAT’S IN A NAME? A newly designated butterfly species, Euptychia andrewberryi, has been named in honor of Harvard lecturer Andrew J.

REVIEW. The Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra, performing as Music 110, played Mahler at its opening concert. As conductor Federico Cortese predicted, no one moved as the last note faded. Then Sanders Theatre erupted in applause. SEE PAGE 15

‘OUR RIGHT AND DUTY.’ Members of Harvard’s undergraduate, graduate, and non-ten

Harvard reported an operating loss of $113 million — its first budget deficit since 2020 — as its financial footing shakes from disruptions to federal funding, even as the total value of its endowment grew by 11.9 percent to $56.9 billion, according to its fiscal year 2025 financial report.

The deficit, a 1.7 percent operating shortfall on $6.7 billion in total revenue, marks a reversal from last year’s $45 million surplus and reflects the steep financial impact of the Trump administration’s spring termination of nearly all federal research grants.

Most of Harvard’s funding was recently restored after a federal judge ruled the White House’s funding freeze unconstitutional — though the reinstatement is not reflected in the 2025 report, which reflects the fiscal year through June. The realized gains on the University’s endowment in fiscal year 2026 will also be taxed at more than 400 percent of the current rate.

Harvard last reported a deficit in fiscal year 2020, a $10 million shortfall driven by Covid-19 pandemic-related declines. This year, Harvard’s rhetoric pointed to a dire situation — driven by deliberate federal policy rather than a public health crisis.

Harvard Treasurer Timothy R. Barakett ’87 and Chief Financial Officer Ritu Kalra wrote that the financial consequences of the White House’s attacks on Harvard “are only beginning to be felt.” “This result could have been worse. It reflects not only the magnitude of the disruption, but also the discipline of a university community that acted quickly and with resolve,” they wrote, citing cost-cutting measures across the University including pauses on wage increases, layoffs, and the University-wide hiring freeze.

At least four faculties have laid off staff since April. Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences announced last week that it would lay off 25 percent of unionized clerical and technical staff, in addition to other non-union workers, even after the majority of the University’s funds were reinstated last month.

Despite the austerity measures, the University’s operating expenses still rose by $367 million in fiscal year 2025. The rise was driven by salary and employee benefit hikes prior to the March hiring freeze, legal fees, and investments in technology infrastructure, according to the report.

Barakett and Kalra credited the endowment’s strong investment return — the highest since the economy’s post-pandemic recovery — as “central to navigating the uncertainty” caused by the White House’s actions.

University President Alan M. Garber ’76 thanked donors and Harvard affiliates for adapting to “uncertainty and threats to sources of revenue” the University has long-relied on for support.

“Even by the standards of our centuries-long history, fiscal year 2025 was extraordinarily challenging, with political and economic disruption affecting many sectors, including higher education,” Garber wrote.

The endowment accounts for 37 percent of the University’s operational revenue, resulting in a $2.5 billion spend in the past fiscal year. The University also tapped $250 million in contingency reserves to support researchers while awaiting reinstatement of federal payments.

Still, Barakett and Kalra wrote that the endowment cannot be used indefinitely as a stopgap measure because 80 percent of its funds are restricted and cannot be reallocated at will.

Harvard’s federal sponsored revenue fell by 8 percent to $629 million in fiscal year 2025, after the suspension of nearly all federal research grants earlier this year. Without grant freezes and cuts, federal sponsored revenue would have been on track for a 9 percent increase over the previous year. Non-federal sponsored revenue rose by 6 percent to $345 million, driven by new multi-year awards.

Harvard Medical School Cancels Student Groups’

BY ABIGAIL S. GERSTEIN CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

Harvard Medical School canceled a pro-Palestine vigil organized by two recognized student groups on Thursday, alleging the groups violated the school’s campus use rules by distributing and posting event flyers without authorization.

The event, which was organized by the HMS Student Alliance for Health Equity in Palestine and the HMS Student Human Rights Collaborative, initially received approval from school administrators. But on Thursday afternoon, five hours before it was slated to begin, HMS announced the cancellation in an email sent to all Harvard medical and dental students.

The email, signed by Dean of Medical Education Bernard S. Chang ’93, Dean for Students Jennifer E. Potter, and Director of Student Affairs Sheryl O’Brien, claimed the groups repeatedly violated policies on event promotion, on-campus gatherings, and collaboration with unauthorized student organizations.

Student organizations attempting to hold

events on the HMS campus must first register them with the school, which maintains that requests will be evaluated under “content-neutral standards.”

“For approximately two weeks, the administration was supportive of the vigil, provided we followed their extensive guidelines for organizing and advertising it,” SAHEP wrote in a statement early Friday morning. “We did so to the best of our abilities.”

SAHEP complied when the Medical School decided midweek to move the vigil from the HMS Quad lawn to an indoor location, the Tosteson Medical Education Center Amphitheater, a decision administrators announced to students in a Wednesday email. SAHEP organizers wrote that administrators mandated the location change “due to security concerns.”

Then, on Thursday, the arrangements broke down entirely, with HMS canceling the event in a move that SAHEP blasted as “unilateral.”

“Our intent as co-organizers of this vigil was to mourn the hundreds of thousands of people that Israel has massacred in Gaza in their ongoing genocide and campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people,”

SAHEP wrote. “This vigil was an avenue for our community to stand together in grief and solidarity.”

Many of the policies allegedly violated by the two student groups are contained in HMS’s campus use rules, which were adopted as an addendum to Harvard-wide policies that were rolled out shortly after the spring 2024 Harvard Yard encampment. The campus use rules drew criticism at the time from some faculty, who feared they would be arbitrarily enforced to discipline protesters. Harvard has removed signage, placed a student organization on probation, and fired a University employee under the policies, but Thursday is the first time they have been used to call off a planned demonstration entirely.

Chang, Potter, and O’Brien wrote on Thursday that SAHEP and HSHRC also broke school rules by sharing social media posts promoting the event alongside an unrecognized student group and by advertising the event “in a manner that broadened the invitation beyond the permitted Harvard ID holders.”

Harvard received a record-breaking $629 million in current-use donations during fiscal year 2025, representing a 19 percent increase from last year and the largest total in University history, according to the annual financial report released on Thursday. The uptick in giving came just in time for Harvard, as it weathered major federal funding disruptions and posted a $113 million operating deficit — its first since the Covid-19 pandemic dinged revenues in 2020. The surge stands in sharp contrast to Harvard’s philanthropic struggles in 2024, when major donors froze or withdrew pledges following controversy over the University’s response to campus antisemitism. Total philanthropic contributions fell by $151 million that year, marking one of the steepest declines in a decade, though current-use gifts experienced a $42 million increase. Last year, Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 publicly acknowledged that fundraising results were “below expectations” and warned that longterm declines in endowment contributions could threaten the University’s ability to expand its operations. Garber celebrated the dramatic turnaround this year, writing in the 2025 report that the donations would “ensure our resilience in the present, and embolden our ambitious plans for the future.”

COLUMBIA INTERNATIONAL STUDENT HARDSHIP FUND DISTRIBUTES $500,000 TO STUDENTS

Columbia University’s International Student Hardship Fund has distributed $500,000 to international students since its creation in April, according to the Columbia Spectator. The fund was first created as a fundraising effort to provide need-based grant support to international students and provides students with grants from $1,000 to $2,500 following Trump administration efforts to restrict student visas at higher education institutions in the U.S. THE COLUMBIA SPECTATOR

BROWN REJECTS TRUMP ADMINISTRATION COMPACT

Brown University President Christina Paxson rejected a Trump administration proposal on Wednesday that offered preferential treatment in federal funding for certain University-level changes. Brown was offered the proposal alongside eight other universities and was the second to decline, following MIT’s decision last week. The proposal would require schools to limit international enrollment and freeze tuition rates for the next five years, among other changes.

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

DARTMOUTH PRESIDENT, FACULTY VOICE DISAGREEMENT WITH TRUMP COMPACT

More than half of Dartmouth’s faculty members as of Oct. 12 signed a petition against the Trump administration compact that would restrict college policies, according to The Dartmouth. While the college has not yet made public comments on the matter, President Sian Leah Beilock told faculty members that she will not sign the document as written, two sources told The Chronicle of Higher Education. THE DARTMOUTH

PENN ASKED DHS TO REVISE INTERNATIONAL STUDENT VISA POLICY

The University of Pennsylvania sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security last month opposing a government policy that would restructure the timeline under which international students can stay in the U.S., The Daily Pennsylvanian reported. The proposed policy would remove language that allows international students to stay in the U.S. for the duration of their studies, instead replacing it with a four-year schedule for all international students. The letter, sent by Penn’s Vice Provost for Global Initiatives Ezekiel Emanuel and Senior Vice President and General Counsel Wendy White, claimed the policy would have substantial consequences.

THE DAILY PENNSYLVANIAN

Cornell professor Eric Cheyfitz retired this week following an investigation that determined he violated federal anti-discrimination law for comments he made in his course on Gaza. Cheyfitz reportedly asked an Israeli graduate student to leave the course, claiming he had been disruptive. The student later submitted a complaint with Cornell’s Office of Civil Rights, and Cheyfitz subsequently faced a two-semester suspension without pay as a result. Cheyfitz and his lawyer negotiated the deal, which will prevent continued deliberation by the University, according to The Cornell Daily Sun.

In Photos: Preparing for Head of the Charles Regatta

BY BRIANA HOWARD PAGÁN — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

CAPITOL RIOTS. Mike Romano, who supervised

to prosecute crimes related to the

6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol, slammed President Donald Trump’s

JENNIFER Y YAO — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

As autumn settles over Cambridge, the Charles River becomes more than a ribbon of water — it’s a stage. In the week leading up to the Head of the Charles Regatta, Harvard’s crews spend time at the docks making final preparations.

One historic corner of the boathouse highlights alumni who went on to compete in rowing at the Olympics.

move through practice runs, fine-tuning technique and pacing ahead of race weekend.

This year’s regatta coincides with the reopening of the Newell Boathouse, the men’s heavyweight rowing crew’s home since 1900, now with upgraded training facilities and restored historic details. The renovation preserves the building’s early-20th-century character while modernizing its interior for current athletes. For HUBC, it’s both a return to tradition and

TRUMP ACKNOWLEDGES AUTHORIZATION OF COVERT CIA OPERATIONS IN VENEZUELA

President Trump this week publicly acknowledged that he had greenlit covert CIA operations in Venezuela and announced that he was considering strikes on Venezuelan territory. The President said he authorized the operations because Venezuela had “emptied its prisons into the United States of America.” He has also accused the country of permitting the flow of illegal drugs into the U.S. Over the past weeks, the U.S. military has conducted strikes on boats with Venezuelan ties allegedly smuggling drugs into the country. The escalation in this maritime conflict is seen as part of Trump’s strategy to pressure or topple the regime of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro.

HAMAS

CLAIMS IT HAS RETURNED ALL HOSTAGE REMAINS

Hamas now says it has handed over all the remains of all Israeli hostages it was able to recover without additional equipment. As of Wednesday, the group has freed the 20 living hostages and has returned the remains of 10 Israeli hostages. The group claims to have fulfilled its end of the cease-fire deal, which calls for the return all 48 Israeli hostages, living and dead, in exchange for the release of nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. However, the remains of a dozen hostages are still unaccounted for. Israel’s defense minister said Wednesday that he has ordered the Israeli military to prepare to effect a “full defeat” of Hamas if the group did not meet the agreements of the cease-fire.

LITTLE PROGRESS IS MADE TO END THE GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN

More than two weeks into the government shutdown, Democrats and Republicans have made little progress towards reaching a compromise on a spending bill and ending the deadlock. Democrats have withheld support for a short-term funding bill, unsuccessfully demanding Republicans offer tax credits for expanded health care coverage in exchange for their support. To apply pressure on the Democrats, Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought has advocated for the firing of thousands of federal workers and urged the president to cut funding from federal programs. In response, two of the biggest federal labor unions filed and won lawsuits to end layoffs during the shutdown.

PAKISTAN AND AFGHANISTAN ANNOUNCE TRUCE AFTER DEADLY CLASH

After armed clashes killed and wounded dozens in the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the two countries agreed to a 48 -our truce on Wednesday. A spokesman for the Taliban accused Pakistan of firing first in the deadly conflict that took place in the borderland between the two countries, killing 12 Pakistani civilians and injuring over 100. The Pakistani military and its authorities have denied initiating the conflict, claiming instead that the Taliban fighters had fired first.

What’s Next

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

Friday 10/17

FIRST DAY OF THE HEAD OF THE CHARLES

Charles River Cheer on as Harvard men’s and women’s lightand heavyweight rowing compete at the Head of the Charles Regatta.

DAY OF THE DEAD WORKSHOP:

MAKING PAPIER-MÂCHÉ SKELETONS

Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, 10 a.m.-12 p.m. and 2-4 p.m.

Celebrate Mexico’s Day of the Dead by making crafts with artist Brioch Ochoa. Design miniature skeleton sculptures using cardboard and papier-mâché.

LAST DAY OF HEAD OF THE CHARLES

Charles River

Cheer on as Harvard men’s and women’s lightand heavyweight rowing compete at the Head of the Charles Regatta.

Monday 10/20

FIRESIDE CHAT WITH DEAN DAVID DEMING Register for location. 6-7 p.m.

Organized by the First-Year Experience office, this event will offer freshmen (Class of 2029) an opportunity to connect with Dean Deming and peers across the yards.

Tuesday 10/21

THE NORTON LECTURES WITH STEVE MCQUEEN: PULSE | LECTURE TWO: “SMALL AXE” Sanders Theatre, 6-7:30 p.m.

Attend the Norton Lecture by McQueen on Small Axe, an anthology of five films that portray Black British culture amidst social and political upheaval, and its exploration of identity, racism, and resilience.

Wednesday 10/22

GIVE BLOOD, GIVE HOPE: MASS GH BLOODMOBILE AT HARVARD SEAS Science & Engineering Complex, Parked on Stadium Road, 10 a.m.-3:30 p.m. The Harvard SEAS Blood Drive is collaborating with the Mass General Hospital (MGH) Bloodmobile to collect blood donations. All blood donors will receive a

Thursday 10/23

DOES MERITOCRACY UNDERMINE DEMOCRACY? A CONVERSATION WITH MICHAEL SANDEL Knafel Center, 4-5 p.m.

Attend Harvard Radcliffe Institute’s inaugural lecture for a series of public events themed around academic freedom and connecting across differences.

Friday 10/24

MICROBIAL SCIENCES INITIATIVE UNDERGRADUATE LUNCH & LEARN

Biological Laboratories 1080, 12-1:30 p.m.

Drs. Peter Girguis and Lila Witt will provide an introduction of MSI to interested undergraduate students. They will introduce the microbial sciences secondary concentration and undergraduate summer fellowship, then discuss additional ways to be involved with MSI.

KATHERINE S. KUMAR — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

RYAN N. GAJARAWALA — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

COLLEGE

Confidential Resources Close with QuOffice

CLOSED DOORS. The former QuOffice staff are no longer confidential resources for students reporting sexual misconduct.

BY ANNABEL M. YU AND SHEEREA X. YU CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

Harvard College’s Office of BGLTQ Student Life staff no longer serve as confidential resources following the office’s dissolution over the summer, narrowing the options available to students who want to discuss sexual harassment or misconduct without notifying the College’s Title IX office.

The Office of BGLTQ Student Life — informally known as the “QuOffice” — employed one full-time staff member and nine student interns who served as confidential resources, meaning they were not mandated by the University to report information that is shared with them about sexual misconduct to a Title IX resource coordinator.

But after the University shut down the QuOffice in July and reorganized its staff under the Harvard Foundation, a center within the newly established Office of Culture and Community, all student employees were laid off from the QuOffice. Its director, Meagan Von Rohr, has since been reassigned as a Harvard Foundation director — a role in which she says she is no longer a confidential resource. Other confidential resources remain available, including SHARE, Harvard’s team of Sexual Harassment/Assault Resources & Education counselors, as well as University chaplains and the Harvard Ombuds Office. But former student employ -

ees of the Office say the change could make confidential resources for sexual misconduct-related matters more inaccessible for students. Aaryan K. Rawal ’26, who was a QuOffice intern through last spring, said the interns “absolutely had a need to be confidential resources.”

“We had so many students come in and just share things that they otherwise would not have were we not confidential,” Rawal added.

Former QuOffice intern Bea Wall-Feng ’25 wrote in a text message that she “routinely spoke to students” as a confidential resource. And former assistant director of the QuOffice LaDarius P. Dupree, who was employed at the QuOffice full-time until November 2024, wrote that they were approached by students “several times” to serve as a confidential resource.

A University spokesperson declined to comment.

All employees of the University, including student workers and faculty, are required to report any information disclosed to them by a Harvard affiliate concerning sexual harassment or misconduct to a Title IX resource coordinator. Once information is shared with a resource coordinator, they will reach out to the student with an invitation to meet, as well as resources and options for how to move forward. This can include implementa -

In the Fight Over Federal Higher Education Policy, Massachusetts Is a Major Player

BY MEGAN L. BLONIGEN CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

In its clash with the Trump administration, Harvard has a powerful ally: the state of Massachusetts. Since President Donald Trump took office in January, Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea J. Campbell has joined 35 lawsuits and submitted amicus briefs in dozens of cases against his administration. The cases have spanned challenges to everything from Trump’s National Guard deployments to the Department of Government Efficiency’s access to sensitive federal data. But many of Campbell’s highest-profile interventions have centered on higher education and research policy, and for good reason: the Massachusetts economy reaps an estimated 320,000 jobs and $70 billion in annual economic gain from universities. Hospitals and biotechnology firms also act as major economic drivers, and Massachusetts receives more federal research funding per capita than any other state. Universities in the state collectively receive more than $2 billion from the federal government.

Campbell has helped lead the legal opposition to changes that could imperil that funding, including cuts to diversity-related grants and limits on reimbursement rates for indirect research costs. She has also submitted amicus briefs supporting Harvard in both of its lawsuits against the Trump administration’s heavy-handed use of federal power to extract concessions from the University. “I don’t think you had to really convince Andrea Campbell to file a brief on behalf of Harvard,” Harvard Law School professor Mason Kortz said. “I’m

sure she was anxious to do so.”

The Trump administration’s disruptions to federal research funding began almost immediately after the president took office — and Campbell made Massachusetts an early and consistent opponent. When the National Institutes of Health implemented a 15-percent cap on indirect coXst rates — funding for research costs not tied to specific labs or projects — a group of 22 states, including Massachusetts, sued three days later to halt the cap. The indirect funding cap was permanently blocked in April after a federal judge deemed it “arbitrary and capricious.”

The National Science Foundation also capped its indirect cost rate this spring and revoked funding for projects focused on increasing the participation of marginalized groups in STEM fields. Massachusetts joined 15 other states in a lawsuit against the NSF changes. A judge declined to force the NSF to restart payments in an August ruling, and the case is ongoing. When the Trump administration began cutting NIH funding for projects related to topics including race, gender and sexuality, Covid-19 and vaccines, and health disparities in March, Campbell helped lead a lawsuit against it.

A federal judge ruled in June that the funding cuts were illegal and ordered their reinstatement, but the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in August that the NIH could proceed with terminating nearly $800 million in research grants.

Harvard — itself a Trump administration target — is also one of the state’s top employers, and Massachusetts has a large stake in its federal fight.

“This just isn’t about Harvard,” Harvard Law School lecturer and former Maine attorney general James E. Tierney said. “It’s about jobs. It’s about

economic development. Companies have moved to Massachusetts for years because Harvard is there. They want to be close to Harvard.”

Kortz, the HLS professor, said that Campbell’s stance may also be a good electoral bet — capitalizing on the praise that the University and Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 have received for their fight against the Trump administration, and playing to a popular stance within Massachusetts’ voter base.

“It’s no secret that Harvard and President Garber got a lot of accolades for standing up to the Trump administration,” Kortz said.

“Let’s not forget, attorney general is an elected position,” Kortz added. “Attorney General Campbell probably wants to do the things that are popular with most of the constituents in Massachusetts. And I think in Massachusetts, Harvard’s pushback on the federal administration is very popular.”

When the University sued the Trump administration over its April revocation of more than $2 billion in federal research funding, Campbell led 20 states in an amicus brief supporting Harvard.

“The federal government’s punitive and unlawful freeze of federal funding to Harvard poses an unprecedented threat to the university,” the amicus brief read. “This wholesale attack will have devastating spillover effects on Massachusetts’s economy.”

A federal judge ruled in September that the funding freeze violated the Constitution, striking down the revocations. Harvard has now received payments on the majority of funding that was previously frozen.

And when the White House turned its attention to Harvard’s international students — with its attempt to revoke its Student and Exchange Visitor

Program certification in May — Campbell filed an amicus brief less than a week later pledging the state’s support.

Massachusetts’ international students are a major economic asset, contributing roughly $3.9 billion in the 2023-24 academic year, according to NAFSA, a professional organization representing educators of international students. Harvard’s international students alone contributed more than $380 million and almost 4,000 jobs.

The SEVP revocation was quickly blocked after the University filed the lawsuit, and a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction extending the block in June. No final decision has been reached in the case.

Campbell also threw her support behind Harvard researcher Kseniia Petrova, calling her for release from immigration detention in Louisiana. Petrova, a Russian citizen, was arrested by Customs and Border Patrol officials in February for allegedly attempting to bring undeclared frog embryos into the country. She was released from immigration detention at the end of May, but was indicted in late June on charges of criminal smuggling and making false statements and is now awaiting a criminal trial.

Campbell also joined a group of 19 states in an April amicus brief in support of the American Association of University Professors and its Harvard chapter, which sued the Trump administration over the government’s use of immigration policy to crack down on pro-Palestine activists.

A federal judge ruled earlier this month that the Trump administration violated the First Amendment rights of international students and professors by punishing them for pro-Palestine speech.

megan.blonigen@thecrimson.com

tion of supportive measures, such as housing and academic flexibility, or filing a formal complaint.

Students are not required to respond to the resource coordinator, and disclosing an incident to the Title IX office is not considered a formal complaint, nor does it automatically trigger a formal investigation.

Rawal said the QuOffice also helped students learn about other Title IX resources on campus — and presented a way for students to share sensitive information without fearing it would be brought to administrators.

“Our job really was to make SHARE feel a little bit more approachable and feel a little bit more accessible for the student,” Rawal said. “The whole reason that students were able to trust us with that information was because we were never obligated to report that to anyone else.”

Former QuOffice intern E.

Matteo Diaz ’27 said the QuOffice’s visibility as a social space for students made it more accessible than offices students might not ordinarily interact with, but QuOffice interns were also trained on how to refer students to the University’s other Title IX resources.

The QuOffice could be an especially important resource for LGBTQ students who wanted to “talk to people who are versed in understanding your identity, who are going to be kind of culturally sensitive in that way, but also not have the reporting requirements,” said Diaz, a Crimson Editorial editor.

“Gender and sexuality can make issues sensitive and add particular layers to the process of, ‘Do I want to report something or go through a process?’” he said.

He added that a confidential

resource who is a student could be more approachable than other University employees, lowering the “barrier to entry.”

“When you’re experiencing a crisis situation, you want someone who you don’t necessarily have to explain all the complexities that come with being a Harvard student,” Rawal said. “We were that for a lot of them.” The QuOffice interns were the only confidential resources employed by the University who were students. But undergraduate peer counseling groups, whose trained volunteers are not Harvard employees, have never been required to share information with Title IX resource coordinators or the University’s Office for Community Support, Non-Discrimination, Rights and Responsibilities.

Jennifer H. Kim ’26 — the co-director of RESPONSE Peer Counseling, which advises students on relationships and sexual harassment and assault concerns — said that the volume of students seeking confidential counseling has not “significantly increased compared to past semesters” following the closure of the QuOffice. Kim also said that RESPONSE peer counselors have spoken with their supervisors about the reorganization of resources available to students following the closure of the College’s three diversity offices, but that she does not expect major changes to the resources that RESPONSE refers students to. Contact and Indigo, undergraduate peer counseling groups that focus on supporting students with issues related to gender and sexuality, also continue to provide confidential counseling services.

annabel.yu@thecrimson.com sheerea.yu@thecrimson.com

Sustainability Report Shows Steady Progress

BY ISABEL K. CREWS AND ADELAIDE L.D. ROGER CRIMSON

Harvard’s 2024 sustainability report found that campus net greenhouse gas emissions continued to flatline for the ninth straight year — keeping the University on track to reach its goal of being “fossil fuel-neutral” by 2026.

The report, released in early October, detailed the status of Harvard’s renewable energy projects on campus and their progress toward the goal of being fossil fuel-free by 2050.

“Harvard is harnessing world-renowned research and the thought leadership of our faculty and students to enhance climate, health, and community,” Heather Henriksen, Harvard’s chief sustainability officer, wrote in the report.

The 2026 target involves investing in projects that reduce or remediate environmental damage, as well as purchasing carbon offsets, to “zero out” campus emissions. By 2025, Harvard hopes to create no fossil fuel emissions across all of its operations, using carbon offsets only if necessary to make up for residual emissions the University cannot avoid.

But University affiliates are still waiting for the endowment’s annual climate report, which describes the status of Harvard’s climate investments. Six months after the report was set to be published, it remains unavailable — with no release date in sight.

The sustainability report highlighted the creation of the Consortium for Climate Solutions in fall 2024, a “renewable energy aggregation” between Harvard, MIT and Massachusetts General Brigham that brings the institutions together to invest in climate solutions.

Henriksen wrote in the report that combining purchasing agreements by Consortium with Harvard’s own environmental efforts means that the University will be “purchasing the equivalent of 100% of its electricity from renewable sources starting in 2026.” The Consortium presents greater environmental investments that Harvard is adding on top of its other initiatives, which the report found are making steady progress.

Harvard is continuing to expand its fleet of electric vehicles, bringing the total number of the University’s EV vans, cars, buses, and specialized vehicles to 18. This means that nearly one-third of Harvard’s fleet is powered by electricity, with the remaining point powered by renewable fuels. The University is also “on track” to cut food-related emissions by 25 percent by 2030. Harvard has already reduced its food-related emissions by 13.55 percent, and is now piloting a new artificial intelligence tool to further reduce waste in undergraduate dining halls. Literally building upon their sustainability trajectory, Harvard is also using more-sustainable mass timber to construct its new facilities in Allston, the Goel Center for Creativity and Performance and the Rubenstein Treehouse. While the report finds that the campus has physically expanded by 14 percent, Harvard has made a 40 percent reduction in emissions per square foot.

Jasmine N. Wynn ’27, the co-founder of Harvard’s Sunrise Movement and a Crimson Editorial editor, said she was pleased that the University’s sustainability report was released as she waits for the endowment report to be published. “I am glad that they released it, especially considering a lack of transparency from the University on a lot of different issues, for example, diversity offices,” she said.

isabel.crews@thecrimson.com adelaide.roger@thecrimson.com

The group helped to establish“two large-scale renewable energy projects that will add 1.3 million megawatt-hours of renewable electricity annually to the U.S. grid,” according to the Harvard report. These projects have avoided an estimated 1 million tons of emissions.

The Office of BGLTQ Student Life was located in the basement of Thayer Hall in Harvard Yard. JENNIFER Z. LIANG — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

STAFF WRITERS

Unions Protest Removal of Black Lives Matter Sign

PROTEST CAMPAIGN.

Harvard unions posted hundreds of Black Lives Matter signs around campus on Thursday.

Members of three Harvard unions plastered hundreds of Black Lives Matter posters across campus on Thursday to protest the University’s decision to remove a pair of professors’ sign bearing the same message earlier this fall.

The demonstration, led by Harvard’s undergraduate, graduate, and non-tenure-track faculty unions, comes as all three groups remain locked in contract negotiations with the University. Most of the posters, which were taped to dorm walls,

faculty office windows, and public bulletin boards, simply bore the message “Black Lives Matter” in black lettering.

But some were more direct, suggesting the August removal was part of a campus-wide rollback of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives on campus and urging affiliates to display the sign in public places.

The controversy traces back to August, when a Harvard administrator ordered two biology professors to remove their Black Lives Matter sign from the Northwest Science Building, citing campus policies introduced last year prohibiting “self-mounted displays” without prior approval. The sign had been taped to a public-facing window in the building since 2020.

Union organizers argued that since the Black Lives Matter posters put up on Thursday were distributed by campus em-

ployees and addressed workers’ academic freedom, the posters were protected under the National Labor Relations Act — and would be exempt from campus policy on signage.

“We see this not only as a strong affirmation of a core belief of our unions, which is that Black Lives Matter and we should be free to say it — but also we see this as part of our larger fight for winning strong academic freedom protections in our contracts,” said Denish K. Jaswal, a member of the graduate union’s bargaining committee.

Academic freedom has been a point of contention between Harvard and its unions in recent months. Both graduate students and non-tenure-track faculty have pushed to enshrine academic freedom protections in their contracts, arguing that speech rights in classrooms, labs, and offices are integral to their working conditions.

But Harvard rejected the non-tenure-track faculty union’s proposal in May. They have not yet responded to a similar proposal from graduate students.

Michael C. Duff, a former NLRB attorney, cast doubt on the claim that the posters would be protected by labor law since many of them did not directly reference working conditions.

“I don’t think we would find that the poster is in itself protected by Section 7,” he said, referencing the provision of the National Labor Relations Act safeguarding concerted activity.

Anticipating the possibili-

ty that Harvard might remove the posters, the unions encouraged affiliates to report any incidents of officials taking them down through a Google Form, framing it as a collective defense strategy and signaling a willingness to push back if the University acts.

A Harvard spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on the posters — or if it would move to tear them down.

The postering also comes amid mounting concerns from Harvard affiliates about academic freedom on campus as the University continues to draw ire from the White House. Harvard reopened settlement talks in June and late last month, President Donald Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that his administration had reached a deal with the University.

Though no deal has been formally announced just yet, all three unions have been wary of the talks for months and kept up the pressure in the Thursday demonstration.

“We also believe that it is our right and duty to uphold the value of free speech as a core principle of university life,” one of the posters read. “However, Harvard University management is enacting an anti-DEl, anti-free speech, regressive agenda, potentially to reach a deal and capitulate with the anti-science and anti-education Trump administration.”

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Harvard Investigating Data Breach

least some of the targeted organizations.

Harvard is investigating a data breach after a Russian-speaking cybercrime organization claimed it was preparing to release information stolen through a vulnerability in a software suite used by the University.

Clop, an organization that extorts payments from companies to prevent the release of stolen data, announced the breach on its leak site Saturday. The alleged breach of Harvard’s systems is part of a larger attack exploiting a vulnerability in the Oracle E-Business system. Clop has not yet publicized the names of other exploited companies.

Harvard University Information Technology spokesperson Tim J. Bailey wrote in a statement that the University was “aware” of the reported data breach but an initial investigation found it affected only “a limited number of parties associated with a small administrative unit.”

HUIT has applied a patch to address the vulnerability and reported “no evidence of compromise to other University systems,” according to Bailey. The attack on Oracle likely began as far back as July, according to an investigation by Google Threat Intelligence Group and Mandiant. The investigation found that more than 100 companies were targeted in Clop’s most recent attack before Oracle intervened and concluded that Clop “successfully exfiltrated a significant amount of data” from at

Clop made the attack public in late September, contacting hundreds of company executives and extorting them for payment by threatening to release the stolen data. Oracle first identified the vulnerability in an Oct. 2 statement, which acknowledged the extortion emails but said the flaws in the system were addressed in a July update. Two days later, Oracle backtracked and issued a second statement identifying additional vulnerabilities, along with a patch. They advised all users of Oracle E-Business Suite versions 12.2.3 to 12.2.14 to apply the fix. Oracle declined to comment on the data breach Monday afternoon, referring to the company’s latest security alert advisory. Clop rose to prominence in 2019 after an attack on Windows programs used by Maastricht University in the Netherlands, locking students and faculty out of the university’s online systems until it

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Members of three Harvard unions posted hundreds of Black Lives Matter signs across campus.

Harvard Sees Budget Deficit,

But the endowment’s strong returns, which increased the fund’s value for the second year in a row, still serve as a rebuke to criticism of HMC’s historical underperformance. Under the helm of HMC CEO

N.P. “Narv” Narvekar, the fund management team was dramatically restructured, with a shift to external managers and private equity holdings. The fund had previously struggled in comparison to the investment returns of Ivy-Plus peers. HMC furthered that shift in 2025 — allocating 41 percent of the endowment to private equity compared to last year’s 39 percent — even as it sold off $1 billion of private equity stakes in the spring. The financial report also disclosed the distribution of its private equity investments for the first time. Aside from the unprecedented boom in returns in 2021, this year HMC saw the highest return rate since Narvekar began his term in 2016. But the endowment tax hike, which will apply to the following fiscal year, presents a major challenge for Narvekar. Signed into law in July, the Republicans’ mega tax and spending bill raises the highest

Cambridge City Council candidates are turning to Harvard to compensate for expected funding losses — even as the University itself is running at an operating loss of $113 million.

Eighteen candidates gathered in Lesley University’s Amphitheater on Wednesday night to discuss the city’s budget, which has been stretched thin since Trump took office in January. Incumbents Sumbul Siddiqui, Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler, and Ayesha Wilson — all of whom were involved in last year’s funding negotiations — pushed for Harvard to pay more to the city.

“We have two universities with multibillion dollar endowments in Cambridge that don’t pay taxes,” Sobrinho-Wheeler said. “They instead pay PILOTs, Payments In Lieu Of Taxes. I’ve been part of the effort to strengthen the payments they’re making to the cities to make sure they’re paying their fair share.”

PILOT programs are agreements where large tax-exempt institutions pay the city they reside in a portion of what they would pay in property taxes to support the city’s budget.

Harvard’s previous PILOT program was expected to end this June, after the University and the City of Cambridge failed to reach an agreement. Harvard said yes to a one-year $6-million agreement

three months later, but it was reluctant to create a long-term agreement with the city due to federal funding uncertainty. Cambridge City Manager Yi-An Huang ’05 said in an interview with The Crimson earlier this year that he hopes to see Harvard’s PILOT payments increase once the University’s financial situation stabilizes.

Challengers were not as fast to demand increased PILOT payments from Harvard, pointing to pressure from the Trump administration that has harmed the University’s finances.

“It’s not necessarily easy for us to go and turn to the universities and say, ‘Hey, can you give us more while you’re already getting attacked by the federal government?’” challenger Zion Sherin said.

donations went to the Harvard College Fund, while 14 percent supported Garber’s unrestricted presidential fund. The wave of small-dollar donations came amid mounting federal pressure on the University, including a $2.2 billion freeze on federal funding and threats to its abili-

“It’s just a really tough position that we’re going to be in,” he added. But for Harvard, the timing could not be worse. For the first time in half a decade, the University’s finances are in the red — operating at a loss at $113 million after federal funding cuts. Harvard’s endowment reported a 11.9 percent increase, bringing the total to $56.9 billion — $56 billion more than Cambridge’s fiscal year 2025 budget.

While Siddiqui said that increasing PILOT payments “isn’t the solution” to Cambridge’s budget strains, “it is something we have to think about as a potential source.” Harvard spokespersons did not respond to a request for comment Friday evening on the current state of PILOT negotiations and Har-

vard’s ability to increase payments.

Sobrinho-Wheeler said he would like the City to finalize its budgets on a faster schedule — something that the Nov. 4 ballot measure on the charter review could accomplish.

“The budget doesn’t come before the Council until May or so of each year — April or May — and then voted on in June, the amendments in there would start the budget process earlier, including in the fall and in December, so we can put forward those budget and have a fuller conversation about that,” he said.

Sobrinho-Wheeler added that the Council needs to get creative with its budget, turning to both MIT and Harvard for possible revenue.

“It is going to be a challenging time with the federal administration and others for our budget, we’ve got to look creatively at where we can raise revenue from,” he said.

Wilson agreed that the city must look for more creative revenue streams to help compensate for federal funding losses.

“Cambridge is a place that really wants to pride itself on having this, it feels like, endless pot of gold and that we could just kind of spend and do as we please with every initiative that comes in mind,” Wilson said.

“But right now, we need to be a little bit tight with our pursestrings,” she added.

Survey Shows Opposition to Trump Cuts NEWS

DISAPPROVAL RATING.

A survey showed most Americans oppose Trump’s threats to universities.

BY ELISE A.

Amajority of Americans oppose the Trump administration’s attempts to influence university operations by restricting funding, though more than 75 percent are concerned about free speech policies, liberal bias, and discrimination on campus, according to a survey released Wednesday.

The findings of the study — produced by professors from Harvard, Northeastern University, Rutgers University and the University of Rochester to gauge public attitudes toward higher education — show widespread support for higher education and reject Trump’s campaign against them.

But even if they disagree with Trump’s weaponization of federal funds, the report found the underlying frustrations espoused by the President resonated with Americans, regardless of political affiliation.

sively the administration has pursued the strategy.

But 77 percent of Americans, including 72 percent of Democrats, remain concerned about liberal bias, and an even greater share — 84 percent — are concerned about free speech on campus. 87 percent are also worried about tuition costs.

“These are not fringe issues limited to one political ideology,” the report concluded. “The broad consensus indicates that these vulnerabilities are perceived as genuine problems by the American public at large.”

More than 70 percent of respondents also expressed concern about transgender athletes participating in women’s college sports — an issue that affects a small minority but has received outsize media and political attention.

national student enrollment, alter their governance structure, and freeze tuition for five years in exchange for immunity from the President’s attacks. The University of Texas said they would be open to signing the compact, while the Massachusetts Institute of Technology rejected the offer on Friday. Other schools have yet to respond. Baum said the results of the survey may give universities more confidence in resisting the demands of the White House.

“If I

The report found universities are 3.5 times more trusted than Congress and 2.7 times more trusted than the news media.

“But that’s different from saying that the cure matches the disease,” he added.

Analyzing data from a July survey of more than 30,000 people across the United States, the

“It makes sense that if the administration wanted to crack down on institutions of higher education, especially the elite ones, they would go to those areas where the public was likely to be sympathetic,” said HKS professor Matthew A. Baum, one of the lead researchers on the study.

researchers described a “clear public mandate against direct political interference” in universities.

Both Democrats and Republicans disapproved of freezing research grants, according to the survey. In fact, nearly half of Republicans surveyed oppose science funding cuts, and 57 percent oppose health research funding cuts.

A plurality of Americans also took issue with attempts to restrict international student visas, cut diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, and threaten tax-exempt status, the survey found.

Baum said the bipartisan opposition to research funding cuts reflected in the study was “off the charts” — a result he said was “surprising” given how aggres-

City Council Candidates Weigh In Against Trump Settlement at Harvard Dems Forum

BY

Cambridge City Council candidates pushed Harvard to stand up to the Trump administration at a Tuesday night forum hosted by the Harvard College Democrats.

Twenty candidates are vying for nine seats on the Council, running in one of the most crowded races in recent memory. The Harvard College Democrats invited all 20 candidates, and 10 attended the event in Harvard Yard.

The candidates in attendance urged the University to use its financial resources to resist conceding governing power to the Trump administration. Harvard has refused the White House’s demands to allow external oversight over faculty hiring and curriculum decisions — and sued, twice, when the administration tried to punish the University for its refusal. But Harvard has also made changes to programs criticized

by federal Republicans and has been in negotations over a possible legal settlement with the Trump administration since June.

“We’re one of the world’s most powerful institutions. Harvard can definitely do a lot more,” challenger and recent graduate Ayah Al-Zubi ’23 said.

The Harvard College Democrats, an undergraduate group, endorsed two Council candidates and one Cambridge School Committee candidate last month. Both of their endorsed Council candidates, Al-Zubi and Stanislav Rivkin, spoke at the forum.

About 30 people, mostly Harvard students, attended. Students registered in Massachusetts can vote in the Cambridge elections, but when the crowd was asked who was registered to vote in the state, only a handful raised their hands.

Harvard College Democrats co-president Jack W. H. Tueting ’27 said the group hosted the forum to inform students about the upcoming November elections.

“We want to make impact on the national level, but we also want to make impact here in Cambridge,” Tueting said.

“One of the best ways to do that would be to expose our students and Harvard’s campus in general with what’s happening with elections right here in Cambridge,” he added.

Allison R. McGourty ’29, a Massachusetts resident and forum moderator, said she was able to learn more about the problems facing Cambridge.

“I’ve seen the problems firsthand, so I felt like it would be really nice to have this kind of experience to really get to know the Council,” she said.

The forum focused on opioid use, transportation, and housing in Cambridge. Moderators also asked candidates to share their thoughts on Harvard’s response to the Trump administration.

“Part of what I’m doing and spending my time on Crimson Courage is trying to give Harvard the backbone that it needs and the spine that it needs to stand up,” said Councilor Patricia M.“Patty” Nolan

’80, one of the founding members of Crimson Courage, an organization launched in May by alumni to support Harvard in its response to the Trump administration.

“If we don’t, we’re in big trouble,” she added.

Challenger Ned S. Melanson — a public defender at the Cambridge District Court — said any deal Harvard could make with the Trump administration is “as good as dead on arrival.”

“They could pry DEI from my cold dead fingers,” said challenger Elizabeth Bisio, former emergency room nurse. “It’s so important to have those programs in place to make sure that we’re giving equal opportunity.”

Candidates said the forum was a way to address student voters and stand with the Harvard community.

“You can’t really tell the story of Cambridge without including Harvard, and I felt it was really important to be here,” Melanson said.

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“It’s a vanishingly small issue, but it’s become incredibly salient,” Baum said. Trump issued an executive order in February banning transgender women from competing on women’s teams. The NCAA quickly followed suit, and Harvard has since removed protections for transgender athletes from its Student Athlete Handbook.

The White House proposed a “social compact” last week to nine public and private colleges that demands schools cap inter-

“There’s still a lot of support for what universities do and the role they play in American society,” Baum said. “The public wants universities, and they want to preserve the role that they play.”

“Or at least, that’s what the data seems to show,” he added.

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Harvard and its units generally pay for research expenses upfront, then request reimbursements from the federal government. But the funding freeze, which the Trump administration imposed after Harvard rejected a series of demands in April, prevented the University from accessing reimbursements for more than four months, until U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs rejected the freeze on Sept. 3.

A Harvard spokesperson declined to say how much funding had been returned to the University. Communications to faculty have not put a number on the amount, but Harvard’s research projects receive more than $600 million per year from the federal government — almost none of which flowed during the months that the funding freeze was in place.

Baccarelli’s email — which announced that the HSPH would loosen some of its spending guidelines — is the clearest sign so far of how the grant reinstatements may be changing the financial outlook for Harvard’s schools.

HSPH’s revised guidance for faculty receiving federal funding includes an increased spending threshold for principal investigators of up to 80 percent of their federal awards, the elimination of existing academic salary reductions, and a temporary continuance on outgoing subawards to other institutions.

The new guidelines put HSPH, the Harvard school most reliant on federal funds, “in line with the other research-heavy schools, including HMS,” HSPH spokesperson Stephanie Simon wrote in a statement to The Crimson.

Earlier this year, after HSPH lost nearly all of its direct grants from the federal government this spring, the school laid off employees, exited leases on two buildings, and made cuts to department budgets. Harvard also paused merit-based wage increases for faculty for the 2025-26 fiscal year and announced a Univer-

sity-wide hiring freeze.

Other Harvard schools have not pulled back from austerity measures, even after Burroughs’ ruling. Harvard Medical School Dean George Q. Daley ’82 warned in a Sept. 18 address that the school would continue to reduce its research spending, and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences announced major staff layoffs last week.

And Baccarelli’s Friday email warned faculty to keep hiring to a minimum.

“Given continued uncertainty and the potential for funds to be disrupted again, please remain cautious about hiring on new federal awards,” he wrote. “Existing personnel should be leveraged wherever possible and new hires should be limited to those that are critically necessary to achieve the specific aims of the awards.” The restoration of frozen grants has relieved some pressures in the near term, but a higher endowment tax has imposed steep new costs on Harvard, and access to future federal funding remains uncertain. The Trump administration has signaled that it intends to cut agency budgets and shift funding toward projects that match its political priorities — all of which could have significant downstream effects on Harvard researchers.

Meanwhile, the University’s own funding remains in flux. The White House promised to appeal Burroughs’ order hours after it was entered, though any further movement in the case is currently on hold because of the government shutdown. And HHS opened suspension and debarment proceedings into Harvard in September that could cut off its access to federal grants and contracts if the agency determines it is not a responsible recipient of government funds.

The Harvard Kennedy School of Government is located at 79 John F. Kennedy Street. CALEB D. SCHWARTZ — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

HSPH,

Harvard, Former Coach Move to Mediation

OUT OF COURT.

BY ELYSE C. GONCLAVES

STAFF WRITERS

Lawyers for Harvard and former women’s hockey coach Katey Stone will move to mediation for a gender discrimination lawsuit filed against the University, according to court documents released on Monday.

All further court hearings will be terminated as part of the decision to pursue negotiations with the help of a third party. Instead, Harvard and Stone are opting for alternative dispute resolution methods pursued outside of court.

The agreement allows both parties to continue providing evidence as needed until Dec. 19, when Harvard and Stone will be called back to court for mediation.

Andrew T. Miltenberg, who represents Stone in the case, wrote in a statement that the court will reconvene to “provide an opportunity to address any remaining scheduling or discovery issues.”

A Harvard spokesperson declined to comment on the mediation.

The update is the latest in a two-year dispute between Harvard and Stone that began in February 2023, after the Boston Globe and the Athletic published allegations that Stone had fostered a toxic team culture. Stone resigned from her position in June 2023 following a University investigation into her coaching practices.

Stone’s lawsuit against the University, filed in June 2024, claimed that Harvard had discriminated against her on the basis of sex and that the investigation would have been handled differently if she were a male coach.

The original suit alleged that Harvard’s treatment of Stone was part of a “larger culture at the University wherein female

coaches are undervalued, underpaid, heavily scrutinized, and held to a breathtakingly more stringent standard of behavior than their male counterparts.”

Harvard and Stone have been through months of legal backand-forth. Harvard moved to dismiss the case last October, claiming the statute of limitations on Stone’s claims had expired and that Stone’s evidence did not amount to gender discrimination. Massachusetts District Judge Leo T. Sorokin later issued the case’s first official ruling in April, denying the majority of Harvard’s motion and allowing the battle to proceed.

Stone’s lawyers also plan on bringing experts to discuss financial and emotional damages during mediation talks, according to the Monday filing. In response, Harvard’s legal team will also brinwg on experts as needed to respond.

The court will reconvene on Jan. 7 of next year to discuss next steps.

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Michael Sandel Wins $1 Million Berggruen Prize

BY ELLEN P. CASSIDY AND CATHERINE JEON

WRITERS

Harvard Government Professor Michael J. Sandel has argued before thousands of students in his popular course “Justice” for the redistribution of wealth and esteem — and now he has the chance to do it himself.

Sandel, who was named the Berggruen Institute’s 2025 laureate for Philosophy & Culture on Tuesday, won a $1 million prize from the institute, which wrote in a statement that the award “is given annually to individuals whose ideas have profoundly shaped human self-understanding and advancement in a rapidly changing world.”

The prize, which was established in 2016 by philanthropist Nicolas Berggruen, is awarded for lifelong intellectual achievement that brings together philosophical, practical, and cultural impact, according to the institute’s website. Past recipients include former Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Partners In Health founder Paul E. Farmer, who held Harvard’s highest faculty rank as a University Professor. The winner is chosen annually from nominees across different fields, geographical

regions, and practice, “including internationally recognized philosophers, economists, authors, and Nobel Prize laureates,” the website states.

Chair of the Berggruen Prize jury Yuk Hui wrote in a press release that Sandel’s work has left a “profound mark on the global intellectual landscape.”

“His critiques of neoliberalism, meritocratic ideology, and populism speak to the most urgent questions of our time,” he added.

Berggruen, who serves as chairman and founder of his instittue, praised Sandel’s “significant body of work” for its impact.

“Given our world in flux, his illumination of what it means to be a good human and his infusion of ethics and reasoning into public discourse are necessary,” Berggruen wrote in the press release.

“Throughout a decades-long career spent at Harvard University, Sandel has striven to reinvigorate political discourse and renew civic life by imbuing both with morality and virtue,” the press release stated. “The arc of his philosophical interests bends from scholarly work on theories of justice early in his career to an increasingly urgent consideration of practical matters of politics, economics, and the need to reason together across our differences.”

Sandel’s widely known class

“Justice” was the first Harvard course made freely available online and has amassed over 40 million views. The popular class was brought back in fall 2024 amid rising political polarization and concerns over lack of constructive dialogue between divisive views on campus.

Sandel’s work goes beyond Harvard lectures, spanning to research and books investigating how economic and social systems shape society. His publications include the global bestseller Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?, What Money Can’t Buy, and The Tyranny of Merit.

Sandel’s works have received international recognition and been translated into more than 30 languages.

Sandel plans to dedicate some of the award to Babayan Story Project, an international storytelling and civic education initiative for youths that he started with his wife Kiku Adatto. Otherwise, he has yet to decide how to spend the award, according to Sandel in an interview with TIME.

Sandel will receive the Bergguen Prize at a celebration in Cambridge in the spring of 2026.

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New Butterfly Species Named After Lecturer Andrew Berry

BY TESS E. SUMNER AND JULIANA L. YAO CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

A newly designated butterfly species, Euptychia andrewberryi, has been named in honor of Harvard lecturer Andrew J. Berry by postdoctoral fellow Shinichi Nakahara, who identified the species.

Nakahara, a postdoc in Harvard’s Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, named the species after Berry because the butterfly was first found in a 19th century collection of biologist Alfred Russel Wallace, who Berry has dedicated much of his scholarship to studying. The decision, which was made in 2022, was announced in August.

“He was obsessed with Alfred Russel Wallace, so I thought this would be a perfect species that can be named after him,” Nakahara said.

The Euptychia andrewberryi is a butterfly found in the Amazon rainforest. Nakahara studies male tropical butterfly classifications in Central and South America because the region is especially biodiverse. He found the Euptychia andrewberryi in Wallace’s butterfly collection at the Natural History Museum in London.

Though Nakahara submitted his thesis in 2015, the research required extensive travel to muse -

ums across the world and DNA sequencing, resulting in a decade-long project that was only published on Aug. 8.

Nakahara first met Berry in 2022 when visiting Cambridge to work under Naomi E. Pierce, a Harvard biology professor and Nakahara’s principal investigator, as well as Berry’s wife.

“We were eating a burrito from Trader Joe’s. He said he was jealous because Naomi had at least a couple of new species named after her, whereas he didn’t have any,” Nakahara said.

“So, he asked me if I can name one after him.”

Berry said he was “over the moon” to have the species named after him.

“The thing about a species name – it’s forever,” he said. “That’s the closest I’ll ever get to immortality.”

For Berry, the honor was particularly meaningful because of his “fixation” with the biologist who found the butterfly in the 19th century. Wallace, who co-discovered evolution with Charles Darwin, never received a formal education before becoming an explorer and biologist. Berry said he has been fascinated with Wallace since he was asked to write about his life for the London Review of Books in 2000.

“The more you learn about his life story, and the more you read of his writing, the more in love with Wallace you fall,” he said.

Nakahara’s published derivation of the species name also humorously includes that it was “coined in appreciation” of Berry’s introduction of British cereal “Weetabix” to him.

“It’s not very tasty. Put sugar on it to make it palatable, and you just pour milk, but that’s what he was eating every day,” Nakahara said. But both Nakahara and Berry said the research into organism classifications was more important than the naming honor or the new species designation.

“Eighty percent to 90 percent of Earth’s organisms probably don’t have a name,” Nakahara said. “But I think the goal of taxonomy is not really to discover new species, it’s to revise a species level of taxonomy, and as a consequence, we find organisms that don’t have names.” Berry said the work Nakahara and other evolutionary biologists do to distinguish species from each other is central to protecting biodiversity.

“It might seem slightly pedantic, nitpicky kind of work, right? Distinguishing this butterfly from that butterfly species and so on, but basically, it’s critical,” Berry said.

“It’s absolutely mission critical to our understanding of the biological world, and therefore,” he added, “it’s mission critical to our custodianship of the biodiversity on planet Earth.”

The Crimson Signs Amicus Brief in Suit Against Trump Admin

international students halted talking to the paper’s journalists, according to the Aug. 6 complaint.

broader educational and democratic mission of the student press.”

The Harvard Crimson joined 43 other college newspapers on an amicus brief filed Wednesday in support of a lawsuit challenging the federal government’s targeting of noncitizens for political speech.

Stanford University’s student newspaper, the Daily, sued the Trump administration in August over moves to deport or revoke the visas of noncitizens who expressed pro-Palestine political views. The Daily argued the government’s actions, which invoked executive powers under the Immigration and Nationality Act, violated First Amendment protections by discouraging lawfully present noncitizens from expressing themselves in the pages of the Daily. Several noncitizens asked the Daily to remove their names, quotes, or photographs from articles because of the Trump administration’s actions, and many

Current and former staff writers also requested that the Daily take down their opinion pieces. The Daily is represented by lawyers from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. Its suit names Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem as defendants.

Wednesday’s brief — which was filed by the Student Press Law Center, a nonprofit that defends student journalists’ press freedom — argued that the Trump administration’s use of immigration policies chilled contributions from international students and made it harder for student papers to report on political issues.

“Student journalists — especially noncitizen students — report declining participation, self-censorship, and withdrawal from public discourse,” SPLC lawyer Matthew S.L. Cate wrote in the 25-page brief. “Each of these results inflict harm not only on individual students but also on the

The brief’s signatories included the flagship student papers of seven of the eight Ivy League schools. Student leaders from 11 additional college publications signed in an individual capacity.

The filing also includes stories from several other student newspapers, including the University of Michigan and the University of North Carolina’s papers, which removed content and author names after writers said they feared retaliation from the federal government. It also alluded to an increase in takedown requests submitted to The Crimson this spring.

Crimson President McKenna E. McKrell ’26 wrote on Thursday that freedom of speech “is vital to The Crimson’s work as a student newspaper. Our international staff members are essential contributors to this work, and deserve the very same speech protections their peers are afforded.”

The Trump administration began a sweeping campaign against international students at Amer-

ican universities in the spring. The State Department revoked more than 6,000 student visas by August, according to the department — including visas for 12 Harvard affiliates, which were later restored.

The Department of Homeland Security also attempted to prevent Harvard from enrolling international students by revoking its ability to sponsor visas through the Student and Exchange Visitor Program. Harvard sued over the move, and the DHS’s order was blocked by a federal judge. The judge also halted President Donald Trump’s attempt to ban international students from entering the U.S. on Harvard-sponsored visas, though an appeal from the administration remains pending.

The government also took a series of high-profile actions against individual university students, apparently because of their pro-Palestine views. Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil, who helped lead pro-Palestine protests during his time at the school, was detained in March. Weeks later, Tufts University graduate stu-

dent Rumesya Ozturk was arrested near the school’s campus by masked immigration agents after coauthoring a pro-Palestine oped in Tufts’ student paper. Both Khalil and Ozturk have been released but still face immigration cases that could lead to their deportation.

The SPLC’s brief argued that the arrests created a climate of fear that spurred “a crisis of unprecedented scale” for student newsrooms nationwide. International students stopped writing opinion pieces about the Israel-Palestine conflict or immigration-related issues, and SPLC received a “surge of calls” from student journalists who could not convince international students to speak on the record for stories, according to the brief.

“Current policies that drive international students away or compel them to self-censor have stripped campus media of the diverse voices necessary to provide the public with a full and accurate understanding of their communities,” wrote Cate, the SPLC lawyer. The brief also mentioned at

least one university’s decision to initiate disciplinary proceedings against students in connection with work published by student newspapers, citing a disciplinary case brought by Columbia University’s Office of Institutional Equity against a student who wrote an op-ed criticizing Israel. Columbia’s paper, the Spectator, was the only Ivy League student newspaper not to sign the brief.

Lawyers for the federal government have argued in court filings that the Daily does not have standing to sue in the case, saying its claims rest on “speculative injuries to its staff or interviewees.” They also maintained that the president’s sweeping authority over immigration issues should override any First Amendment concerns. The Daily has asked a federal court to grant summary judgment, which would allow a judge to decide the case without sending it to trial.

The suit, filed by women’s hockey coach Katey Stone, will move to alternative dispute resolution.

Katey Stone is a former coach of the Harvard women’s ice hockey team. MARK KELSEY — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

THE HARVARD CRIMSON

OCTOBER 17, 2025

HMS Cancels Students’ Pro-Palestine Vigil

SAHEP’s statement criticized the Quad restriction, as well “heavy Harvard police and security presence” on Thursday, as a “profoundly troubling” decision.

“It heightens fear, suppresses expression, invalidates our grief around the immense loss of life in Palestine, and endangers the very individuals who make up HMS’ global student body,” organizers wrote.

The Student Human Rights Collaborative could not be reached for comment Thursday night. Asked for comment, HMS spokesperson Laura DeCoste referred The Crimson to the email sent to students.

The HMS-specific campus use rules limit student postering to recognized organizations “in connection with events that are open to all members of the campus community.” Groups must also have their posters and fliers reviewed and approved before being posted. In the Friday statement, SAHEP wrote that the group used HMS-approved flyers that stated vigil attendance was limited to Harvard affiliates. SAHEP also posted flyers without the specification in buildings accessible only to HUID holders, according to the statement.

campment.

SAHEP first advertised the vigil online in a Monday Instagram post, which was cross-posted with Harvard Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine; Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee, a recognized undergraduate organization; Healthcare Workers for Palestine Boston, which has no Harvard affiliation; and Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine, the unrecognized student group that organized the en -

Harvard Upperclassmen Wary of Decision to Move Back Housing Day

ment that I did just a few years ago, and it’s been a long tradition to have it on the Thursday before spring break for many years.”

Harvard students said the College’s decision to move Housing Day to the Friday after spring break could disrupt a beloved undergraduate celebration — but was unlikely to “make or break” the excitement of being assigned to an upperclassman House.

Housing Day, which has taken place on the Thursday before spring break since 2008, sorts freshmen into Harvard’s 12 upperclassmen Houses. Upperclassmen storm freshmen dorms with signs, House swag, and letters telling them where they will live for the next three years.

For current upperclassmen, the new date alters a highly anticipated annual milestone. Some said the tradition’s placement before spring break lent it an extra thrill — and gave students time to recover from the revelry before resuming classes.

“It being right before spring break had people super hype,” said Isabela C. Gonzalez-Lawand ’26, a Mather resident. “I took my midterm, I had Housing Day, and then I literally went off to spring break that night. It just felt like a Friday.”

Nhaomi J. Lartey ’27, a current Lowell House resident, said Housing Day “was a nice way to end the first half of the spring semester before leaving for break.” Quincy House resident Jasai E. Martinez ’26 said he worried the shift would dull the day’s spirit.

“I’m angry. I’m sad. It honestly shattered my heart,” Martinez said. “Now, the current class will not get to have that same excite-

But several students recalled the stress of balancing Housing Day festivities with midterms, which instructors often try to fit in before students leave campus for break.

“I did know about people who had midterms that day, and that was sad because they couldn’t enjoy everything fully,” said Michelle S. Merchan ’27, who lives in Currier House. “But it was a nice way to wake up early. I feel like nobody really minded.” For Gonzalez-Lawand, the timing was part of the tradition’s appeal.

“People are usually, leading up to housing day, spending the week making sure that all their work is done and that they are pretty studied for their midterms,” she said.

Chiamaka A. Ihejirika ’27 said that the new date could be more convenient. Many freshmen spend the night before Housing Day trying to take a drink in all nine River Houses, turning the occasion into a time-consuming tradition.

“That’s an overnight thing,” Ihejirika said. “And it also goes from having dorm-storm at eight in the morning to immediately going to class — and it’s midterm season. So that’s not really ideal.”

The new date for Housing Day may give students a reason to be excited to return to campus, Ihejirika said.

“It gives you something to look forward to when you come back,” she said. “It’s not like ‘Oh yay, I have this community,’ then you immediately leave for a week.”

Some students worried that

pushing back Housing Day could create new logistical challenges — either for House Committees, which would now be tasked with finalizing dorm-storming plans over spring break, or for freshmen, whose week off campus might be clouded by nerves over housing assignments.

Gonzalez-Lawand she thought the biggest factor behind some students’ frustration was the decision to upend more than a decade of tradition.

“I think the feelings around it have more to do with the break of tradition, and not with the vibe that it’s going to make or break anybody’s experience,” she said.

Martinez noted that the date change was the second major shift to Housing Day traditions that Harvard seniors have experienced. Through spring 2023, Harvard locked the River Houses to freshmen to discourage them from participating in River Run — resulting in a night of hijinks as freshmen hopped fences and evaded security guards. But in spring 2024, the College decided to leave House doors open, ushering in a lower-key River Run.

“Making another adjustment to Housing Day is kind of frustrating,” Martinez said. “I can’t really share my Housing Day experience with first-years the same way that they’ll experience their Housing Day.”

Still, Gonzalez-Lawand said, the heart of the day — giving freshmen a boisterous welcome to their new homes — will remain.

“Do I think this is going to change Harvard’s community? Absolutely not,” she said. “I just think that for people who have been here, it’s going to feel different.”

allies from across Boston to mourn the martyrs,” the post read. HOOP’s involvement may have raised eyebrows among Harvard officials, who have

tried to crack down on collaboration with unrecognized groups in recent months. The University-wide campus use rules generally restrict co-sponsorship of events between recognized student groups and

unrecognized student groups “unless explicitly permissible under a local policy.” The rules also state that “sponsorship by proxy” is not allowed. But the campus use rules do not directly address social media

her bold legal action against corporate players, including Amazon and Meta.

Lina Khan, the former chair of the Federal Trade Commission, said Democrats must respond to Department of Government Efficiency-led cutbacks with a new vision for effective federal agencies in a lecture at the Institute of Politics on Thursday night.

Khan encouraged Democrats to design a “battle plan” by asking how they could better deliver “onthe-ground results” to the American people.

“These are not small questions,” she added. “But if Democrats are serious about not just taking power again, but also wielding it effectively, we’d be wise to grapple with them now.”

She aimed to answer similar questions during her tenure at the FTC. She discussed her efforts to refocus the agency and modernize decades-old antitrust policies at the fifth James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Lecture on Economic Inequality.

Khan, who currently teaches at Columbia Law School, rose to prominence in 2017 for her article in the Yale Law Journal on Amazon’s anticompetitive structure, which she wrote as a third-year law student.

In the piece she criticized the traditional antitrust framework in the modern market, and then later implemented that philosophy at the FTC. As a Biden-appointee, she garnered national attention for

Her mission marked a structural effort to activate the agency and create impactful antitrust legislation after Reagan-era policies discouraged government intervention, Khan explained at the lecture.

“Just as the Constitution creates checks and balances in our government safeguarding against concentrated political control, anti-monopoly laws create checks against concentrations of economic power,” Khan said. “My mandate was to invigorate antitrust and consumer protection and ensure that it was tackling the problems in the modern economy.”

To do so, Khan said her agency opted for direct policy decisions, including implementing a clean ban on non-compete agreements and strengthening anti-merger enforcement.

Khan has garnered bipartisan praise for her muscular anti-trust strategy. As recently as April, she received widespread attention for appearing alongside right-wing populist Steve Bannon at a summit on taking down big tech. At the event, Bannon called Khan “one of the more important political figures in this country” and advised Democrats to listen to her more closely.

Still, Khan described the current administration’s policies as a “mixed bag.” While she said there is bipartisan momentum for anti-trust policy in areas beyond tech — including healthcare and agri-

culture —Khan criticized the current FTC for its “much more permissive and eager” attitude towards potentially anti-competitive mergers. The FTC under the Trump administration has continued to litigate its lawsuits against Amazon and Meta, but Khan said tech executives have significant influence over this White House’s policies.

“I think there’s a real ideological fight in the party between the more corporatist wing and the more populist wing,” she added. “We’re going to have to wait and see.” Regardless of where Republicans land on antitrust, Khan’s efforts at the FTC have raised the public salience of the issue. She made increasing accessibility a key focus of her tenure by crowdsourcing feedback from Americans at regular open meetings — and became a household name in the process. Harvard Kennedy School professor of economics Jason

“Join medical students, healthcare workers, and

Gordon Hall on Harvard Medical School’s campus in Longwood. JONATHAN G. YUAN — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

Lina Khan, former chair of the FTC, delivers the 2025 James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Lecture in Economic Inequality at the Harvard Kennedy School.. FRANK S. ZHOU — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

STAFF EDITORIAL

Choose Engagement Over Censorship

SPEECH NOT CENSORSHIP. Write and debate ideas of all political stripes. When ideas conflict with your sense of what lies outside the pale of acceptable discourse, meet them with more

BY THE CRIMSON EDITORIAL BOARD

An article in the September issue of The Harvard Salient, a College conservative publication, contained a line that bore a shocking resemblance to a 1939 speech delivered by Adolf Hitler. (The publication maintains the invocation was unintentional.)

In an interview with The Crimson, Harvard College Dean J. Deming declined to comment on the contents of the article unless the College received a formal complaint about the piece.

Using rhetoric that echoes Hitler is vile and unacceptable — full stop. No value for Harvard’s traditions of intellectual discourse or free inquiry is created by somehow overlooking the use of language nigh copy-pasted from a speech by history’s leading antisemite.

Still, a University move to punish the Salient would set a dangerous precedent of policing student publications. The strength of our commitment to free speech is determined not by our protection of speech with which we agree, but that which we find reprehensible. Ultimately, it is student counterspeech itself — not restrictive speech codes — that should moderate campus discourse.

This incident clearly warrants counterspeech. The exact line used in the piece reads, “Germany belongs to the Germans, France to the French, Britain to the British, America to the Americans.” Consider the corresponding (translated) quote from Hitler: “France to the French, England to the English, America to the Americans, and Germany to the Germans.” The parallel is obvious and, as such, we condemn it in the strongest terms. Invoking Hitler to justify one’s political views, intentionally or not, is beyond the pale.

Using this rhetoric does nobody any favors — certainly not for students who are deeply offended by the phrase — nor for Harvard conservatives themselves. One can advocate for immigration reform or a national identity without using language that closely mirrors Hitler, and we don’t believe our peers who find themselves right of the aisle would support employing language from 1931 Berlin.

The article is the speech of one conservative

student — not many. It reflects the heinous views of an extreme outlier and little else and should be taken as one frightful formulation of language amongst more respectable peers.

In his response, Dean Deming rightfully noted the importance of students to both express themselves and criticize one another, a posture that we support. As a newspaper ourselves, we stand against any step Harvard may take to interfere in student publications. The College or University doing otherwise would encroach on students’ rights to free speech, whether at the Salient, The Crimson, or elsewhere.

To the extent that students feel certain language violates Harvard policies or national

History 10 and the Fear of Facts

BY AMELIA F. BARNUM

Until 2006, the History Department offered a European history survey course that was required for concentrators. The history department – rightly – saw the requirement as too Eurocentric and disappeared it from the curriculum.

The replacement, History 10: “A History of the Present,” jumped around between time periods covering three hard-to-follow units: ancestry, rights, and memory; the course did not require so much as an in-class essay, consisting instead of a semester-long research project. The goal of the course was “to teach students what it is to think historically,” one of the professors told The Crimson in an article

introducing the course.

While this goal makes sense for an introductory history course, thinking historically is hard without a strong basis in fact and chronology. Lo and behold, after one unsuccessful year and bad Q Guide reports, the department disappeared the class again, leaving students without a robust introductory history class.

For its third iteration, Harvard’s History Department should make History 10 a modern world history survey course that includes map quizzes, sitdown exams, in-class essays, and (gasp) even some date memorization. That way, the History Department could set its students up for success by giving them a factual foundation for analytical thinking.

In the past, facts got a bad rap. Emphasizing

laws, they should make use of existing reporting frameworks. If those mechanisms prove completely ineffectual, some reform is likely needed. Nonetheless, a litany of opinions will spark legitimate outrage without meriting a University response. In those cases, the responsibility of counter-engagement falls on students.

To students: Write and debate ideas of all political stripes. When ideas conflict with your sense of what lies outside the pale of acceptable discourse, meet them with more speech.

In declining to comment on the article, Dean Deming staked his position on student responsibility for student discourse, a noble stand. And though we vehemently disagree with the repli -

cation of lines from Nazi speech, we support the fundamental right of freedom to speak — not freedom to avoid criticism. The opportunity for response now lies with students. When discourse proves difficult, how should our campus respond? The answer is engagement — not censorship.

–This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.

facts meant prioritizing memorizing Civil War battles over understanding the horrors of US slavery. Some modern historians, in an effort to go against this kind of teaching, may have decided that their intro course should be primarily theory-based, or they may have endorsed the idea that all history is subjective.

But facts are still an important basis for anyone trying to make an historical argument. Especially the kind of history taught in this course — broad, concept-based history — is incredibly hard to grasp without building up from fact first.

The Department may also be wary that one opinion will be taught as the “right” opinion or that opinion may be taught as fact — indeed, one of the History 10 professors seemed to endorse this idea: “One

of the fundamental things about history as well is there’s no right answer.”

But the great thing about facts is that they allow people to come to their own conclusions about historical events.

Additionally, the kind of fact memorization that I’m advocating for does not have to be a question on a

Harvard’s History Department should make History 10 a modern world history survey course with that includes map quizzes, sit-down exams, in-class essays, and (gasp) even some date memorization.

test that reads: “Perestroika — well executed? Please keep your answer to one word.” Instead, history students should know facts: that it was enacted by Mikhail Gorbachev, decentralized the Soviet economy, and restructured parliament; as well as when it happened (the 1980s).

Moreover, the ability to think chronologically — to place events from around the world on a timeline — can help students understand greater historical trends. To understand, for example, that the Senegalese student uprising movements in 1968 happened at the same time as similar student protest movements in Egypt, South Africa, France and the US, is indeed to “think historically.”

College-level courses should not repeat high school history — they can include harder primary source texts and more nuance, but they also shouldn’t shy away from objective testing and prioritizing fact as a valuable basis for analytical thinking. Lastly, as humanities departments bleed students, a rigorous intro class could aid the department’s popularity. Contrary to popular opinion, Harvard students love the prestige of difficult courses. Just look at the popularity of Social Studies 10 or Humanities 10.

A reimagined History 10 could be similar to these courses: a two-term rigorous course. They would have 24 weeks and two lectures a week. Surely, a history department with faculty as renowned as Harvard’s would be well-equipped to organize such an offering. Students could still write research papers but accompanied by in class essays and exams with objective sections, actually forcing students to learn something. It’s a fact that History 10 could be great. Harvard students just need to learn more of them.

–Amelia F. Barnum ’28, a Crimson Editorial editor, lives in Winthrop House.

MICHAEL GRITZBACH— CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

JULIAN J. GIORDANO — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

We Can Build a Safer City By Voting on Nov. 4.

BY JACK B. CORCORAN

The summer after my graduation looked a little different than I had expected at the beginning of senior year. Like I had envisioned, I spent time traveling and unwinding. But I also co-wrote a Boston Globe opinion piece on bike lanes and spent hours in Google Sheets co-managing a bike safety election organization’s finances. I never would have imagined I would be a bike safety advocate until it affected me personally. I remember when biking was just a form of exercise for me; occasionally a means of transportation, but mostly a way to connect with my dad.

My dad was my champion and my hero. He was my biggest advocate — affirming when I was doing well and correcting me when I strayed. He called every day he was away, and he made a point to say that he loved me each night.

Cycling was my dad’s favorite hobby, and he biked from our home in Newton to Cambridge along the Charles almost every day. Like me, my father graduated from Harvard College, but our shared love of biking connected us just as much. Even when we were apart, I thought of him almost every time I took a ride. I certainly do now.

My father was struck and killed while biking on Memorial Drive on September 23, 2024, a few weeks into my senior year. As my family marks the one-year anniversary of our loss, I look back and can’t help but think that my father’s death is, among so many other things, political. The stretch of Memorial Drive where he was hit was known to be dangerous; 14 months before his death, nine local and state elected officials asked the state — which is responsible for Memorial Drive — to make the segment safer.

My father was one of three people to be struck and killed while cycling in Cambridge in 2024, alongside Minh-Thi Nguyen, a 24-year-old MIT graduate student killed near Kendall Square, and Kim Staley, who was killed near Quincy House. Unlike my father, Nguyen and Staley were hit on roads managed by the city. In spring 2024, before these deaths, a slim majority of the Cambridge City Council voted to delay installing critical safety infrastructure, including separated bike lanes, by 18 months. After the deaths of Staley, Nguyen, and my father, the Council moved the project’s deadline up last October, but the vote had already resulted in a months-long delay.

Having grown up in Newton, just a short drive

local politics. City policies directly affected my life as a Cambridge resident during my time at Harvard even before my dad’s death, but like most students, I just didn’t think about them. I voted in state and national elections, I kept up with current events, but I mostly focused on my studies. I didn’t understand just how large a role local politics plays in the dayto-day life of Harvard students, and why I should have voted in local elections. I wasn’t alone. Only 70.6 percent of eligible Harvard students voted in the 2020 election, and I’m confident that like Cambridge residents overall, a far smaller percentage of students vote in municipal elections. It took three deaths for me to start paying attention. It took three deaths for me to research that separated bike lanes save lives, to learn about those two City Council votes, to understand why local elections matter, to begin working to elect pro-bike safety councilors. It shouldn’t have taken even one. As Harvard students, we make Cambridge our home, and we have a civic duty to make Cambridge safe for all. This fall, we can help elect a City Council that supports proven street safety measures. Nearly two-thirds of this year’s candidates have committed to completing Cambridge’s separated bike lane network on schedule — including six incumbents, four safety.

Harvard’s Capitulation On Climate Costs

BY JASMINE N. WYNN

Headline after headline of funding cuts, mysterious office shutdowns, and vague evasions from Harvard’s administration reign supreme.

Since President Donald Trump’s election, Harvard has pursued an unabashed rightward shift. At first, it was the continued unprecedented suppression of openly pro-Palestine affiliates. Then, it was the shuttering and defunding of diversity initiatives across the University, oftentimes with little explanation. Recently, this pattern of obfuscation bled into climate initiatives as well — the Harvard Management Corporation has failed to release its annual climate report.

In Harvard’s capitulation crusade, it is now evident that climate research and transparency are on the chopping block — something that costs us all a right to a livable future.

Of course, Harvard or any institution is unable to solve climate change in one swoop. However, as a leading research institution, Harvard has a responsibility to continue to heed the crisis with the urgency and moral principle it deserves.

For one, Harvard’s corporation appointed a former corporate lawyer for Exxon Mobil this past May. Before a Pioneer and Exxon merger in 2024, the son of a former Pioneer executive donated north of $800,000 to the Trump 47 Committee. Ahead of the 2024 election, Trump rallied several fossil fuel executives to donate a target of $1 billion to his re-election campaign. In exchange, he promised them significant rollbacks on climate legislation, such as the renewable energy tax credits established by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.

Furthermore, Exxon intentionally led — and seemingly still leads — efforts to downplay the impact of carbon emissions on Earth’s naturally existing weather patterns and overall carbon budget. Simultaneously, the company possessed accurate internal predictions on the impact of climate throughout the late 20th century, as verified by researchers in our own backyard. Two years ago, Harvard platformed on-campus research that supported the conclusion that Exxon had denied climate change while possessing internal data to the contrary.

Harvard seems pleased to platform such science when it compliments its public image, but not as much so when it must respect the truth of its findings. Yet the University routinely invites fossil fuel executives to institutionally-sponsored climate events on our campus despite what researchers, journalists, and experts have illuminated.

Most recently, this included Vicki Hollub, one of the participants in a Trump deal. Hollub’s company, Occidental Petroleum, appeared to donate upwards of $40,000 to Trump’s re-election campaign and Republican-aligned political action committees. Inviting Hollub is a tacit nod of acceptance to the presidential administration — this is precisely why my fellow Sunrise Harvard co-founders protested the event. Some could make the argument that inviting such speakers is in the sake of intellectual vitality and good-faith discourse on a contentious issue. I beg to differ. Intellectual vitality requires “keeping

our minds open and our discussion real,” as it states on the initiative’s website. If we platform individuals affiliated with peddling climate pseudoscience in the name of profit, our resolve as a research institution has lost all meaning.

How much more should climate impact our campus and our world before Harvard draws a firm ethical line? Harvard has taken such stances in the past — we know that it’s possible. It simply is a matter of willpower.

Worse, the capacity of Harvard to conduct necessary research on climate related issues has decreased. Last week, the School of Engineering, and Applied Sciences announced a 25 percent reduction in workers represented by its clerical and technical workers union. Harvard also recently announced cuts to its Ph.D. program admissions — graduate students who are the backbone of the high quality and output of research produced at our school. These cuts are bound to complicate the ability of

laboratories, clinics, and other research organizations to analyze the climate future ahead of us. It doesn’t help that many of Trump’s federal research funding restrictions fixate on studies concerning climate change. No one — and certainly not Harvard — can have it both ways. A University that boasts sustainability commitments and dedicated climate programs cannot then uplift those who willingly continue the global crisis. No amount of capitulation to Trump’s climate denialist agenda will stop the Charles River from rising. It won’t stop

Algae Advisory Lifted Before Regatta

FEELING GREEN. Officials lifted an August advisory for cyanobacteria in the Charles in time for this weekend’s regatta.

RAVI

STAFF WRITERS

The Charles River was under a Massachusetts Department of Public Health advisory for a cyanobacterial bloom since August, but the advisory was lifted in time for thousands of rowers and spectators flock to Cambridge for the Head of the Charles rowing regatta this weekend.

The DPH conducted a water test on Oct. 8 that concluded the concentration of the bacteria had decreased to a safe level, according to Amanda J. Cox, spokesperson for the HOCR. But a second test was needed to end the advisory, and results from that Oct. 14 test were released on Thursday. All four Charles River locations had cyanobacteria concentrations below the advisory limit — clearing the warning for Boston University’s Dewolfe Boathouse. The reduced advisory area clears the entirety of the regatta’s race course, which begins at Dewolfe and ends at Herter Park further upstream.

Cyanobacteria produce toxins that can present serious health risks to the brain and liver when in-

gested, or asthma-like symptoms when water spray is inhaled. But even when an outbreak is present, the risk to rowers on the water is likely low.

Carl G. Zimba, president of the Charles River Alliance of Boaters, advises rowers to wash body parts

that may be inadvertently exposed to the bacteria from splashes, but believes that the bigger concern is for pets that spectators may bring.

“Dogs will eat it and then suffer the consequences of cyanide exposure,” Zimba wrote.

“The main threat to people’s

health that people have experi-

enced is they ingest it,” Zimba said.

“That’s where you get small mammals, dogs, children, who might eat some of it, and then they have a real problem.”

Cyanobacteria are present in all fresh water at low levels. Blooms,

which often appear as a green tint in the water, are typically caused by excess nitrogen and phosphorus nutrients and warm temperatures.

This summer’s outbreak was first reported in the Charles River based on testing performed by the Charles River Watershed Asso-

ciation near MIT’s boathouse, less than one mile upstream of the Head of the Charles starting line. The July 31 report came after DPH staff alerted CRWA that the water looked abnormal. Further testing revealed the cyanobacteria level far exceeded normal levels, prompting closures

shawn.boehmer@thecrimson.com akshaya.ravi@thecrimson.com

Boston Moves to Next Stage of Replacing Old Sound Museum

BY

The city of Boston has selected a developer and consultant to manage the long-awaited replacement of the Sound Museum, a popular musicians’ rehearsal space in Brighton demolished two years ago to be developed into biotech labs.

The lab developer, a California-based real estate company called IQHQ, donated 290 North Beacon St. to the city as compensation for the lost musician space at the time. The Friday announcement marks a moment of progress for the project, which will also build 60 to 150 units of affordable housing — a multi-use, city-owned facility unlike anything Boston has done before. The project is still in its early stages and likely will not be finished until 2029 or 2030, according to Joseph Henry, director of cultural planning in the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture. The city of Boston owns the site, after finally acquiring the 40,000 square foot rehearsal space from IQHQ in March. The site will be developed by The Community Builders, a non-profit apartment develop-

er that the city has also contracted to build 445 units of affordable housing just next door at Faneuil Gardens’ public housing complex. That project also saw progress this week, after receiving a nearly $20 million state grant on Friday.

Though IQHQ committed to donating the space at 290 North Beacon St. to the city in early 2023, the city did not take over the property until earlier this year, after which it soon kicked off the development process.

The Sound Museum’s closure was strongly felt across Allston-Brighton’s large artist population when it forced out hundreds of local musicians dependent on the affordable space. Over 200 musicians signed a petition to keep the Sound Museum open when its closure was first announced.

The closure later stirred up controversy as its former owners, Bill and Katherine Desmond, accused the city and IQHQ of mistreating them when it handed operation of an interim space in West Roxbury for displaced musicians to The Record Company, instead of to themselves.

The interim Sound Museum in West Roxbury did not provide much relief to artists that had previously rehearsed in Allston, said Elizabeth M. Torres, co-founder of

Boston Artist Impact.

“There has been such a shortage of affordable rehearsal space as is, before the closure of the Sound Museum,” Torres said.

“West Roxbury is impossible to get to without a car. West Roxbury is completely inaccessible from Allston in particular,” Torres added.

Torres added that many artists chose to rehearse in Allston proper even if they didn’t live there due to its proximity to other musical resources such as Mr. Music, a guitar store selling new and used instruments.

Ami Bennitt, who serves on the steering committee of advocacy group #ARTSTAYSHERE, has helped musicians displaced from the Sound Museum find interim rehearsal space in Dorchester, Malden and Allston.

In the replacement space at 290 North Beacon, she hopes to see a one-to-one replacement of the Sound Museum’s 40,000 square feet, affordable prices and high-quality music equipment.

“We hope that those who are displaced from the Sound Museum get first crack at spaces at 290 when it’s time,” Bennitt said.

Bennitt also named parking, 24-hour access and the opportunity for year-long leases as priorities.

Christine A. Varriale, a bassist

who once rehearsed at the former Sound Museum, agreed.

“One of the best parts about Sound Museum was that it was 24/7,” Varriale said. Henry, the MOAC director, said that those “programmatic” decisions will come later and in consultation with the developer and local musicians, once the city has con-

Students at the Maria L. Baldwin Elementary School gathered at their monthly assembly on Friday to celebrate a $50,000 grant

awarded to Cambridge Public Schools to install new sound systems in five district schools.

The funding was allocated to CPS’ Visual and Performing Arts Department to install high-quality, user-friendly, portable sound systems at the five elementary schools — Baldwin, Cambridgeport, Graham and Parks, Peabody, and Fletcher Maynard Academy.

The grant was sponsored by Massachusetts State Senator Sal N. DiDomenico through a partnership with School Committee member David J. Weinstein. Local leaders hope it will support student performances and school-wide events while increasing hearing accessibility.

Weinstein, who worked directly with DiDomenico to secure the grant in the spring, said that he was motivated by a belief that the arts allow families to “really engage directly with our schools and come together as a community.”

“We’re a place that really values arts, and we put a lot of resources into it, and it sometimes

gets forgotten while we focus on other really important parts of what we’re doing in schools,” Weinstein said. “I really try to lift that up as part of what we’re doing.”

At Baldwin’s assembly on Friday, held in the school’s combined gymnasium and auditorium and meant to showcase the new equipment, students performed songs, recited poems, and read positive affirmations about belonging and well-being.

Three fifth-grade leaders, standing tall behind a makeshift music stand podium, opened the assembly by taking roll by grade level. Students in each successive year, from pre-kindergarten to fifth grade, called back the greetings with mounting enthusiasm, until the school’s affectionately named “gymnatorium” rang with resounding cheers of “my voice matters.”

In an address to the students, CPS superintendent David G. Murphy expressed gratitude for Weinstein and DiDomenico for their work towards the grant.

“Without them, you would

not be able to hear my voice right now, because we wouldn’t have these wonderful new microphones,” he added.

CPS Visual and Performing Arts Department director Andrea Zuniga praised Weinstein for spearheading the grant, saying the new equipment was a “huge” development for school performances.

“I can’t say the amount of events that we have and the impact that this has, not only for our communities and for making amplified voices sound beautiful,” but also to make events accessible to attendees with auditory disabilities, Zuniga said.

“We know that we need good, appropriate audio and visuals in order to support all of our communities, to access what kids are doing,” she added.

Zuniga said the grant would help ensure that the sound systems at Baldwin and the other four recipient schools matched the quality of the sound systems in newer schools in the district.

DiDomenico, a graduate of CPS schools, said that his expe -

rience growing up in Cambridge made investing in education one of his priorities at the Statehouse.

“You can have great curriculum, you can have great teachers — you don’t have great buildings, you don’t have great technology and equipment, all the money you’re spending on curriculum and all the things we’re trying to do for our students is for naught,” he added.

Will Houchin, a member of the leadership team for the VPA Department, helped design the sound system to be “versatile” across different spaces and “really let the students shine.”

“We have amazing music teachers who put on amazing performances, and the kids do such great work, and it’s important that it’s heard,” Houchin said.

“We wanted to do something that could really just showcase our students and put their best foot forward and make sure we’re all hearing that,” he added.

ayaan.ahmad@thecrimson.com

CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

Boston

Council Opponents in Allston Share Progressive Priorities

answer six rapid-fire questions about their support for proposals ranging from ranked choice voting to a real estate transfer fee, by holding up notecards reading “yes” or “no.”

BY ANGELINA

At the first election forum for Allston Brighton’s two city council candidates on Monday night, incumbent Elizabeth A. “Liz” Breadon and her challenger, Pilar Ortiz, were meant to pitch their campaigns and help voters decide which candidate ultimately reflects their values. But as the hourlong Zoom event unfolded, Breadon and Ortiz proved themselves more similar than different in their policy positions as they often took matching stances across the forum.

Both named affordability and confronting a hostile federal administration as their primary policy concerns, with Ortiz calling Boston “in the target of the Trump administration.” Halfway through the forum, Breadon and Ortiz were asked to

The candidates answered the same for every question. They even showed the same ambivalence towards eliminating parking minimums, with each wiggling both cards in the air as the moderator pronounced “mixed feelings” toward the controversial proposal to end parking space requirements for residential developments — a policy that Allston’s neighbor, Cambridge, was the first in the state to adopt three years ago.

The forum was hosted by Allston Brighton Progressives and asked both candidates to share their stances on the hottest issues in the neighborhood, including the state of the Jackson Mann Community Center, federal cuts to transportation grants, and demand for income-restricted housing units.

Ortiz and Breadon were first asked how they would navigate the impacts of the Trump administration’s funding cuts to social services, which include the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance

Program and a range of public and mental health services.

Breadon, a former physical therapist, mentioned specific policies like rent stabilization and establishing public grocery stores as possible policy measures to combat rising costs in the city.

“I know in New York they’re looking at publicly-funded grocery stores,” Breadon said, also referencing the recent closure of a nonprofit grocery chain across Boston called the Daily Table.

“We were hoping to ramp that up and make it more available across the city,” Breadon said.

While the Daily Table relied on a mix of philanthropy and government funding, the New York City proposal, recently advanced by mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, has proposed opening entirely government-backed gro-

cery stores.

Ortiz pointed to the Payment in Lieu of Taxes program — which are voluntary payments asked of the city’s major tax-exempt institutions — as an important source of revenue for city-funded projects, like rebuilding the Jackson-Mann Community Center.

Both candidates pledged to ask local universities to pay a higher percentage of their PILOT commitments.

“Everyone’s feeling the pinch right now,” Breadon said in an interview directly following the forum, referencing cuts to federal grants. “What we can do is really work in partnership with our universities and our hospitals to see what they can maintain. Can they fulfill the previous needs and then gradually increase it year on year up until about 2030?”

Ortiz, who graduated from Boston College, said she would ensure that universities like her alma mater follow through on their PILOT payments. Boston College paid only 23% of its negotiated sum last year.

Ortiz also drew on her experience as chief of staff for the City of Boston’s legal department when discussing measures Boston could take to resist further “harmful federal policies.”

“We need to protect ourselves. We need to make sure that our laws are conforming to the Constitution. Really working with our legal teams to make sure that whatever we pass makes sense and will be defendable in court,” Ortiz said.

U.S. Rep. Seth W. Moulton ’01.

“I think it’s a smart way of bringing the community together and highlighting for the rest of the city how bad it is here,” Ortiz said.

“As Pilar mentioned, it’s really a

Caitlin Gillooly ’07, who moderated most of the forum on behalf of Allston Brighton Progressives, ended the night by asking both candidates their opinions on Allston’s “Rat City” moniker. The nickname adopted by some residents is meant to embrace the neighborhood’s reputation for rodents, and is memorialized with an annual Rat Walk. Both candidates said they liked it.

Rep. Seth Moulton ’01 To Face Off Against Sen. Markey in Senate Run

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

Representative Seth W. Moulton ’01 (D-Mass.) launched his bid for Senate Wednesday in a posted campaign video, saying in the announcement that incumbent Ed J. Markey (D-Mass.) was too old to run again.

Moulton, a Marine veteran, represents the Sixth Congressional District of Massachusetts, which covers the region from Salem to Amesbury. He ran in the Democratic primary for the 2020 presidential election but dropped out three months after the start of his campaign.

Moulton compared the reelection bid of 79-year-old Markey to former U.S. President Joe Biden’s failed campaign in 2024, which sparked conversations within the Democratic Party about the age of lawmakers and generational turnover.

“With everything we learned last election, I just don’t believe Senator Markey should be running for another six-year term at

80 years old,” Moulton said in his campaign announcement video.

“I don’t think someone who’s been in Congress for half a century is the right person to meet this moment and win the future,” he added.

Markey was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 2013 and also previously served as a representative in the U.S. House from 1976 until 2013, spending more than 50 years in federal government.

The 2026 Senate race is not the only time Markey’s age has raised concerns. Though they aligned on key issues, Joseph P. Kennedy III, Markey’s challenger in the 2020 Senate election, focused his campaign on Markey’s age and a need for new leadership.

Kennedy lost that election by 11 points.

Cam Carbonnier, Markey’s campaign manager, slammed Moulton’s decision to launch his campaign during the ongoing government shutdown while “Senator Markey is doing his job” in an emailed statement to The Crimson.

“That’s what leadership looks like and what the residents of

Massachusetts expect from their Senator,” Carbonnier added.

Moulton has received backlash for his comments about transgender athletes, a topic he has suggested was the reason for Democrats’ struggles in the 2024 election.

“I have two little girls. I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete,” he said in a November 2024 interview with The New York Times. “But as a Democrat, I’m supposed to be afraid to say that.”

Moulton, the first high-profile challenger in this election, faces the task of winning over the public despite widespread support for the incumbent.

Markey, who launched his 2026 re-election bid in July, has received endorsements from many Massachusetts lawmakers, including fellow senator Elizabeth A. Warren (D-Mass.) and five current Massachusetts House representatives.

Massachusetts State Rep. Marjorie C. Decker renewed her support for Markey in a Wednesday statement to The Crimson,

calling him a “national leader” who has challenged “the injustice and harmful policies that are hurting communities across the country” caused by the Trump administration. Markey has also spoken out in support of Harvard in its clashes with the White House, describing the administration’s review of $9 billion in Harvard’s federal funding as “authoritarianism” in an April statement to The Crimson.

“We must call it out for what it is,” Markey said. “We cannot guarantee freedom if we let Trump march in and steal freedom while we remain silent.” Moulton has indicated he plans on prioritizing affordable housing, expanding childcare funding, and improving public transportation, according to his campaign website.

“Senator Markey is a good man, but it’s time for a new generation of leadership, and that’s why I’m running for U.S. Senate,” Moulton said.

megan.blonigen@thecrimson.com frances.yong@thecrimson.com

Development on Harriet Jacobs House Continues Despite Pushback

The Cambridge Historical Commission approved a proposal to redevelop the Harriet Jacobs House in a Thursday hearing, despite backlash over the size of the building. The Jacobs House, which was run by Harriet Jacobs after she escaped from slavery, served as a boarding house for Harvard faculty and students in the late 1800s. The house has since been passed through multiple private owners and fallen into disrepair. Developers proposed turning the property into a hotel and additional housing units, keeping a museum of Harriet Jacobs in the new building’s lobby. The proposed development would preserve the original house and add eight stories of residential property behind it. The proposal has stalled in front of the Commission for nearly a year as residents repeatedly criticized the development for being too large. Many argued that the city should restore the house without the addition.

House. Jiang hired CambridgeSeven, a local architecture firm, to begin redeveloping the property.

ry building is not the best way to honor her legacy,” Nicole Bryant, a Hilliard Street resident who spoke on behalf of neighbors, said in the Thursday hearing.

The house sits on the edge of the Harvard Square Conservation District, which has stricter guidelines on the allowed size of new construction and requires approval from the Commission before construction can begin. Janet Jiang, who has owned the house for the last five years, said that Cambridge’s expensive real estate market posed a challenge to preserving the Jacobs

CambridgeSeven met with the Commission last month, and faced backlash from abutting residents who felt the development was too close to their property. The architects returned to the Commission on Thursday with a plan to increase the distance between the building and its property line.

A group of neighbors living on Hilliard Street, which is on the backside of the Jacobs House, have strongly opposed the redevelopment — asking the Commission to adopt a set of guidelines to limit the allowed size of the development.

“Dwarfing the Harriet Jacobs House under an eight-sto -

CambridgeSeven has refused to consider lowering the height and size of the building further.

“If we’re coming back for a smaller building, we should probably not continue,” Patrick W. Barrett, Jiang’s lawyer, said.

Though the Commission unanimously approved the project on Thursday, they must meet with the developers again to review the final proposal before construction can begin.

“We want to try to see if we can find some way to find a path forward, because we have to get to work,” Barrett said, “and either we have a project or we don’t.”

William J. Lally Square in Boston’s Allston-Brighton neighborhood. E. MATTEO DIAZ— CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

‘Sardines (a comedy about death)’

CHRIS GRACE performs in a one-man show that analogizes death to the children’s game Sardines.

BY RIA S. CUÉLLAR-KOH CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

In his one-man show, comedian and actor Chris Grace analogizes death to the children’s game Sardines. In the game, he describes, one child hides while the rest attempt to find them. As each child succeeds, they silently pack one by one into the cramped, dark space. Finally, there’s only one child left, roaming the house and wondering where everyone has gone. To Grace, watching five family members die before he turned 50 felt like that.

Despite its dour subject matter, Grace’s show “Sardines (a comedy about death)” at The Huntington is short and sweet. In under an hour, he goes through how some of the most important — and complicated — people in his life died.

Everything about “Sardines” is understated and honest. The show does not intend to leave

audiences sobbing or impart a grand message about death — something that Grace states outright. Experiencing loss forced him to look for an answer, only to find platitudes about “living in the moment.” Surviving after that loss taught him that those platitudes were right.

The Huntington’s more intimate Maso Studio performance space features no decoration for “Sardines.” A blue light washes the back curtain, with a white stool positioned in front. Grace pantomimes controlling a slideshow, gesturing towards the plain curtain. He narrates what would be on the slides, alluding to the ridiculous nature of imagining something so relatively simple to create in real life. The most important “slide” is a family photo depicting his mom, sister, brother, and partner — all of whom died within 10 years of the photo being taken. His father, the fifth person to pass away, is noticeably absent. Grace’s account of how difficult it is to grieve someone you’re estranged from is one of the most poignant moments in the show.

Grace’s performance never feels “performative.” Dressed in all white, he avoids the exagger-

ated movements and intonation of a typical stand-up comedian. The jokes blend into monologue seamlessly, never announcing their presence. Grace’s ability to solicit laughs with a relatively restrained delivery is integral to the tone of the show. Many assume that stand-up comedians lie for the sake of jokes and thus take their anecdotes with a grain of salt. If the audience suspected Grace of pandering for laughs, they might harbor suspicion about his stories of grief. Grace never gives cause for this. “Sardines” is not Chris Grace’s standup set. “Sardines” is the personal work of Chris Grace, a person who happens to be very funny. This restraint extends to the more serious content. Grace recounts the tragic episodes with little fanfare or hysterics. He grants each moment the weight it deserves, but never wallows even when describing something as traumatic as futilely performing CPR on his partner. Just as things feel too heavy, he pulls back from the ledge with an unexpected joke. The show does what it encourages: remains present, lighthearted, and hopeful.

Grace doesn’t stop himself

from indulging in sillier moments, which provides a welcome levity. Reenacting what he’d do as a child listening to his favorite song, Donna Summers’ “MacArthur Park,” he runs around the stage in circles before dramatically dying. Later, he guides the audience through an a cappella rendition of Rihanna’s “Please Don’t Stop the Music.” At first the group sings tentatively, but by the fourth “Mama-say, mama-sa, ma-mako-ssa” everyone sings with their chest. Here too, Grace uses comedy to force the audience to live in the moment. Towards the show’s conclusion, Grace plays an audio clip of his mother reading a poem that she wrote. The poem itself is a sweet meditation on the meaning of life, but more moving is the sound of her voice, lilting, soft, and low. After the oth -

erwise low-tech performance, the audio-clip is simultaneously jarring and comforting, even though Grace preemptively announces that an audio cue will play within the first few minutes of the performance. The clip reminds us that even when people die, they leave traces of themselves behind. More importantly, the clip reminds us to savor what we can while there’s still time. Fittingly, only now is the aforementioned photo revealed, previously hidden behind a curtain to the side.

“Sardines” is a funny, poignant meditation on one man’s experience with death.

“Sardines” is a funny, poignant meditation on one man’s experience with death. There is no extraordinary revelation at the end of the show but that may be its most realistic revelation altogether. Death is anything but extraordinary. It’s a children’s game. Those who have left you are like the hidden Sardines players, awaiting you. The best we can do is appreciate what a privilege it is to play.

“Sardines (a comedy about death)” runs at The Maso Studio at The Huntington Theatre through Nov. 16.

ria.cuellarkoh@thecrimson.com

Elephantine Bakery Review: Parisian Allure in Seaport

BY CLORIS F. SHI

WRITER

If one word could define Elephantine Bakery, it would be “intent.” An Old World Parisian cafe refracted through a contemporary Bostonian lens, Seaport’s newest addition is warm, airy, and artistic, balancing opulence with intimacy. This is a bakery aware of its own beauty, effortlessly chic so as not to overindulge in it. Elephantine Bakery is open daily except Tuesday, from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. A five-minute walk from South Station, it sits at 332 Congress Street, wedged between glass towers and corporate offices. Its clientele mirrors Boston itself: retired couples from down the block, stylish twenty-somethings with employee badges peeking from beneath winter coats, commuters wandering out the red line, tourists drifting in from Chinatown a few blocks away. This is not a cafe for cramming — though laptops are tolerated — but for pausing: to sip, to tear off a piece of pastry, to brush a fleck of butter from your sleeve. The architecture begs you to scavenge out all its details, to be transport-

ed away as you enjoy your coffee, linger after your meal. Indeed, the name Elephantine is a nod to its namesake island on the Nile, where, 4,000 years ago, an ancient bakery once stood. “A testament to the fundamental place bread occupies in the human experience,” the cafe website adds. When you first enter, take a good look around. The ambience moves between contraction and expansion. An olive-green wall lined with tiled mirrors opens the room, catching fleeting reflections — yourself, a passerby, the soft drift of morning light. Checkerboard floors pull the gaze back down, focusing it onto “Elephantine,” spelled in cursive mosaic across the entryway threshold like a doormat. A silver urn erupts with delphiniums, zinnias, and wildflowers, while each table holds a single ranunculus in

When you first enter, take a good look around. The ambience moves between contraction and expansion.

a tinted glass vase, a gesture of intimacy that draws you closer. Seating follows the same dance. Bentwood bistro-style chairs and marble tables give the room air; the tassels at the end of mahogany benches gather it back in. Even the Calacatta Viola marble on the countertop has a cream base that spreads around the front counter, veined with burgundy and plum that draw the eye inward again. This rhythm of inhale and exhale seems to steady the room itself, coaxing cafe-goers to match its pace, to breathe slower, to let their eyes wander through the quiet choreography of details.

But once the eye hits the pastry case, the room opens up again. Behind the glass: croissants in chocolate, almond, pistachio, and more; a glazed apple tart; a ricotta lemon danish, a palm-sized cardamom bun; a large helping of a cinnamon roll. Baguettes lean upright in a basket, their tips angled like stylus pens. The only seasonal item, a pumpkin scone, seems obligatory; the rest of the menu is boastingly French.

The pistachio croissant, dusted with sugar, looks the part but is forgettable. Aesthetically, it’s a beautiful pastry with a mes-

merizing cross-section. Encrusted with light green toasted nuts, the pastry is light and well-layered, though the filling runs thin and the sweetness slightly overwhelms. The butter comes through cleanly, but a touch of warmth, or a lighter hand with the sugar, would bring balance. The savory selection was more memorable. Presented on a goldrimmed, scalloped plate, the Elephantine Egg Sandwich makes quite an entrance. Typically, the egg sandwich is a study in monotony: beige bread, yellow mush, a texture so uniform it demands a small act of will to swallow. This rendition, however, is a feast for the eyes. The eggs remain intact, their soft-boiled yolks gently jammy, their whites offering just enough resistance to the bite.

A pistachio crunch provides relief from all the softness, while a beet spread lends both sweetness and an earthy acidity. The simit — a Turkish bagel encrusted with toasted sesame — contributes smokiness and salt, cutting through the heavier pastes. However, the za’atar feta hides in the background and the spinach serves more as a soft green lining to the bread than a satisfyingly crisp crunch. This is a playful,

elegantly “adult” egg sandwich: a humble lunchtime classic now dressed in bright beet-pink heels. Like all good handheld sandwiches, its generous fillings spill from the sides, and it’s gone in fewer bites than you’d wish.

As for the cardamom latte, it is expertly made. With each smooth sip, the floral, cinnamon, and citrusy undertones are soothing, the foam smooth and thick enough to leave a trace on the lip of the cup. The latte leans more dessert than drink; its sweetness lingers, but the spice balances it just enough to finish clean. Served in a large mug, this coffee leaves that satisfying, milky foam mouthfeel that tempts another sip, even as you wish for a sharper edge of espresso to cut through the comfort. Despite its advertising, Elephantine Bakery reads more purely Parisian, Mediterranean only as an afterthought. The morning soundtrack begins with a piano waltz and drifts, inevitably, into a saxophone rendition of “La Vie en Rose.” Though Mediterranean elements — hummus, eggplant, pistachio — appear across several dishes like Turkish poached eggs, focaccia, and labneh, the bakery seems less interested in fusion than in coexistence. For example, there’s a French Niçoise salad and its Mediterranean counterpart with kale. The balance feels less certain on the pastry side. One wonders how far Elephantine might go if it leaned more boldly into the Mediterranean mode and served baklava, a nut-filled layered pastry, or knafeh, a syrup-soaked cheese dessert. Perhaps, they could use natural sweeteners like dates and honey, or blood orange and rosewater in their French indulgences. In a city that moves fast and looks forward, Elephantine insists on pause, on reflection. It asks you to slow down, to bite into something familiar made new, to sip your coffee and notice its architecture. After all, Elephantine is a cafe built, as its name suggests, on the oldest human instinct: to bake, to share, and to do it all with intent.

MUSIC 110 FINDS STRENGTH IN SOFTNESS FOR OPENING CONCERT

MUSIC 110, known in normal times as the HRO, performed with quiet command.

BY MAYA Y. KORETH CONTRIBUTING WRITER

n Oct. 4 in Sanders Theatre, the Music 110 Orchestra gave the opening concert of its 2025-2026 season, titled “A Night of Mahler.” Under the direction of conductor Federico Cortese, the program consisted of two major works by Romantic composer Gustav Mahler: all five songs from his “Rückert-Lieder” collection, followed by his complete “Symphony No. 4 in G Major.” The concert, Cortese explained in his opening remarks, would end softly on both pieces. Yet the evening’s restraint carried an undeniable intensity that made it an impressive and memorable start to the season. The concert — which was originally planned under the name of the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra — took place under the shadow of controversy. Following a much-debated suspension by Harvard College for the rest of the fall semester as the result of an investigation into alleged hazing, the orchestra is allowed to hold concerts but not permitted to use the “HRO” name. “Music 110R” is the name of the class through which students could participate in HRO for course credit, though HRO members are not required to enroll. The “Rückert-Lieder” featured mezzo-soprano Maire Therese Carmack, whose warm tone and steady control suited Mahler’s in-

trospective songs, as soloist. Cortese explained that when Mahler wrote the “Rückert-Lieder,” he never established a definitive sequence for the five songs, giving conductors the freedom to determine the order.

The sequence that Cortese chose formed a clear emotional arc, beginning with the contemplative “Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft!” The piece opened gently with the violins, soon joined by clarinet and oboe lines that drifted beneath Carmack’s voice. Strong coordination between the singer and orchestra propelled this song, with the flutes and violins shaping phrases that breathed with the same rhythm as her delivery.

The second and third songs shifted the focus toward love. The standout was “Liebst du um Schönheit,” which Mahler wrote as a love letter to his wife Alma. The orchestra’s principal harpist, Olivia S. Lee ’29, played a delicate but crucial role here, her arpeggios rippling beneath Carmack’s expressive singing. The strings played with smooth legato phrasing, and the woodwinds — especially principal flute Amy J. Hwang ’26 and Ray Moon ’29 —

echoed the singer’s lines with care.

Yet despite the overall balance, Carmack’s voice was occasionally hard to hear, especially when the violins swelled in dynamic passages and momentarily covered her lower range. Still, the performance captured the song’s sincerity and warmth, particularly in the final lines, which she sang with gentle conviction.

out. The final note lingered into silence, making for a subdued but powerful ending to the first half.

After intermission, the orchestra returned for Mahler’s Symphony No. 4, featuring soprano Sarah Joyce Cooper in the final movement.

The opening immediately shifted the atmosphere as the triangle set a bright, playful tone, answered by crisp violin figures that entered into a beautiful legato movement. Featured sparingly but confidently, the brass blended with the strings instead of overpowering them. The movement’s humor came through clearly, the

The opening immediately shifted the atmosphere as the triangle set a bright, playful tone, answered by crisp violin figures that entered into a beautiful legato movement.

The set concluded with “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen,” a slow, meditative piece that was described by Cortese as a reflection on solitude. The muted strings, sustained by a deep undercurrent from the cellos and basses, gave the song a floating quality. Meanwhile, the English horn and bassoon added soft, somber colors that framed Carmack’s voice as she sang in German, “I live alone in my heaven, in my love, in my song!” The two woodwinds created an especially poignant color during the song’s final verse while the violas maintained a steady melody through-

orchestra managing Mahler’s contrasts between elegance and irony with tight control.

The third movement, “Ruhevoll,” stood out as the most emotionally charged section of the symphony. The first violins carried a calm, singing melody that built gradually into one of Mahler’s most breathtaking climaxes. The percussion section — especially the timpani and cymbals — added weight without dominating the sound, while the trombones and trumpets filled the hall with rich, full chords. When the intensity subsided, the clarinets and horn

traded quiet phrases that led seamlessly back into the movement’s peaceful theme. Cortese’s pacing here was excellent: The climaxes arrived naturally, and the transitions between loud and soft sections felt smooth and deliberate.

In the final movement, “Sehr behaglich,” Cooper entered with a bright, clear soprano that carried easily over the orchestra. Her voice brought childlike sincerity to the text, which describes the joys of heaven. The flutes and violins doubled her melody in unison, and the harp once again added an ethereal shimmer beneath the vocal line. Cooper’s diction was clear as she blended smoothly with the orchestra, creating the impression of a conversation rather than a solo feature. The ending — a slow descent into quiet — left the theater suspended in silence. Just as Cortese had predicted, no one moved after the last note faded. For several seconds, Sanders Theatre was completely still. Then, as if released from the spell of the music, the audience rose to their feet in a long — and deserved — standing ovation. Cortese bowed three times as the applause continued for more than five minutes.

“A Night of Mahler” may have been a softer concert in design, but it revealed the orchestra’s depth, balance, and control. In both the intimacy of the “Rückert-Lieder” and the sweeping lyricism of the Fourth Symphony, Music 110 showed that quiet power can be just as commanding as thunderous sound.

‘The Life of a Showgirl’ Shatters Parasocial Relationships

BY ALEXANDRA M. KLUZAK

Taylor Swift’s latest album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” has accomplished a rare feat — no, not breaking the modern era record for the most albums streamed in a week or occupying all 12 slots on Spotify’s Top 100 list. These are indeed impressive achievements, but for Swift, they are almost expected at this point in her stardom. Far more remarkable for her is the fact that, for the first time in recent memory, Swift has produced an album that has failed to be universally beloved not only by the critics, but also by her notoriously diehard fanbase. The New Yorker, for instance, criticized the album’s “cringy, sexual innuendo,” (see: “Wood,” an ode to the “redwood tree” of Swift’s fiance Travis Kelce), “millennial perfectionism,” and “obsession with her haters.” Pitchfork dismissed the album as like “much of the pop music you have heard over the past 10 years and throughout your lifetime.” The Guardian mocked it as a “dull razzle-dazzle from a star who seems frazzled.”

But far more surprising than the negative critical consensus was the reaction of her fanbase — normally so loyal to her that they crashed Ticketmaster trying to purchase tickets for “The Eras

Tour,” prompting a congressional investigation, made the exes that are the targets of her songs objects of online vitriol, and vociferously defend their heroine’s honor against any charge of wrongdoing.

TikToker Grant Gibbs summed up these same fan reactions to “The Life of a Showgirl” beautifully: “Y’all know I’m a diehard Swiftie, but this album just feels so lazy. I’m really trying to like it. I’m trying to give it more time, but, like, girl, I’m actually at a loss.” Such words would previously have been sacrilegious for a Swiftie: Swifties love the artist and all she touches unconditionally. But “The Life of a Showgirl” has shattered that mandate — because, I argue, Swift has failed to uphold her end of the bargain, the one she has observed in all of her previous albums: To make music that is, at least partially, relatable to her fans. Even as her star power grew to stratospheric heights, Swift had managed to deliver on her part, even with her slightly pretentious last album “The Tortured Poets Department.” But now, fame — and her new album’s singular obsession with it — has made her remote from the fans whom she has to thank for it.

A crucial part of Swift’s success, since the beginning of her career, has been her “girl next door” persona. Just like you, she

falls in love with boys who don’t like her back (“Teardrops on My Guitar”), loves her family (“The Best Day”), and enjoys partying with her friends (“22”). Accordingly, her fans have developed such a deep connection to her because of her capacity for autobiographical narrative and pointed lyricism; this excessive sharing allows for her music to become not only relatable, but delude fans into thinking they know her personally. They idolize her, but they also have a parasocial relationship with her. Out of this is born a scarily intense loyalty. But perhaps the illusion that Swift is relatable to her fans was always destined to shatter. The more her stardom grew, the more remote she became from the fans who had catalyzed it. Swift has tried a few tactics in the past to obscure this paradox. In “reputation,” an album written in the wake of a feud with Kanye West that led to her being cancelled by the internet, Swift compared herself to a victim of online bullying. In “Lover,” she is still comparing herself — at this point a multimillionaire global phenomenon — to a high school prom queen in “Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince.” In “Midnights,” another album heavily focused on how Swift is perceived, she still wins sympathy with “Anti-Hero,” where she provides a window into the anxieties of being

the subject of gossip.

But in “The Life of a Showgirl,” Swift is no longer likening the online backlash she gets to that which an average victim of online bullying would experience, or her fame to the attention a prom queen receives, or attempting to make her fame relatable with the anxiety it causes. In “The Life of a Showgirl,” just as the name implies, she is entirely focused on representing herself as someone to whom her fans simply cannot relate: a global pop star. That is indeed what she is, but to the fans that have always seen her, to some extent, as the girl “on the bleachers,” that is an unforgivable character-break.

That the album and its lyrics, as the album’s critics have pointed out, are her lowest quality yet is almost beside the point. “You’ll be sleeping with the fishes before you know you’re drowning” is truly a nonsensical insult with no teeth, to name one example of the sloppy lyricism. To name another, “Every eldest daughter was the first lamb to the slaughter, so we all dressed up as wolves and we looked fire” is equally off-putting.

Maybe these lyrics don’t move her fans or the critics simply because we are not global superstars like Swift is. Maybe if we were better able to relate to her, we would find them moving and deeply profound. Maybe.

But since many of us will never be able to adopt the perspective of the world’s biggest superstar, “The Life of a Showgirl” has left Swift’s fans perplexed and alienated from the woman whose music they had previously turned to because she so viscerally communicated how she felt, and most of the time, it resonated with the way they felt. Swift herself says it perfectly:

“You don’t know the life of a showgirl, babe.” She’s right — we don’t. Her fans’ parasocial relationship with her may have led them to believe they did understand Swift’s life intimately, but to her, after all, they are little more than “toy chihuahuas barking from a tiny purse.”

alexandra.kluzak@thecrimson.com

PAVAN V. THAKKAR — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

FIFTEEN MINUTES 16

Benjamin L. De Bivort is a professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

FM: Your research focuses on evolution through the lens of variations in animal behavior. What led you to make the connection between behavior and evolution?

BLD: So we do consider evolution, but I would say we mostly study variation and behavior, and particularly variation we see among animals that are genetically identical and have been raised in the lab in standard environments. So these are creatures where the nature is matched and their nurture is matched, and yet they’re still very different in their behaviors. So it’s a question of what is the source of that variation? And we think it arises in essentially random outcomes of the developmental process by which the body constructs itself right, and how the brain wires right. And you get these subtle differences, which, when the animal implements behavior, get magnified into individual differences that often exist for the lifetime of these animals, and are something like personality. And it does connect to evolution, but it’s not variation of the sort that evolution by natural selection normally acts on, because it can’t be passed on to progeny.

So in some ways, it’s a bit of an evolutionary dead end. But there’s also a metastrategy that evolution employs, which is, to what extent does variation as a trait confer adaptive advantages to animals?

FM: Your work deals with this idea that behavioral variation and individuality can be linked to molecular variations. So if our individuality is linked to the chemical or molecular variations in our bodies, do you think we — or the organisms you work with — have a sense of agency, or can our personalities be described just by the molecular mechanisms behind the behavior?

BLD: I think so much work around biological mechanisms and neurobiology seeks to explain behavior. It can sort of feel like it takes away some of the magic of being an animal and exhibiting behaviors. To the extent we gain mechanistic understanding, we have taken away mystery. But, does that remove agency? I’m not sure. I think in my own experience, there’s something sort of humanistic about realizing that individual differences don’t have a compelling narrative behind them.

FM: You use fruit flies as the model organism for your work. And I have done a little bit of fly work myself, in high school.

BLD: I imagine it was amazing.

FM: Well, it was more cancer, genetics, that kind of thing. And the question that I would always get is, why are flies relevant to us as humans? And so my answer was always, because the genetics are really similar. But behaviorally, I feel like you would get that question a lot as well. Why are they a good model for behavior in particular?

BLD: Flies and humans solve a lot of the same problems in their ecology, right? They have to find food. They have to find shelter. They have to find mates. So, to choose whether to be curious and explore their environment or be conservative and shelter. These trade offs are the same for all animals. So the behavioral strategies that they evolve, such as maybe bet hedging, could potentially be strategies that we would evolve.

FM: To pivot a little more to your teaching work, I know you teach LS50, which is the integrated small group introduction to the life sciences. What drew you to that class?

BLD: I was there for the very beginning of LS50.

I think the motivation for all

Q&A:

BENJAMIN L. DE BIVORT ON INDIVIDUALITY, FORECASTING, AND THE POLITICS OF SCIENCE

BIOLOGY. The Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology sat down with The Crimson to talk about his research, the Trump administration, and his time outside of the lab.

BY SOPHIE GAO ASSOCIATE MAGAZINE EDITOR

the right word for geopolitics.

BLD: Phil Tetlock wrote a book on this, and was shopping around for anecdotes, and I he asked me for one — didn’t make the cut into the book. But it was on, would China violate the air defense zone over Taiwan within some time frame? And my contributions to the team discussion on this were to see if we could approach it from a Bayesian perspective. Can we put forward a prior and then update it based on news events as they came along to get sort of a posterior estimate for that probability?

FM: I’ve often heard it said that one reason science is in crisis is because it’s hard for complex findings to be made understandable to the public. Is that something you agree with, and if so, what can be done to rectify that?

BLD: It’s true that communicating sophisticated scientific concepts to non specialists can be challenging, but there’s a saying, at least on social media, which is: “We’re not going to sci-comm our way out of this crisis.” And I agree with that. I think that the problems are more fundamental and have a different root cause than a lack of communication. This desire that people have for science to be apolitical — I think we’re seeing just how untenable that is. The popular support for science and the support among political parties and our governmental institutions, it waxes and it wanes, and we’re in a period of reduced support, both at a popular level and the institutional level. And I think it’s fairly straightforward to connect this to larger problems around trust in institutions.

FM: You’ve been vocal about what many are calling the Trump administration’s “war on science.” What impact has the administration’s budget cuts had on your work?

the faculty and instructors starting the class was, what would we have wanted to learn as first year college students to put us on a trajectory to doing research in the natural sciences? So we were drawing on our experience and our discovery of these themes and connections that run through the life sciences. Often they’re quantitative, and relate biological organization across many different contexts.

So there are these approaches, these methodologies, that connect these disciplines across huge orders of magnitude, just radically different scales.

FM: And as a principal investigator, you’ve mentored, advised, guided so many people through various points in their scientific careers. How does working with doctoral or postdoctoral students differ from your work with undergraduates?

BLD: The longer somebody’s been in a research career, the more generally independent they can be. I wouldn’t say that there are necessarily category differences. It’s mostly quantitative differences.

If there are folks thinking about it: just dive in. Try it out. You can’t really understand what it’s like to have an independent research project until you try it, right? Because there’s rewards and frustrations, and you need to experience those firsthand to know if it’s for you.

FM: Was science something you were

always interested in? Is there a story about how you first sparked an interest in science?

BLD: I think the hinge points for me were a really effective sixth grade science teacher who made it all very enjoyable, maybe also participating in little physics and engineering competitions in high school and building mouse trap racers that could go 150 feet or something like that. I was in a rock and fossil club as a kid, so I credit my parents for exposing me to the natural world. And when I went to college, I was pre-med for maybe three weeks before I said, “nope.”

So now I do the basic side of biology.

FM: What do you do when you’re not in the lab?

BLD: Well, I still enjoy collecting rocks and fossils. That came back a bit during the pandemic. It was a nice outdoor, distanced activity. I do puzzle competitions. There’s a thing called the MIT mystery hunt, and I’m on a team for that.

FM: I had seen that you and your team had won the MIT mystery hunt back in 2019. And then you wrote the competition the next year.

What was that like, to write such an intense contest?

BLD: As a bit of background, when we ran the Mystery Hunt, there were about 4,000 competitors. Our team, though

the MIT puzzle club, had a budget of, I think it was $80,000 to run it.

Our team had about 70 people, and I had a minor leadership role, but really we had three people who were able to take a whole year off of work to be the triumvirate that led our production of this puzzle hunt. We did more than 200 puzzles, which was the largest at the time.

FM: On your lab website, you had listed forecasting as one of your interests — what is forecasting?

BLD: So this is the idea that people can pick up the skill of predicting geopolitical outcomes in the future, and was the subject of study by a professor named Phil Tetlock at the University of Pennsylvania, and Barbara Millers. And some of their provocative findings were that people who are professionally pundits actually do a bit worse at predicting future outcomes than non experts.

And then these studies were conducted as contests, and so I was a participant in some of these forecasting competitions, and did well enough to be put in a category called a Super Forecaster, where we were reliably in the sort of top percentiles of predicting some of these outcomes, and got to go head to head against the intelligence agency and various AI entities.

FM: And what’s the best thing you’ve predicted? Or, I don’t know if best is

BLD: I had a grant cut. I had NIH support, which was terminated, along with hundreds of grants here at Harvard. I’m a department chair now, so I acutely see the effects of the loss of financial support on our ability to recruit graduate students, to appoint new postdoctoral fellows, the potential cuts to staff. There’s an ecosystem of funding that’s needed to keep scientific enterprises going, and when the money dries up, the scientific activities have to dry up at some point.

And I think it’s fairly straightforward to connect this to larger problems around trust in institutions and trust in the governance of elites. Science is an expensive kind of elite activity, and if people don’t have trust in the work of the government, we’re going to see support for science fall.

I heard it stated that the cultural prestige of science tends to grow or decline in proportion to the alignment of science with the interests of capital. I think there’s some legs to that argument as well. When you have science speaking out about the dangers of AI to the environment, to our information ecosystem, to our cultural resilience to misinformation, that puts science in conflict with powerful political interests. I think that’s part of the story also.

FM: You’ve been vocal about what many are calling the Trump administration’s “war on science.” What impact has the administration’s budget cuts had on your work?

BLD: I had a grant cut. I had NIH support, which was terminated, along with hundreds of grants here at Harvard. I’m a department chair now, so I acutely see the effects of the loss of financial support on our ability to recruit graduate students, to appoint new postdoctoral fellows, the potential cuts to staff. These are all related, right?

There’s an ecosystem of funding that’s needed to keep scientific enterprises going, and when the money dries up, the scientific activities have to dry up at some point.

sophie.gao@thecrimson.com.

Harvard Women’s Tennis, Yakoff Impress

The Harvard women’s tennis team had a strong showing at the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) New England Regionals tournament, its third tournament of the fall season.

Junior captain Stephanie Yakoff captured the singles title and advanced to the NCAA individual championships in the process. Throughout the tournament, the Crimson showed depth and grit, weathering a Nor’easter to win several matches in both singles and doubles.

Harvard entered the tournament with momentum from its previous Harvard Fall Classic, where players claimed individual victories in 21 out of their 33 matches.

Division 1 teams from across the New England region send their top six to eight players to compete in singles and doubles matches. The New England Regionals tournament is a key opportunity for players to earn

enough ITA ranking points to qualify for the individual NCAA tournament, held in mid-November in Orlando. Harvard hosted the tournament this year, which brought a different dynamic, according to Head Coach Traci Green.

“It’s always interesting when you host a huge tournament like Regionals,” Green said. “It’s a privilege because the winner gets to go to NCAAs, but it can be tricky when you’re technically the home team — still living in your dorm and reporting to the courts. The team stayed focused all week, and I’m super proud of that.”

Despite the distinct experience, Yakoff built on her 3-1 singles record before the tournament, winning all six matches without dropping a set at the ITA regionals. In the final match, she defeated No. 1 Serafima Shastova (Syracuse), 6-3, 6-4, to seal the regional crown. Yakoff also prevailed convincingly in her semifinal match against Orly Ogilvy (Yale), 6-2, 6-1. The semifinal win allowed Yakoff to earn a berth in the

NCAA individual draw, the first Harvard singles player to do so in 15 years.

While Yakoff led the way for Harvard, other Crimson players contributed important wins and demonstrated the team. Yakoff and first-seeded doubles partner Kavya Karra ‘27 clinched dominant early wins (8-0) and advanced via a withdrawal to the round of 16, but their run was cut short by Brown’s Abigail Lee and Daniella Benabraham (8-5).

Captain Charlotte Owensby and junior Kate Kim also teamed up and made one of Harvard’s deepest runs. Although the duo didn’t reach the late rounds, their performance helped build momentum and confidence. Owensby and Kim advanced to the quarterfinals after sweeping three early rounds — 8–1 over Colgate’s Amelia Galin and Sophia Montero, 8–2 against Le Moyne’s Emma Sanchez and Ella Fernando, and 8–3 versus Yale’s ninth-seeded Julia Werdiger and Erin Ha — before falling 8–4 to UConn’s Madison McLeod and Chloe Lomans in the

quarterfinals. Many players noted the challenging weather throughout the tournament, as organizers kept play outdoors except during rain, forcing competitors to adjust to mid-50s temperatures that tested both conditioning and injury prevention.

“The conditions have been all over the place — hot, cold, windy, even rainy,” Owensby said. “Every day is different, so you have to be really adaptable and ready for anything.”

“It’s been a really busy weekend,” Kim added. “You might play one match at 8 a.m. and another at 4 p.m., so flexibility and preparation have been huge for us.”

Other notable singles performances came from freshman Claire Shao. Shao opened her singles campaign with a commanding 6–3, 6–2 victory and then rallied in the second round 1–6, 6–4, 6–1 for a gritty three-set comeback. In the third round, Shao faced top-seeded and eventual finalist Serafima Shastova (Syracuse) in a tightly contested 6–4, 7–5 loss that capped an impressive run.

“We see the fall season as a time to improve our games as individuals,” Green said. “The team has been working hard, getting extra reps in the gym and on court, and that effort is showing. We’ve really emphasized doubles pairings and communication, and that focus is paying off.”

Next on the Crimson’s

As families and alumni filed in from across the country to celebrate the Rugby senior class, Harvard (6-0) continued its dominant performance in NIRA play, extending its unbeaten streak with the sixth win of the season.

The visitors, the Sacred Heart Pioneers (2-3), were coming off a three-game loss streak but were looking to cause an upset and turn their season around.

As the game kicked off, the Crimson quickly got off to an offensive start. The team maintained possession high on the field, with the Pioneers keeping gaps narrow in their defense, making Harvard work patiently to open them up.

Senior wing Cameron Fields scored the first points of the game after she received the ball out of a scrum and sidestepped to bypass Sacred Heart defenders. Junior Ava Ferrence scored the conversion, putting Harvard up 7–0, ten minutes into the game. The Pioneers took the opportunity to live within the Crimson’s half, searching for an chance to respond. The Har -

vard defense was strong and connected to keep Sacred Heart at bay. It was not until the 25th minute that the Pioneers found a way through for a try, thanks to a moment of brilliance with a grubber penetrating the Crimson defense and levelling the game, 7–7.

Freshman Gemma Ogoke, who achieved her

in touching distance of the Crimson, 14–10.

hat-trick, opened her account for the day next. She powered through multiple Sacred Heart defenders to again put Harvard ahead, but the Pioneers again quickly closed this gap with a penalty kick to keep them with -

As half-time approached, freshman Maddie Hubbell fended off pressure from Sacred Heart players as she dashed towards the try zone to give Harvard the advantage at the break, 21–10.

As the second half began, it felt like deja vu, with Fields opening up the scoring again. This time, she received the ball in a quick switch of play across the field. A moment of magnificence followed as Fields strided down the line, fending off players as she went, and taking out the corner flag as she got her second try of the game, electrifying the stands as she did so. Fields recounted how the trust she has in the team and coaches helped her achieve the try.

“For my second try, it was all about trust,” she asid. “I trusted that Vic would be able to make that pass, and then trusting my speed to beat my defender. As the ball was moving across the field, I could hear my coaches telling me to be ready. That gave me the confidence to back myself in that moment.”

The try also gave the Crimson the momentum the team needed to all but seal the win, with Ogoke quickly securing her hat-trick with two more tries. The squad depth of Harvard was on show with yet more players getting on the score sheet. Freshman Sana’a Lunon, who has had a standout first season, weaved through players to get a try of her own.

A lofted pass reached sophomore Dana Greer on the wing, who drove it across the line to push the Crimson to 50 points as the game came to a close. The victory extends Harvard’s unbeaten streak to 6–0 this season. After the game, coaches, teammates, and loved ones celebrated the 10 seniors who have dedicated time and energy to the team over the past four years and have won two 15s national championships in the process.

“Senior day was super special this year because there are so many seniors to celebrate and we’ve been through so much together, so to get a win and continue our unbeaten streak was super special,” Fields said. “This season has been really fun because of how competitive all of our games have been, so it’s been nice to see how much the game has grown since our freshman year.” The team will continue to look to add another ring this season. The Crimson next face Princeton on Sunday, 26th October, before heading into the NIRA championship postseason.

Men’s Soccer Draws Aggressive Yale

back to October 2nd, 2004.

In the 112th meeting between historic collegiate rivals, the scoreline could not separate the two ambitious sides, as Harvard and Yale battled to a riveting 1-1 draw, drawing an excited crowd of nearly 1000 under Jordan Field’s lights late Saturday night. The meeting’s result leaves the Crimson (3-4-4, 0-2-1 Ivy League) continuing to search for its first conference victory of the season.

“Harvard-Yale means everything to our guys,” said men’s soccer head coach Josh Shapiro. “It’s such an important rivalry. There’s so much tradition and history, and the game is just so challenging because both teams are so committed.”

The Yale Bulldogs (2-6-3, 1-11 Ivy) have failed to return home from Cambridge victorious once again, a streak dating all the way

“There’s honestly a lot of hatred that comes with the rivalry,” said senior goalkeeper Lucian Wood. “I think we tend to feed off that as a team, and the energy is always really high.

It’s always a really intense performance, it’s always different playing Yale.”

Over the first 45 minutes, Yale maintained control of the game, piling up the pressure with back-to-back pinpoint

corner kick deliveries and recording two close attempts, while the Crimson struggled to get shots on target. Defensive efforts from Harvard’s solid back line helped resist the Bulldogs and ultimately bring the first half to a deadlocked end.

“I always try to trust my center backs,” said Wood, commenting on the role his defenders played in recent matches.

“They’ve kept a level of intensity throughout the season that we’ve lacked in previous seasons. They’re younger guys, so they’re starting to lead now, and it’s making a big difference for the rest of the team.”

Harvard kicked off the second half with regained momentum and possession; however, in the 65th minute, Yale senior forward Sebi Roy broke through on goal with only the keeper to beat, but Woods charged forward, making a critical save to keep the match scoreless.

“Honestly, I think when you get to a situation like that, it’s

just reactions and instincts. You set yourself up well and try to prepare yourself as best you can for a shot and put yourself in the right position.” said Wood.

Advertisement Despite Harvard’s strong second-half showing, the visitors were able to break the deadlock first, with Yale first-year midfielder Angelo Zhu beating the defense and capitalizing on a chip shot in the 74th minute.

“I thought we were a little overextended when they got the goal in transition. They did really well in that moment, and that was brutal, because we were in real control of the match at that point,” said Coach Shapiro.

The Crimson wasted no time, however, as only five minutes later, senior center back Ethan Veghte smashed a volley into the top left corner of the net to put the game back level, assisted by a long-range cross from sophomore left back Alexander Castel.

The crowd erupted following the top bin equalizer, with a crimson-colored smoke bomb lighting off and chants raining down in support of the home side.

Veghte’s 79th-minute goal helped end Harvard’s October goal drought, as the team had failed to convert in over 267 minutes of competitive play –its previous goal dating back to its September 30th match versus Boston University. In the dying embers of the match, Harvard

first career

Water Polo Extends Winning Streak to Five SPORTS

Harvard men’s water polo secured its position leading the NWPC after a pair of conference wins this weekend against Brown and MIT, continuing its five-game win streak heading into back-toback tournament weekends.

This array of wins follows the Crimson only winning one match in its away tour against four Southern California opponents. Yet, once Harvard returned to conference play, it scored 21 against two of their opponents and overcame Princeton, the nationally highest-ranked team in their conference, by one goal.

“Our goal in both those games was to make a statement that we are a team capable to win a conference championship, regardless of what the outside noise around us says,” sophomore attacker Lukas Peabody wrote.

The Crimson’s offense scored 15 and 19 goals against Brown and MIT respectively, surpassing their high of 13 in California.

“We have struggled with injuries this season, so those three weeks off played a huge factor in us being able to get healthy and prepare for a tough conference slate. As well, we learned a lot about what we needed to work on from playing such tough competition,” Peabody wrote. “Seeing all the issues we needed to fix from those games gave our team huge motivation to get back to practice and fix the problems our coaches noticed.”

No. 17 Harvard 15, Brown 12

No. 17 Harvard men’s water polo

(9-6, 4-0 NWPC) spoiled Brown’s

(11-5, 2-3 NWPC) eight-game win streak at home. The Crimson defeated the Bears 15-12 in Providence on Saturday evening and extended its perfect conference record.

Peabody’s four goals in the final two quarters led the Northeast Conference’s highest-ranked team to victory as Harvard overcame a back-and-forth game powered by Brown goalie Dimitros Kratimenos’s 15 saves.

“Brown’s goalie played very well against us, blocking numerous really good goalscoring opportunities. However, throughout the whole game we were getting great looks in front of the cage, that we were confident we would eventually put away,” Peabody wrote. “We never strayed away from attacking, as we were getting into great positions, we just needed to put the ball away.”

In their first possession, Brown quickly transitioned, allowing senior center Illias Stothart, the Bears’ season leading scorer, to score. Capitalizing on Harvard’s offensive troubles, the Bears sent a deep pass to junior attacker Mac Berry for their second goal.

The Crimson soon maximized its advantages. Rotating around their offense during a power play, junior attacker Vilas Sogaard-Srikrishnan found space to score. Brown conceded a penalty 30 seconds later, and sophomore attacker Dean Strauser buried a skip shot.

Kratimenos diffused a one-onone situation with a Harvard attacker, followed by a pair of blocks stalling the Crimson. Yet, offensively, Brown struggled to convert their opportunities, conceding turnovers to Harvard. Strauser winded and launched a rocket outside shot to break the

deadlock and give Harvard its first lead. A block by Harvard’s defense led to a wing attack, finding sophomore defender Tyler Hogan, before the Bears responded, shrinking the deficit to one.

Missed shots and a save from each team’s goalie led to sophomore utility William Girswold finding a powerful outside shot from the middle, tying the game with eight seconds remaining in the quarter.

Brown’s fifth goalscorer of the game, junior attacker Jaxson Tierney, converted a skip shot

to open the second quarter. The Bears’ defensive conglomeration forced a change in possession, leading Brown to score their second straight goal for a 6-4 lead.

Junior utility Jack Burghardt jammed a post shot past Brown’s defense. Kratimenos defended Brown’s cage against one-onone situations, but Harvard’s defense responded accordingly and forced Brown’s turnovers and misses.

Freshman attacker Felix Pal eventually found space to slide past Brown’s defense, tying 6-6 at the half.

Strong defensive performances, including Kratimenos’s emphatic point-blank saves against fastbreaks and Peabody’s blocks anchoring the Crimson’s defense, continued. Brown broke the deadlock, starting a quarter with a two goal run for the third consecutive time this game.

Sogaard-Srikrishnan converted the Crimson’s second penalty, and Strauser patiently scored to tie the game with two minutes remaining. Brown and Peabody exchanged ricochet goals, but Peabody scored again with four seconds remaining in the quarter for a 10-9 lead.

In the final quarter, Brown developed momentum, poking holes in the Crimson’s defense for two rebounds shots, and Kratimenos saved Harvard’s third penalty attempt for a 10-11 lead. Peabody responded by scoring two consecutive goals, pushing Harvard ahead by one.

Patience rewarded the Crimson while turnovers depleted Brown’s time, gradually building a three goal-run.

Amidst Harvard’s retreat, Brown found their final goal. With the Bears all pushed up, in the final possession, the Crimson strided towards an empty net, firing the finishing goal.

Harvard 19, MIT 14

Burghardt scored nearly a third of Harvard’s (10-6, 5-0 NWPC) goals against MIT (5-12, 1-4 NWPC) on Sunday, sailing the Crimson to a 19-14 victory past their foes across the Charles River.

The Engineers’ foul-ridden defense conceded six penalties, of which the Crimson capitalized and converted each one in their first home game since the end of August. Harvard and MIT each had eight different goal scorers.

Both sides exchanged a goal early. Senior center Adam Ivatorov quickly tapped in the ball for MIT, while Burghardt scored from the post.

For six minutes of the quarter, MIT embarked on a three goalrun. Sophomore attacker Derek Schaffer and freshman attacker Caspar Lightner scored without facing the Crimson’s strong pressure. Defensively, the Engineers swarmed Harvard’s offense by sweeping and recollecting possession. Lightner, MIT’s leading scorer, slammed the ball into the cage off a power play for MIT’s 4-1 lead.

“We came out complacent, thinking we would be able to win just by showing up,” Pea-

body wrote. “But we quickly regrouped and realized that was not the case.”

“In each game, I felt we did a good job being resilient by not letting any outside factors get to us, but we need to do a better job of not putting ourselves in multigoal holes,” Peabody added. A timeout in the quarter’s final minute repositioned Harvard. Hunt found Burghardt for a backhanded goal. The Engineers’ penalty miss allowed junior attacker Jacob Tsotadze to cruise toward the cage, closing the Crimson’s deficit to one.

Burghardt continued his scoring streak into the second quarter, sliding the ball past MIT’s goalie for his third. Another power play provided an opportunity to rotate and locate Ivatorov for a converted goal extending MIT’s lead.

Harvard’s first penalty, converted by Strauser, tied the game. Pal stole possession and drove up the left wing for a cross-pool pass and goal, the Crimson’s first lead.

For two minutes, both sides’ defense secured defensive dominance, before the teams exchanged two goals each. Harvard junior goalie Oliver Price recorded several blocks.

Senior attacker Mason Hunt assisted Burghardt’s fifth, and Sogaard-Srikrishnan converted Harvard’s third penalty for a 10-8 lead heading into the half.

Harvard piled a five goal run on the Engineers’ defense for five minutes, and MIT struggled to advance, limited to circling the perimeter. Following another Harvard penalty conversion, Kim scored his own, then assisted Burghardt’s curl shot.

Time came to the Crimson’s advantage, with Hogan driving down the pool to score, alongside freshman attacker Emil Sogaard-Srikrishnan converting a skim shot. MIT junior utility Rick Lundh broke the Engineers’ drought, but Pal responded with Harvard’s fifth penalty conversion.

Firm defense forced Harvard’s turnovers, and the Engineers’ physicality landed two skip shots, ending the third quarter 16-11.

Yet again, the Engineers’ foul troubles conceded a sixth penalty. Schaffer slipped a shot for MIT, but Burghardt completed another goal by splitting past the defense.

The Crimson’s perimeter isolation milked the clock, and the Engineers’ defensive pressure allowed them to skim through and score their two final goals.

Steady defense from Harvard and high pressure from MIT diffused further attacks, ending the game at 19-14.

“Despite this slow start we were able to overcome and pull out the victory due to our resilience and our ability to stay the course,” Peabody wrote. “We never let the scoreline or the other team get in our heads, and just continued to try and string together successful possessions, which eventually led to our victory.”

Harvard men’s water polo heads into the Harvard Tournament this upcoming weekend against Wagner College, Salem

University, and George Washington University, followed by the Julian Frazier Memorial Tournament in Santa Clara the weekend after.

Afterward, the Crimson will seek to defend their leading position, playing another set of matches against all five NWPC opponents to start November.

“We have done our best in the first five conference games to show that we are not entitled to anything and we will have to work for every win. One main lesson I think we have taken from this first round of conference games is that we can’t let our highs get too high or our [lows] get too low,” Peabody wrote. “Making sure we stay focused mentally in every game and not getting complacent will be a major factor to our success for the rest of our season.” in the first set as the teams traded blows early. After an uncharacteristically subpar performance against Cornell, the Crimson’s front line dominated the Lions. Larkin, coming off a quiet performance, was loud in the first set. She participated in three blocks in the first set to begin a game-high five block performance.

Harvard put together its strongest performance from the service line as well. The Crimson found hardwood for two service aces in the first set and owned the line all day to win an 11-2 service ace margin. Blocks and aces meant the Harvard outsides did not have to contribute as much offensively, but the group still put together a well rounded performance to pull away and win the set 25-16. Harvard came out for the second set on fire as they looked to bury Columbia early. This set, the outsides set the tone early as Rossi, Patterson, and junior outside Ali Farquhar each contributed kills to give the Crimson an 11-5 lead. Desperation quickly set in for the Lions and powered them to claw back into the set. An 11-3 run by Columbia turned a Crimson coronation back into a bitter war.

From 19-19 to 22-22, the teams traded points. But unlike the match against Cornell, it would be Harvard that stepped up in the big moment, as a Rossi kill, Egan ace, and

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